# Elsie — The Return of Sherlock Holmes character guide

> Elsie in The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** little Elsie

**First appearance:** 0002-the-adventure-of-the-dancing-men

## Snapshot

A young wife whose American past returns in the form of eerie chalk figures, threatening the quiet Norfolk life she has built with her devoted husband.

## Who they are

Elsie is the beloved wife of a Norfolk squire, a woman whose gaiety dims whenever strange stick-figure drawings appear on the garden wall. She cannot bring herself to explain their meaning, and her silence is slowly destroying the husband who adores her. Her hidden history and the coded menace that follows her draw Holmes into a case where love, fear, and an old criminal debt collide.

## In the story

### [The Adventure of the Dancing Men](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_return_of_sherlock_holmes_se/chapters/the-adventure-of-the-dancing-men)

Mrs. Hilton Cubitt, whose past is connected to the cipher.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_return_of_sherlock_holmes_se/characters/elsie
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_return_of_sherlock_holmes_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_return_of_sherlock_holmes_se/characters