The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventure of the Illustrious Client is a programme presented as a single episode. It falls within the adventure genre and follows the familiar format of a detective story, with Sherlock Holmes taking centre stage. In this instalment Holmes receives a request to intervene in an impending wedding. A woman named Violet Merville is about to marry Baron Gruner, and Holmes is asked to put a stop to the ceremony. The detective recognises the urgency of the task, as he is already aware of the baron's true nature. Baron Gruner is portrayed as a rich collector of objets d’art and an admirer of beautiful women. Holmes knows him to be a murderer, which gives him a strong motive to prevent the union. The episode therefore centres on Holmes’s efforts to protect Violet Merville from a marriage that could place her in grave danger.