The Lost Special

Infobox short story
name = The Lost Special
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author = Arthur Conan Doyle
country = UK
language = English
series = Implied Sherlock Holmes Story
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pub_date = 1908
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"The Lost Special" is a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in 1908. It is implied to be a Sherlock Holmes story, though his name is not used.

ynopsis

This story concerns the baffling disappearance of a special train on its journey to London. A letter to The "Times" by "an amateur reasoner of some celebrity at that date" is excerpted at one point, and the style of the writing suggests that the author of the letter is probably meant to be Holmes. This "recognized authority upon such matters" does not solve the mystery, although his proposed solution is fairly close to the true solution revealed at the end of the story. The impersonal way in which this person is referred to would seem to imply that the narrator is not meant to be Dr. Watson.

Adaptations

*The Sherlock Holmes pastiche Solar Pons treated the story as canon with its own version of the story, "The Adventure of the Lost Locomotive".
*The story was loosely adapted into the serial "The Lost Special" (1932) as a western. This serial does not include Sherlock Holmes.