charles augustus milverton (commonly abbreviated to CHAS) is one of my favorite sherlock holmes stories, as it is unique and refreshing yet also familiar. i think a lot of adaptations have viewed sherlock holmes as this action-packed sort of vigilante who’s involved in bringing to “justice” the most evil individuals all the time. in the stories, at least from what i remember, half the time holmes is goofing around solving weird problems, half the time he’s acting like a cop.
the spark notes
CHAS is about a woman about to marry into nobility, but is impeded by blackmailer milverton who threatens to publicize embarrassing letters to an old lover, which will surely dissolve her engagement to her conservative fiancee + fiancee’s family. initially, she asks holmes to simply mediate between her and milverton; to beg milverton to let her purchase the letter for a fee she can afford. holmes does try to mediate, but milverton refuses and commits to the higher fee. holmes then tries to stick up milverton, but obviously he’s not carrying his blackmail material with him wherever he goes, that fails too.
holmes then plans a heist to steal or destroy the letters in milverton’s house. to do this, he disguises himself as a plumber called escott (yes that’s me), seduces milverton’s maid, gets engaged to her, and through their courtship he memorizes the layout of milverton’s house.
holmes & watson then dress up in night formal wear—
—he says it’s supposed to look like they’re just two lads going to the theatre. but i remember seeing a fan some years ago say that CHAS is a parody of the raffles stories, which were written by a relative of Doyle’s? as a parody of holmes, essentially what if holmes was a gentleman thief instead of a gentleman detective. and arguably gayer and has a more fucked up reichenbach. wearing tuxedoes and tailcoats to pull off a heist does make sense for a raffles parody, making CHAS a parody of a parody. that’s if you take my word about this—
in night formal wear, wear some silk masks, and trespass into milverton’s house with some top tier burglary equipment. however, once they’re in, they’re a bunch of fucking buffoons lol they get scared by a kitty cat, they try to burgle milverton’s safe of blackmail material, but turns out he’s not asleep yet and he’s still walking about, so they have to hide behind a curtain. absolute hijinks. it feels like an episode of the sherlock holmes 1950 series starring ronald howard. i love it.
turns out milverton’s still awake because someone’s made an appointment with him. a woman. different from the engaged lady previously. she’s another victim of milverton’s whose husband killed himself because of the blackmailing. she says she ruined their lives and she fucking shoots milverton and walks away. girlboss. best deus ex machina ever. stranger lady just swoops in and fucking kills him and technically h & w didn’t even have to get involved, she was gonna kill him tonight no matter what they did.
at the sound of the gunshot, the household wakes up and starts looking for the intruder.
h & w proceed with opening the safe, burning all the blackmail material. then they escape while being chased by the househelp. watson accidentally leaves his shoe behind.
the next day, inspector lestrade consults holmes about the milverton murder last night, giving him a description of the two intruders: tall lanky guy, stocky short guy with a reddish mustache, and here he dropped his other shoe! lestrade throws the shoe at them. holmes says lol the second guy sounds like watson heehee and watson’s like shut uppppp. in the end, holmes says he won’t take the case because he thinks milverton kinda deserves to be murdered, and lestrade agrees. they both knew this guy was a blackmailer who’s ruined a lot of lives, they just couldn’t arrest him because they had nothing on him. now he’s dead yippee!
the first milverton
the first interpretation of this story is the face-value one. it is that the events presented to us by watson are exactly how it happened. this is the watson is telling the truth interpretation.
this can be a little difficult to stomach for some people, as this means holmes and watson were buffoons who were useless in the resolution of the story. i suppose it is somewhat helpful that they burned all the blackmail material, as god knows we can’t trust the cops with that shit. i suppose it also feels bad that there’s these high stakes, this lady whose life will be ruined if she doesn’t get married (it’s complicated, go read the story) and if her reputation gets tarnished. and that gets resolved by some other lady appearing out of the blue and killing milverton.
it’s weird right? i get if people think it’s weird and think that watson must be lying. watson lying is a popular lens to use for sholmes fans. it’s where the terms doylist / watsonian came from. a doylist lens means that you’re looking at the story and it’s flaws based on what the author wanted to do. a watsonian lens means that you’re looking at the story based on how watson the character wanted to tell it.
however, the weird plot does give way to some tasty girlbossing. it’s pretty rare to get interesting or at the very least positive depictions of women dealing with men ruining their lives (women being abused, women being blackmailed, women with shitty husbands, etc.) (hbomberguy no, scandal in bohemia was not proto-feminist, what are you on)
it’s satisfying to me that for once (well for twice. norbury.) holmes didn’t save the day, his logic and chains of reasoning and deductive powers or whatever did nothing. holmes and the cops aren’t the only actors with any agency in seeking out “justice”. it reminds us that this fictional world has people in it, they’re not just problems for holmes to solve and for us to voyeuristically consume. these crimes affect people. these crimes cause people to commit murder themselves. this world is complex. women can be moved to passionate murder too. maybe this is the proto-feminist sherlock holmes story. (JOKE)
lastly i think the weird plot just makes it silly. it starts off as a super serious basil rathbone movie-esque plot of ooohhh scary villain and then it ends in ronald howard holmes hijinks. i like silly. i think we need more sherlock holmes silly. i don’t think we should take holmes that seriously (he’s kind of a cop you know)
the second milverton
the second milverton is that no, holmes shot milverton. obviously. the reason there’s suddenly deus ex machina lady is because watson’s lying and trying to hide that holmes shot milverton. remember that holmes did try to stick up milverton at the start of the story? maybe that’s a clue.
this interpretation is taken by adaptations (bbc sherlock’s charles augustus magnussen) if you’ve watched the hbomberguy video sherlock is garbage and here’s why, he talks about how the charles augustus magnussen episode is bad because holmes killing magnussen contradicts the essence of the original story—
—appeal to the essence of canon is a frequent argument in this video, that i endeavor to pick apart as part of an hbomberguy sherlock video criticism in the future—
original story. which is also fair i guess? bbc sherlock erases the effects of milverton’s crimes, especially on women. it’s just special genius boy sherlock vs. special genius boy magnussen.
but i’ve also seen this second milverton in several fan works. this whole post was inspired by a fan comic where milverton is blackmailing holmes about his gay relationship with watson, and so holmes and watson end up personally killing him that night.
which is interesting too? yes it also ends up being too personal, the silly is gone, this is holmes fighting for his life for once (well twice. reichenbach.) (no wait, thrice. dying detective.) he is the one bearing the effect of the crimes because he’s gay and famous. honestly you could say something similar about the magnussen episode, that it forces holmes to be more personal re: crime. i just wish it wasn’t bbc sherlock that did it, since it’s nothing if not personal.
which milverton
i’m all for face-value milverton. unless you go full on ACAB with holmes i don’t think he deserves to kill criminals even when they’re trying to out that he’s gay. the concept of sherlock holmes (i’m better at police work because i’m sophisticated and logical) and his companion watson (the war sucked ass and it damaged me a lot but my experience in personally colonizing brown people, is like, my main contribution to the police work) is flawed and i hope future adaptations/fanworks deal with it. letting him kill criminals is not a great way to deal with that because then he’s just going farther into the cop direction.