Arthur Conan Doyle 
The adventure of the Norwood Builder 

‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder’ , one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the second tale from The Return of Sherlock Holmes. The story was first published in Collier’s (US) on 31 October 1903 and in The Strand Magazine (UK) in November 1903.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are visited by ‘the unhappy John Hector Mc Farlane’, a young lawyer from Blackheath who has been accused of murdering one of his clients, builder Jonas Oldacre. Mc Farlane explains to Holmes that Oldacre had come to his office only a day earlier and asked him to draw up his will in legal language. Mc Farlane saw, to his surprise, that Oldacre was making him the sole beneficiary and even heir to a considerable bequest, and Mc Farlane cannot imagine why he would do so. That business took Mc Farlane to Oldacre’s house in Lower Norwood, where some documents had to be examined for legal purposes and where the murder allegedly took place. Mc Farlane left quite late and stayed at a local inn. He claims to have read about the murder in the newspaper the next morning on the train. The paper said quite clearly that the police were looking for him….