His Last Bow
Chapters - Arthur Conan Doyle
Section: The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
A man spends an unsettling night at a country house whose eccentric host vanishes by morning, leaving behind evidence of a violent ritual. Holmes traces the case to political exiles from a Central American dictatorship and a plot of revenge against a former tyrant living under an assumed name in Surrey. Inspector Baynes of the local force conducts a parallel investigation with surprising competence - one of the few police officers Holmes openly respects.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson
Section: The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
A young clerk is found dead on the Underground tracks at Aldgate with seven of ten pages of secret submarine plans in his pockets. Mycroft [[character:1X-Nsohvf42Gc8nkNYDkG|Holmes]] brings the case to his brother, and the missing three pages threaten national security. Holmes deduces that the body was placed on the roof of a train from a window overlooking the tracks, identifies the spy through the geography of the railway, and recovers the plans. The case that demonstrates most clearly the division of labour between the Holmes brothers: Mycroft sees everything, Sherlock acts.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
Holmes, ordered to Cornwall to rest, is immediately drawn into a case where three siblings are found in a room - two dead of apparent terror, one driven permanently insane - with no visible cause. A similar fate nearly befalls the surviving brother. Holmes identifies the murder weapon as Radix pedis diaboli, an African root that produces lethal fumes when burned, and traces it to a rival suitor. Holmes nearly kills himself and Watson by testing the substance in their cottage - one of the few moments where his scientific curiosity genuinely endangers them both.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Red Circle
A landlady consults Holmes about a mysterious lodger who never shows his face, communicating only through notes and never leaving his room. Holmes deduces the lodger is a woman in hiding and connects the case to a murdered man found nearby. The trail leads to the Red Circle, an Italian secret society, and the lodger proves to be the wife of an informer, hiding from the society's enforcers. The police trap the killer through a signalling system Holmes decodes from candle flashes in the window.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
Holmes sends Watson to the Continent to trace a missing noblewoman, but Watson's investigation is outmanoeuvred at every turn by a sinister couple travelling under false names. Holmes intervenes personally and deduces that Lady Frances is being kept alive but drugged, hidden inside an oversized coffin meant to be buried with the body of an elderly woman. Holmes and Watson arrive just in time to open the coffin and revive her. A rare case where Holmes criticises Watson's fieldwork directly.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Hudson
Section: The Adventure of the Dying Detective
Holmes lies in Baker Street apparently dying of a tropical disease, refusing Watson's medical help and insisting only one man can save him - Culverton Smith, an expert in the disease. Watson fetches Smith, who arrives and reveals he deliberately infected Holmes. But Holmes is shamming: the illness was a performance to lure Smith into a confession, overheard by an inspector hidden behind the bed. The story is told almost entirely from Watson's perspective, genuinely believing his friend is dying.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson
Section: His Last Bow
Set on the eve of the First World War and told in the third person - unique in the canon. Holmes, long retired to beekeeping on the Sussex Downs, has spent two years undercover as an Irish-American named Altamont, feeding false intelligence to a German spy ring. He and Watson capture the spymaster Von Bork at his Essex villa. Holmes's final recorded case, written as a farewell: "Stand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet talk that we shall ever have."
On page: Sherlock Holmes, Dr John H. Watson·Mentioned: Irene Adler, Professor James Moriarty, Colonel Sebastian Moran