And your address had been given me. Yet, with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to watch you, ran upstairs, got into my walking clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you departed.

Well, I followed you to your door and so made sure that I was really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr Sherlock Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good night, and started for the Temple to see my husband.

We both thought the best resource was flight when pursued by so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you call tomorrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I kept it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to possess; and I remain, dear Mr Sherlock Holmes, very truly yours, IRENE NORTON, née ADLER

‘What a woman—oh, what a woman!’ cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle. ‘Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity she was not on my level?’

‘From what I have seen of the lady, she seems, indeed, to be on a very different level to Your Majesty,’ said Holmes, coldly. ‘I am sorry that I have not been able to bring Your Majesty’s business to a more successful conclusion.’

‘On the contrary, my dear sir,’ cried the King. ‘Nothing could be more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire.’

‘I am glad to hear Your Majesty say so.’

‘I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward you. This ring—’ He slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.

‘Your Majesty has something which I should value even more highly,’ said Holmes.

‘You have but to name it.’

‘This photograph!’

The King stared at him in amazement.

‘Irene’s photograph!’ he cried. ‘Certainly, if you wish it.’

‘I thank Your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good morning.’ He bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the King stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his chambers.

And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman.

A Case of Identity

‘My dear fellow,’ said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, ‘life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.’

‘And yet I am not convinced of it,’ I answered. ‘The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.’

‘A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect,’ remarked Holmes. ‘This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid perhaps upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter.