Sherlock Holmes / Sherlock Holmes - Tropes A to G

This page is for tropes that have appeared in the Sherlock Holmes short stories.

For the rest:

• H to N
• O to T
• U to Z

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• Absence of Evidence:
  • In the story "The Adventure of Silver Blaze", Sherlock Holmes points out the vital non-clue of a dog failing to react to a mysterious visitor... when a guard dog doesn't bark at an intruder it generally means it's someone he recognizes.
    Detective Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
    Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
    Detective Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
    Holmes: That was the curious incident.
  • The absence of certain valuable deeds is a vital clue in "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder."
• Abusive Parents: Several stories feature a father or stepfather forbidding the young lady to go out, usually because she has an independent source of income that goes to the parents while she still lives with them. Steps taken to ensure they remain single include forbidding them to go out, impersonating the daughter to allay suspicion on the fiancé's part, acting the part of fiancé, and outright murder.
• Accidental Murder: "The Golden Pince-Nez" revolves around a murder that is puzzling at least partly because there is no apparent reason why anyone would want the victim dead. It turns out that he surprised somebody in the act of burgling his employer's office, and in the ensuing struggle the burglar grabbed the first object that came to hand and struck out with it, only discovering afterward that it was a sharp paper knife that had inflicted a fatal wound.
• Accident, Not Murder:
  • In "The Adventure of Silver Blaze", Holmes and Watson travel to Dartmoor to investigate the crimes of the disappearance of the racehorse Silver Blaze and the murder of the horse's trainer, John Straker. Straker has been killed by a blow to the skull, assumed to have been administered by prime suspect Fitzroy Simpson with his walking stick. However, Holmes is able to demonstrate that Straker had been planning to lame Silver Blaze in order to fix a horse race when the horse kicked him in the head.
  • In "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane", Fitzroy died with his back covered with dark red lines as though he had been terribly flogged. Sherlock Holmes found out that the victim was attacked not by humans but by a lion's mane jellyfish.
• Accidental Adultery: In "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor", the titular character's new bride ran away because her first husband, whom she had thought dead, turned up alive and well at the wedding.
• Acid Attack: In "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client", Watson describes in detail what happened to a particularly nasty Asshole Victim after one of his former lovers threw vitriol in his face. The court, after learning the circumstances, had decided to give her as light a slap on the wrist as was legally possible.
• Actually Not a Vampire: "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" concerns a woman found sucking blood from a child's neck. It turns out that she had been sucking poison out of a wound inflicted by someone else.
• Addiction-Powered: Subverted. Sherlock uses cocaine to stimulate his mind only when he has no sufficiently interesting cases to work on. The challenge of solving a mystery is intellectual stimulation enough that he doesn't need drugs while he's on the job.
• Affably Evil: Professor Moriarty, who is gentlemanly enough to let Sherlock write a farewell note to Watson before their fight in "The Final Problem". Charles Augustus Milverton is another example, as long as he thinks he has the upper hand.
• Ailment-Induced Cruelty: The culprit in "The Sussex Vampire" turned out to be not Robert's second wife (who'd been caught sucking blood out of her child's neck) but :his son from his first marriage, who had a deformed spine and an unhealthy attachment to his father. This, combined with his hatred for his perfectly healthy newborn stepbrother, made him stab the baby in the neck with a curare-tipped dart.
  Holmes: It is a distorted love, a maniacal exaggerated love for you, and possibly for his dead mother, which has prompted his action. His very soul is consumed with hatred for this splendid child, whose health and beauty are a contrast to his own weakness.
• The Alibi: In "The Abbey Grange", the Randall gang is acquitted for murder... because they're in New York getting arrested for another crime.
• Almost Dead Guy: When Holmes and Watson and Inspector Hopkins catch up with the killer in "The Golden Pince-Nez", she poisons herself to avoid facing trial and punishment, but the poison works slowly enough for her to deliver several pages of backstory before succumbing.
• And Here He Comes Now: In "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", Watson, working from the clues provided by Holmes, was just going to say the murderer's name aloud when he was interrupted by the hotel waiter announcing the name of the just-arrived-visitor - who was indeed the murderer.
• Angry Guard Dog: Mr. Rucastle in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" keeps a mastiff (which is underfed so it's always hungry) as a guard dog, which was so vicious that only the servant Mr. Toller could control it. Mr. Rucastle releases it at the climax of the story to sic it on Holmes, Watson and Miss Hunter, but instead it attacks Mr. Rucastle and mauls him badly.
• Animal Assassin: In "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", the villain murdered his victim by letting a venomous snake into her bedroom while she slept.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Lestrade is often described as having bulldog or weasel-like features, usually depending on whether he thinks he's beaten Holmes to the punch.
  • Holmes himself is often compared to a hunting hound when he's hard on the trail of a criminal.
• Arcadia: Deconstructed in "The Copper Beeches". On a trip into the countryside, Watson comments on the beauty of the country farmhouses, to which Holmes responds by pointing out that isolation enables criminals and abusers to get away with it much more easily than they could in the crowded city.
  "...But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser."
• Artistic Licence – Biology: In order for the plot of "The Speckled Band" to work, you basically have to ignore the fact that snakes, while not deaf, most likely wouldn't be able to hear a blown whistle and are unlikely to consume milk.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Holmes uses his sitting room wall for target practice, which could be lethal for anyone in the next room over.
• Artistic Licence – Linguistics: Holmes claims in "The Five Orange Pips" that the Ku Klux Klan derives its name from the sound of a rifle being cocked; it's actually a corruption of the Greek word kuklos, which means "circle."
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: Holmes was offhandedly mentioned to know "Baritsu." Doyle more than likely meant Bartitsu.
• Artistic License – Ornithology: Geese don't have crops, therefore the titular gem of "The Blue Carbuncle" could not have been hidden in a Christmas goose.
• Artistic License – Politics and Artistic License – History: While there was a King of Bohemia in 1888, it was Emperor Franz Joseph, as the Bohemian Crown had been part of the Habsburg domains from 1526 onwards. In addition, he had been married since 1854, and was a strait-laced workaholic. (There was no King of Scandinavia, though there was a joint king of Norway and Sweden.) See Unreliable Narrator for speculation on why Watson/Doyle uses this trope.
• As You Know: Occasionally lampshaded and justified when Holmes invites a client to restate their case in full, despite having heard it already, on the dual basis that (a) Watson hasn't, and (b) it might help Holmes' deductive process to hear it repeated from the beginning.
• Asshole Victim:
  • The title character of "Charles Augustus Milverton", who is so unsympathetic that Holmes and Watson allow his killer to get away.
  • In "Black Peter", the victim was abusive towards his family (his daughter publicly declares that she's glad he's dead) and an all around nasty piece of work.
  • Interestingly subverted in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery." Charles McCarthy was actually the victim of an Australian stagecoach robbery, and then decades later the victim of murder, both by the same man. In the intervening time, however, he'd been blackmailing his eventual murderer to such a degree and with such cruelty that this trope easily applies.
  • In "The Crooked Man", the victim is highly respected, but in the course of Holmes's investigation it comes out that he gained his status, and his wife, by deplorable acts, including consorting with the enemy in wartime and arranging the death of the man his wife had really been in love with via the Uriah Gambit. It turns out that nobody murdered him: he died of shock on being confronted by his former rival, alive but hideously deformed from his ordeal.
  • In "The Resident Patient", the victim is revealed to be a robber and murderer living under an assumed name, who was done in by his former associates for shopping them to the authorities and avoiding punishment for his own significant part in their crimes.
  • Subverted/Exaggerated in "The Norwood Builder". The asshole in this story turned out not be a victim at all, but had merely faked his own death and framed an innocent guy for his murder in order to get revenge on the guy's mother.
  • In "The Abbey Grange", when Sir Eustace, a drunken wife beater is killed by his wife's former sweetheart, few tears are shed. Holmes and Watson convene a kangaroo court essentially to find the murderer not guilty by reason of this trope.
  • The King of Bohemia in "A Scandal in Bohemia". While not quite as bad as the others listed here, he is clearly something of a selfish dick, and it's eventually revealed that Irene Adler has kept the compromising photograph not for blackmail purposes but merely to protect herself from the King's wrath should it become necessary. Both Holmes and Watson clearly come to feel that their client is the lesser person in the situation.
  • Eduardo Lucas in "The Second Stain". He was murdered by his wife for abandoning her, and then it turns out he blackmailed Lady Hilda into stealing a document for an unknown political agenda.
• Author Filibuster: Several stories feature tragedies that arise due to unhappy marriages and characters in these stories often take the time to rail against both the legal and social difficulties in getting divorced in Britain at the time. Doyle was the president of the Divorce Law Reform Union and advocated for removing impediments to divorce to avoid exactly the sorts of situations he was writing about. For the record there's no evidence Doyle was unhappy in either of his own marriages.
• Awesome by Analysis: Holmes couples innate talent with absolute obsession to produce awesomeness by analysis. Watson, on much rarer occasions, employs Holmes' methods successfully.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In "A Case of Identity", this happens because of Holmes' sexism. He thinks it's better not to tell his client that her disappeared fiancé was actually her step-father in disguise, because (according to Holmes) "there is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman". Holmes even agrees with the culprit that—loathsome though Holmes personally finds him—nothing he's done is legally actionable, despite the fact that breach of promise was a serious thing and she would certainly have won a civil suit against him.
  • Holmes does grab a horsewhip to give him a thrashing, though. He only escapes that by running out of the office.
• Badass Boast:
  • Moriarty to Sherlock in The Final Problem.
    Moriarty: If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.
  • To which Holmes counters that he would gladly accept the latter in order to bring about the former.
  • Also in "The Devil's Foot," upon informing a disbelieving suspect that Holmes had shadowed him:
    Suspect: I saw nothing.
    Holmes: That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.
• Badass Bookworm: Holmes is not only a brilliant detective, but also an innovative forensic scientist, good violinist, and a formidable martial artist who is strong enough to bend an iron poker with his bare hands — and unbend it again afterwards, the harder task. In "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet", he actually mentions that he has exceptional strength in his fingers.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: In "Copper Beeches", the Rucastle's child has a fondness for trapping and torturing small birds and mammals, and his father is particularly proud of his son's skill in squashing cockroaches. Holmes takes this as evidence of Rucastle Sr's malicious nature, noting that streaks of cruelty are often passed from parent to child.
• Banana Republic: A character in "Wisteria Lodge" turns out to be the escaped dictator of a Central American republic named "San Pedro".
• Bastard Bastard: James Wilder in "The Priory School".
• Batman Gambit: Holmes continually employs these, on criminals and clients alike, to get what he needs. He's even done it to Watson, counting on the good doctor's sincerity and guileless nature to lure a murderer into a trap in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective", or, for that matter, keeping Watson completely unaware that he was alive and well following his encounter with Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls so that the doctor would write a convincing account of his friend's death. However, since Batman is partly based on Sherlock Holmes, this trope isn't really surprising.
• Berserk Button: Don't compare Holmes to any other detective, even a fictional one. Holmes also appears to really, really despise blackmailers; most of the Asshole Victim characters whose murderers he refused to expose unless he needed to save an innocent were blackmailers, the remainder mostly being abusive drunks.
  • Also, do not lie to Sherlock Holmes. He will immediately turn down a case if he suspects that his client isn't telling him the true story, because, as he puts it, his job is difficult enough without the client giving him the wrong information.
  • Don't you dare hurt Watson.
    Holmes: (in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs") If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.
  • Do not play Lestrade for a patsy, let alone in order to send an innocent party to the gallows.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: The killer in "The Golden Pince-Nez" takes poison when she knows that Holmes has tracked her down and she's about to be arrested. It may be less about the specific killing that the story revolves around (which turns out to have been an accident) and more about avoiding other consequences of her troubled past that led up to the killing.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Holmes himself counts as an example, with his bizarre quirks and eccentricities only serving to make his mastermind brain slightly less obvious. On many occasions he acts even more oddball then usual, with this only being to lure a cocky villain or skeptical client closer into his clutches. Only to embarrass them with their humiliating misjudgement. The best case of this is in "Adventure of the Mazarin Stone". Holmes cordially invites the robber of the Stone to his house, over the course of his visit plays several childish tricks on him that borderline on Trolling, ending it by sneakily replacing a waxwork statue of himself with....himself, thus tricking the villains into revealing where they have hidden the stone,and then snatching out of their hands. To quote the robber:
    "We give you best, Holmes. I believe you are the devil himself."
