We have gotten through Arthur Conan Doyle's first two novels -- A Study in Scarlet and Sign of the Four. Next comes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series of short stories. In fact, although Doyle wrote a few more novels, he appears to have decided that the short story was truly his medium.
The first short story is A Scandal in Bohemia. It introduces a character who has fascinated many later writers of adaptations -- Irene Adler. For all that her character is played up in later adaptations, she appears in only one work, a short story. Moreover, she and Holmes do not know each other. They meet only three times, briefly, each time with one party in disguise and the other unaware. Adler marries another man and the story ends with her flight. She apparently dies some time later offstage under uncertain circumstances. Watson refers to her as "the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory." We do not find out what happened to her. The story takes place in 1888 and she was born in 1858 making her 30 years old at the time, so she died prematurely. Watson also emphasizes the Holmes never loved Adler. Holmes knew love mostly as a motive for crimes. But he did respect and admire her and refer to her as "the woman."
I suspect that Doyle first tried to end the series at the end of the last novel by marrying Watson off and having him move out. It must be emphasized how much of an improvement this is in Watson's life. When Watson first met Holmes, his health was in ruins and he was living on a military invalid pension, not knowing anyone in London, too ill to go out and with no one to visit him. Watson had nothing to do but observe his roommate and learn about him. With his marriage, Watson acquires not only a wife, but his own household. Presumably he begins building a social circle. He also returns to the practice of medicine. In short, he has his life back. But he can still drop in on Holmes.
Holmes' latest client calls himself a Bohemian nobleman, but Holmes recognizes him as the king. (We are not told how, but he is six feet six inches tall, which must be distinguishing). In this case, there is no murder and no mystery. There is, I suppose, a crime, or several. The circumstances are plain. The king had an affair with an opera singer (now retired) named Irene Adler and was so indiscrete as to allow himself to be photographed with her. He is now to marry a Scandinavian princess. Irene Adler is threatening to reveal the photograph when the engagement is announced. Paying blackmail is hopeless -- she doesn't want money; she wants to ruin him. So blackmail is a crime, except that this is not exactly blackmail. At least some of the king's attempts to get the photograph back also sound like crimes. He has had people break into her house twice, diverted her luggage once, and waylaid her twice. Hm. The photograph is portrait sized and framed, so it is not something Irene Adler would hide on her person.
So, there is no mystery as to what happened. The only mystery is how Holmes will find the photograph.
He disguises as a stable groom and mingles among the other stable grooms in the neighborhood to pick up the latest gossip about Irene Adler. He also follows her when she goes to the Church of St. Monica and learns that she has gone there to marry her lawyer, Godfrey Norton! The matter is so hasty and so secretive that the clergyman insisted on having a witness, and Holmes was the first person at hand to serve! The marriage is secret, and the parties go their separate ways. Holmes comments that the photograph is now a double-edged weapon. Irene Adler presumably no more wants her husband to see it than the king wants his prospective wife to see it. That the marriage takes place just as Holmes begins watching her seems like an extraordinary coincidence, but let that go. Holmes still wants to find the photograph.
To do so, he enlists Watson in a obviously staged seen outside Irene's house. A few street louts get into a fight just has Miss Adler steps out of her carriage. Holmes, now dressed as a clergyman, rushes to her defense and falls to the ground, fake blood streaming from his face. The brawlers run off, and some bystanders persuade Irene Adler to take Holmes into her sitting room. He gestures her to open the window. Watson waits outside with a smoke bomb to throw in.
I do not know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are but preventing her from injuring another.
Watson throws the smoke bomb and cries fire. A commotion ensues, in which Holmes escapes. As they walk home, Holmes explains that when a woman thinks her house is on fire, she will reach for whatever she values most -- in this case, the photograph. It was behind a sliding panel by the bell-pull. Holmes did not take it because the coachman was watching him. As they arrive home, an unknown passer-by said good night, and Holmes thinks the voice sounds familiar.
Early the next morning they summon the king and let him know of the situation. The king is still clearly in love with Miss Adler. He responds with jealousy when he hears about her marriage and insists that she cannot love her new husband. Holmes points out that if she does, she will no longer have any reason to be jealous of the king's prospective marriage or to break it up. They head to her house at 8:00 a.m., assuming she will not be up yet and they will be able to take the photograph.* Upon arriving, however, they find that she has fled and taken the photograph with her. Instead, she leaves a letter, in which she explains that the mysterious passer-by was her, in male disguise. Recognizing how dangerous Holmes could be, she and her husband have fled with the photograph, which she will not reveal, but will keep as insurance if the king ever bothers he again. In place of the photograph of herself and the king, she leaves a photograph of only herself.
The king assures them that they have nothing to fear, her word is inviolate. Again, his admiration for her beauty, her intelligence, her resourcefulness, and her resolve make clear that the king is still in love with her. "Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?” Holmes responds that she does, indeed, appear to have been on a very different level. And he asks to keep the photograph and cherishes it in honor of the only woman to outwit him.
_____________________________________________
*What sort of hours did people keep in London at this time? In the upcoming story The Speckled Band, Watson is awakened at 7:15 and thinks it outrageously early.
No comments:
Post a Comment