window while his father's attention was on the baby. Jack has been attempting to murder his half-brother by shooting poisoned darts at him, and his stepmother's behaviour of sucking the baby's neck is thereby explained: she was sucking the poison out. It also explains why she struck Jack, and why she was sick when Holmes and Watson arrived. The wounds, therefore, were caused by the darts, not by her biting. Mrs. Ferguson had not wanted to be the one to tell her husband what Jack had done. Matilda Briggs and the Giant Rat of Sumatra In "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", Holmes mentions to Watson the case of the ship Matilda Briggs and the Giant Rat of Sumatra, identifying it as "a story for which the world is not yet prepared". This single reference has been expanded upon by a number of other authors and performers who have either created their own versions of the story or alluded to it in tales of their own. Edith Meiser wrote a script based on the reference for the radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The script was used for an episode, titled "The Giant Rat of Sumatra", that aired on 9 June 1932. An episode with the same title also aired in the related radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on 1 March 1942. Publication history "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" was first published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in January 1924, and in the US in Hearst's International (under the title "The Sussex Vampire") in the same month. The story was published with four illustrations by Howard K. Elcock in the Strand, and with four illustrations by W. T. Benda in Hearst's International. It was included in the short story collection The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, which was published in the UK and the US in June 1927. Adaptations Radio The story was adapted by Edith Meiser as an episode of the American radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The episode aired on 16 February 1931, with Richard Gordon as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson. The script was used again for an episode that aired on 7 March 1936 (with Gordon as Holmes and Harry West as Watson). Meiser also adapted the story as an episode of the American radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that aired on