Armchair detective Armchair detective An armchair detective is a fictional investigator who does not personally visit a crime scene or interview witnesses; instead, he or she either reads the story of the crime in a newspaper or has it recounted by another person. As the armchair detective never sees any of the investigation, the reader can attempt to solve the mystery on the same terms as the detective. The phrase possibly originates in a Sherlock Holmes story from 1893, "The Greek Interpreter", in which Holmes says of his brother Mycroft, "If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (film) invited to The Diogenes Club by Sherlock's older brother Mycroft. The club hosts the most unsociable men of London, and they have banned talking. Once there, Mycroft, asks him to help Lady Eva Blackwell. She is being blackmailed by one of the most villainous men of London, Charles Augustus Milverton who is demanding £7,000 for some letters he has stolen from her, threatening to release them to the public if she does not pay the ransom. Upon their release, the letters would cause a scandal that would end Lady Eva's marriage engagement. Sherlock agrees to help her. The same day,