The Adventure of
The Illustrious Client
A New
Sherlock Holmes
Story
By
A. Conan Doyle
Synopsis of Part I.
The Illustrious Client on whose behalf Sherlock Holmes is consulted is anxious to prevent the marriage of the young, rich, and beautiful Miss Violet de Merville to Baron Gruner, an unscrupulous adventurer. Gruner has told her every scandal of his past life, but in such a way as to make himself out to be an innocent martyr. She absolutely accepts his version, and will listen to no other.
Sherlock Holmes interviews the Baron, who warns him of the risk he is running in interfering in his affairs. He then visits Miss de Merville in company with a Miss Winter, one of the Baron's many victims, in the hope that her story may induce the infatuated girl to change her mind. But all to no purpose.
"So now you know exactly how we stand," said Sherlock Holmes, finally, "and it is clear that I must plan some fresh opening move, for this gambit won't work. I'll keep in touch with you, Watson . . . though it is just possible that the next move may lie with them rather than with us."
And it did. For two days later Watson's eyes fell upon a newspaper placard, and a pang of horror passed through him as he read the words: "Murderous Attack upon Sherlock Holmes."
Part II.
I think I stood stunned for some moments. Then I have a confused recollection of snatching at a paper, of the remonstrance of the man whom I had not paid, and, finally, of standing in the doorway of a chemist's shop while I turned up the fateful paragraph. This was how it ran:—
"We learn with regret that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known private detective, was the victim this morning of a murderous assault which has left him in a precarious position. There are no exact details to hand, but the event seems to have occurred about twelve o'clock in Regent Street, outside the Café Royal. The attack was made by two men armed with sticks, and Mr. Holmes was beaten about the head and body, receiving injuries which the doctors describe as most serious. He was carried to Charing Cross Hospital, and afterwards insisted upon being taken to his rooms in Baker Street. The miscreants who attacked him appear to have been respectably dressed men, who escaped from the bystanders by passing through the Café Royal and out into Glasshouse Street behind it. No doubt they belonged to that criminal fraternity which has so often had occasion to bewail the activity and ingenuity of the injured man."
I need not say that my eyes had hardly glanced over the paragraph before I had sprung into a hansom and was on my way to Baker Street. I found Sir Leslie Oakshott, the famous surgeon, in the hall and his brougham waiting at the kerb.
"No immediate danger," was his report. "Two lacerated scalp wounds and some considerable bruises. Several stitches have
Copyright, 1925, by A. Conan Doyle.
