what does holmes want watson to do at briony lodge

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes A Scandal in Bohemia

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A Scandal in Bohemia

Part 1

• Our narrator (Dr. John Watson) describes Holmes: (1) He'south a coldly rational guy. (2) Because of this, he'due south not super popular with the ladies. (3) He really, really admires this one woman, Irene Adler.
• Since Watson got married (to Mary Morstan, in Conan Doyle'southward 2nd Holmes novel, The Sign of Four), he hasn't been seeing as much of Holmes.
• Watson'south happy at home, and Holmes is nevertheless living information technology upwards equally a available in their old flat in Baker Street—as both a detective and an aficionado.
• Watson refers to several fictional cases that he's vaguely heard about in connection with Holmes: "the Trepoff Murder, [...] the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and [...] the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland" (Bohemia.one.2). The Trepoff murder brings Holmes to Odessa, Ukraine. (P.Southward. Trincomalee is a urban center in Sri Lanka.)
• This brings the states to March twenty, 1888, when Watson is walking domicile after seeing a patient.
• Watson's stroll takes him by his old apartment in Baker Street, where he sees Holmes pass twice in front of the window. Watson can tell from Holmes's energy that he'due south excited about a case—and off the drugs (for now).
• He rings the bell and is let in to Holmes'southward flat. Holmes doesn't seem all that psyched to see Watson, but Watson thinks he's glad anyway.
• Holmes comments that Watson's looking good; he's put on weight.
• Watson gets kind of defensive, but Holmes isn't kidding: "'I think, Watson, that you have put on vii and a half pounds since I saw you'" (Bohemia.1.5).
• He also comments that Watson's working again as a doctor. (Holmes uses the words "'into harness'" [Bohemia.one.7], analogizing Watson's work with that of a cart or plough horse, i.e., a working fauna.)
• (Watson was an army doc in Afghanistan during the 2nd Afghan War from 1878-1880 earlier he came back to London and became roomies with the corking detective in the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet. Watson couldn't practice every bit a doc at the time considering of health bug from a leg wound from the state of war, but in this story, prepare several years after the get-go book, Watson appears to have gone back to treating people in individual do.)
• Watson asks how Holmes knows all these details; Holmes says he observes information technology from Watson'due south appearance, only as he sees that Watson's been getting soaked lately and that his servant daughter is impuissant.
• Watson is all, "What?! He did get wet on a country walk that Thursday; and his servant girl, Mary Jane, is so terrible that his wife has fired her. Simply how can Holmes have guessed?" (Aye, we're paraphrasing.)
• Holmes laughs and answers. He tells Watson his left shoe has six almost-parallel cuts caused by the hands of someone awkwardly trying to scrape mud from the sole—hence, the walk in wet atmospheric condition and the clumsy Mary Jane. Besides, he smells like iodoform (a disinfectant) and nitrate of silver (a treatment for center infections and gonorrhea), and his hat has a bulge from where Watson's carrying his stethoscope. In Holmes's mind, he would accept to be an idiot not to know that Watson's a practicing medico.
• After Holmes describes his artistic process, Watson expresses amazement: his eyes are as good as Holmes'southward, and Holmes's deductions seem obvious after they've been described; notwithstanding Watson tin can never seem to recreate Holmes'south method on his own. Ugh.
• Holmes says (and nosotros paraphrase) "Well, how many times have y'all gone up the stairs to this apartment?" "Hundreds of times," replies Watson. "How many stairs are there?" asks Holmes. "I dunno," says Watson.
• Holmes replies that this is proof of the difference between the ii men: Watson has seen the stairs, but Holmes has observed them. And there are seventeen steps, by the fashion.
• Holmes has received an undated, unsigned letter of the alphabet informing him that someone's going to come at 7:45—possibly with a mask on.
• The two guys brainstorm about who the author of the annotation could be. He's got to be (a) rich and (b) German language (the newspaper itself is from Bohemia, which used to be part of the Austrian empire and is now the greater part of the Czech Republic).
• The obvious wealth of the visitor's carriage, or "brougham," as he pulls up to 221 Baker Street proves Watson's point that he'southward probably got a lot of cash: his pair of horses are worth a absurd 150 guineas each. (A guinea was worth 1.05 pounds. That'd make the amount 157.50 British pounds, or the equivalent of around 12,538 pounds today—or, in American terms, $xx,141 dollars each. So it makes sense that Holmes is all excited virtually how much money is probably going to come out of this case.)
• In comes the company. He'south 6'6", dressed richly (virtually besides rich to be tasteful, comments Watson reprovingly), and "appears to be a man of strong character" (Bohemia.1.42). In other words, he looks stubborn and tough.
• The guy announces himself in a thick German accent. He says his name is Count von Kramm and that he has a story to tell them—ane that absolutely must stay a underground.
• He also asks that Holmes and Watson excuse his mask. The Count'due south being employed by an important person who doesn't want the smashing detective to trace his identity. In fact, the Count acknowledges, his own proper name (von Kramm) is fabricated up.
• Masks, even so, are no lucifer for Sherlock Holmes! Holmes tells the Count that he knows that the Count is in fact Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, 1000 Duke of Cassel-Felstein and hereditary king of Bohemia.
• The "Count," now king, throws off his mask. He says that he shouldn't have bothered trying to hibernate, but he's in an extremely delicate position that he has to deal with himself... and he'due south not used to such dealings.
• The rex's problem is this: 5 years before, during a visit to Warsaw (now capital of Poland, then nether Russian control), he met a pretty lady and "charlatan" named Irene Adler.
• (As a side note, Holmes inserts some info on her, taken from his own records on notable persons: Adler was born in New Bailiwick of jersey in 1858, sings contralto, has retired from the opera, and now lives in London.)
• The king is freaked out considering he needs to recover some sexy-times messages he wrote to her before it gets out that the 2 had a fling. Just that's not the worst slice of prove confronting him: he too allowed himself to be photographed with her, thus proving their affair.
• The king's tried hiring people to burgle her house, accept her luggage during her travels, and hold her up directly, just he nonetheless hasn't been able to get the photograph back.
• He needs it considering he's engaged to the girl of the king of Scandinavia, who'southward strict about conduct and wouldn't be pleased to hear virtually the king'southward earlier indiscretions.
• Adler herself has threatened to ship the photo because she doesn't want the king to marry another woman. She has warned him that she will give the picture to his matrimonial on the mean solar day when their engagement becomes public—a.k.a. three days from now.
• And now, for music to Holmes's ears: the king tells Holmes that coin is no object, and he hands over three hundred pounds in gilded and seven hundred in bills. ($128,149 in today's cash. Nice.)
• The king provides Adler'south address in London and confirms that the photograph was "a chiffonier," a type popular for portraits in the 1870s and 80s, of around postcard size.
• The king departs in his wagon, and Watson takes off to return at three:00PM the following mean solar day.

