Rare Sherlock Holmes manuscript sells for £188k

THE handwritten manuscript for one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's last Sherlock Holmes mysteries has been sold at auction for £188,000.

Picture: Bonhams

Conan Doyle’s The Problem of Thor Bridge was published in 1922, some 35 years after the Edinburgh-born writer’s detective first appeared in print.

It is best known for including the first reference to Dr Watson’s tin dispatch-box, which is kept in a bank vault and crammed with notes on Holmes’s unsolved cases.

The 48-page manuscript, signed by the writer, went under the hammer at Bonhams in New York on Monday. It was sold to an anonymous collector in Europe for £188,000.

Picture: Bonhams

The Problem of Thor Bridge was first published in The Strand magazine. In it, Holmes is called in by the husband of a murdered woman who insists that his governess is not the killer despite overwhelming evidence.