The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
Chapters - Arthur Conan Doyle
Section: The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
Holmes recovers the stolen Crown diamond, the Mazarin Stone, from Count Sylvius, a big-game hunter turned jewel thief. Told in the third person and set largely in Baker Street, Holmes uses a gramophone playing violin music and a wax bust of himself to deceive the Count into revealing where the stone is hidden. A theatrical case - one of the few narrated without Watson's voice.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson
Section: The Problem of Thor Bridge
A gold-mining magnate's wife is found shot dead on Thor Bridge, and the governess he was pursuing is accused of the murder. Holmes finds the revolver on the bridge with a chip in the stonework and reconstructs the method: the wife killed herself with a device that flung the weapon into the water, framing the woman her husband loved. A suicide engineered to look like murder - one of Holmes's most elegant solutions to an impossible-seeming crime.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Creeping Man
A distinguished professor begins behaving strangely - climbing walls, moving on all fours, attacked by his own dog. Holmes investigates and discovers the professor has been injecting himself with a serum derived from langur monkeys, attempting to restore his youth to win a young woman. The story belongs to Holmes's later period and has a faintly science-fictional quality unusual for the canon. Holmes reflects on the dangers of science pursued without wisdom.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
A man writes to Holmes in distress: his Peruvian wife has been seen apparently biting their infant son's neck. Holmes dismisses the vampire theory immediately and travels to Sussex, where he discovers the wife was not attacking the child but sucking poison from a wound - inflicted by the man's jealous older son from his first marriage. A case that demonstrates Holmes's contempt for the supernatural and his ability to see love where others see horror.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
An elderly collector named Nathan Garrideb is told he stands to inherit a fortune if he can find two other people sharing his rare surname. Holmes suspects the scheme is designed to get the old man out of his rooms and investigates the American who brought the proposition. The case turns dangerous when Watson is shot during the confrontation - prompting one of Holmes's rare displays of emotion: "If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive."
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Hudson
Section: The Adventure of the Illustrious Client
Holmes is hired through an intermediary to prevent a young woman from marrying Baron Gruner, an Austrian murderer whose charm blinds her to his history. Holmes's direct approach fails; Gruner's thugs nearly kill him. The solution comes from an unexpected quarter: Kitty Winter, one of Gruner's former victims, throws vitriol in his face while Holmes steals Gruner's diary documenting his crimes. The woman reads the diary and the engagement is broken. A case where Holmes accepts that persuasion has limits and violence may be the only answer.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes·Mentioned: Professor James Moriarty, Colonel Sebastian Moran
Section: The Adventure of the Three Gables
An elderly woman is offered a suspiciously generous price for her house - contents included, sight unseen. Holmes connects the offer to the recent death of her grandson, a young man who had been writing a novel closely based on his affair with a society woman. The buyer wants the manuscript destroyed before publication. Holmes confronts the woman and negotiates a settlement. A minor case, though one that touches on the power of the written word to threaten reputation.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
One of only two cases narrated by Holmes himself, without Watson. A former soldier asks Holmes to find his comrade from the Boer War, who has apparently been hidden away by his own family on their country estate. Holmes investigates and discovers the man is being kept in isolation because he appears to have contracted leprosy. Holmes brings in a specialist who diagnoses a less serious condition. The story is notable for Holmes's candid admission that he misses Watson's presence as narrator.
On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Lion's Mane
Narrated by Holmes himself during his retirement on the Sussex coast. A young teacher dies in agony on the beach, his back covered in welts, gasping about a "lion's mane." Holmes suspects the man's romantic rival but eventually identifies the true killer: Cyanea capillata, a giant jellyfish washed into a tidal pool. One of the few cases with no human villain, and a reminder that Holmes in retirement remained incapable of ignoring a mystery.
On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Retired Colourman
A retired paint manufacturer asks Holmes to trace his young wife, who has eloped with a neighbour - taking the household savings with her. Holmes sends Watson to investigate and simultaneously dispatches a second agent. The truth is darker: the husband murdered both his wife and her lover with poison gas and buried them in the house. Holmes detects the faint smell of paint used to conceal the evidence. A late case with a genuinely unpleasant villain.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger
Holmes is summoned to hear the confession of a woman who has lived behind a veil for years, her face destroyed by a lion. She was the wife of a brutal circus performer and conspired with her lover, the strongman, to murder her husband by loosening the lion's bars. But the lion attacked her instead, and her lover fled. She has carried the guilt for decades and now contemplates suicide. Holmes persuades her to live, promising her story will be kept until after her death. Less a detective story than a study in endurance.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes
Section: The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place
A horse trainer's behaviour becomes erratic: he gives away his sister's beloved spaniel and the dog no longer recognises her. Holmes investigates and discovers that the sister has died and the trainer is concealing her death - using an actress as a stand-in - because his lease on the estate, and the horse he has entered in the Derby, depend on her being alive. Holmes finds the body in the family crypt. The last case published in the canon.
POV: Dr John H. Watson·On page: Sherlock Holmes