In “A Case of Identity,” Sherlock Holmes receives a visit from client Mary Sutherland, who is looking for her missing fiancé, Hosmer Angel. Sherlock Holmes has some fairly immediate (and as it turns out, accurate) suspicions about the missing Hosmer once he discovers that Mary’s mother and her mother’s much younger husband enjoy an income bequeathed to Miss Sutherland that they will no longer receive upon her marriage.

Years ago when I first read all the stories, I remembered there were a few that were pretty easy for the reader to solve right away. Also, it’s true the more you read the stories, the more you notice the clues and the more easily you solve the mysteries alongside Sherlock Holmes. In this case, it’s fairly obvious from the start who Hosmer Angel is, and there isn’t a whole lot to the story, but it is fun to see Sherlock Holmes admit there isn’t anything that can legally be done to the stepfather but that he can knock him over the head with a fireplace poker.

The BBC series Sherlock adapted a quick version of the story for its episode “The Empty Hearse.” Sherlock has asked Molly Hooper to fill in as his “John Watson” while Watson is stewing with anger over discovering Sherlock faked his death. A woman and her stepfather are consulting with Sherlock about the woman’s missing online pen pal (or boyfriend, if you like). Sherlock deduces that the online boyfriend was really the woman’s stepfather posing as the woman’s love interest in order to string her along so he could benefit from her wages. Sherlock whispers to Molly that the stepfather is a “complete and utter” and then the scene cuts to Watson saying “piss pot” as he offers one to a patient. This is similar to Sherlock Holmes’s reaction upon confronting the stepfather in the print story. The main focus of the episode, however, has nothing really to do with this story. It’s more of a quick allusion or call-out for Sherlock Holmes fans to catch. I will say this: it’s clear to me that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, the show’s creators, are true Sherlock Holmes fans who have worked very hard to bring the detective stories into the modern day.

I read this story as part of the Chronological Sherlock Holmes Challenge. It is seventeenth story in the chronology (time setting rather than composition). Next up is “The Greek Interpreter.”

I’ve been looking forward to the moment when the Chronological Sherlock Holmes Challenge would reach “A Scandal in Bohemia.” It’s one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories for a variety of reasons, and Irene Adler is at the top of the list.

Sherlock Holmes is visited by the King of Bohemia, who is about to marry and fears a scandal and the end of his hopes of marriage if a photograph featuring himself with his former mistress actress Irene Adler were made public. Holmes agrees to take on the case. He gains entry into Adler’s house at Briony Lodge under disguise as a clergyman. Using the ruse of a false fire alarm, he discovers where Adler has hidden the infamous photograph. Because he can’t take the photo at the moment, he resolves to return the next day. However, Adler outwits Holmes and escapes with the photograph. In her letter to Holmes informing him of her departure, she sends a photograph of herself for the king. Sherlock Holmes takes the photograph as a reward for his services.

This story has some great lines, starting with the opening line:

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.

After one of Holmes’s deductions, Watson quips:

You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago.

Holmes also explains his powers of deduction to Watson:

You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.

He also refers to Watson as his “Boswell,” and there is an indication in the story that the two had not been seeing each other much as of late. Again, the chronology of this one confuses me (its placement at this point in the chronological list of stories, that is). I should probably give up the idea that the chronology is going to work.

This story was made into one of the best episodes of the BBC Sherlock series: “A Scandal in Belgravia.” In the series’ version of the story, Irene Adler is a dominatrix who has incriminating photos of herself with a member of the royal family. Holmes’s brother Mycroft enlists Sherlock to help with the case. The story follows the basic plot of “A Scandal in Bohemia” while modernizing it for a 21st century audience. The connection between Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler is deepened. A connection with Moriarty is also established in this episode. Lara Pulver is brilliant as Irene Adler. Watson jokes with Holmes, who protests when Watson writes about one of his failures, that people like to see that he’s human. A little hint about what is to come in the episode. I also noted the spray-painted “yellow face” on the wall. Sherlock wears the distinctive “deerstalker” cap to hide from paparazzi (it doesn’t work, and the cap becomes a running joke for the rest of the series so far). Watson’s blog posts make reference to several other stories as well, including “The Geek Interpreter” (“The Greek Interpreter”), “The Navel Treatment” (“The Naval Treaty”), “The Speckled Blonde” (“The Speckled Band”), “The Illustrious Client,” and “The Priory School.”

