A Scandal in Bohemia.
I.
My dear friend, Herlock Sholmes, believes himself to be quite accomplished in the field of romance. This belief is nothing but a gross fiction. The truth is that Sholmes' great incompetence prevents him from finding a female companion for any period of time longer than five minutes.
And yet there is one woman, one woman in particular who Sholmes greatly admires. Indeed, instead of calling her a woman, he always refers to her as the woman. I imagine that he would like nothing better than to marry her after a passionate romance, then spend the rest of their lives living happily in Bohemia.
This is, of course, impossible. She is already married, and the two of them have been permanently banned from the country of Bohemia. There is also the not insignificant fact that she hates Sholmes with a passion, but the heart wants what it wants, and despite these great difficulties, Herlock Sholmes wants to marry the woman.
Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start the story at the beginning.
I do not wish to brag, but I know a good deal about love and romance, having been married three times. Sholmes first met his woman shortly after my second marriage. I had seen little of Sholmes lately, and I picked that evening to pay him a visit. I feel it is my duty to look out for him every now and then, and to ensure that he has not found his way inside a jail or an asylum.
Sholmes was pacing his room at Baked Street, as I arrived. He waved me towards a chair, then looked me over with a critical eye. I sighed inwardly at this. Of course he was going to take the opportunity to make one of his famous "deductions".
"So, Wilson!" he said at last. "I see that you have gone back into the medical practice!"
He then beamed at me, as if he had made the discovery of a century, when the truth is that even a mere child could tell you a doctor is, indeed, a doctor. Playing along with him, I asked, "I have, but how did you know that?"
"Graduate school, my dear Wilson! The scent of iodoform, and the black mark of nitrate of silver upon your right forefinger confirms that you have resumed your work!"
"Yes, only a brilliant detective could have deduced that I am doing medical work," I said calmly. At this point I removed the stethoscope from around my neck and placed it inside the medicine bag I was holding in my left hand.
"I also deduce that you have gotten yourself very wet recently, and you have a clumsy servant girl."
"And what gives you that impression?"
"It is the leather, on the inside of your left shoe! It is scored by six parallel cuts! Obviously, they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey."
I looked down at my shoes. I appeared that Sholmes had mistaken some shadows for cuts, but I did not bother to tell him that my shoes were perfectly fine. I also failed to mention that my shoes were not made of leather, and that it was impossible for me to have stepped into mud recently, as it had not rained in London at all during the past two weeks.
"It appears that I am not the only person here who has resumed his work," said I. "I can tell from your distracted manner that you are busy working on a case."
"Quite right!" Herlock said. He reached into his pocket and threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted notepaper. "Here is the case! Read it!"
The note was undated, and without either signature or address.
"At a quarter to eight o'clock tonight, there will call upon you a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest importance. Your recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may be safely trusted with weighty matters such as the one that I have found myself in. Be in your chambers at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor wears a mask."
"It sounds important," I remarked. "A masked visitor?"
"It is most peculiar, Wilson. I do wish I knew what my visitor was talking about."
"Have you tried looking at the paper itself for clues?" I suggested.
"Alas! There is nothing to be found on the paper at all!"
"Not quite," I said, holding the paper up to the light. "Look. It clearly is stamped with the words 'Eg Papier Gt'."
"Aha!" Sholmes said. "That must be the name of the person who wrote the note!"
"Er...no," I said. "Gt must be short for Gesellschaft, which is German for 'company'. Meaning that this paper was made by the Eg Papier Company."
"I see it! I see it!" Sholmes said. "You mean to say whoever wrote this letter must be German, because he doesn't know how to spell the word 'paper' correctly!"
I groaned. Instead of informing Sholmes that "papier" is German for paper, I checked the clock. By good fortune, it was not long before the visitor was scheduled to arrive. I settled myself down and talked with Sholmes for a bit, until we heard the sound of horses' hooves and grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell.
A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap.
"Come in!" said Sholmes.
A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a richness which would be looked upon as akin to bad taste; heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame-colored silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl.
However, the visitor's mode of dress was not what immediately captured one's attention. Rather, I found myself focusing on the man's black vizard mask, which completely covered the upper part of his face and extended down past the cheekbones. From the lower part of the face, he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging mustache and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.
