Charles Augustus Milverton

The king of blackmailers who was shot dead by a former victim in his own study.

Charles Augustus Milverton is 'the king of blackmailers,' a figure who causes Sherlock Holmes more revulsion than any of the 50-odd murderers in his career. Operating from a house in Hampstead, he maintains a safe in his study filled with compromising papers. In a notable instance involving the débutante Lady Eva Blackwell, Milverton demanded £7,000 (equivalent to £763,572 in 2025) for letters that would end her engagement. He refused a reduced offer of £2,000, explaining it was in his long-term interest to make an example of Lady Eva so future victims would pay his full price.

Quick Facts

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Series: The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Genre: Detective fiction short stories
Published in: Strand Magazine
Published: April 1904
Preceded by: The Adventure of Black Peter

Lore & Background

During a midnight meeting in his study, he confronted a woman posing as a maidservant offering to sell compromising letters about her mistress. This woman was actually a former victim whose husband had died from heartbreak after she refused to pay Milverton's ransom. Consumed by vengeance for her husband, she shot Milverton dead and stamped on his face. Holmes and Watson were hiding behind a curtain; although Watson initially rushed to stop the shooting, Holmes restrained him, realizing 'that it was no affair of ours; that justice had overtaken a villain.' After the woman fled, Holmes burned Milverton's entire cache of blackmail papers in the fireplace before they escaped over the garden wall.

Reader's Guide

The character of Charles Augustus Milverton was based on the real-life blackmailer and art dealer Charles Augustus Howell, who preyed upon figures like Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Howell died in 1890 under strange circumstances: his body was found near a Chelsea public house with his throat posthumously slit and a coin (reported as a sovereign or half-sovereign) placed in his mouth, understood as a criticism of slanderers. The story was published on 26 March 1904 in Collier's and in April 1904 in The Strand Magazine.

It is one of 13 stories collected in 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' (1905). According to timelines by William S. Baring-Gould and Leslie S. Klinger, the events occurred in 1899, nine years after Howell's death. Literary inspiration also came from E.W. Hornung's short story 'Wilful Murder.' In the Granada Television series starring Jeremy Brett, the story became the 1992 feature-length episode 'The Master Blackmailer', with Robert Hardy as Milverton; there Holmes asks Watson not to chronicle the case because of its unpleasant circumstances.

Did You Know?

Holmes disguised himself as a plumber and became engaged to Milverton's housemaid solely to learn the layout of the blackmailer's home.
When Inspector Lestrade described one of the burglars as having a 'square jaw' and 'thick neck,' Holmes joked that the description could apply to Watson.