Fifty short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes' older sister, Scarlett.

Scarlett Holmes is two years or so older than her sibling Sherlock. They fell out in childhood and abraded one another in later life. John Watson met her and found her captivating but prickly.

Scarlett took her degrees in archaeology, a subject that was finding new ground. She became an academic at Cambridge in the recently founded women's college: Newnham. Archaeology was not regarded as a serious subject and so was available to young women, whereas medicine and mathematics continued as the preserve of men, Despite the single subject of her degree she was a polymath and fulminated at the lack of appreciation of her other talents.

Perhaps her steely attitude to the besotted John Watson was part of her rejection of his admiration of her as a woman rather than as an academic. One can suppose that he, as a doctor, and what is more, one who had served with the army overseas, settled him in the expectation that it was he who should be admired. Despite all, Scarlett takes John along with her to assist in her tasks - he facilitates her entry into places where she could not otherwise go.