All in all, an excellent short story and adaptation, and one of my favorites so far.

I read this story as part of the Chronological Sherlock Holmes Challenge. It is sixteenth story in the chronology (time setting rather than composition). Next up is “A Case of Identity.”

After reading last week’s story “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor,” I am all caught up on the Chronological Sherlock Holmes Challenge.

Sherlock Holmes receives a fancy-looking note from Lord Robert St. Simon, the son of the Duke of Balmoral. The nobleman’s curious marriage had recently been the subject of the gossip columns. The bride would be bringing a great deal of American money into the old (but cash-strapped) family. However, she appears to have disappeared without a trace right after the wedding, in the middle of the wedding breakfast. A dancer, likely a former dalliance of Lord St. Simon’s, is Lestrade’s main suspect. He believes the other woman led the bride out under false pretenses and has perhaps murdered her rival. Sherlock Holmes is positive the story is quite different, and he claims to have solved it as soon as his interview with Lord St. Simon has ended.

This story is one of the ones I have a quibble with because the deductions feel like cheats. The reader doesn’t have enough clues to reach the same conclusions as Holmes has, so his deductions appear to be based on other information not shared in the story. I don’t like it when Conan Doyle does this. Yes, it’s all very impressive how smart Holmes is, but Conan Doyle’s writing is at its best when he carefully lays clues that the reader might also string together. I’m complaining chiefly here about Holmes’s deduction on seeing the card with the note and initials and the hotel receipt that Lestrade shows Holmes. The reader is right with Holmes when he makes deductions about the identity of the man in the pew at the wedding and the comment the bride makes about “jumping a claim.” But how we could be expected to know the significance of the bill and the initials, I’m not sure. The character of Lord St. Simon is so odious, I’m glad he doesn’t get his way. He obviously married Hatty Doran only for her money, and their marriage wasn’t likely to be happy. I would have lain odds he’d have been back in the arms of his dancer before long. Hatty wouldn’t have been happy. The story does have some witty moments—the kinds of exchanges between Holmes and Watson, and also between Holmes and Lestrade, that make the BBC Sherlock series so much fun. Until going back to the stories for this challenge, I hadn’t remembered how much of the humor in that series is right here in the source material. Some choice excerpts:

“Here is a fashionable epistle,” I remarked as I entered. “Your morning letters, if I remember right, were from a fish-monger and a tide-waiter.”

“Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety,” he answered, smiling, “and the humbler are usually the more interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.”

And this:

“I read nothing [in the newspapers] except the criminal news and the agony column. The latter is is always instructive.” (Sherlock Holmes)

I do not believe I recall any references to this story in the BBC series Sherlock, but in looking it up, I did learn about a couple of “mistakes” in the story. Lord St. Simon’s wife is referred to as “Lady St. Simon” in the story, which is apparently not correct. As the wife of the second son of the Duke (and therefore not his heir), the proper title should be “Lady Robert.” Likewise. “Lord St. Simon” should be “Lord Robert.” While one wouldn’t necessarily expect an American reader like me to get these nuances, it seems surprising that Conan Doyle would make such an error. Also, the description of Watson’s wound doesn’t match its description in A Study in Scarlet, where it was described as a wound in his shoulder: “I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the sublavian artery.” In this story, Watson says, “I had remained indoors all day, for the weather had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and the jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign, throbbed with dull persistency.”

I liked the characterization in this one, but not as much the story, and once again, Conan Doyle reveals a middling understanding of Americans at best. The dialogue he gives poor Hatty is dreadful. Not one of his best, but not terrible either.

I read this story as part of the Chronological Sherlock Holmes Challenge. It is fourteenth story in the chronology (time setting rather than composition). Next up is The Valley of Fear, the second novel in the challenge.