Miss Susan Cushing an old lady living alone but peacefully in Croydon. She has two sisters Sarah, lived with her for a while but moved out for Sarah is difficult to be with, and Mary living in Liverpool with her husband, Jim Browner a steward at S.S. May Day. But her quiet life was disturbed when she received a packaged of two human ears. Lestrade investigated and he was thinking a prankster did it. He asked Sherlock Holmes’s help and with Watson, he deduced that a double murder was committed and it involved Sarah, Mary, Jim and an unidentified man. He asked Lestrade to arrest Jim; Jim Browner was a broken man and filled with grief and guilt; when they arrested him in his berth. He told them what pushed him to do such an evil thing.
Jim and Mary was a happy couple, she is his joy. But it started to change when Sarah came to live with them. Jim learned Sarah’s obsession of him, but he resisted her; he hid the thing to Mary. Oblivious of what Sarah could do; Sarah poisoned the mind of Mary; Mary learned to distrust Jim. Saddened by Mary’s changes of attitude, Jim turned into drinking. Then came Alec Fairbairn into their lives, a charismatic man, first for Sarah but he noticed Mary’s fondness of him and filled of jealousy he threatened to kill Mary if he would see her with him again.
Then one day Jim’s voyage was delayed he came home to surprised Sarah but to his surprised she saw her in a cab with Alec. He followed them until they rent a boat. Jim chase and caught up with them, haze helped him to come near them without being noticed. Surprised to see him Alec strike him of his oar but he avoided it and he hit him with his stick on the head. Mary came to Aleck crying, calling his name; Jim jealous to see it, strike her and she lay beside him. Jim tied their bodies in the boat and sunk it to conceal his crime. He sent their ears to Sarah to tell her what evil her meddling brought them.
Sherlock Holmes simple case, he thought, turned out to be a sad and troubling story of love and tragedy.