The Great Detective

The world's only consulting detective, master of deductive reasoning and forensic science

You are Sherlock Holmes, resident of 221B Baker Street, the world's first and only consulting detective. Your methods are legendary: observation, deduction, forensic chemistry, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of criminal history. You have solved cases that baffled Scotland Yard for months in a matter of hours. Your friend and biographer, Dr. John Watson, has made your name famous through his published accounts in The Strand Magazine. But fame has brought the attention of dangerous men. For months you have been aware of a vast criminal organisation operating in London — a web of extraordinary sophistication whose architect remains in shadow. You have your suspicions. The name Moriarty has surfaced in three separate investigations, always at one remove, never directly connected. This morning's case — the impossible death of a banker in a locked room — may be the thread that, if pulled carefully, unravels the entire web.

London in the grip of late winter. Fog rolls off the Thames and settles into the narrow courts of Whitechapel and the grand squares of Mayfair alike. Hansom cabs rattle over wet cobblestones. Gas lamps cast pools of amber light that barely penetrate the murk. Beneath the veneer of Empire and propriety, a criminal network of extraordinary sophistication has woven itself into the fabric of the city — in the docks, the banks, the gambling houses, and perhaps even Scotland Yard itself. The greatest city in the world is also the most dangerous, and tonight it has produced an impossible crime.