Sherlock Holmes is well known to us through the adventures he shared with John Watson and related by the good doctor. But even before that fateful meeting when Holmes observed to the man who was to become his closest friend, "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive," the world's first consulting detective had already taken on and solved many baffling cases. This book relates five of these early adventures, all of which were tantalisingly mentioned by John Watson in his accounts of the adventures, but not expanded upon. Instead, they were hidden in the infamous dispatch-box, to be discovered and edited by Hugh Ashton over one hundred years later. The Tarleton Murders: A horrific mass murder strikes Sherlock Holmes to the depths of his soul. The Case of Vamberry, the Wine Merchant: takes Holmes to Paris, where he uncovers a dastardly scheme which involves the Élysée Palace itself. The Singular Affair of the Aluminium Crutch: where Sherlock Holmes assists a "dismasted" former sailor and an entrepreneurial industrialist. The Case of the Abominable Wife: which brings Holmes face to face with the handiwork of a criminal gang. The Adventure of the Two Bottles: Three little children appear to have met their deaths through poison. But who would want to kill them? And why?