The varied clients of Sherlock Holmes

‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet' Re-Imagined

Banker Alexander Holder has been entrusted with the safekeeping of the precious Beryl Coronet, one of the most valuable treasures of the nobility. Afraid to leave the valuable piece of jewellery at the bank, he brings it home, only to have a piece of the crown broken off and three beryls stolen. Holder appeals to Sherlock Holmes to help recover the precious stones and thus avoid a personal and national scandal.

“Oh, any old key will fit that bureau.”

Sherlock Holmes's clients

In this adventure Holmes’s ultimate client is an exalted member of the nobility, which we are lead to believe is the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. However, the Great Detective accepts cases for a wide variety of clients ranging from simple governesses and pawn brokers to kings (see earlier post: ‘Sherlock Holmes, the king, and the woman’). Therefore, throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon we are introduced to characters from the upper classes and also the working class. Depiction of these various individuals necessitates many different clothing styles, such as the image below from ‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet’ of Sherlock Holmes disguised as a common loafer, or someone suspiciously unemployed, of which Watson states: “With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class”.

“Dressed as a common loafer.”

Although LEGO® has not produced any Victorian based playsets, there have been a few minifigure themes for which one or more torso designs could be adequately used to represent the clothing fashions of the late 1800s. Among these, minifigures accompanying playsets for the Harry Potter and Indiana Jones film series as well as The Lone Ranger movie have been quite useful. The torso with dark brown jacket and dark bluish grey vest in the photo above is an example of the latter, which is set in the 1870s, although in the Western United States and not England. For many characters in the stories comprising the Sherlock Holmes Reimagined book series, it is not possible to closely match Watson’s descriptions of their clothing in terms of style or colour with a minifigure torso currently available. However, for some individuals there are LEGO® torso designs that are somewhat similar to the apparel described in the text, or at least that depicted in the illustrations by Sidney Paget, such as the image below of George Burnwell wearing an astrakhan coat. Fortunately, as with minifigure heads (see earlier post: ‘Disguises in the Sherlock Holmes canon’), LEGO® has produced a very large quantity of minifigure torsos, now in fact numbering over 3000, and every year sees the release of many more.

“I clapped a pistol to his head.”

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Please visit our webpage and Facebook page for more information regarding the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, including news, reviews and free downloads.

All 12 books in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, as well as a complete collector’s edition incorporating all of the stories, are available for purchase on Amazon UK, the Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery), and the MX Publishing website.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.