While on vacation, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson walk by the sea. Hoping to ask for directions back to their inn, they call upon a house but discover three dead people seated at a table and with no signs of violence. Initially, the victims' brother Tregennis is suspected, but when he is killed in a similar way, then the explorer Dr. Sterndale becomes a suspect.
Sterndale shows Holmes and Watson a note where Tregennis confesses to the murder of his siblings to acquire their property. The last third of the film is Sterndale's story told to the pair through a series of Flashbacks. Sterndale tells them that Tregennis had shown a great interest in Sterndale's exotic poisons and that Sterndale was in love with the sister and killed Tregennis in an act of revenge. The flashback shows Sterndale forcing Tregennis to write a confession at gunpoint. Holmes questions Sterndale for taking justice into his own hands, but when the police arrive, he tells them that Tregennis had committed suicide.
In a review in 2011, Christopher Campbell called the short film a "relatively faithful adaptation", though also appreciated the liberty taken with the source material for the beginning of the film. Campbell commented on the film's use of intertitles, writing that the film is "quite verbal for a silent picture", but that this is not unexpected for a mystery film.[4]