  • The villain of "The Greek Interpreter" definitely counts. He is middle size, but comes off as small next to the Dragon. He constantly speaks in a nervous, jerky fashion with giggling laughs, but the client in the story is TERRIFIED of him. And for very good reason, as the rest of the story shows.
• Big Bad: Though he only appears in one story, Professor Moriarty is stated to have been behind many of the other cases that Holmes solved prior to their encounter in "The Final Problem," including the plot of The Valley of Fear (in which Holmes attempts to prevent Moriarty's agents from committing a murder).
• Big "WHAT?!": Also a case of Not So Stoic. In "The Man With the Twisted Lip," Holmes has concluded that a young man has most certainly been killed, and arrives to deliver the bad news to his widow, in his most businesslike and sympathetic fashion. Then he learns that she just received a letter from him. His whole reaction is justified (and priceless).
  Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanized. "What!" he roared.
• Bewildering Punishment: Watson thinks one man guilty because he does not profess this at being arrested; Holmes points out that he must have realized that the evidence was against him, and felt guilty because his behaviour before the murder had been unfilial.
• Bilingual Bonus: Sherlock Holmes quotes Flaubert in the original French in "The Red-Headed League".
• Bittersweet Ending: At the ending of "The Speckled Band" Helen Stoner is saved from being murdered, but we know from the very beginning of the story that she's going to die within a few years regardless.
• Black Comedy: "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs", as noted by Watson himself in the introduction.
• Blackmail:
  • Charles Augustus Milverton's fortune was made by purchasing documents, always making sure they were genuine, that jeopardized well-to-do people's reputations and then he squeezed them for every penny he could. If they aren't rich enough to make the payment, he made an example of them to other victims.
  • Also the alleged reason for the King of Bohemia wanting the photograph of himself and Irene Adler: he told Holmes that she would blackmail him with it.
  • In "The Second Stain", the reason the politician's document was stolen was because Eduardo Lucas had acquired a letter written by the politician's wife and threatened to lay the letter before her husband unless she stole the document.
• Blackmail Backfire:
  • In "The Reigate Squires", William Kirwan is apparently killed inadvertently in a struggle with a burglar, but Holmes uncovers the fact that he knew his killer's identity and had been blackmailing him with the threat of revealing his involvement in the earlier burglary, and so he was deliberately murdered to keep him quiet.
  • "Black Peter". Subverted; The titular Black Peter was approached by an old member of the crew of the whaling ship he captained who threatened to reveal that Black Peter robbed and murdered a castaway that the ship had picked up. Black Peter tried to silence the blackmailer, but it turned out that the blackmailer was quicker on the move and rammed a harpoon through him. Impressively, this is one of the few occasions in which the blackmailer is somehow the more sympathetic character despite being both a blackmailer and a murderer, since it was technically self-defence and Black Peter is just that much of an Asshole Victim.
  • The most notable example is "Charles Augustus Milverton". Holmes describes the title character as the "king of the blackmailers", saying that there are dozens of people in London who go white at the mention of his name. Holmes can't have Milverton arrested since he'll just release the incriminating information, his client can't afford to meet Milverton's price and if he tries to take the letters by force Milverton will fight back and claim self-defense. Seeing no other option, Holmes and Watson decide to burgle Milverton's house to steal all his blackmail material. They end up witnessing Milverton being shot and killed by a noblewoman who'd suffered a Despair Event Horizon and had nothing left to lose. Lestrade visits Holmes and Watson the next day, asking them to investigate the incident, but Holmes flat-out refuses.
• Blindfolded Trip: In both "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" and "The Greek Interpreter", Holmes' client was bundled into a carriage that they could not see out of and driven to an unknown destination.
• Bluff the Impostor: In "The Three Garridebs", Holmes tests John Garrideb by asking after a supposed old friend who used to be mayor in the town Garrideb claims as his home. Garrideb replies that the man is still honoured back home, instead of calling Holmes out for making the man up, showing that he's lying about his background.
• Body Horror: The stump where the engineer's thumb used to be in the story of that name.
  • The Acid Attack in "The Illustrious Client" turns a handsome sociopath's face into a mirror of his hideous soul.
  • The reason for the titular garment in "The Veiled Lodger": she was horribly mutilated by a lion.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Watson says of Sir Robert Norberton, the antagonist in "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place", that "he is one of those men who have overshot their true generation", being a deplorable scoundrel by modern standards in a way that would have fit right in among the gentry of Regency England.
• Brain Fever: Used in several Sherlock Holmes stories, including "The Copper Beeches" in which a girl's stepfather pesters her about her inheritance until she gets brain-fever; "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" in which a man is ill for nine weeks after a treaty is stolen from under his nose; and "The Crooked Man", where the dead man's wife is conveniently rendered insensible after witnessing her husband's sudden death.
• Breakout Character: Mycroft Holmes and Irene Adler come up more times in adaptations and fanfics than they ever do in the actual stories: Mycroft only appears in three ("The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", "The Final Problem" and "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans") whereas Irene only appears in "A Scandal in Bohemia" and is referenced indirectly in a Continuity Nod in "The Five Orange Pips".
• Breakout Villain: Professor Moriarty is a classic. It helps that he's retroactively credited within the one story he appears in as having been The Man Behind the Man for several other past cases, a theme many adaptations take up and run with.
• Breather Episode: A few of the short stories are remarkably innocuous compared to the usual murders, kidnappings, jewel heists, etc.:
  • "The Yellow Face": a man's wife is acting suspicious, and he sees her going into a building with a spooky face in the upstairs window. It's her daughter from her first marriage, wearing a mask to hide the fact she's Black as the wife feared her husband's and society's judgment. The couple are reconciled and he accepts his stepdaughter as his own.
  • "The Three Students": a professor is distressed that the answers to an important exam have been copied. He evokes the possibility of scandal, but even that is a bit perfunctory. As expected, it's one of the titular students, who admits it when caught and quietly leaves the university.
