Illustrious Client is THE Sherlock Holmes story of all time:

-Holmes and Watson visit the time honored gay cruising site of the Turkish baths. Watson utterly fails at seduction

-suave Eastern European villain whose mustache is described by Holmes as “the antennae of an insect”

-Watson says, incredibly suggestively, “I am here to be used” and Holmes tells him to go study Chinese pottery. Watson does not complain or ask questions because he has “learned the wisdom of obedience” 😳

-Holmes gets beaten up and Watson cares for him, a memorable entry in the annals of ACD being the reigning king of hurt/comfort

-“Don’t look so scared, Watson.”

-Watson is given a false persona and a solo mission and almost, ALMOST, doesn’t fuck it up

-“I was nearer [Holmes] than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap between” 💔

-Kitty Winter is the best girl in the world and should be allowed to throw vitriolic acid in the face of anyone she wants!!! British law agrees with me btw

-Watson is not living at Baker Street, but very shortly after this adventure he moves back in with Holmes, presumably because he cannot be trusted to stay out of trouble, or maybe because visiting the Turkish baths every time he wants to make a move is getting expensive

“…What can I do, Holmes? Of course, it was that damned fellow who set them on. I'll go and thrash the hide off him if you give the word.” - The Illustrious Client “You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive." - The Three Garridebs

Text Parallels here. ID in alt.

[Four gifs: John Watson taking Sherlock Holmes’s temperature with a mercury thermometer; distracted by perusing a book he takes some time to shake the thermometer down, while Holmes examines Watson’s actions, at peace.]

A Flanigan illustration from The Illustrious Client of our poor battered detective asking for help from his beloved friend and trusted associate.

Parallels

The Illustrious Client & The Three Garridebs

I'm sorry I've been a bit absent. But I have a good explanation: it's because we solved our first case! And what a case it was. It sure was something. This time I was lucky enough to be able to record it all. We were contacted by quite the illustrious client, so we'll have to keep their identity a secret. Took me ages to bleep out all the names in the recording. But it's worth a listen, even with all that bleeping. It has everything a true crime podcaster's heart desires. Mystery, murder and ming pottery. The three M's. I can't say too much without spoiling it. So go on and give it a listen.

“She is not in her senses. She is madly in love.

Sherlock Holmes saying really aromantic things

Watson, writing in (according to publication dates) 1925: "I have been asking Holmes if I can write this for TEN YEARS."

mrs hudson & the patient

Elementary playing the long game with Odker (part 2):

3x02 The Five Orange Pipz 3x05 Rip Off 3x11 The Illustrious Client 3x15 When Your Number's Up 3x16 For All You Know 3x18 The View From Olympus 3x20 A Stitch In Time 3x23 Absconded

Screaming because, WHILE LYING NEXT TO EACH OTHER IN SHEETS IN A TURKISH BATHHOUSE, Watson asked Holmes if “anything was stirring 😏” and Holmes slowly pulled out a letter from a client

John: Thanks for getting lunch

Sherlock: …Yes

I felt that Sherlock, I felt that

A bit about "oil of vitriol"

In the last letter that I received from my friend Watson I was waiting for a girls fight but Kitty Winter surprised everybody with a chemical attack using "vitrol" against the villainous Baron Adelbert Gruner.

Oil of vitrol is an outdated name of sulfuric acid (H2SO4), a colorless oily liquid widely used in industrial processes. This name comes from "vitrols", sulfates of different metals like copper, iron or aluminium. My favourite one is copper(II) sulfate penahydrated CuSO4·5H2O because is blue:

[ID: blue crystal of copper(II) sulfate]

Sulfuric acid has been known for many centuries, but medieval European alchemists called it "oil of vitrol" because they prepared this oily sustance by roasting iron(II) sulfate FeSO4·7H2O or green vitriol in an iron retort.

[ID: green crystals of iron(II) sulfate heptahydrate]

There are many ways to produce sulfuric acid but in 1831 British vinegar merchant Peregrine Phillips patented the contact process. This method is economical for production of sulfuric acid in high concentrations and still in use today.

It surprised me how cold blood acted Kitty Winter carrying the oil of vitriol considering this hazards:

- CORROSIVE and/or TOXIC; inhalation, ingestion or contact (skin, eyes) with vapors, dusts or substance may cause severe injury, burns or death. - Fire will produce irritating, corrosive and/or toxic gases. - Reaction with water may generate much heat that will increase the concentration of fumes in the air. - Contact with molten substance may cause severe burns to skin and eyes. - Runoff from fire control or dilution water may cause environmental contamination.

But during those years there wasn't many norms related to use, transport and labelling of chemicals like today, even the treatment of chemical burns is different. Dr. Watson used water to dilute the acid, then applied oil and cotton to protect the wounds. Currently he standard first aid treatment for acid spills on the skin is irrigation with large quantities of water. Washing is continued for at least ten to fifteen minutes to cool the tissue surrounding the acid burn and to prevent secondary damage. Contaminated clothes should be removed to wash the skin underneath. Additional measures like diluted solutions of sodium bicarbonate can be used for smaller burns but in case like Gruner is better to use the shower 🚿

design for my client

“I thought of her for the moment as I would have thought of a daughter of my own. I am not often eloquent. I use my head, not my heart. But I really did plead with her with all the warmth of words that I could find in my nature.”

Adds a mark to the “Holmes hypothesizing about having children despite being viscerally averse to marriage” tally

And oh this description :(((( He cares so much

when you're at the turkish bath house with your husband and your personal letters and your hookah