The Missing Three-Quarter

The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter is set in 1897 and is one of 13 Sherlock Holmes short stories in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in 1904.  Holmes and Watson are interrupted at Baker Street by Cyril Overton of Trinity College, Cambridge who is the captain of the Cambridge Rugby team.  His star player, Godfrey Staunton has disappeared from the team’s London hotel two days before Cambridge University are due to play Oxford University in the Varsity match. Overton begs Holmes to help him find Staunton. Holmes and Watson investigate the case in both London and Cambridge. They meet a miserly aristocrat and a redoubtable doctor. The doctor is determined to put Holmes off the scent and is so successful that Holmes has to ask for the aid of Pompey to help uncover a personal tragedy. The story also features in the interminable debate about whether Holmes was an Oxford or Cambridge man which, thanks to Conan Doyle’s skill as a writer, can never be proven one way or the other.