  • "The Missing Three-Quarter": a rugby player runs off right before the big game. The disappearance is mysterious, but nobody really seems to suspect foul play. He was at the bedside of his dying wife; she was a secret because his rich uncle would have disinherited him otherwise.
• Brilliant, but Lazy:
  • Sherlock himself may sometimes qualify as this, although his "periods of lethargy" as described by Watson often come closer to full-on manic depression than simple laziness.
  • Zig-Zagged with Mycroft Holmes. He's got an even keener deductive mind than Sherlock, but makes for a much worse detective: in his first appearance during "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" his handling of the case tips off the bad guys and nearly results in the death of the client and does result in the death of the villains’ kidnapping victim; and in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" he admits he loathes the idea of doing the legwork needed to actually gather the facts he'd need to make his deductions. However, he is an extremely hard-working civil servant whose encyclopedic knowledge frequently decides British national policy. In other words, while he may not have the temperament to do Sherlock’s work, he also readily applies himself, just in a different line of work that’s no less intellectually demanding than his little brother’s.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Holmes is a fairly messed up genius and in early stories was Book Dumb in an odd way - knowing minute details about criminal history and the topics of his monographs but barely knowing how to read a map and uninformed about a variety of other topics. He actually has a logical (even if said logic does hail from the moon) explanation for this - he considers the mind to be like an attic, possessed of a limited amount of space and therefore useless if you throw just any old shit in there. So interesting-but-functionally-useless facts like "the Earth revolves around the sun" have no place in the mind of a consulting detective, but some of the more eclectic applications of chemistry with little practical day-to-day use may well occupy the forefront of his mind for weeks at a time if he thinks it'll solve a case.
• Bus Crash: Mary Watson's death is only hinted at, by Watson's oblique reference in "The Empty House" to "my own sad bereavement", and Holmes' advice that "Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson," although it's fairly clear that she must be in some way absent given that Watson moves back in with Holmes in the next story.
• Busman's Holiday: In both "The Adventure of the Reigate Squire" and "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot," Holmes takes a country holiday with express orders to relax, then ends up solving crimes anyway.
• Call to Agriculture: Holmes retires to keep bees on the Sussex Downs. In "The Lion's Mane" he writes of "the soothing life of Nature for which [he] had so often yearned", a rather hypocritical statement given Holmes used to describe the countryside as the birthplace of the most horrible crimes.
• Call-Back: In "His Last Bow", Holmes mentions the case of the king of Bohemia to von Bork in order to identify himself.
• Cane Fu: Holmes is an expert singlestick player.
• Career-Revealing Trait: Sherlock Holmes specializes in recognizing these traits: in his first meeting with Watson in A Study in Scarlet, he quickly determines that Watson is a military man from his stance and bearing, and judging by his deep tan and broken arm (held stiffly), is a veteran of Afghanistan.
• The Casanova: Baron Gruner, the villain of "The Illustrious Client" is described as “extraordinarily handsome, with a most fascinating manner, a gentle voice, and that air of romance and mystery which means so much to a woman. He is said to have the whole sex at his mercy and to have made ample use of the fact.”
• Cat Scare: A cat scares the crap out of Watson as he and Holmes are sneaking through the house of "Charles Augustus Milverton".
• Catchphrase: "It is simplicity itself." and "You know my methods."
  • Holmes occasionally refers to an absorbing case as "not entirely devoid of interest".
    • Holmes also says "Hello, hello, hello, what have we here?" when he finds new evidence
• Celibate Eccentric Genius: Holmes one of the most famous examples in English-language media.
  • Mycroft as well (probably).
• Chairman of the Brawl: Watson has his moment in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton."
• Chaste Hero or Celibate Hero: Holmes. He views romance and sex as a distraction, though it is implied he develops feelings for a couple of the women he encounters. And then there's his relationship with Watson...
• Chekhov's Gunman: Foreign agent Oberstein is mentioned in "The Second Stain" and winds up playing a larger part in "The Bruce Partington Plans".
• The Chessmaster: Moriarty and Sherlock.
• Christmas Episode: "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle".
• Classy Cane: Holmes, being a Victorian gentleman, would almost never leave home without his walking stick. Ditto his faithful friend and companion Dr. Watson, who actually needed his cane as a result of the wound he suffered in Afghanistan.
• Clingy Child: "The Sussex Vampire" has Mr. Ferguson's disabled son who glomps his father with girlish enthusiasm. It's a clue that he's the attempted murderer, since he hated his new, uncrippled half-brother for taking his father's attention away from him.
• Clothes Make the Legend: Even if the cape and hat were not really in the stories, it's hard to imagine Holmes without them.
• Clueless Mystery: The series predates the fair play convention. As such, some clues are not announced to the reader at all (e.g. typewriter forensics), or you only receive the act of observation rather than the result of the clue (e.g. tapping something with a stick, but not telling the result or what it means). Lampshaded by Holmes in "The Crooked Man".
  Holmes: The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader.
• Combat Medic: Watson literally was this before the start of the series; he encounters Holmes after being invalided home from a tour as an army doctor in Afghanistan. He subsequently acts as both doctor and combat support for Holmes.
• Combat Pragmatist: An interesting case: Holmes isn't above breaking the law for a good cause, but still averts this trope - the rules of boxing are sacred. Only on one occasion, when dealing with one really nasty scoundrel, does he take out a riding crop and threaten to give him a good 'thrashing 'around the ears. On the other hand, Watson, who only breaks society's rules in extreme scenarios (which, living with Holmes, has made them not that rare) will just grab a chair or a fire poker and threaten, with complete intent to use it on his opponent.
  • Milverton would also qualify, as he carries a gun around to every negotiation to avoid any physical confrontation.
  • Moriarty is the king of unfairness. He doesn't do anything himself, instead dispatching an army of professional killers to pick off his victims in the most sudden, unexpected, and brutal ways. Typically they don't even see it coming. Until, of course, in the final scenes of "The Final Problem" when he's lost everything. He just lunges at Holmes - no weapon, no nothing - with the sole intention of sending Holmes, and probably himself as well, over the Falls.
