<P> While Watson is there, Peterson returns excited, carrying the Blue Carbuncle, claiming that the carbuncle was found in the found goose's crop (throat) (the fact that geese do not have a crop, has been regarded by some as Arthur Conan Doyle's greatest blunder). Realizing that the identity of Henry Baker is now part of a larger mystery, Holmes makes a concerted effort to identify Baker . Based on his observations of the hat and its condition, Holmes makes several deductions as to Baker's age, social standing, intellect, and domestic status, but cannot determine if Baker knew that he was carrying a priceless gem . When Baker appears at 221B Baker St. in response to advertisements Holmes had placed in London's newspapers, Holmes' deductions prove correct . Holmes gives Baker a new goose, explaining that the old one had been consumed . Baker, happily accepting the replacement bird, declines to cart away his original bird's entrails (Disjecta membra), convincing Holmes that Baker knew nothing about the missing jewel . Baker does, however, give Holmes the valuable information that he had purchased the goose at the Alpha Inn, a pub near the British Museum . </P> <P> Holmes cannot resist such an intriguing mystery, and he and Watson set out across the city to determine how the jewel traveled from the room of the Countess of Morcar to a goose's crop . The proprietor of the Alpha Inn informs them that the goose was purchased from a dealer in Covent Garden . At Covent Garden, a salesman named Breckinridge gets angry with Holmes and refuses to help . The merchant complains of pestering he has endured about geese sold recently to the landlord of the Alpha Inn . Holmes, realizing that he is not the only one aware of the carbuncle's connection to Baker's goose, tricks an irate Breckinridge into revealing that the bird was supplied by a Mrs. Oakshott, a poultry and egg purveyor in Brixton . </P> <P> A trip to Brixton proves unnecessary when Breckinridge's other "pesterer" appears (a cringing little man named James Ryder, head attendant at the hotel where the carbuncle was stolen), again pressuring Breckinridge to tell him the whereabouts of the Oakshott geese . Holmes and Watson invite Ryder back to 221B Baker Street, telling Ryder that they know he is looking for a goose with a black bar on its tail . </P> <P> Holmes tells Ryder that the goose "laid an egg after it was dead". Ryder is terrified when he realizes that Holmes will turn him over to the police . Pressured by Holmes, Ryder recounts that he and his accomplice Catherine Cusack, the Countess's maid, contrived to frame Horner, knowing that Horner's past would make him an easy scapegoat . But he was plagued by fears of arrest after stealing the stone . During a visit to his sister--Mrs. Oakshott--Ryder hit on the idea of hiding the jewel by feeding it to one of the geese being bred by his sister, one of which had been promised to him as a gift . Unfortunately, Ryder dropped his bird and then confused it with another, taking away the wrong goose . By the time Ryder realized his mistake, the other geese had already been sold . Ryder tried to follow the trail but got no further than Breckinridge . </P>

Summary of the story the adventure of the blue carbuncle