What happens in Bohemia stays in Bohemia

[Brontodon]

In "A Scandal in Bohemia," the King is concerned that his earlier dalliances with Irene Adler remain secret.  Why, then, is it OK for Watson to publish all the details, including names and addresses, and "lay them before the public," as he likes to say?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Welcome to Sherlock Forum, Brontodon!  

That's a darn' good question!  My first inclination was to guess that there was no actual "King of Bohemia" when Watson published his account in June of 1891 -- but according to internet sources, Franz Joseph I (the next-to-last such king, born in 1830) ruled from 1848 to 1916.  He was also the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, though, so perhaps Watson didn't realize that he was the King of Bohemia.

In any case, the King in the story doesn't seem to be Franz Joseph -- Holmes identifies him as "Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia" and he describes himself as only 30 years old, whereas Franz Joseph was in his 50s.  So I'd guess that Watson intentionally misdirected his readers in order to hide the man's true identity.  He was presumably some fairly high-ranking member of European royalty..

Watson likewise waited to tell this tale until Irene Adler had died (note that he refers to her as "the late").  So he was apparently following his usual rule of not embarrassing anyone involved in the cases.

 

[Brontodon]

21 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

So I'd guess that Watson intentionally misdirected his readers in order to hide the man's true identity.

But I'm thinking that in-universe, von Ormstein WAS the King of Bohemia, and in-universe, Watson ratted him out!

[Carol the Dabbler]

That's possible, of course.  Why do you think he did it?

 

[Caya]

Watson mentioned, at times, that he didn't react well to pressure and that continuing to pester him would lead to the opposite effect, namely him publishing details. Maybe the king didn't get the hint.

[Carol the Dabbler]

8 hours ago, Caya said:

Watson mentioned, at times, that he didn't react well to pressure and that continuing to pester him would lead to the opposite effect, namely him publishing details.

In this story?  Or elsewhere?  I don't offhand remember that sort of thing, but then it's been a while since I read any of the stories.  Do you happen to recall any specific examples?

 

[Caya]

Elsewhere; I'll find some examples once I find the time. I remember for instance, at the beginning of one of the short stories, that he mentioned, as a warning to all interested parties, that if the meddling didn't stop the story with [a couple of specific items] would go to the presses.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Wow, tough Watson!  I can see why he might do (or at least say) that, though.  No rush, but will look forward to an example.

But in this case, I think he's being very careful to be circumspect.

 

[Brontodon]

On 8/31/2024 at 10:17 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

That's possible, of course.  Why do you think he did it?

 

Since this is the first Holmes short story, and only the third Holmes work, that Arthur Conan Doyle had not really worked out many of the conventions that would later characterize the series, and he was just telling the audience a story without realizing its in-universe implications.

[Carol the Dabbler]

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On 9/3/2024 at 11:27 AM, Brontodon said:

Since this is the first Holmes short story, and only the third Holmes work, that Arthur Conan Doyle had not really worked out many of the conventions that would later characterize the series, and he was just telling the audience a story without realizing its in-universe implications.

Hmm, hadn't thought of that -- you may well be right.  And Watson was never portrayed as perfect anyhow, so ACD's oversight was also quite understandable in-universe.  If we assume that the "hereditary king" was not Franz Joseph, but rather someone else with a claim to the throne, then the story is believable just as told.

But on further thought, it occurs to me that Watson tended to obscure the identities only of people he considered innocent or justified in their behavior (e.g., the anonymous woman who shot Milverton, but not Milverton himself).  Even though he clearly didn't approve of Miss Adler (referring to her as "the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory"), he nevertheless waited to tell the tale until she was "the late," presumably out of respect for Holmes's admiration for her.  Neither he nor Holmes had much respect for the King, however!  So perhaps he felt justified in spilling the royal beans.  It probably didn't do the King any great harm in any case, since his marriage with the Scandinavian princess was presumably well established by then, and the incriminating photograph was nowhere to be found, so he could easily claim that Watson's story was mere fabrication.

