💠 The Blue Carbuncle
A forty-grain crystallised-charcoal wonder with a history of two murders and a suicide, lately of the Countess of Morcar's hotel suite — and latterly of a Christmas goose's crop. Every facet, Holmes notes, is a deed of blood.
“In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed.”
A gem with a body count
The blue carbuncle is a wonder — a crystallised charcoal of brilliant blue, only forty grains, and already the cause of two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies in its short career. Holmes reflects that every good stone is a bait for wickedness; the larger and older jewels each carry, in their facets, a bloody deed.
The strangest hiding place in the canon
Stolen from the Countess of Morcar's hotel suite and pinned on an innocent plumber, the gem is smuggled out inside the crop of a Christmas goose — and promptly lost when that goose is muddled with its identical fellows at a poultry stall. Holmes runs the trail backward, bird by bird, and, this being the season of forgiveness, lets the terrified thief go free once the stone is safe.