Role 2

• Watson turns up right on time at Baker Street the next 24-hour interval, but Holmes is out. According to his landlady, Holmes left the business firm just later on eight that morning.
• As Watson settles in to await, he mentions that he hadn't fifty-fifty considered the possibility that Holmes would fail; he's but waiting for the pleasure of seeing how Holmes volition close the instance.
• Just before four, the door opens: a "drunkenlooking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable wearing apparel" walks through the door.
• Even though Watson knows how good Holmes is at disguising himself, he withal has to look three times to be sure it's his friend.
• Holmes (yet in costume) collapses into a chair and laughs.
• He's just been visiting Briony Order, where Irene Adler lives in a "bijou" (French for "precious stone") villa that's well-furnished.
• Holmes has found a nifty source of information on her life: the guys who work at the "mews," or row of stables, in the lane behind her house. A bunch of them are cabbies (these would've been equus caballus-fatigued cabs since nosotros're dorsum in olden times), and so they've had the take chances to bring her simply regular male person company, Mr. Godfrey Norton, to and from the house.
• After finding all this out and wondering who this "male visitor" could be (lawyer? buddy? lover?), Holmes sees a well-dressed, handsome guy (clearly Norton) turn upwardly in a hansom (read: two-wheel horse-drawn) cab.
• Norton rushes into the house, stays for half an hour, comes out once more, and demands that his cabdriver take him to the Church building of St. Monica in Edgeware Road. (By the way: Edgeware Road and the whole Marylebone district in London are known for existence two things: a identify with awesome, various nighttime life, and the home of the real life 221 Baker Street, fabricated famous by these very stories. Encounter how life imitates fine art imitating life?)
• So then a beautiful lady comes running out of Briony Lodge to run across her coachman (in a "landau," a kind of railroad vehicle); she tells the driver to go to the Church of St. Monica and footstep on it.
• Our detective follows adapt, arriving at the church building in time to see Godfrey Norton, the lovely lady, and a clergyman. Holmes quickly starts pretending to exist just some guy hanging effectually the church building.
• Suddenly, these three whirl around to look at Holmes (not recognizing, of form, that he'due south the great detective considering he'south notwithstanding in disguise).
• Norton grabs him and asks that Holmes exist his all-time man—without a witness, his spousal relationship to the lovely lady (Irene Adler) won't be legal considering there's some effect with their wedlock license.
• So that's why Holmes has been laughing so hard since coming home. In the middle of his investigation of Irene Adler, he gets to be an official witness to her marriage. What'south more, she gives him a sovereign (a gold coin worth one British pound dorsum in Victorian times) for his trouble, a coin that Holmes plans to wearable on his watch chain as a gift.
• After this unexpected elopement, Norton heads off somewhere, and Adler goes domicile. They plan to meet at a park at five:00PM "'every bit usual'" (Bohemia.2.24).
• Holmes asks Watson to accompany him to Briony Lodge in ii hours, at 7:00PM, so that he can carry out some unknown plan.
• Watson agrees that he will throw a "plumber's smoke-rocket" (a self-lighting smoke flop) through an open up window and yell "Fire!" when Holmes signals to him from inside Adler's firm. (Don't endeavor this at habitation!)
• Watson and Holmes arrive about ten minutes earlier seven at Briony Social club. Watson's a bit surprised to see a bunch of people hanging around, including some guys smoking cigars and a couple of dudes flirting with a nurse—a generic crowd, in other words.