As a real-world explanation, you may be quite correct.  But for an in-universe explanation, I like this one even better.

 

[Caya]

As promised, from the beginning of The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger:

Quote

When one considers that Mr. Sherlock Holmes was in active practice for twenty-three years, and that during seventeen of these I was allowed to cooperate with him and to keep notes of his doings, it will be clear that I have a mass of material at my command. The problem has always been not to find but to choose. There is the long row of year-books which fill a shelf, and there are the dispatch-cases filled with documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime but of the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era. Concerning these latter, I may say that the writers of agonized letters, who beg that the honour of their families or the reputation of famous forebears may not be touched, have nothing to fear. The discretion and high sense of professional honour which have always distinguished my friend are still at work in the choice of these memoirs, and no confidence will be abused. I deprecate, however, in the strongest way the attempts which have been made lately to get at and to destroy these papers. The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr. Holmes’s authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public. There is at least one reader who will understand.

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 9/4/2024 at 6:25 PM, Caya said:

The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr. Holmes’s authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public. There is at least one reader who will understand.

I would love to read Watson's account of that case!!!  

I don't offhand recall "The Veiled Lodger."  It's said to be in The Casebooks collection, which I don't see on my Holmes shelf.  Apparently that volume of the BBC Books series was never published.  The seven that I do have (Study, Sign, Hound, Adventures, Memoirs, Return, and Last Bow) are very good quality 5" x 8" (12.6 x 19.7 cm) trade paperbacks, sturdy and easy on the eyes.  Apparently they didn't publish The Valley of Fear either, which explains why I have that from a different publisher (and not as nice a quality).

 

[HerlockSholmes]

Hi Carol, Caya and Brontodon.

I hope that everyone is well here on the Sherlock Forum? It’s been a while since I’ve posted. 

As far as why Watson felt free to spill the beans I think that it’s worth remembering that Doyle wasn’t thinking about the concept of a ‘Holmes universe’ which is shown by the fact that so much time has been spent over the years discussing and disputing the order of the stories. Doyle was never really a master of detail. He was simply interested in telling a good and exciting story which is in contrast to his historical novels like The White Company, Sir Nigel and Micah Clarke where he did lots of quite extensive research. We all know that Doyle came to see his Holmes stories as trivialities when compared to his other work so he spent less time on them and books have been written about the errors in the Holmes stories. Doyle would have considered that the reader was reading this story many years after the actual events occurred and so it should be considered that Holmes had told Watson that the story should only be published after a certain length of time. 

On The Politician, The Lighthouse and the Trained Cormorant, here’s your opportunity to read it Carol.🙂

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Politician-Lighthouse-Trained-Cormorant-Adventure/dp/1090602456

You can also listen to Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce acting out the story on Spotify and other places like YouTube.
 

I’m pretty sure that I have another written version of the story somewhere too. Every case mentioned in the canonical stories has been turned into a pastiche at some point. The most famous being The Giant Rat of Sumatra which I have at least three versions of. There’s also The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland (which nearly cost Holmes and Watson their lives.) The Case of the Papers of ex-President Murillo, the singular affair of The Aluminium Crutch and my particular favourite Ricoletti of the Clubbed Foot and his Abominable Wife. You’ll notice the Sherlock reference of course.

Finally, The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger which was Doyle’s penultimate Holmes story. This is a tale about a landlady who tells Holmes about her strange veiled guest whose face she had only seen once and it was horribly disfigured. She cries out ‘murder’ at night and is clearly disturbed. When the woman appears to be at death’s door the landlady says that she is going to tell someone but the woman doesn’t want anyone official involved so the landlady mentions Holmes. The woman tells her to say the name ‘Abbas Parma’ which Holmes immediately recognises as the case of a circus lion which tragically escaped killing one person and savagely mauling the other. Holmes gets to the bottom of it of course. It’s not one of the best Holmes stories by any stretch.

