Neil Gibson, the Gold King and former senator from "some Western state", approaches Sherlock Holmes to investigate the murder of his wife Maria in order to clear his children's governess, Grace Dunbar, of the crime.

Maria Gibson was found lying in a pool of blood on Thor Bridge with a bullet through the head and note from the governess, agreeing to a meeting at that location, in her hand.

[2] The unknown fate of Phillimore has been a subject for many subsequent stories including: The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore by Ellery Queen;[3] The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr;[2] The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre;[4] The Problem of the Sore Bridge by Philip J.

Farmer;[2] one episode of the Italian comic book series Storie di Altrove (a spin-off from the more famous Martin Mystère); Bert Coules's BBC Radio adaptation The Singular Inheritance of Miss Gloria Wilson from The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes;[5] and two books by Marvin Kaye, The Incredible Umbrella (Doubleday, 1979) and The Amorous Umbrella (Doubleday, 1981).

Also mentioned are the case of Isadora Persano, "who was found stark staring mad with a match box in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science" and that of the cutter Alicia.

"The Problem of Thor Bridge" was published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in two parts in February and March 1922, and in the US in Hearst's International in the same months.

[citation needed] The professor in Elementary, Season 1, Episode 9 (2012), has the same motive as Mrs Gibson and a similar framing method.

[14] The same cause of death deduced by Holmes in this story is used in the opening sequence of the same series, Season 2, Episode 9 (2013), with the same intent of throwing suspicion on to another party.

[14] "The Problem of Thor Bridge" was adapted by Edith Meiser as an episode of the American radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

[16] Meiser also adapted the story for the American radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as an episode that aired on 3 November 1940.