The story, set in 1889, mainly consists of a London hydraulic engineer, Mr. Victor Hatherley, recounting strange happenings of the night before, first to Dr. Watson who dresses the stump where Mr. Hatherley's thumb has been cut off, and then to Sherlock Holmes himself. Hatherley is visited in his office by an odd, suspicious man who identifies himself as Colonel Lysander Stark. He offers Hatherley a job at a country house to examine a hydraulic press used, as Stark explains, to compress fuller's earth into bricks, but Stark warns Hatherley to hold his tongue about the lucrative job, which will apparently pay 50 guineas.

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