The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

"The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone"
Author Arthur Conan Doyle
Series The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
Publication date 1921

"The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" (1921) is one of 12 Sherlock Holmes short stories (56 total) by Arthur Conan Doyle in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes first published Strand Magazine October 1921 - April 1927.

Plot

Copy of the new cut of the Koh-i-Noor diamond

Unusual aspects

It is notable for being the one of only two Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes stories, aside from a couple of humorous vignettes, to be written in third person. The other is "His Last Bow". "The Mazarin Stone" was written this way because it was adapted from a stage play, "The Crown Diamond", in which Watson hardly appeared. Its adaptation from the theatre also explains why the action in this story is confined to one room.

In the original play, the villain was Holmes's enemy Colonel Sebastian Moran of "The Adventure of the Empty House" infamy, not Count Negretto Sylvius.

In other media

The 1946 film Terror by Night uses some motifs from "The Mazarin Stone".

This story was heavily rewritten for Granada Television's Sherlock Holmes series. In 1994, it was merged with another story, "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs". The most noticeable change is that Holmes does not feature except in the prologue and final scene (actor Jeremy Brett was away due to illness). It is Mycroft Holmes (Charles Gray) who takes up the case of the stolen diamond, while Watson is retained to look into the Garrideb mystery.

"The Adventure of the Headmaster with Serious Trouble", an episode of the NHK puppetry show Sherlock Holmes is an adaption of this story. In it, Holmes puts his dummy near the window and searches for the stolen love letters of Headmaster Ormstein despite being suspended from going out because of breaking school regulations.

External links

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