The Canon’s definitive blackmailer. Appears in The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton (CHAS, The Return of Sherlock Holmes). Holmes calls him “the worst man in London.”
Character
- Outwardly respectable: well-dressed, soft-spoken, almost oleaginous in manner
- Operates by systematically collecting compromising letters and documents, then extorting their authors indefinitely
- Holmes distinguishes him from ordinary criminals: “Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you are in the presence of this man? I do, and yet I can clearly see that he takes a villainous delight in it.”
The case
Holmes is hired to recover letters written by Lady Eva Blackwell that Milverton intends to use to ruin her engagement. Milverton refuses all negotiation. Holmes, in disguise, becomes engaged to Milverton’s housemaid to learn the layout of his house, then he and Watson burgle it at night to steal the letters.
While hiding in Milverton’s study, they witness a woman — one of his former victims — shoot Milverton dead. Holmes watches without intervening, and afterwards refuses to give the police any useful description of the killer, judging that Milverton’s death was justice.
Significance
CHAS is the story that most explicitly positions Holmes as a private moral authority who will override the law when he judges it appropriate. The burglary, the watched murder, and the subsequent obstruction of justice are all defended by Holmes on grounds that Milverton deserved what he got. It is one of the most ethically provocative stories in the Canon.