Even though the question contains the word
had, I am referring to any forms of the word
have. In English it's easy to think of a sentence which has two
haves in it. For instance:
I have had enough on my plate.
He has had some good luck using that bat.
I have come across similar statements (unless I am entirely astray here) in German. The most recent example is the phrase
die er eben noch gehabt hatte which is a part of the following sentence.
Er war ein wenig blass und außer Atem, aber ganz im Gegensatz zu der Eile, die er eben noch gehabt hatte, stand er nun wie angewurzelt in der offenen Tür.
I could understand the rest of the sentence reasonably well, but am confused at the part
gehabt hatte. Since in my case this is a frequent occurrence, I was wondering if there're any rules regarding this.