| Name | Story | Crime | Punishment or Fate |
|---|
| Captain Crocker | ABBE | Murdered Sir Eustace Brackenstall for hitting his wife | Released by Holmes after the "jury" found him not guilty |
| Sir George Burnwell | BERY | Broke and stole part of the Beryl Coronet | Released by Holmes in exchange for information leading to the jewels' recovery |
| Patrick Cairns | BLAC | Murdered Captain Peter Carey | Imprisoned |
| BLAN | | |
| James Ryder | BLUE | Stole the blue carbuncle jewel of the Countess of Morcar and concealed it in the body of a Christmas goose | Released by Holmes in the spirit of "the season of forgiveness" |
| John Turner | BOSC | Murdered his blackmailer, Charles McCarthy | Never charged; died seven months later from diabetes complications |
| BRUC | | |
| Jim Browner | CARD | Murdered his wife and her lover, then severed their ears and mailed them to his wife's sister | Imprisoned |
| Charles Augustus Milverton | CHAS | Blackmailed several members of London society | Shot to death by one of his victims |
| Jephro Rucastle | COPP | Held his daughter Alice a virtual prisoner to prevent her marriage and retain control of her fortune | Never formally punished, though nearly mauled to death by his own mastiff |
| CREE | | |
| Henry Wood and Nancy Barclay | CROO | Suspected of murdering Colonel James Barclay | Cleared when Barclay's death was determined to be from natural causes |
| Abe Slaney | DANC | Tried to induce Elsie Cubitt to leave her husband and return to the United States with him; fatally shot Hilton Cubitt and almost framed Elsie for it | Imprisoned |
| DEVI | | |
| Culverton Smith | DYIN | Murdered Victor Savage; attempted to murder Sherlock Holmes | Imprisoned |
| Col. Sebastian Moran | EMPT | Murdered Ronald Adair; attempted to murder Sherlock Holmes | Imprisoned |
| "Col. Lysander Stark" | ENGR | Manufactured counterfeit coins; murdered one hydraulic engineer and attempted to murder another | Escaped, never heard from again |
| Prof. James Moriarty | FINA | "Napoleon of Crime," ran large London crime ring | Fell to his death on Reichenbach Falls |
| Capt. James Calhoun and associates | FIVE | Murdered three members of the Openshaw family | Presumably died when their ship, the Lone Star, was demolished in a storm at sea |
| GLOR | | |
| Harold Latimer and Wilson Kemp | GREE | Held Paul Kratides hostage, starved and ultimately murdered him | Uncertain; possibly killed by Sophia Kratides |
| GOLD | | |
| Rodger Baskerville, alias Jack Stapleton | HOUN | Murdered his uncle, Sir Charles Baskerville; attempted to murder his cousin, Sir Henry Baskerville | Sank to his death in the impenetrable Grimpen Mire |
| James Windibank | IDEN | Masqueraded as Hosmer Angel and proposed to his own stepdaughter, to keep her from ever marrying for real | Allowed to escape unpunished, since what he did was not technically illegal |
| ILLU | | |
| LADY | | |
| LAST | | |
| None | LION | This story had no actual villain | Not applicable |
| MAZA | | |
| MISS | | |
| Richard Brunton | MUSG | Solved the Musgrave family ritual and stole the concealed crown of Charles I, the lost diadem of the royal Stuart line | Sealed in a small airtight room by Rachel Howells, his confederate and spurned lover, and died of asphyxiation |
| Joseph Harrison | NAVA | Stole a valuable government document | Released by Holmes in the interest of keeping the incident a secret |
| NOBL | | |
| Jonas Oldacre | NORW | Faked his own murder to frame John Hector McFarlane for the crime | Imprisoned |
| James Wilder and Reuben Hayes | PRIO | Wilder abducted his younger half-brother, Lord Saltire, to try and force their father, the Duke of Holdernesse, to name him the legal heir; Hayes assisted in this and murdered Herr Heidegger, one of Lord Saltire's schoolteachers, who tried to intervene | Wilder was sent to Australia; Hayes, according to Holmes's remarks, was most probably hanged |
| REDC | | |
| John Clay | REDH | Attempted to steal French gold from one of the London banks | Imprisoned |
| Alexander and Alec Cunningham | REIG | Murdered William Kerwan; attempted to murder Sherlock Holmes | Imprisoned |
| RESI | | |
| RETI | | |
| Irene Adler | SCAN | Blackmailed the King of Bohemia to prevent his marriage | Married Godfrey Norton and escaped to the Continent |
| SECO | | |
| SHOS | | |
| Jonathan Small | SIGN | | Imprisoned |
| John Straker | SILV | Attempted to throw the Wessex Crown horse race by slightly laming his employer's horse | Was killed when the horse kicked him in the head |
| "Beppo" | SIXN | Stole the black pearl of the Borgias; murdered Pietro Venucci | Imprisoned |
| SOLI | | |
| Dr. Grimesby Roylott | SPEC | Murdered one stepdaughter; attempted to murder the other | Bitten to death by a venomous Indian snake |
| STOC | | |
| Jefferson Hope | STUD | Murdered Enoch Drubber and Joseph Strangerson | Died in prison of a heart condition |
| Jack Ferguson | SUSS | Attempted to poison his younger half-brother, framing his stepmother in the process | To judge by the text, sent away to sea for a year |
| THOR | | |
| 3GAB | | |
| James Winter, alias Morecroft, alias Killer Evans, alias John Garrideb | 3GAR | Concocted a massive scam in order to gain access to a counterfeiting machine and fake money concealed in a basement; shot Watson | Imprisoned |
| Gilchrist (no first name given) | 3STU | Stole the solution to his upcoming Greek scholarship examination at university | Was persuaded by a former servant not to enter the examination, but to accept a commission with the Rhodesian Police in South Africa, and was allowed to depart unhindered |
| "Hugh Boone" | TWIS | Suspected of murdering Neville St. Clair | Released when Holmes revealed he actually was Neville St. Clair in disguise |
| VALL | | |
| VEIL | | |
| WIST | | |
| None | YELL | This story had no actual villain | Not applicable |