"The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

It is worth £7,000 to him, he explains, to make an example of Lady Eva; it is in his long-term interest to ensure that his future blackmail victims would be more "open to reason" and pay him what he wants, knowing he will destroy them if they do not.

Holmes and Watson hide behind a curtain, while Milverton has a midnight meeting with a supposed maidservant offering to sell letters that would compromise her mistress.

Holmes understands, and Watson instantly realises, "that it was no affair of ours; that justice had overtaken a villain..." The woman runs away, and Milverton's household is roused by the shots.

The next morning, Inspector Lestrade calls at Baker Street to ask for Holmes' help in investigating Milverton's murder, which he ascribes to the two burglars seen escaping over the garden wall.

Howell died in 1890 in circumstances as strange as any of Doyle's novels: His body was found near a Chelsea public house with his throat posthumously slit, with a coin (variously reported as a sovereign or half-sovereign) in his mouth.

[6] "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" was also inspired by the A. J. Raffles short story "Wilful Murder" by E. W. Hornung, according to Richard Lancelyn Green.

The Soviet television film series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson featured the case under the name "The King of Blackmail".

[13] The husband of the lady who kills Milverton is stated to be named Lord Christopher Huxley, aged 42, with Holmes reading an article about his death at the beginning of the episode.

He requests Watson not to chronicle the case, deeming it to have unpleasant circumstances, whereas in the original story Holmes is slightly more cheerful, as shown by his joking to Lestrade, which is omitted from this adaptation.

The third season of the BBC adaptation Sherlock features 'Charles Augustus Magnussen', portrayed by Lars Mikkelsen, as a primary antagonist.

In it, it is revealed that Charles Magnussen keeps the information with which he blackmails his victims in his own mind palace (inside his head), only occasionally acquiring hard copies when he has to.

The episode "The Adventure of the Portrait of a Teacher" in the NHK puppetry television series Sherlock Holmes is loosely based on the story.

At the end of the story, the individuals are murdered by Moriarty, but it is revealed that Charles Augustus Milverton had secretly masterminded the plan.

The episode, dramatised by Edith Meiser, aired on 18 May 1931, with Richard Gordon as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr.

[18] Another radio adaptation was made as part of a syndicated series, produced by Harry Alan Towers and starring John Gielgud as Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Watson.

[23] The story, along with "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax", "The Adventure of the Empty House", and "The Red-Headed League", provided the source material for the play The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

In Donald Thomas's collection of short stories, The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes (1997), Watson "admits" that Milverton was, in fact, an alias used for the real Charles Augustus Howell.

One of the antagonists of The Great Ace Attorney is Ashley Milverton, alias Graydon, who steals and tries to sell secrets held by the British government.

In this adaptation, in addition to being the "King of Blackmail" he also plays a role similar to Moriarty, organising various crimes for unseemly patrons.