The Adventure of the Dancing Men: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

"The Adventure of the Dancing Men", a Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle published as The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1905. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" third in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories. This is one of only two Sherlock Holmes short stories where Holmes' client dies after seeking his help. The other is "The Five Orange Pips", part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes's solution to the riddle of the dancing men rests on reasoning that closely resembles that of Legrand in Poe's "The Gold Bug." The original title was "The Dancing Men," when it was published as a short story in The Strand Magazine in December 1903 Famous works of the author Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, Stories of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World.