"The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet", one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the eleventh of the twelve stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story was first published in The Strand Magazine in May 1892.
Plot
A coronet of a British earl
A Streatham banker named Mr Alexander Holder makes a loan of £50,000 (equivalent to approximately £6.95 million in 2023 to a client from one of the "highest, noblest, most exalted names in England," implied to be a member of the British Royal Family and, thus, a son of Queen Victoria and an heir to the throne. The client leaves the beryl coronet, described as one of the "most precious public possessions of the empire," as collateral. Feeling his bank's personal safe is insufficient to protect such a rare and valuable piece of jewellery, he takes it home and keeps it in his dressing room. However, he and his niece Mary later find his son Arthur holding the coronet, seemingly trying to bend it, with three beryls missing from it. A panicked Holder seeks out Sherlock Holmes for help.
Despite the damning evidence against Arthur, who refuses to give a statement, Holmes is unconvinced. With the threat of Holder's reputation being besmirched and a national scandal weighing heavily on his mind, Holmes determines Arthur could not have broken the coronet on his own without making noise, notices footprints in the snow outside Holder's home, and considers Holder's servants, Mary, and Arthur's rakish friend Sir George Burnwell as potential suspects.
Eventually, Holmes concludes Burnwell is a notorious criminal who conspired with Mary, unaware of his real identity, to steal the coronet. Arthur caught the pair in the act and broke the coronet while trying to take it back from Burnwell before taking the blame for Mary out of love for her. Though Burnwell and Mary escape justice, Holmes is convinced they will receive their punishment in due time. He later buys back the missing beryls from a fence that Burnwell sold them to, receives compensation from Holder, and tells him to apologize to Arthur for assuming he was the thief.
Publication history
"The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" was first published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in May 1892, and in the United States in the US edition of the Strand in June 1892.[3] The story was published with nine illustrations by Sidney Paget in The Strand Magazine It was included in the short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,[4] which was published in October 1892.
Voice Narration: Jon Hagadorn as Sherlock Holmes
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