How Holmes Solves A Scandal in Bohemia—and How Irene Adler Outwits Him

Sherlock Holmes has a problem that cannot be solved simply by spotting a clue. He needs to find a photograph that its owner has kept hidden through five attempts to seize it. And even when he discovers exactly where it is, he will not get it back.

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the client is the King of Bohemia. He once had a relationship with Irene Adler and is now preparing to marry someone else. Irene possesses a photograph showing them together. Letters could be called forgeries; the King fears the photograph could jeopardize his engagement. According to him, Irene has threatened to send it when the betrothal is announced. His agents have already searched her house, diverted her luggage, and waylaid her—all without finding it. Holmes needs another approach.

He begins by gathering information rather than ordering another search. Disguised as an out-of-work groom, Holmes examines Irene’s house and talks to people at the nearby stables. He learns her routine and hears about a frequent visitor, the lawyer Godfrey Norton. That raises a question: might Irene have entrusted the photograph to him?

Before Holmes can settle it, Norton and Irene rush separately to a church. Holmes follows—and, to his surprise, is pressed into serving as witness to their wedding. The marriage changes his reading of the case. Irene now has a husband and a life beyond the King. But it also makes speed essential: she might leave.

Holmes reasons that the photograph is too large to carry conveniently, and that Irene will want it accessible while the King’s betrothal approaches. Despite the earlier searches, he suspects it remains in her house. He tells Watson he will not look for it. He will get Irene to show him.

That evening, Holmes returns dressed as a clergyman. He has arranged for people outside Irene’s home to stage a quarrel as her carriage arrives. When he appears to intervene, he falls with what looks like blood on his face. It is red paint. Irene kindly has the apparently injured man brought into her sitting room.

Holmes signals that he needs air, and a maid opens the window. At his cue, Watson throws in a smoke rocket and shouts, “Fire!” The cry spreads through the crowd outside. In the sudden alarm, Holmes watches Irene move to protect what matters to her: the photograph. He glimpses it as she draws it from a recess behind a sliding panel above the sitting-room bell-pull.

The trick works. Holmes knows the hiding place. But knowing is not possessing. With Irene’s coachman watching him, he decides against grabbing the photograph immediately. He plans to return with the King the next morning.

Irene works out what happened first. After the false alarm, she realizes she has revealed the hiding place. She changes into men’s clothes, follows Holmes, and even calls good night to him outside Baker Street. By morning, she and Norton have left England. Behind the sliding panel, Holmes finds a different photograph—a portrait of Irene—and a letter addressed to him.

In that letter, Irene says she will keep the photograph of herself with the King only as protection against any future action he might take. She says she will not interfere with his marriage. The King accepts her word and considers the danger over. Holmes, however, has not recovered the image he was hired to retrieve.

So how does Holmes solve the case? Through disguise, observation, and a staged emergency, he discovers the photograph’s hiding place. But he underestimates the person guarding it. Irene recognizes his method, protects herself, and determines the ending. Holmes asks for her portrait as his reward; Watson closes the story by saying Holmes thereafter calls her “the woman.”