A Scandal in Bohemia

My friend Sherlock Holmes always called her simply “the woman” — in his eyes, she outshone every other woman who had ever lived.One evening a tall, masked visitor arrived at Holmes’s rooms in Baker Street, calling himself Count von Kramm.But Holmes, who noticed everything, told him at once, “You are not merely a Count. You are the King of Bohemia.”

The King admitted it was true, and explained his trouble: years ago he had loved an opera singer named Irene Adler, and they had been photographed together.Now he was engaged to a Scandinavian princess, and if that photograph ever reached her family, his marriage — and his throne — would be ruined.He had tried to buy the photograph back and even to steal it, but Irene Adler had always been cleverer than the men he sent.

The next day, Holmes disguised himself as a poor, injured clergyman and walked past Irene Adler’s house until a fight broke out in the street outside her door.Pretending to help the injured stranger, kind Irene Adler brought Holmes inside her own sitting room, exactly as he had planned.From there, Holmes had Watson throw a small smoke rocket through the window and shout “Fire!” — for a person’s first instinct in danger is to save whatever they treasure most.

Just as Holmes expected, Irene Adler rushed straight to a hidden panel behind a sliding bell-pull, and Holmes saw exactly where the photograph was hidden.The next morning, Holmes and the King went to Irene Adler’s house to take the photograph from its hiding place, certain that she still suspected nothing.But the house was empty — Irene Adler had married a young lawyer that very morning and left England forever.

Behind the sliding panel, Holmes found only a letter and a single photograph of Irene Adler alone, in an evening dress.In the letter, she confessed that she had recognized the famous detective the moment she saw him, and had guessed the whole trick even as it worked on her.She promised never to use the photograph against the King unless he threatened her again, and kept it only, she wrote, to protect herself.

The King was overjoyed that his secret was safe, and offered Holmes a magnificent ring as a reward.But Holmes asked only to keep Irene Adler’s photograph of herself — the one trophy, he said later, of having been outwitted by a woman’s wit.And so, whenever Sherlock Holmes spoke of her afterward, he never used her name. He called her, always, simply “the woman.”