• Compromising Memoirs: A note at the start of one of the short stories indicates that there are plenty of people who do NOT want Watson to write these stories. Many others live short lives after Holmes helps them. Conveniently letting Watson tell his tales with impunity.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Holmes refuses to believe this trope in "The Second Stain" when he is investigating the disappearance of a politician's document and the murder of a Knowledge Broker is reported. The murder took place not far from the house where the paper was stolen, during a period of time when the theft could have taken place. It turns out that the Knowledge Broker blackmailed the politician's wife into stealing it for him, and she left his house just before the murder, passing the murderer as they entered. The murder itself, however, was a pure coincidence that had nothing to do with the stolen papers.
  • Another incident that turned out to be not contrived at all occurs in "Silver Blaze". The stable boy had been drugged with powdered opium mixed into his supper. Powdered opium has a distinct flavor, but the boy didn't notice due to his supper happening to be a spicy curry. Holmes realizes the person who drugged the food had to be a member of the household, because nobody would make a plan that depended on a stranger eating something spicy on a particular day; the culprit had to be someone who knew about the curry beforehand.
  • "Blue Carbuncle" is set in motion by a series of genuine coincidences. A thief caches a stolen jewel in a Christmas goose, then accidentally gets the wrong bird when trying to retrieve his loot. The bird with the jewel ends up getting sold a few times before ending up in the hands of a man who ends up dropping it while accosted by ruffians, who are driven off by one of Holmes' neighbors, who collects the bird and calls on Holmes for advice when the jewel is found by his wife while stuffing the goose for dinner.
• The Convenient Store Next Door: "The Red-Headed League" does this with a pawn shop across the way from a bank. Unlike most examples, the business used here is actually legitimate (and was to begin with); the eponymous "League" was concocted to distract the owner, while the shop's (new) assistant covered for the gang digging the tunnel to the bank.
• Couldn't Find a Lighter: In "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", Holmes uses a hot coal from the fireplace to light his pipe.
• Counterfeit Cash: The bad guys in "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" are doing this. The engineer in question is asked to examine their metal press.
  • The goal of the criminal in The Three Garridebs is to access a building where a recently deceased counterfeiter had hidden his press.
• Cramming the Coffin: In "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax", the villains are too squeamish to commit murder outright, so they chloroform Lady Frances and hide her in the coffin containing the body of her old nurse, which is due to be buried the next day.
• Crime-Concealing Hobby: In The Red-Headed League, a pawnbroker's assistant is always taking pictures and running off to the darkened basement to develop them. In fact, he's digging a tunnel to the bank behind the shop.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist", the local bully makes the mistake of picking a fight with Holmes while he is gathering information at the pub. Holmes ignores him until the man backhands him. It doesn't end well for the bully.
  Holmes: I emerged as you see me [minor bruises and scratches]. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart.
• Curtain Camouflage: In the adventure "Charles Augustus Milverton", Holmes and Watson break into a blackmailer's house and duck under a curtain when they hear Milverton coming in.
• Deadly Gas:
  • The murder weapon in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", a root which causes hallucinations and terror when burned.
  • The villains in "The Greek Interpreter" attempt to use carbon monoxide to dispose of their prisoner and a witness.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sherlock Holmes himself, a trait that has proved popular in the many, many adaptations.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place", Holmes is called to investigate the strange behaviour of Lady Beatrice Falder and her brother, Sir Robert Norberton. He discovers that Lady Beatrice had died and Sir Robert had arranged for an impostor to take her place temporarily so that he could secure the family fortunes before her death became known.
• Death by Childbirth: Implied with a man Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes are observing in "The Greek Interpreter". An ex-soldier doing his own shopping is wearing mourning clothes (implying that the person he's mourning is his wife), and the fact that one of the items he has is a rattle (at least one of his children is very young).
• Death by Woman Scorned: In "The Second Stain", Eduardo Lucas meets his end when his wife in France comes to London and murders him.
• Deconfirmed Bachelor: Lord Robert St. Simon of "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" is 41 years old on the day of his wedding to Hatty Doran. Holmes remarks that 41 is "mature for marriage" and a society article announcing the wedding notes that St. Simon has spent his entire adulthood resisting matrimony. It's strongly implied that his motivation for finally settling down is because he's broke and Hatty is rich. But it's subverted when no sooner are the nuptials solemnized Hatty's previous husband, whom she thought was dead, shows up alive and well. And so, St. Simon's marriage becomes null and void and he resumes being a bachelor in his forties.
• Descending Ceiling: In "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", said engineer runs afoul of some counterfeiters, and winds up getting trapped inside of their metal press.
• Description Cut: In "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist", Holmes tells Watson that he's going to go and do some information gathering in the vicinity of the mystery, saying, "I should be none the worse for a quiet, peaceful day in the country." Immediate cut to Holmes returning home with a split lip and a lump on his head from getting in a bar fight with one of the suspects.
• Detective Patsy:
  • In "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman", the title character hires Holmes to determine what became of his runaway wife, only for Holmes to prove that he murdered her himself.
    "You certainly seem to have met every difficulty," said the inspector. "Of course, he was bound to call us in, but why he should have gone to you I can't understand."
    "Pure swank!" Holmes answered. "He felt so clever and so sure of himself that he imagined no one could touch him. He could say to any suspicious neighbour, 'Look at the steps I have taken. I have consulted not only the police but even Sherlock Holmes.'"
  • Mentioned as a possibility in "The Problem of Thor Bridge". A man hires Holmes to prove that the woman he loves is innocent of a murder she has been accused of, and more than one person expresses the belief that he's so confident she didn't do it because he did it himself. This turns out not to be the case, however.
• Detectives Follow Footprints: In fact, Holmes has perfected it to a science and claims to have published several papers on the subject.
• Dingy Trainside Apartment: A plot point in one story, used to explain how a dead body found on the tracks came to be found miles away despite multiple stops where people should have seen the murder. He was murdered in the apartment, and the body thrown on the train as it was passing by.
• Dirty Coward: The true criminal in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" is scared enough of the consequences of his theft that when an innocent man is accused of the crime he's willing to let the man go to prison. Holmes later exploits this by letting the man go, noting that the case against the innocent man will collapse now that the carbuncle has been found and the true thief is too frightened to ever commit a crime again.
