After setting up a plan with Watson, his trusty side-kick and the narrator of all the stories, they rush to Irene’s house. In disguise, Sherlock finds Irene just as she is marrying a successful lawyer and preparing to leave for America. He offers Sherlock a thousand pounds to get it. He needed it back, but all attempts to retrieve it had failed, including burglary, threats and bribes. She was in possession of some love letters and a photo of the two of them together. The problem is five years before, the king had had an affair with a beautiful opera singer, Irene Adler. The king is engaged to a young Scandinavian princess from a very conservative family. The story begins with a visit from the King of Bohemia in disguise. She is often portrayed as Sherlock’s love interest, though he did have a bit of a crush, it was more a respect for her wit. Readers today become just as enthralled with Sherlock Holmes as they did when the stories first came out, over a hundred years ago.Īlthough the character has been used in many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories, Irene Adler only shows up in this tale. But, she escaped and eloped.Īlthough the stories are not in chronological order, the tales hold up through time. They discover a father had locked his daughter up to keep her from marrying the man she loves. They discover someone had been locked in one of the rooms. A young woman is hired for a great paying job as governess, that seems odd. A lost love, mistaken identity, manipulating father, and elopement. This story involves pieces of the other stories. When his son stops the crime, he is thought to be guilty of stealing it, but he won’t implicated his cousin,who he loves.Īnd last, but not least, is “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”. A banker is keeping a bejeweled coronet at his house, but it is almost stolen by his niece. He discovers that her dead husband from America, was not dead and found her just in time. A thwarted robbery is the topic of the next story, “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet”. In “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” Sherlock must help Lestrade find a woman who disappeared as she was walking down the aisle. When he investigates, he discovers a counterfeiting ring.Ī run-away-bride makes up the next story. The story comes out that sounds fishy to Holmes. The man comes in to see the doctor because his thumb had been cut off at work. ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’ involves a patient of Dr. Holmes finds out it is true when a snake crawls into the girl’s room through the vent. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, Doyle’s professed favorite story, is about a newly engaged woman who thinks her step-father is trying to kill her. He discovers the thief was an attendant at the hotel where the goose was to be served. In “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” Holmes finds the stolen carbuncle in the throat of a Christmas goose. When confronted, he promises to stop, if Holmes won’t tell his wife. He discovered the pay was better as a beggar, and that is his profession. She has him arrested for murder, but Holmes discovers the beggar is actually her husband. She thought she saw him in an opium den, but all she found were rags left be a homeless man. A woman sees Sherlock because her husband has disappeared. He sends an envelope with five orange pips to the ship, and it sinks.Ī beggar is the basis for the next story, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”. Sherlock figures out the Ku Klux Klan is behind the murders, and came by ship. His father and grandfather had also received these and had died days afterward. He tells the man to follow the directions in the letter, but he dies before he can. In “The Five Orange Pips” Sherlock must help a man who receives an envelope with orange pips in it and the initials K.K.K. A young man is falsely accused of murder, and Lestrade asks Holmes for help. Scotland Yard’s Inspector Lestrade plays a prominent role in the next story, ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’. “The Red-Headed League” is about a bank robbery, and “A Case of Identity” is about a woman who is fooled by her step-father so he can keep control of her money. In the end, the King gives the portrait of Irene to Sherlock. She leaves behind a letter for Sherlock and a portrait of herself for the King. But, before he can, Irene leaves the country with her new husband and the photo. Sherlock goes undercover, and arranges to get the photo. There is a photograph of the two of them together that he asks Sherlock to get for him from Irene. The King of Bohemia has an affair with the beautiful Irene Adler. The first of the twelve stories is “A Scandal in Bohemia”.