The View From Alex. Kane

20 February 2011

On this fascinating principle, we delight to extort economic evidence from Aristophanes, because Aristophanes knew nothing of economics: we try to extract cryptograms from Shakespeare, because we are inwardly certain that Shakespeare never put them there: we sift and winnow the Gospel of St. Luke, in order to produce a Synoptic problem, because St. Luke, poor man, never knew the Synoptic problem to exist.

There is, however, a special fascination in applying this method to Sherlock Holmes, because it is, in a sense, Holmes’s own method.  ‘It has long been an axiom of mine,’ he says, ‘that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

(Monsignor Ronald A. Knox: 1911)

If SILV was the story which introduced me to Sherlock Holmes, then SCAN is the story which introduced me to ‘the game.’ For me it is the story. In my eyes it eclipses and predominates the whole of the Canon. For having read it over and over and over again, I have never been able to rid myself of the suspicion that it is an orchestrated charade from start to finish. This is an essay about the ‘little things’ in SCAN which speak of something bigger.

Those suspicions began with Holmes’ comment that the newly married Irene Adler ‘gave me a sovereign, and I mean to wear it on my watch-chain in memory of the occasion’ (169). It just struck me as a slightly peculiar phrase to employ; a phrase that could be open to another interpretation. Further on, in Adler’s letter to Holmes, she writes; ‘I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me’ (174).

I was also struck by his earlier comments; ‘There’s money in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else,’ (163) and ‘Then, as to money’ (166) and ‘for present expenses?’ (167). Holmes has rarely displayed such an interest in the fee for a case; so why such a blatant interest in this one? There is no reason to believe that his bank balance had become a study in scarlet at this point in his career.

Also, how and why did Holmes know so much about the King? When asked if he has heard of Irene Adler he responds, ‘Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor’ (165); yet a few minutes earlier he had been able to rattle off the King’s full title, even though he had merely described him to Watson as ‘this German’ (163). Isn’t it possible that Holmes wanted the King to think that he knew nothing of Adler? And equally possible that Holmes already knew everything about the King—a man pompous enough to assume that if Holmes knew his identity he would know the confetti of titles too.

So it seems to me that Holmes is very well aware that he is to be visited by the King and the only way he could have known that is if someone had told him. I am of the view that that person was Irene Adler and I am also of the view that she and Holmes laid and baited a trap for the King; and in memory of the success of that trap Holmes wears ‘the sovereign’ on his watch-chain.

Adler faced a very serious dilemma. She was a threat to the King and a potentially huge embarrassment to a number of European Royal families, some of whom would have had connections to Queen Victoria. The King, by his own admission, had made five attempts to get the photograph: ‘Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice she has been waylaid.’ (166).

She must have feared that, at some point, as the day ‘when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed’ (166) got closer and the King’s fear of being ruined by her reached fever pitch, he would simply order her death. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time that a ‘commoner’ was disposed of to suit Royal and political ends.

What she needed, therefore, was the King off her back; the King to believe that she was happy with another and no longer a threat; and a powerful ally to protect her interests in the long term.

That someone was Sherlock Holmes. Adler probably had mutual links in the theatrical demimonde. She had ‘been trained as an actress’ (174); was a similar age to Holmes and may well have been introduced to him when she came to live in London. Again, it may have been their joint contacts who provided the cast of characters outside Briony Lodge: ‘You, of course, saw that everyone in the street was an accomplice. They were all engaged for the evening’ (172). Holmes, who was clearly no lover of either Royalty or the aristocracy, would, I have no doubt, been happy to help her.

How did the King get to know about him and engage him (the plan wouldn’t have worked otherwise)? Again, a mixture of Holmes’ and Adler’s connections were probably able to ensure that he was tipped off that Holmes would work for him and for hard cash. It is clear from their first interview (165/166) that Holmes intended the King to believe that he had no scruples when it came to acting for him and recovering the photograph: but it is also clear that Holmes used the interview to get as much information as he could from the King about what he had been, and what he was prepared to do, to get the photograph.

The charade involving the marriage and the smoke bomb would have been arranged to convince the King. Holmes and Adler couldn’t be certain that the King didn’t have a spy keeping an eye on things. Happily, of course, all expenses would have been met by the £1000 the King had given Holmes (167)!