• Disability Alibi:
  • Subverted in the story, "The Man with the Twisted Lip". Watson asks how a crippled beggar could have killed a man in his prime, but Holmes explains the beggar merely had a limp, his arms are strong enough. The ending reveals a more convincing reason why he is innocent, he actually is the man he is accused of killing.
  • In the story "The Adventure of Black Peter": The first suspect in Peter's murder is a man who broke into his house. He claims he was looking for information about his missing father. Holmes is quick to point out to the police that such a small guy could hardly have impaled a man with a harpoon.
  • In the story "The Three Students", a university professor is certain that one of his three scholarship students went into his office and started copying down the exam text before being interrupted. Holmes quickly figures out only someone of his height or taller could have seen the papers on the desk from the window.
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Sherlock frequently smokes a pipe.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • The killer in "Silver Blaze" is the titular horse, but given that his victim was about to perform an operation to lame him...
  • It's implied in the ending of "The Greek Interpreter" that Sophia Kratides took revenge on the men who tried to extort money from her and her brother and murdered him.
  • Charles Augustus Milverton was murdered by the last person he ruined.
  • The title character of "The Veiled Lodger" had been a battered wife who with the circus strongman conspired to murder her husband.
  • In the backstory of "Wisteria Lodge", oppressed subjects of "Tiger of San Pedro" managed to overthrow the dictator and (eventually) murder him.
• Domestic Abuse:
  • The Asshole Victim of "The Abbey Grange" physically and verbally abused his wife regularly, which is why he was killed.
  • The titular character of "The Veiled Lodger" is a woman who was abused by her husband.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: In "The Crooked Man", a tortured and crippled soldier avoids his old love for fear of her pity.
• Downer Ending: Quite a few stories end in a situation where every single player in the crime is a victim of another player's gainless vindictiveness; Holmes remarks that it's almost enough to make one lose his faith in God.
  • "The Five Orange Pips": Three people are killed during the story (one shortly after asking Holmes for help).
  • "The Cardboard Box": The culprit, James Browner, killed his wife and her lover and feels that he's going insane from guilt; his wife's sister, who introduced the cheating couple as revenge on Browner for spurning her, comes down with brain fever.
  • "The Final Problem": Holmes is (apparently) Killed Off for Real.
  • "The Dancing Men": Mr. Cubitt has been murdered by Mr. Slaney, who never got what he wanted and was sentenced to life at labor for it. Mrs. Cubitt lives, but her past has come back to haunt her and she's been widowed.
• Dowry Dilemma:
  • "A Case of Identity" has a situation where a lady is looking for her recently-disappeared fiance. It turns out her stepfather was abusing her poor eyesight to play the part of the fiance, so that he could both not pay the dowry and keep her income close at hand.
  • "The Speckled Band" had a retired doctor whose primary source of income was his late wife's estate, and her will specified that her daughters from her first marriage were entitled to a third of said estate upon their marriage, causing the doctor to use unscrupulous means to keep them unwed.
  • "Copper Beeches" had a father try to browbeat his daughter into signing away her inheritance before she married so that the husband could not claim it as dowry.
• The Dragon: Colonel Sebastian Moran to Moriarty, as well as most of his associates.
• Driven to Suicide: "The Stockbroker's Clerk" ends with one of the villains being arrested for murder and the other attempting to hang himself when he gets the news.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: At least one Finnish translation of "The Adventure of the Reigate Squire" mistranslates a vital clue. The words on the ripped note still alternate between the handwriting of Alec and his father, yet the order of the words is changed in a way that Alec should have written the word "twelve" — yet Sherlock still matches the handwriting with the elder Cunningham and everyone acts like he wrote it.
• Dying Clue:
  • In "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", the last words of a woman who died under mysterious circumstances (an apparently nonsensical rant about the titular speckled band) is the first clue revealed in that case.
  • In "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", the dying man is reported to have mutted something about a rat. It turns out he was trying to reveal the identity of his murderer, who used to be the robber known as 'Black Jack of Ballarat'.
  • The last words of the murdered secretary in "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez" are also a clue, though what they mean is only discovered at the very end.
• The Edwardian Era: Some of the late mysteries happened in the early 20th century.
• Engineered Public Confession:
  • In "The Adventure of the Dying Detective", Holmes goads the villain into gloating about how he murdered his nephew and attempted to murder Holmes himself when he got too close to the truth. When the villain points out that it will be Holmes's word against his, Holmes reveals that Watson has been listening to the entire conversation from hiding.
  • To get the location of a stolen gem in "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone".
• Escort Distraction: In "The Retired Colourman", Holmes takes on a retired painter's case, who wants to know where his wife has gone. A telegram comes from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, so Holmes dispatches Watson and the painter there. However, when they arrive it turns out the message was faked, forcing them to stay the night before returning to London. At the denouement it turns out Holmes was the one who sent the telegram, so as to ensure the painter wouldn't be at home for a full day, allowing Holmes to discover the painter had murdered his wife and her lover by locking them inside a gas chamber.
• Even Evil Has Standards: "Killer" Evans, the villain in "The Three Garridebs", claims that he never killed a man who wasn't ready and able to fight back, which is why he went to the trouble of an elaborate con to get what he wants instead of just killing the target and taking it.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Moriarty to Holmes. In fact, Moriarty is probably one of the most well-known examples of this archetype.
  • Moran to Watson, as ex-military men who served in the British Army in Afghanistan and serve as a close friend and backup to geniuses on opposite sides of the law. In works where both Watson and Moran appear, this aspect is played up.
• Evil Desires Innocence: The Hound of the Baskervilles has the ancient Baskerville legend of the titular hound, which describes the progenitor of the curse, Hugo Baskerville, as a "profane and godless man", who lusted after the daughter of a local farmer, described as a gentle young woman who avoided Hugo whenever possible. Hugo abducted the unfortunate girl from her home one day when her father and brothers were away. While he and his fellow miscreants were drinking in the lower floor of the manor, she escaped from the bedroom window on the second floor and attempted to flee. Hugo Baskerville, discovering "the cage empty and the bird escaped" gave chase on his horse, only to be pursued by a spectral hound from the pits of Hell itself. His fellows found him and the girl both dead, the girl having died of fright, and Hugo's throat torn out by the hound, which was still standing over him when they found him.
• Evil Laugh: Wilson Kemp's high-pitched giggle that he punctuates every other sentence with in "The Greek Interpreter" fits the bill.
• Exit, Pursued by a Bear:
  • In "The Speckled Band", the villain is killed by his own Animal Assassin after Holmes deflects it from its intended victim.
  • In "Silver Blaze", a man who was apparently murdered with a blunt weapon was actually killed in self-defense by the eponymous racehorse.
• Extremely Cold Case: "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual". In the course of investigating a present-day disappearance, Holmes solves a mystery dating back to the English Civil War.
• Fabricated Blackmail: "The Adventure of the Two Women" has a dead politician's family threatened (if certain state documents he kept aren't handed over) with the scandal of revealing he was in a bigamous marriage with a Frenchwoman, leaving the widow with a child. However, Holmes realizes the marriage certificate used as proof is a fraud since the type of ink used to write the man's name didn't exist at the time of the supposed signing.
• Facial Horror:
  • The villain of "The Illustrious Client" gets sulphuric acid tossed in his face. Watson provides a garish description of the damage.
  • In "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger", the lodger takes off her veil to show Holmes and Watson.
  • Averted in "The Man With the Twisted Lip"; the "beggar" 's scar was just stage makeup.
• Faint in Shock:
  • In "The Adventure of the Empty House" Doctor Watson falls down in a dead faint when Holmes suddenly appears in his study after having been thought dead for three years.
  • "The Naval Treaty" ends with Trevelyan fainting when Holmes presents him with the missing treaty on a silver platter (literally).
• Fake Alibi:
  • In "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge", a man was invited over by someone he knew only passingly to spend a day. The host was found dead, killed at a time the guest claimed he was at home. Holmes figures out the host did a bit of Clock Tampering and went to commit a crime, but the victim got the jump on him. One of the clues is that the guest was an extremely respectable man, so of course no policeman would have doubted his word.
  • In "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman", the man whose wife vanished shows Watson a theatre ticket, claiming that he went while she stayed at home and didn't use it. Holmes checks and, sure enough, the seats next to the wife's were unsold.
• Fake Faint:
  • In "A Scandal In Bohemia", Holmes (in disguise as a priest) fakes being knocked out during a fight so he can be brought into Irene Adler's house and learn where she keeps a compromising photograph.
  • In "The Reigate Squire", Holmes is in the countryside on a medically-imposed break. He suffers a few nervous attacks, which turn out to have been faked so that he could search the house unobstructed (it almost gets him killed by the criminals when they catch him red-handed, but allows them to be caught as they're strangling him).
  • In "The Resident Patient", a patient visiting a doctor fakes an attack of catalepsy to keep the doctor busy while his accomplice goes up to get at the titular resident patient (a former criminal who gave evidence against them).
    Watson: And the catalepsy!
    Holmes: A fraudulent imitation, Watson, though I should hardly dare to hint as much to our specialist. It is a very easy complaint to imitate. I have done it myself.
• Faking the Dead:
  • In "The Norwood Builder", the apparent victim faked his own death, framing the son of a woman he has a long-standing grudge against.
  • "The Empty House" retcons Holmes's reported death in "The Final Problem", explaining that he survived his showdown with Moriarty but allowed everyone to believe he was dead until he'd dealt with the vengeful remnants of Moriarty's gang.
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: The Dundas separation case mentioned in the beginning of "A Case of Identity", where a wife was trying to separate from her husband due to his habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at her.
• The Family That Slays Together: In "The Abbey Grange", it's mentioned that there's a gang called the Randalls, who are a father and two sons and are thought to have committed the murder of Sir Eustace Brackenstall. They turn out to be a Red Herring.
• Famous-Named Foreigner: In "The Adventure of the Creeping Man", there is a Czech character named Dvorak. A. Dvorak.
  • But Heidegger the German teacher from "The Priory School" is a false example — when the story was published, Martin Heidegger the philosopher was only in his teens.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Baron Gruner of "The Illustrious Client", whose manner is described as "most affable... a superficial suggestion of afternoon tea with all the cruelty of the grave behind it." Holmes clarifies that Gruner's affability is that of "a purring cat who thinks he sees prospective mice."
  • Wilson Kemp in "The Greek Interpreter" has a nervous giggle that is presumably an attempt to put the person he's speaking to at ease but instead just makes him seem even slimmer, creepier and more threatening. His confederate Harold Latimer is also constantly making barely-veiled threats in a softly-spoken, seemingly polite manner.
  • Jephro Rucastle in "Copper Beeches" puts up an affable front most of the time, but it slips and shows his true vicious self when he's crossed.
• Females Are More Innocent: This could be the Trope Codifier, as Sherlock Holmes never brought any woman to justice. He would always either allow them to escape or make sure no charges were filed against them. (Though in one case, letting a female culprit escape meant leaving her to the mercies of her dime-store sociopath of a boyfriend.) This courtesy was sometimes extended to men, if they were sufficiently Justified Criminals (or if they had a female accomplice, or on one occasion because the culprit was repentant and it was Christmastime).
• Femme Fatale: The King of Bohemia tries to give the impression that Irene Adler is one, helped along by her profession as an opera singer in a time when "actress" was frequently synonymous with "prostitute," and Watson refers to her as "of dubious and questionable memory." However, she has none of the usual earmarks of the trope, particularly not regarding using sexuality to manipulate men.
• Finger in the Mail: "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" has a pair of ears placed in a box but delivered to the wrong person.
• Fingore: "The Engineer's Thumb" begins with an engineer asking Watson for help because his thumb was severed.
• Flanderization: Inverted in the sense that the official police detectives were often portrayed as inept bunglers in the early stories, but later cases recognized their own merits and otherwise had them contribute to the case in their own ways. Sadly, many adaptations reverse this process, especially on poor Lestrade.
• A Foggy Day in London Town: Foggy weather in London is a trademark of many stories set in late 19th century or early 20th century England, thus Sherlock Holmes' stories as well.
• Foregone Conclusion: The imperiled client in "Speckled Band" had to survive that adventure, because Watson cites her more recent death as the reason he can now publish her story.
• Forehead of Doom: Moriarty has one, and given the contemporary belief in phrenology he mocks Holmes for not measuring up.
• Foreshadowing: Watson remarks in "The Sign of the Four" that "to this day [Mary Morstan] declares that [Watson] told her one moving anecdote" about firing a tiger-cub at a double-barrelled musket. This meant she would survive the adventure and be close enough to him to warrant such gentle ribbing. Indeed, she gets married to him, and what is shown of the Watsons' family life in canon is a loving one.
• Forgets to Eat: Holmes occasionally gets so wrapped up in a case that he doesn't bother to stop for food. Other times he deliberately refrains from eating on the bizarre theory that it would inhibit his ability to think clearly by diverting energy toward the digestive system and away from the brain. Watson mentions that he has at least once starved himself to the point of actually fainting from hunger. Obviously all of this explains why he is so thin.
• Formerly Fit: In "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", Holmes's client Robert Ferguson. According to Ferguson, Watson himself also qualifies.
• Framing Device: Holmes doing his thing is sometimes this to what basically amounts to a Watson-written drama/romance.
• Functional Addict: Holmes uses cocaine when bored between cases. In a later story Watson implies that he eventually started becoming less functional, which prompted him to finally give the drug up. Watson himself has a mild gambling addiction.
• Funetik Aksent: In "The Sussex Vampire", the Peruvian-born maid Dolores speaks broken English, with Spanish grammar and pronunciations such as "verra ill" and "she will leesten" written phonetically.
• Furnace Body Disposal: "Shoscombe Old Place" has the Impoverished Patrician Sir Robert spied putting a body in a furnace (and Watson confirms that a bone fragment found inside belongs to a human). However, it's not a murder as the body in question was taken from the family crypt and had been dead for centuries. The mummy was taken from the family crypt to leave a space so that Sir Robert could hide his sister's body inside: the sister had all the money and reporting her death would have led to Sir Robert's ruin. Waiting a few days allowed Sir Robert's horse to win a race that let him pay off his creditors.
• Geek Physiques:
  • Holmes is thin as a rake, though surprisingly strong.
  • Watson is described as "thin as a lathe and brown as a nut" after first returning from his adventures in Afghanistan; he presumably develops a more comfortable physique once happily married and established in his practice.
  • Mycroft Holmes is the other extreme to his brother, being very fat with hands like flippers.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Professor James Moriarty was pretty much created solely to kill off Holmes in "The Final Problem."
• Genius Bruiser: Holmes, while being a practiced marksman, swordsman and fist-fighter (but also a few other combat sports, such as Singlestick), also does not lack good old brute strength either. On one occasion, a client's relative threatens Holmes and Watson to back off an assignment. To intimidate them, he grabs an iron poker from beside the fireplace, and bends it with his bare hands. After he leaves, Holmes takes the same poker and bends it back into shape!
• Genius Cripple: In "The Empty House", Holmes recalls the blind German mechanic Von Herder, who created the custom airgun used by Colonel Moran.
• Genius Slob: Holmes could very well be the Trope Codifier. While always personally well-kept, Holmes's concept of organisation amounted to keeping his tobacco in the toe of his Persian slipper, his cigars in the coal-scuttle, and his unanswered letters jack-knifed to the mantelpiece, all the while conducting foul-smelling chemical experiments in his study, and even using his sitting-room walls for target practice.
• Genius Thriller: One of the Ur-Examples, probably the Trope Codifier.
• Germanic Depressives: Heidegger, the missing German schoolmaster in "The Priory School", is described as being a silent, morose man.
• Get It Over With: Holmes has been hunting Colonel Moran for years, and feels entitled to gloat a bit when he finally hands him over to the police. Moran agrees not to resist arrest, but doesn't see why he should have to listen to all that.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: Holmes uses this tactic to catch a murderer in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective". While he doesn't let himself be caught by the poison trap the villain sent him, he does make himself genuinely ill by fasting for three days, even doing without tobacco (which is itself a good way to make yourself sick, as anyone who has tried to quit smoking can attest).
• Giggling Villain: The bad guy that has kidnapped and tortured a victim in "The Greek Interpreter" has an unsettling giggling laugh.
• Glowing Gem: "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle".
• Gold Digger: Strongly implied with Lord Robert St. Simon of "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor". He's an Impoverished Patrician and an older than average groom whose bride just happens to be the daughter of a wealthy American.
• Gone Horribly Right: Holmes's experiment with the powder in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot". It nearly causes both him and Watson to die in the same manner as the victims in that case.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: A rather vividly described evil pencil mustache belonging to Baron Gruner, the villain of "The Illustrious Client".
  Holmes: The Baron has little waxed tips of hair under his nose, like the short antennae of an insect.
• Good Is Not Nice: Holmes isn't a bad guy, but boy he can be an ass. Made particularly clear in most adaptations.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Holmes is a proficient boxer, and makes use of his skill on several occasions.
  • In "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty", Holmes and the villain get in a fist fight over the eponymous macguffin at the end, which Holmes wins.
  • In "The Final Problem", Holmes is attacked by one of Moriarty's minions, but overpowers him.
  • In "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist", Holmes gets in a fist fight with one of the suspects. Holmes comes out of it with a split lip and a lump on his head; the other guy is taken home in a cart.
  • In "The Adventure of Black Peter", Holmes gets into a struggle with a harpooner. Anticipating it, he sneakily handcuffed the man as he made him sign a document, but the man's strength was so gigantic that even Holmes proficiency in combat was nil, and only Watson's timely pressing of his revolver against his temple stopped the fight. Tellingly, earlier in the story Holmes had experimented to see if he had the strength to deliver a harpoon through a human body and failed, while the man had previously succeeded with ease.
• Gorgeous Period Dress
  • The client from "A Scandal In Bohemia" dresses very ostentatiously.
  • In general, Holmes' meticulous observation of clues in people's clothing gave Conan Doyle justified grounds to describe their clothes in detail.
• GPS Evidence: Hey, Holmes wrote that monograph on the many types of tobacco ash for a reason. He put that special sort of attention to detail to use, too; he could tell exactly where mud on someone's shoes came from, and used the info.

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