• Holmes bides his time until Adler turns up by pondering where the photograph might exist. It'southward too large for Adler to slip into her dress. Holmes says that women are naturally then secretive that it'due south unlikely for her to give the picture show to a banker or lawyer for safekeeping. He decides that it has to be in Adler's firm and that the previous burglars simply didn't know how to wait for it properly.
• Holmes says, mysteriously, that Adler herself will show Holmes where information technology is. Watson has no inkling what his friend is talking about.
• They have to close upwards considering Adler'southward carriage has arrived.
• Every bit Adler attempts to step out of her carriage, a guy from the oversupply reaches upwardly to help her, in the hopes of getting a small tip. (Past the mode, a "copper" is a penny in late Victorian slang.)
• Another guy tries to jostle the outset fellow out of the way because he wants a tip for helping Adler out of her carriage.
• These two bums wind up getting into a fierce argument over the right to assistance Adler, an argument that turns physical.
• Before long everyone standing by falls into this riot, and Holmes (disguised this time as an elderly priest) rushes through the fight to help Adler escape the crowd.
• But suddenly Holmes falls to the footing with blood streaming downwardly his face! The crowd freaks out and scatters at the sight of blood.
• Several helpful neighbors (drawn past the scuffle?) comport Holmes (apparently unconscious) into Adler's house. Holmes then gestures to the maid to open up the window of the living room because he needs air—which also happens to exist the bespeak to Watson to practice his business concern.
• Watson watches all of this and wonders if it'southward right for him to throw his fume bomb into poor Adler's house. Only then he decides that (a) Holmes trusts him to do so, and Watson's said yes, so he can't back out now; and (b) Adler's the lying lady who'due south trying to destroy the poor rex'due south life, so too bad for her. (We take to say, we recollect this might be a lilliputian unfair on Watson'due south part. It's not like Adler forced the king to stand for this photograph, and he is king, after all. His loads of money must be some comfort to him during all of these difficulties).
• To cutting a long story brusk, Watson throws the smoke bomb into the living room and yells "'Burn down!,'" a call taken up past all the crowds of people who have been watching the struggle outside Briony Order and Holmes's subsequent "injury."
• Holmes slips out of Adler'south house during the general panic that ensues, and he and Watson abscond the scene.
• Holmes says he knows where the photo is; Watson is still confused.
• We find out that Holmes really hired all the guys who were hanging around in front of Briony Order and so that, when Adler arrived home at 7:00PM, they could create merely such a mayhem.
• Holmes staged his injury with wet red paint to the brow to provoke Adler to have him carried into her sitting room.
• The signal of the whole exercise was to encounter what Adler would accomplish for when under threat of burn down. Holmes's logic is that she would go for what was most precious to her in that moment of panic.
• And, indeed, Holmes's guess proves to be true: when the call of "Fire!" goes upward, he sees Adler reach for something backside a fake console in her wall, something that she returns to this corner hiding spot when Holmes tells her information technology'due south a false alarm.
• Adler sees that the "fire" is a smoke flop on the floor of her sitting room and runs out of the room.
• And that'south that, Holmes tells Watson: he knows where she'southward subconscious the photograph, and all that remains is to inform the king and arroyo Adler at eight the adjacent forenoon, earlier she's fix for the day, to retrieve the photograph from her.
• He and Watson get in at Baker Street. Holmes is reaching for his front door key when someone unknown passes by and says, "'Skillful night, Mister Sherlock Holmes'" (Bohemia.2.93). Holmes finds the voice familiar, but tin't think where he'south heard information technology.

