In A Case of Royal Blackmail, the 24-year-old Sherlock Holmes recounts how he untangled the web of blackmail and deceit surrounding the 'complex romantic endeavours' of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, those of Lillie Langtry and her various suitors and the morass of scandal surrounding the Prince's court of 1879. In between times he also reveals how he solved the cases of Vamberry the Wine Merchant, Ricoletti of the Club-foot and His Abominable Wife and Oscar Wilde's Amethyst Tie-pin.