In the summer of 1889, a young Londoner and consultant hydraulic engineer, Victor Hatherley, recounts the strange events that occurred to him the night before, initially to Dr. Watson and later to Sherlock Holmes.

Despite his misgivings and doubts about the machine's true purpose, Hatherley felt compelled to accept the offer, as his business was newly established and he had little work.

The episode was titled "The Case of the Shoeless Engineer"[6] and the story was altered so that Hatherley loses a shoe rather than his thumb, and Stark and his co-conspirator are captured by Lestrade with the assistance of Holmes.

The story was additionally adapted for the TMS Entertainment anime series Sherlock Hound, specifically in the episode "A Small Client" (1984).

The story was also adapted in the 1986 Soviet TV movie The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson – The Twentieth Century Approaches.

[7] There, the criminal (Col. Stark) is Eduardo Lucas from "The Adventure of the Second Stain", and the gang's work is economic sabotage by the German Empire.

Upon hearing the details, Mycroft Holmes decides to balance the damage by producing an equal amount of counterfeit German currency.

[11] Other episodes in the same series that were adapted from the story aired in June 1943[12] and January 1948 (with John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson).