1. The Clock Strikes Seven Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his notice, one of which was that of Mr. Hatherley’s thumb. One morning, at a little before seven o’clock, I entered my consulting-room and found a gentleman seated by the table. His card read “Mr. Victor Hatherley, hydraulic and clockwork engineer". He was accompanied by a smartly assembled young mouse who proffered up to me what looked to all the world like a human thumb! “A very good morning to you, Doctor. My name is Victor Hatherley and this is my friend," said the young gentleman, gesturing with his uninjured hand to the small mouse, "Tick-Tock. I am sorry to knock you up so early, but I have had a very serious accident during the night." He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even my hardened nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four protruding fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have been. It had been hacked or torn right out from the roots. I was just considering if it was worth attempting to reattach the existing thumb Tick-Tock was still offering to me or simply to upgrade it when Mrs. Hudson’s cats, Catticus Finch and Lollipop sauntered in through the open, consulting-room door and made the decision for me. The two cats were built to address the plague of rats that had ever been the curse of Old London Town. Every establishment with the means to afford one had a steamborg, these days. Usually a cat or dog adapted to the work. To Mrs. Hudson’s ever-lasting pride these murine predators were most efficient at their job. A rat had not been seen in Baker Street for many a moon. No doubt it was Tick-Tock’s presence that had prompted them to enter, their implants already activating, and I worried that my new patient would lose his diminutive companion to these efficient exterminators. It seemed, however, rather than his person it was what he was holding that fascinated Lollipop, the smaller (and I secretly suspected, deadlier) of the two and quicker than lighting she leapt over the table, snatched Hatherley’s thumb from the paws of his miniscule friend and ran with it, held in her jaws out of the consulting room! In the commotion, her companion had silently jumped onto the table and was intent on burying his nose, now a shining brass array of olfactory sensors, into the makeshift bandages of Mr. Hatherley’s injured hand. "I fear we shan’t see that old thumb of yours again!" I said to Hatherley in a consoling voice, reaching for my box of "Tom’s Thumbs. "Not to worry, we’ll soon have you fixed up, good as new …​ better than new, if I can be a judge." "Good Heavens, I’m all thumbs today!" - This last, I said to myself as I had dropped my surgical screwdriver making a long arm to the box on the shelf and bringing it to the table. I often think to myself that these newfangled implants and attachments have reduced the men of my profession to mere mechanics although I cannot but marvel at the continuing advancements in this scientific age. Take Hatherley’s thumb for instance. He selected a fairly modest model from the box of "Tom’s Thumbs" and I placed it on top of the open wound, where the original had once lived. I needed to give it a quick jolt of electricity to activate it and little Tick-Tock, the helpful fellow sprang onto Hatherley’s wrist and steadied the new thumb whilst I reached for my surgical screwdriver. However, before I had even raised it, Catticus Finch who had been watching with rapt attention and courses with as much electricity as he does sanguine fluid, took it upon himself to provide the necessary stimulus though an even more extended olfactory array than before. There was little for me to do, after that. Once the thumb was live, so to speak it administered an anaesthetic load as it’s bone anchors screwed their way down into what was left of Hatherley’s socket, the nerve connectors sort out his median, radial and ulnar nerves, splicing themselves to the severed ends and the flesh-hooks snaked over the surface of his hand to further secure his new appendage, in place. After a minute the whole procedure was complete and Hatherley, in quiet amazement found he could pick up his pencil or one of my instruments quite as dexterously as he had before his terrible accident, I presumed. "By no means," said Mr. Hatherley when I asked him what mishap had lost him his thumb. "It was a murderous attack. I shall have to tell my tale to the police; but, between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing evidence of this wound of mine, I should be surprised if they believed my statement, for it is a very extraordinary one, and I have not much in the way of proof with which to back it up; and, even if they believe me, the clues which I can give them are so vague that it is a question whether justice will be done." "You must tell this to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," I said at last, "before you go to the police. We’ll call a cab and go together. We shall just be in time to have a little breakfast with him." ...