The Return of Sherlock Holmes

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Book 6 in the Sherlock Holmes series.

First published 1905

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The Return of Sherlock Holmes restores the detective to Baker Street after his apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls. In The Empty House, Holmes explains how he survived his encounter with Moriarty and returns in disguise to defeat Colonel Sebastian Moran, the remaining marksman of the criminal organisation. The following cases range through coded messages, missing heirs, blackmail, murder and political secrecy, re-establishing Watson as Holmes’s active companion rather than merely the keeper of an ended career.

The collection includes The Dancing Men, in which a childlike cipher conceals an American criminal threat; Charles Augustus Milverton, centred on a professional blackmailer; and The Six Napoleons, where the destruction of plaster busts masks a search for the stolen black pearl of the Borgias. The final stories move between universities, country houses, immigrant communities and government offices, showing how Holmes reads material clues while navigating the unequal power of wealth, reputation and state secrecy.