"You had my note?" he asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly marked German accent. "I told you that I would call." He looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.
"Pray take a seat," said Holmes. "This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Wilson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases. Whom have I the honor to address?"
"You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. If you do not mind, Mr. Sholmes, I should much prefer to communicate with you alone."
I rose to go, but Sholmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into my chair. "It is both, or none," said he. "You may say before this gentleman anything which you may say to me."
The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. "Then I must begin," said he, "by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years. This matter is of such weight that it may have an influence upon European history."
"I promise," said Sholmes.
"And I."
"The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal. To speak plainly, I have come representing the great House of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia."
I was duly impressed to learn that our visitor was the representative of royalty.
"The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, the King of Bohemia wrote a number of compromising letters to the well-known adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you."
"Bohemia..." Sholmes said. "That is impossible, my good man. We were under the impression that our visitor speaks German."
I was about to explain that German was spoken in Bohemia, when Sholmes jumped forward and attacked our visitor. "This means you are an impostor! You are most likely Miss Adler herself, disguised by a mask!"
Our visitor struggled, as Sholmes attempted to rip off his mustache. I was able to grab Sholmes and pull him backwards, but not before our visitor had fallen to the ground, his mask beside him.
To my great surprise, our visitor was not disturbed by these events. Rather, he stood up proudly. "You are right," he cried. "I am not Count Von Kramm! I am the King of Bohemia! Why should I attempt to conceal it?"
"I knew he was an impostor," Sholmes said smugly.
Sometimes, my friend's good luck manages to astonish me.
"I can see that your powers of deduction and observation are indeed excellent!" said the king, impressed. "And that is why I have come incognito from Prague, for the purpose of consulting you. You see, Irene Adler is here in London, and I am certain that she still has those letters. I need you to get them back."
"I see," Sholmes said, leaning forward with interest. "What sort of scandalous letters are these? Did the two of you have a secret marriage?"
"No, thank God!"
"So Miss Adler is single, then?" Sholmes said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "That is good to know."
"Yes, but how is that relevant?"
I forced a laugh. "My companion is merely joking, Your Highness!" I said. "But he has a point. If Miss Adler is going to use these letters for blackmail or some other nefarious purpose, how is she to prove their authenticity?"
"They have my handwriting."
"Pooh, pooh! Forgery."
"My private note-paper."
"Stolen."
"My own seal."
"Imitated."
"My photograph."
"Bought."
"We were both in the photograph."
Sholmes' hair was wild, as held out his hands in front of him. "Aliens," said he. "Aliens made the photograph."
The Bohemian King looked at Sholmes as if he had lost his mind. I attempted to bring the discussion back into the realm of normality. "If I may ask, what does she intend to do with these letters?"
"You may have heard that I am about to be married to Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia. Miss Adler has threatened to send the photograph to my fiancée's family, utterly ruining me."
"You are sure that she has not sent it yet?"
"I am sure."
"And why?"
"Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday."
"Then we have three days to recover that photograph," Sholmes said. "That is more than enough time for us! Come back here in two days, King, and we'll have it for you."
"Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Sholmes!" the King of Bohemia said. "I leave these matters in your capable hands."
"One last thing before you leave," I said. "Was the photograph a cabinet?"
"It was."
"Ah, then it will be easy to find!" said Sholmes. "Photographs are small, but cabinets are much larger!"
"No, Sholmes, a cabinet photograph is a type of photograph," I said. "It refers to the border around the...never mind."
Once the King of Bohemia had left, Herlock Sholmes immediately went into one of his great thinking fits. Perhaps you have heard of these in the stories about him; they say he sits in his armchair for five minutes, while he thinks about a mystery from all possible angles. Having lived with Sholmes for several years, I can confidently affirm that he does not spend the entire time contemplating mysteries. The only thing which could fully occupy his mind for so long is the question of what he will have for breakfast the next morning.
"Wilson, I have a plan to get the photograph," said he at last. "Meet me back here tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock, with a bulldog, a wedding dress, and a pound of sauerkraut."
"Or I could arrive here tomorrow in the morning, and we could go to Miss Adler's house together," I suggested.
"Hmmm...perhaps you're right. The wedding dress wouldn't have looked that good on you, anyway."