Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Vanishing Thief

Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Vanishing Thief is an adventure game for children featuring the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Holmes and Watson must go back in time again, to various eras and locations including ancient Rome and the Wild West. Once again, the goal is to catch Jimmy, who has also gone back in time to cause trouble. To do that, the player must solve various puzzles.

The game starts with Holmes and Watson being summoned to an art gallery where all the pictures have been stolen. Scotland Yard are sure that the building was sealed before the criminal could escape but can find no-one in the building. The thief has vanished. While investigating the scene Watson stumbles upon a portal and is transported into time.
Holmes surmises that the thief is hiding in different time zones and instructs Watson to capture him in each zone. Eventually the thief will run out of hiding places and will be forced to return to the art gallery where Holmes and the police are waiting.
The time zones are;

• Victorian Britain: Jimmy the thief has stolen some jewels. This is a point and click adventure puzzle where objects have to be used to find where the jewels have been hidden.
  
• Spain: Here Jimmy the thief has hidden road signs to confuse and delay travelling merchants so he and his gang can rob them. A logic puzzle must be solved to put the signs back in the right place.
  The manual calls this mini-game Spain - 1500 BC which is an error as it shows Watson in a knight's armour and the description says that he's travelled back just five hundred years, the 'BC' should be 'AD'.
• Ancient Rome: Jimmy tried to steal the emperor's jewels but he's been cornered at the top of a tower by a vicious dog. Watson must find a way to get the dog, Jimmy and the jewels down from the tower.
  This is a variation on the River Crossing Puzzle because if left alone together Jimmy will run off with the jewels, or the dog will attack Jimmy.
• Paris in the Roaring Twenties: Jimmy has stolen some diamonds. His defence is that it is not possible to steal the diamonds and put everything back in place in eleven moves without activating the alarm, Watson must prove that it is possible.
• The Wild West: Jimmy is now a train robber but time is running out because the sheriff has an identikit picture of him. Jimmy destroys the picture and puts out all the lights so that he cannot be identified leaving the player with another point and click mini game to put everything right.

In all time zones Sherlock Holmes is on hand to offer hints and advice if needed

In addition to the five time zones there are two separate mini games each with multiple levels.

• The Shooting Gallery
  This mouse controlled game resembles an old-time arcade shooting gallery. Down the left and right side are coloured policemen. In the centre moving left and right are robbers, shooting a robber causes him to change colour. The object of the game is to change toe colour of the robber so that when they reach the left or right hand end of their run they are the same colour as the policeman who is waiting for them. When this happens the policeman hits the robber and a point is scored.
  
• The Car Chase
  In this keyboard controlled game the player has to direct three police cars to intercept an escaping robber.

There is a manual on the disc which both describes the puzzles and gives the solutions.

The game plays like an interactive cartoon with long speech passages, as there is no text in the game at all speakers or headphones are essential