"The Adventure of Black Peter" is a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle. This tale is in the collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes. It was originally published in Collier's (US) in February 1904 and in The Strand Magazine (UK) in March 1904. The story was published with six illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele in Collier's, and with seven illustrations by Sidney Paget in the Strand. It was included in the short story collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes,

Adaptations

Film and television

A silent short film adapted from the story was released in 1922 as part of the Stoll film series starring Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes and Hubert Willis as Watson, with Teddy Arundell as Inspector Hopkins, Hugh Buckler as Patrick Cairns, and Fred Paul as Captain Peter Carey.

The story was adapted for the 1968 BBC series with Peter Cushing. The episode is now lost.

There is a visual reference to the "Black Peter" storyline in "The Hounds of Baskerville" (2012), the second episode of the second season of the BBC series Sherlock (2010–2017).

The first episode of the 2013 Russian TV series Sherlock Holmes is based on the story.

In March 2017, the US TV series Elementary (a modern version of Sherlock Holmes) used the "Black Peter" story as the basis for an episode called "Dead Man's Tale". The plot of the episode is driven by the search for the treasure of a pirate named Black Peter. The murder victim (one of the searchers) is impaled with a sword, and, like in the short story, a suspect named Neligan (a teenaged girl in this case; her father, named John Neligan, was also briefly suspected) is judged as being innocent due to lacking the strength to impale the victim.

Radio and audio dramas

A radio adaptation of "The Adventure of Black Peter", dramatised by Edith Meiser, aired on 11 May 1931 in the American radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Richard Gordon as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson.

Edith Meiser also adapted the story as an episode of the American radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson, that aired on 8 December 1940. Another episode in the same series was adapted from the story by Max Ehrlich and aired in October 1948 (with John Stanley as Holmes and Wendell Holmes as Watson).

"Black Peter" was adapted twice for the 1952–1969 radio series starring Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson. The first adaptation, dramatised by Alan Wilson, aired in March 1961 on the BBC Light Programme, and featured Michael Turner as Inspector Hopkins and Eric Woodburn as Cairns. The second adaptation, dramatised by Michael Hardwick, aired in July 1969 on BBC Radio 2, and featured Arnold Peters as Hopkins and Henry Stamper as Cairns.

An audio drama adaptation was released on LP record in 1970, as one of several audio dramas starring Robert Hardy as Holmes and Nigel Stock as Watson. It was dramatised and produced by Michael Hardwick (who also adapted the 1969 radio adaptation) and Mollie Hardwick.

"Black Peter" was dramatised for BBC Radio 4 in 1993 by David Ashton as part of the 1989–1998 radio series starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. It featured Alex Norton as Cairns.

The story was adapted as a 2012 episode of The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series on the American radio show Imagination Theatre, starring John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Watson.

In 2025, the podcast Sherlock & Co. adapted the story in a three-episode adventure called "Black Peter", starring Harry Attwell as Sherlock Holmes, Paul Waggott as Dr. John Watson and Marta da Silva as Mariana "Mrs. Hudson" Ametxazurra. In it, Peter Carey is instead a thrill-seeker famous for climbing various mountains that barely survived his final expedition with extreme frostbite, leading him to develop a black, beard-like marking on his chin. The ordeal apparently drove him completely insane, believing that he was under constant surveillance from unknown, shadowy organizations by all manner of modern conveniences ranging from Wi-Fi and to tap water; he subsequently turned violent against his own wife and children, as well as anyone else whom he believed had been 'poisoned' by the same forces he was attempting to avoid. Secluding himself near his home in East Sussex - invariably leading to Watson making numerous, compulsive references to Winnie the Pooh, due to the area serving as inspiration for the beloved character's home in the Hundred-Acre Woods - he would ultimately meet his end when Patrick Cairns, his partner and fellow survivor of the climb that seemingly stole his sanity, would kill him in self-defense with a harpoon gun when Peter attempted to attack him.

Other media

In 2014, Frogwares released a video game titled Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, the first case of which "The Fate of Black Peter" adapts the elements of this story.

References

Notes

Sources

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