Part three

• After the post-anarchism-sleepover at Baker Street, Holmes and Watson are having breakfast. Just and then, the Male monarch of Bohemia comes in.
• The king's super excited when Holmes tells him he'll have the photo soon. The iii set up off to Adler's firm in the king's wagon.
• Holmes informs the king that Adler has married Norton; and for all the trouble that she has acquired, the king is clearly kind of disappointed that she's off the romantic market. He broods about "'what a queen she would have made'" (Bohemia.3.xix) if just she had been of imperial claret.
• They go to Briony Social club, where they find an elderly adult female who greets Holmes by name, much to his surprise. The lady tells the threesome that Adler has left the land with her new husband. Adler plans never to return to England, merely she left a alphabetic character for Holmes earlier parting.
• Her alphabetic character tells Holmes that he has been very clever. Even though Adler had been warned that the king would probably hire Holmes to help him go the photo back, she didn't realize that the old clergyman she helped into her sitting room the night before was the detective—until the false burn down warning. That's when she knew that she had given up her secret of where the photograph was hidden.
• Adler's nothing if non a quick thinker: she was once an actress and is familiar with dressing in drag. After the smoke bomb, she rushed out of the sitting room to put on men's clothes equally a disguise, so that she and her coachman, John, could follow the escaping Holmes and Watson all the way back to Holmes'due south apartment on Bakery Street.
• Existence familiar with Holmes, Adler also knows his address, and so when she saw where Watson and Holmes went after fleeing her firm, she got confirmation that the elderly priest guy = Sherlock Holmes.
• So information technology was Adler in elevate who wished Holmes a proficient night at the finish of Part II of this story—that's the voice he knew he recognized.
• The photo they've been looking for? Adler keeps it equally security against "'whatsoever steps [the King] might take in the hereafter,'" but she promises she'll never make it public by option, equally she "'love[s] and [is] loved by a better human the [king]'" (Bohemia. 3. 30). Ouch to the male monarch.
• The king is relieved: he admittedly believes Adler'south give-and-take that she won't use the photograph as blackmail or anything. In fact, he's really turned on by her cleverness, and he regrets once more that she is non on his (social) level.
• Holmes is all, yeah, she'south not on your level! (Implying that Adler's way too skillful for someone as ungentlemanly as the Bohemian king.)
• The male monarch is so pleased with the results of this example that he pulls an emerald band off his own finger and offers information technology to Holmes.
• Holmes refuses information technology, asking instead for a photograph of Irene Adler that she left for the king along with the alphabetic character to Holmes.
• The king agrees, confused.
• Holmes bows and ignores the hand the male monarch reaches out for him to milkshake (clearly Holmes is non a huge fan of the king by now), equally he heads dorsum to Bakery Street with Watson.
• And that's how Holmes heads off a possible scandal in the German kingdom of Bohemia—while yet being outwitted past a lady. Which is why, Watson tells us, he ever refers to Irene Adler respectfully every bit "the woman" (Bohemia.iii.105).

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Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sherlock-holmes/summary/a-scandal-in-bohemia#:~:text=Holmes%20asks%20Watson%20to%20accompany,him%20from%20inside%20Adler's%20house.

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