 

 

[Brontodon]

Another point -- which kind of answers my original question -- is that the King himself put a time limit on how long the secrecy regarding the affair had to be maintained:

>>  "I must begin,” said he, “by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance." <<

So I'll assume that Watson waited the requisite two years before "laying the case before the public."

[Carol the Dabbler]

17 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

As far as why Watson felt free to spill the beans I think that it’s worth remembering that Doyle wasn’t thinking about the concept of a ‘Holmes universe’

Well, he wasn't putting much effort into it anyway!  But there's nevertheless a good bit of continuity to the stories -- if there weren't, nobody would bother figuring out the best way to interpret things and/or writing "fix it" stories.

17 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

On The Politician, The Lighthouse and the Trained Cormorant, here’s your opportunity to read it Carol.🙂

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Politician-Lighthouse-Trained-Cormorant-Adventure/dp/1090602456

You can also listen to Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce acting out the story on Spotify and other places like YouTube.

I shall have to check that out, then!  Even though it is, alas, not what "really" happened, since Doyle didn't write it.

I'm not a big one for pastiches.  I'll read the occasional fanfic online, and maybe check out some items from the library, but if it's not "the real Doyle," I don't generally spend money on it.  The exception would be stories that don't even pretend to be canon, such as the Enola Holmes series and the Mary Russell series (though in my opinion the latter wanders off into "who cares" territory after a few volumes).

17 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger ... was Doyle’s penultimate Holmes story. [....] It’s not one of the best Holmes stories by any stretch.

Well, I could read it in my big fat annotated edition, just to see what I think.  But I'd probably rather look for a good-quality trade paperback of just The Casebook.  Then I'd have the whole canon in an easy-to-read format.

11 hours ago, Brontodon said:

Another point -- which kind of answers my original question -- is that the King himself put a time limit on how long the secrecy regarding the affair had to be maintained:

>>  "I must begin,” said he, “by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance." <<

So I'll assume that Watson waited the requisite two years before "laying the case before the public."

Thanks for pointing that out!  And perhaps by that time Irene had died.  I suspect that if she were still living, Watson would not have named her (perhaps calling her simply "the woman").

 

[Brontodon]

On 9/8/2024 at 12:25 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

I'm not a big one for pastiches.  I'll read the occasional fanfic online, and maybe check out some items from the library, but if it's not "the real Doyle," I don't generally spend money on it.

One that I read not long ago is "The Seven Percent Solution," by Nicholas Meyer.  I did not care for it!  It made Holmes into a paranoid drug addict who imagined the threat of Moriarty, building an innocent man up in his [Holmes'] mind to be a master criminal and a supervillain.  (I did kind of like Holmes meeting, and being treated by, Sigmund Freud!)

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've read only one novel-length pastiche, namely The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz.  Even though it was very well written, and was apparently the first non-ACD Holmes story to be authorized by the Estate, I didn't care for it, mostly (I think) because what's at the heart of the plot is (as with drug addiction and mental illness in the Meyer novel) a very serious and worrisome matter, which could make for a good real-life exposé but doesn't strike me as suitable for entertainment purposes.

This leads me to wonder:  Did the subject matter of Scandal in Bohemia seem sensationalistic to the typical reader in its day?  If so, then were Meyer and Horowitz basically meaning to create modern-day equivalents to the impact of the original Holmes stories?

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 9/7/2024 at 6:47 AM, HerlockSholmes said:

The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger [is] not one of the best Holmes stories by any stretch.

On 9/8/2024 at 12:25 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Well, I could read it in my big fat annotated edition, just to see what I think.

And so I did, and I agree with you.  It seems like a possible set-up for a story, but then it just draws to a close.  Watson DID warn us, though, at the beginning of the story:

Quote

....the most terrible human tragedies were often involved in those cases which brought him the fewest personal opportunities....

... meaning, apparently, no actual detective work.