Detective Anthology

"A coppertop steam engine has disappeared," explains a train boiler inspector as he visits Sherlock Holmes at 221B, "and not by the whim of drunken youths." Something sinister is afoot, and Holmes learns as he takes on the mystery that criminals have designs upon using the locomotive for purposes never imagined by its designers.

This is a story from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Volume I collection. These six cases are among the last undertaken by Sherlock Holmes before he retired to the Sussex downs. However, the problems facing the sleuth are as diverse and challenging as ever.

Holmes and Watson arrive at Trinity College, summoned by a message that rugby star, Godfrey Staunton, has disappeared. Staunton is the key man on Overton's rugby team, and they will never win the important match if he cannot be found. Holmes admits that sport is a bit outside his ken, but he takes this case as seriously as any other. It proves not all elementary.

At a séance, Sir Alington, a venerable expert of the mental condition, is pestered by Mrs. Eversleigh about the importance of the sixth sense. Soon, a young man named Dermot is drawn in and tells them both about the sixth sense he experiences, a red signal that spells danger. He is about to tell them of the last time he saw the red signal when he stops himself. The last time he had the signal was earlier that very evening. But how could there be danger at a simple gathering of old friends?

This is a story from the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes III collection. In this collection are four more individual cases for Mr. Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr. Watson. They dive into the opium dens of London in "The Man with the Twisted Lip," recall the curious history of "The Musgrave Ritual," come face to face with the grisly evidence contained in "The Cardboard Box," and go on a wild-goose chase in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." The powers of Sherlock Holmes prevail.

Sherlock Holmes' superb deductive abilities are truly tested in this adventure when a client asks the Great Detective to help him discover what is frightening his new wife. What seems to Watson to be just a child's drawing becomes the key to solving the mystery.

This is a story from the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes I collection.

This is a story from the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes I collection.

A tale of mystery, scandal and murder that may have been committed by the Ku Klux Klan in London. A young Sussex gentleman named John Openshaw has a strange story: in 1869 his uncle Elias Openshaw had suddenly come back to England to settle on an estate at Horsham, West Sussex, after living for years in the United States as a Planter in Florida and serving as a Colonel in the Confederate Army....

Holmes and Watson push the limits of the law when they confront the machinations of a blackmailer whose victims either pay dearly or suffer life-destroying humiliation. Holmes is hired by the débutante Lady Eva Blackwell to retrieve compromising letters from a blackmail artist named Charles Augustus Milverton, a man who causes Holmes more revulsion than any of the 50-odd murderers in his career.

The bride carried no decaying roses, but her bridal dress was torn and burnt. Her bare legs, starved needle points, staggered disjointedly. The veil hung low over her face. I had my pistol, however I could not shoot. If it was a ghost, the bullet would surely pass through. If it was flesh, then I would be shooting dead a woman. Her hands, the fingernails long and cracked, lifted up the veil. Her face! Even in the darkness I could see its ruin.

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are visited by a young lady of 30 with a face like a hunted animal. Fear, it seems, causes her to constantly shiver. But her horror lies in the fact that her fears are so vague. Two years ago, in the small hours of the morning, a low whistle was heard in their ancestral home. It was then that her sister suddenly died. Now she lives in the same room her sister vacated, and last night, the whistle sounded again…

"Gentlemen, I am here to represent the interest of Henry Bank & Trust. We would like to resolve the situation quickly and quietly, so that all the investors can move forward with a minimum of anxiety. Holmes sat across from her, studying her with a nonplussed air. "I must admit; he said, that I do not know how to assist you. Inspector Lestrade was here earlier, and it appears that you are missing nothing and they have no thieves in custody. When the bank emptied today, everything was in place, except for the criminals."

Jane Cleveland is in desperate need of a job, and when she sees an ad for a woman of her description needed to impersonate a grand duchess, she cannot believe her luck. The royal retainers tell Jane that the job will be dangerous because attempts have been made on the Grand Duchess Pauline's life, but this only serves to make the job more appealing. Jane's disguise initially goes according to plan, but when she is kidnapped and drugged, it appears that her new employers are not all that they seem....

Flagged down by Inspector LaStrade of Scotland Yard as they walk through the icy winter streets, Holmes and Watson are transported to the home of the aristocratic Lady Whitebread. Once there, she tells them her traditional holiday centerpiece has vanished in the midst of the Christmas dinner - right under the very noses of her guests. The decoration? An enormous work of the jeweler's art centered upon a three inch round emerald called...the Christmas Jewel.

This is a story from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes IV collection. Four more stories from the master detective. The mystery of the missing suitor is solved and Sherlock Holmes raises his whip: an Indian pot stands in the shadows of a Colonel's death; serious affairs of state and international diplomacy are threatened by a theft; and surely evil intent lies behind threats in a hidden house. The cool observations and swift action of Mr. Sherlock Holmes resolves all.

An office filled with red-headed clerks is suddenly closed, and Holmes is asked to investigate a most unusual series of events.

Dr. Watson faints for the first and last time of his life when the believed-to-be-dead Holmes appears in the middle of an investigation of a crime. We find out about what really happened in the fight to the death with the evil Moriarty.

In "The Red-Headed League", the legendary Sherlock Holmes catches one of London's most daring criminals while investigating the strange business of the League, a suspicious organization that gives its members money for "nominal work".

A young man comes to Holmes for help, fearing that the unknown forces that have brought the deaths of his uncle and father will soon visit death upon himself as well.