I don’t believe that Norton married Adler. Actually, I don’t even believe that a barrister called Norton existed in the first place. It seems likely to me that he was part of the charade, the joker in the pack, if you like. The marriage ceremony, too, was a charade. Can it be any coincidence that St Monica is the patron saint of wives and abuse victims? A nice little theatrical touch! Everyone went through the motions—again just in case the King’s spies were watching. The King just needed to be satisfied that Irene was married. It was unlikely that either he or any of his spies in the area would be aware of English marriage laws and potential irregularities.

And that night, when Adler passed him and bade him ‘goodnight’ (173), it was her signal to Holmes that all the plans were now in place. Indeed, it seems likely that the ‘goodnight’ was also a ‘goodbye’. She may not even have gone back to Briony Lodge again.

The following morning Holmes informs the King: ‘Irene Adler is married…If the lady loves her husband, she does not love your Majesty. If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason why she should interfere with your Majesty’s plans’ (174). This information formed part of the final details of the trap. The King enters the house already reasonably sure that Adler is no longer a danger.

‘The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood upon the steps…My mistress…left this morning with her husband…for the continent…never to return.’ (174) That woman was, I suspect, Mrs. Hudson, performing the same role then as she was to perform in the von Bork household 16 years later in LAST. If that is the case then it also explains Mrs. Turner’s (170) need to stand in for Mrs. Hudson. Her presence was all to do with piling on the evidence to convince the King—as well as keeping an eye on the house and street after Adler left.

But why wouldn’t Watson have recognised Mrs. Hudson? Well, perhaps she was in theatrical make-up: and, as we all know, Watson was never very good at recognising Holmes when he was made-up! Some might also wonder why Mrs. Hudson agreed to play a role in the case. But let’s not forget the role she played in EMPT (490 + 493) when she took considerable personal risks to ensure that Holmes’ bust appeared lifelike. But even if there is a strong argument against Mrs. Hudson being the ‘Martha’ in LAST, it certainly doesn’t undermine the possibility that she was the ‘elderly woman’ in Briony Lodge.

‘The furniture was scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before her flight’ (174). Once again all to do with persuading the King that Adler had left quickly and in fear.

The letter to Holmes was a masterstroke Final proof for the King as well as letting him know that Holmes knew everything. In other words, the King had no room for manoeuvre. And in asking for the photo rather than the ring Holmes was letting the King know that he valued Adler.

So Adler got her freedom. Holmes admired her for that. There wasn’t any love. He took a similar view of Mary Morstan: ‘(she) might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way..’ (SIGN 157)

Did Watson know? I think so, but only sometime later, when Holmes told him the full story. Let’s not forget that Watson ‘had seen little of Holmes lately’ (161) and Holmes had not been expecting him to arrive at 221B shortly before the King.  So when Watson referred to her as the ‘late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory’ (161), I have no doubt that the ‘late’ was used in the sense of former and that his original ‘memory’ of her had therefore been based on a fabrication.

A point comes to mind re the King’s comment, ‘I must begin..by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance’ (164). The King may have assumed that within two years he would have had an heir from the marriage and, consequently, any disclosure involving Adler would have had much less impact.

So why didn’t Watson tell the ‘real’ story? Almost certainly to continue to protect Irene Adler, who had, as far as the King knew, gone off to begin a new life with her ‘husband’. That said, since the King comes out of the story so badly I’m sure he regretted his decision to bind Holmes and Watson for a mere two years. Holmes’ final compliment to Irene was to allow Watson to publish the ultimate fiction, namely, that ‘the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit.’ (175)

Yet almost a quarter of a century later, in 1914, Holmes tells von Bork, ‘It was I who brought about the separation between Irene Adler and the late King of Bohemia..’(LAST 979). After all those years it was impossible for him not to take the credit when the chance finally came along. Or, as he would put it himself, ‘I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.’ (STUD 49)

And the same process of reasoning clearly applies to SCAN.

Notes. This is a revised version of an article which was originally published in The Log, Volume 1, Number 3, 2009. Page references in this article and all other articles in this series, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes.