seems to have little to do with the mystery but may be a subtle reference to the theme of adultery as Beecher was famously put on trial for the offense in 1875, an event many contemporary readers would have remembered. Adaptations Film and television The story was adapted as a short silent film titled The Cardboard Box in 1923, as one of the short films in the Sherlock Holmes film series by Stoll Pictures. It starred Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes and Hubert Willis as Dr. Watson. Hilda Anthony played Mary Browner and Johnny Butt played James Browner. The Granada TV adaptation with Jeremy Brett, televised on 11 April 1994, was generally faithful to the original. It contained some minor variations: in the story Browner kills his wife and her lover at sea whereas in the adaptation he kills them near a pond; and the adaptation places the action at Christmas time in the midst of a cold and snowy winter, while the original story took place in high summer ("...a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven"). Holmes's eloquent speech at the end of the episode questions the very nature of humanity. He asks toward what end mortals pursue "this circle of misery, violence, and fear", concluding that "it must have a purpose, or else our universe has no meaning, which is unthinkable. But what purpose? That is humanity's great problem, to which reason, so far, has no answer." This was the last episode broadcast, and includes Brett in ill health at the end of his run as the famous detective. Ciaran Hinds played the role of Jim Browner. The Elementary episode "Ears to You" is a loose adaptation of this story. The setup for this episode is very similar to that story—two human ears are mailed to someone, packed in salt—but includes several variations, including the twist that the ears were actually sent by the supposed victim, who underwent a complex experiment to literally grow fake ears on her back so as to frame the primary suspect for her murder. The 2018 HBO Asia/Hulu Japan series Miss Sherlock loosely adapts this story as the episode "Stella Maris." As the series is set in Tokyo, the misleading address on the box containing the ear in the original story is adapted as a mailing label with unclearly written katakana. Radio The story was adapted by Edith