The Good Comrades are a collection of varied gentlemen who crave one thing - solitude. They reside at Drearcliff House, ancestral home of their eldest member. All seems serene and convivial until one by one the members begin to perish in the most grisly of manners. Foul play is suspected by the Good Comrades' insurance agent, who turns to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson for guidance.

Genial shopkeeper Philip has to endure the constant nagging of a shrewish wife while he secretly yearns for a pretty young stenographer. When the henpecking gets to be too much, Philip murders his wife and manages to make her death look like an accident. A ruthless blackmailer and a low-key detective both discover Philip's secret, and he has to decide which of them poses the more dangerous threat.

When a music-hall dancer is murdered, a moss rose marks the page of a Bible next to her body. Luckily, another chorus girl saw a gentleman leaving the lodgings. She approaches him directly, saying she'll go to the police if he doesn't meet her demands, but he brushes her off contemptuously. When he learns she's dead serious, he tries to buy her off with a thick wad of pound notes. But it's not money she's after; all she wants is two weeks at his country estate, living the life of a lady.

A prim psychology professor fights to hide a murder she committed in self-defense.

Sherlock Holmes investigates when young women around London turn up murdered, each with a finger severed. Scotland Yard suspects a madman, but Holmes believes the killings to be part of a diabolical plot.

A convicted thief in Dartmoor prison hides the location of the stolen Bank of England printing plates inside three music boxes. When the innocent purchasers of the boxes start to be murdered, Holmes and Watson investigate.