Before John Watson had his fateful encounter with the eccentric beater of corpses at Barts, there was a consulting detective by the name of Sherlock Holmes, who had already built up a practice and a reputation that extended to Scotland Yard. However much he may have felt lost without his Boswell later in his career, Holmes was playing a solo game when he started out.

Here are five early cases, all mentioned in the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which helped to establish the reputation of the world's first consulting detective:

The Tarleton Murders
The Case of Vamberry, the Wine Merchant
The Singular Case of the Aluminium Crutch
The Case of the Abominable Wofe
The Adventure of the Two Bottles