The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Chapters - Arthur Conan Doyle
Section: The Adventure of the Empty House
Three years after the Reichenbach Falls, Holmes reappears - alive, having faked his death to dismantle Moriarty's network in secret. He reveals himself to Watson (who faints) and immediately enlists his help on a new case: a young earl shot dead through a window by an air rifle. The killer is Colonel Moran, Moriarty's chief lieutenant and the most dangerous man in London. Holmes traps him using a wax bust of himself as bait in the Baker Street window. The story does the necessary work of resurrection while delivering a satisfying case.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft Holmes, Colonel Sebastian Moran·Mentioned: Professor James Moriarty
Section: The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
A young solicitor arrives at Baker Street in a panic: the police are about to arrest him for the murder of a client whose charred remains were found in a timber yard. Lestrade is confident of the case and Holmes initially struggles to find an alternative. But Holmes notices that a thumbprint in blood has appeared on a wall that was clean the day before, deduces the "victim" faked his own death for revenge and insurance, and finds the man alive in a secret room. A case that begins with Holmes at a disadvantage and ends with Lestrade humbled.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade·Mentioned: Professor James Moriarty
Section: The Adventure of the Dancing Men
Hilton Cubitt brings Holmes a series of mysterious drawings - stick figures in dancing poses that have been appearing chalked on his property, terrifying his American wife. Holmes recognises them as a substitution cipher and decodes the messages, but cannot act quickly enough: by the time he reaches Norfolk, Cubitt is dead and his wife gravely wounded. Holmes uses the cipher to lure the killer - Abe Slaney, a Chicago gangster from the wife's past - into a trap. A case Holmes solves brilliantly but too late, and one that demonstrates the limits of distance.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson, Abe Slaney, Hilton Cubitt
Section: The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
A young music teacher reports that a mysterious cyclist follows her every Saturday on her ride from the station to her employer's house. Holmes investigates the employer and his associate, discovers they are after the teacher's inheritance from a recently deceased uncle in South Africa, and arrives just in time to prevent a forced marriage designed to secure the fortune. The cyclist turns out to be a third party - genuinely in love, trying to protect her from a distance.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Priory School
The son of a duke vanishes from his preparatory school, along with a German teacher whose bicycle is found but whose body is not. Holmes tracks hoofprints across the moor and deduces that the horses were shod backwards to disguise the direction of travel. The kidnapper proves to be the duke's own illegitimate elder son, motivated by jealousy and a desire for recognition. Holmes negotiates the return of the boy and extracts a substantial cheque from the duke - one of the few cases where he accepts significant payment.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of Black Peter
A retired whaling captain is found pinned to the wall of his cabin by a harpoon. Inspector Hopkins brings the case to Holmes, who determines that the killing required the strength and skill of a harpooner. Holmes advertises for one and traps a young seaman who had come to retrieve evidence of a crime the captain witnessed at sea years earlier. The physical specificity of the murder weapon narrows the field in a way conventional methods cannot.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson, Inspector Hopkins
Section: The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
Holmes takes on Charles Augustus Milverton, a blackmailer he considers the worst man in London - worse than any murderer. Holmes even becomes engaged to Milverton's housemaid to gain intelligence. On the night Holmes and Watson break into Milverton's house to destroy his papers, they witness a veiled woman shoot Milverton dead - one of his own victims, taking revenge. Holmes and Watson flee across the garden wall. When Lestrade shows Holmes photographs of the suspect, Holmes recognises her but says nothing. One of the few stories where Holmes operates entirely outside the law.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade
Section: The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
Someone is systematically smashing plaster busts of Napoleon across London, escalating from vandalism to murder when a man is killed near one of the broken busts. Lestrade suspects a Napoleon-obsessed lunatic. Holmes traces all six busts to the same manufacturer and deduces that a valuable stolen pearl was hidden inside one of them before the plaster set. He stages a dramatic reveal, smashing the final bust in front of Lestrade to produce the black pearl of the Borgias. One of Lestrade's rare moments of genuine admiration for Holmes.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade
Section: The Adventure of the Three Students
While visiting a university town, Holmes is consulted about the apparent theft of an examination paper left unattended in a tutor's rooms. Three students had the opportunity. Holmes solves it through tiny physical details - clay deposits, pencil shavings, the height of a writing desk - and identifies the culprit, a scholarship student who succumbed to temptation but has the character to confess. Holmes arranges for the young man to withdraw from the examination and seek his fortune elsewhere, rather than face ruin.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
A young secretary is found stabbed to death at his employer's desk, clutching a pair of golden pince-nez. Holmes deduces from the glasses that the killer is a woman with a strong prescription who could barely see without them - meaning she is still nearby, unable to navigate. He finds her hiding in a secret room behind the professor's bookcase: a Russian revolutionary who came to retrieve documents her husband had stolen years earlier. She confesses freely and takes poison. The case connects English academia to Russian political violence.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Hopkins
Section: The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
A Cambridge rugby player vanishes on the eve of an important match, and the team captain consults Holmes. Holmes follows the trail through telegrams and a persistent dog, expecting crime, and instead finds grief: the young man has been secretly married to a consumptive wife, now dying, and the university doctor has helped conceal the marriage to protect the student's scholarship. Holmes withdraws quietly, recognising there is no case - only private sorrow that deserves to remain private.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes·Mentioned: Professor James Moriarty, Inspector Hopkins
Section: The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
Holmes is called to a country house where a brutal aristocrat has been killed and his wife tied up, apparently by burglars. Holmes accepts the story initially but returns, nagged by inconsistencies, and deduces that the wife's lover - a ship's captain - killed the husband in defence of the woman he had been beating for years. Holmes convenes a private jury of one (Watson), who delivers a verdict of justifiable homicide. Holmes lets them go. A case where his sense of justice overrides the law.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Hopkins
Section: The Adventure of the Second Stain
A vital diplomatic document is stolen from the home of a Cabinet minister, threatening to provoke a European war. Holmes deduces that the minister's wife took the letter to protect a private indiscretion - a blackmailer had exchanged her compromising correspondence for the state secret. Holmes recovers the document and returns it to its dispatch box without the minister ever knowing his wife was involved. A case of the highest political stakes resolved through discretion rather than exposure.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Hudson