This synopsis will contain spoilers!
"A Scandal in Bohemia" - a King needs Sherlock Holmes to obtain a picture of the King and a woman (Irene Adler) before the King's wedding to ensure that Irene doesn't blackmail the King or in any way interfere with his upcoming marriage. Holmes sets up a fight outside Irene's house, fakes and injury, and gets himself brought inside. He then has Watson throw a smoking item into the house and scream fire, tricking Irene into going towards the photo, as Holmes predicted, because it is the most important thing to her at the moment.
She realizes Holmes has tricked her into revealing the items hiding spot, however, and when Holmes returns to the house the next day to obtain it, she has left with her new husband, leaving a note behind about what she has done. Watson remarks about the novelty of someone besting Holmes, and that he always refers to her as the woman.
"The Red-Headed League" - a redheaded pawn shop owner answers an advertisement to join the "Red-Headed League", and is selected to do so among many applicants. He is paid a substantial sum to spend hours every day copying out the dictionary. Suddenly, the office where he went to do so is locked up, and he goes to Holmes to understand what happened. Holmes deduces that it was all a trick to get him out of his shop so that his assistant and another man could tunnel their way under the adjacent bank vault. Holmes, Watson, the police and bank manager wait in the vault for the men to appear, and are able to stop the theft.
"A Case of Identity" - a young woman's mother remarries a man who is only a few years older than herself. She begins to grow interested in a life outside her quiet house, and so goes to a party. There she meets a man, and they develop a relationship. He is odd and secretive, and on the morning of their wedding, he makes a comment about how, if something is to happen to him, she must wait for him, and only him, forever.
He disappears on the way to the ceremony, and so goes to Holmes to help find her lost Fiancé. Holmes discovers that the man was actually her step-father attempting to trick her into loving a man that didn't exist so that she wouldn't marry, run off, and take her sizable annual income with her.
"The Boscombe Valley Mystery" - a gentleman is murdered and the prime suspect is his son, with whom he was seen arguing with only moments before the man's murder. Holmes goes to investigate, and is able to discover that the son is innocent. It is actually the land owner, who the gentleman was blackmailing all these years that finally got fed up and killed him. Holmes did not turn in the real murderer, however, because he was so old. He did require a signed confession in the event that the case against the son was not dropped.
"The Five Orange Pips" - a young man comes to Holmes and tells a story about how his Uncle, and then his father both died shortly after receiving a mysterious letter with 5 orange pips (seeds) in them. The man has himself just received such a letter. Holmes discovers that the Uncle was a leader of the Klu Klux Klan during a stint in America, and that he retained a chest of secret documents from when he escaped back to London. He had burned nearly all of them, but one remained. Holmes told the man to leave the document and a note at a place indicated confessing that this was the last item and the rest had been destroyed. Before he can succeed in doing so, however, he is killed.
Holmes discovers the ship on which the murderers have traveled, and he sends word to America to capture them upon their arrival. Their ship sinks along the way, though, and no one hears from them again.
"The Man with the Twisted Lip" - a Woman comes to Holmes when she has a strange encounter where she discovers her husband in a window of an Opium Den. When she goes inside to find her husband, however, there is just a crippled old beggar. The beggar is arrested, all evidence pointing to him having killed the husband. Holmes is able to discover that the man is actually the husband, and he spent his days dressed up as a beggar because he made more money that way than his normal job.
"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" - Watson wakes to see Holmes investigating an old hat. The story behind the hat is that a friend of Holmes' found it and a goose after trying to help a man who was attacked by some ruffians. The friend suddenly arrives, revealing a massive blue carbuncle inside the goose.
The jewel is traced to a hotel, where it was stolen recently. Holmes decides to track down the goose, and is able to discover where it was raised. Before he does so, however, he overhears a man also attempting to discover where the goose ended up. Holmes confronts the man and gets him to admit to stealing the jewel, and attempting to hide it by feeding it to a goose. He lost track of the goose, however, and was trying to track it down.
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" - a young woman goes to Holmes telling him the story of how her sister mysteriously died in the night after reporting she heard a strange whistling in the night. Now the woman is about to be married, and after being moved into her sister's old room, begins to hear the same whistle.
Holmes goes to her house and secretly takes her place in the night, without her uncle's knowledge (whose room is next door). In the middle of the night they hear a whistle, and Holmes reveals a light and attacks something. They hear a terrible scream from next door, and when they go investigate, they discover a poisonous snake has turned on the uncle and killed him. The uncle was trying to kill the woman before she could marry, and take her substantial annual income with her.
"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" - a hydraulic engineer is offered a job working on a press at a remote house. When he arrives, he asks one too many questions, and they attempt to kill him. He loses his thumb in the process (what brought him to Watson in the first place), but he is able to escape alive. When they return to the scene of the crime, the house has burned down, and the evidence of their counterfeit money operation is all gone.
"The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" - a nobleman comes to Holmes to help discover his American wife who suddenly disappeared during the wedding breakfast. Holmes' research reveals that she had a husband in America who she believed to be dead. He was now in London and, hearing of the wedding, went to the ceremony (in a public church). Upon seeing her "dead husband" she decided to leave her nobleman for her original love. Holmes brought them all together to reveal the truth, but the nobleman was hurt and left.
"The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" - a banker agrees to loan £50,000 with a beryl coronet as collateral. Nervous about leaving it in his office, he takes it home with him to keep it safe. He reveals this to his niece and son. He awakes in the night to find his son holding the coronet and a piece with 3 of the jewels broken off. He yells at the son, accusing him of theft, and has him arrested.
Holmes is brought into the case and discovers that the niece was in love with a criminal who she stole the coronet from in the night. The son, seeing it all happen, ran and fought the man, getting the coronet back, but losing 3 of the stones in the process. The father awoke upon seeing the son attempting to return it to the case. Holmes is able to prove the son's innocence and recover the missing stones.
"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" - a young woman takes up a job working for a strange family that agrees to pay her a very high amount to watch a single young child. She must also wear a certain dress, cut her hear, and do other such odd things. She gets nervous however when, while exploring the house, she sneaks into a locked wing and sees a shadow of someone inside a boarded up room.
She flees to Holmes, who goes to help her. It turns out the man had a daughter who he was keeping imprisoned to prevent her from marrying a certain man. The young woman was hired to impersonate her and drive the man away through her indifference towards him. Before Holmes can arrive, however, the man rescues the daughter with the help of a house servant, and they escape and are married.
The most unfortunate thing about The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is that it's so popular, and such a feature of our modern culture, that it now seems cliché and overwrought. …
- Jan. 5, 2012"To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the First Line of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
"As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the Last Line of in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
"'The ideal reasoner,' he remarked, 'would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.'"
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Originally Published Jan. 1, 1892
Digital edition:
356 pages - March 1, 1999