To Soviet readers, Sherlock Holmes is a great fictional hero, and in the past 40-odd years the U.S.S.R.'s Ministry of Culture has grossed at least $3,000,000 in sales of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Holmes. But neither Doyle nor his heirs ever got so much as a ruble out of the Soviet sales. A Moscow city court last year tossed out a $180,000 suit brought by Adrian Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur's only surviving son, as a claim for the pirating of his father's writing. Three judges of the Soviet Supreme Court heard the case on appeal last week, decided that Sir Arthur has no rights under Soviet copyright law, which provides for no copyright protection to foreign authors.

Pressed by a newsman for a quick verbal self-portrait on the eve of his 89th birthday, Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch put on a mischievous, mysterious expression, nutshelled: "I do everything I used to do--but not quite as much!"

Once upon a time, Gypsy Rose Lee was known for her ability to tease more than she stripped. More recently she has made her name and fortune as a teller of tales. Last week in London, she told of vacationing recently in Yugoslavia when, at the wheel of a rented Rolls-Royce, she collided with a motorcycle on a winding road overlooking the Adriatic Sea. To her astonishment, recalled Gypsy, deadpan, the rider and his passenger high-tailed it for the woods, abandoning their machine. Later Gypsy asked a Yugoslav official why the wild ones had acted so wildly. His explanation (sounding almost as if it had been composed by Columnist Leonard Lyons): "It is well known that there are only two Rolls-Royces in the whole of Yugoslavia, and both belong to Marshal

Tito. Clearly, your motorcyclists thought they must have crashed into the car of our great leader!"

Britain's Princess Margaret, an all-too-eligible bachelor girl, turned 29, was greeted by Britain's press with heartfelt congratulations and a bit of "will-she-ever" worry. At the royal family gathering in Scotland's Balmoral Castle, only one romantic mystery added spice to the day. An orchid corsage, ordered by cable from the U.S., was delivered by a local florist, who refused to name the donor.

Every centimeter an equestrienne on her white mount, Yasmin Khan, 9, daughter of Aly Khan and Cinemactress Rita Hay worth, displayed some reinless riding form in the posh French seaside resort of Deauville. Recently a subject of perennial squabbling between her parents, well-to-do Yasmin is now spending the summer with her fast-living father.

Going on the auction block in London some time next month: an unused Jaguar, two Rolls-Royces, some antique furniture, Persian rugs and other oddments. Former owner: Iraq's late King Feisal, gunned down last year in Iraq's brief but bloody revolution.

The elegant. U.S.-born widow of Spain's auto-racing Marquis Alfonso de Portago came close to meeting death on wheels, as did the marquis in Italy's exhausting Mille Miglia road race in 1957. Under far tamer circumstances, attractive Carol Portago, 35, was crossing Manhattan's bustling Fifth Avenue last week when a taxicab, brakes gone, rolled into the intersection, plowed into Carol and two lady companions. Catapulted into the air, the marquesa came down against the cab's windshield, was indecorously given a short free ride. At week's end, with minor leg injuries, she had left a Manhattan hospital, counted herself "lucky to be alive."

Elder Statesman Harry Truman disclosed that he is taking another fling at "the authoring business," has signed up to turn out two new books. The first, Mr. Citizen, to be published next March, will express Truman's general views on today's world. The other, still untitled, but set for publication a year later, will be addressed to U.S. youth (10 to 16), and will set forth what junior citizens should know about U.S. history. Explained Author Truman of the latter project: "I hope to correct what I believe are some serious misconceptions of our past, particularly with respect to our Presidents, public men and military leaders."

Six years after he was booted off his throne, Egypt's fat, fatuous ex-King Farouk is still his country's most popular whipping boy. Accused of all sorts of high and low crimes, Farouk got word from Cairo last week that he is now up for a new title: "Most dangerous thief of Egyptian antiquities." His accuser: the emergency curator of the Egyptian Museum, carrying out the museum's first inventory in some 30 years, a belated measure instituted after the recent discovery that some 25,000 national treasures, worth a king's ransom, have disappeared. A prime item, whereabouts unknown: the jeweled scepter of Egypt's King Tutankhamen (14th century B.C.), valued at a cool $3,000,000. Taking his ease in Rome, Farouk murmured: "Let them say what they will. These are things that do not interest kings, but only lawyers."

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