1.

A Scandal in Bohemia
Sherlock Holmes is visited by a masked gentleman introducing himself as Count von Kramm, an agent for
a wealthy client, but Holmes quickly deduces that he is in fact Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von
Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and hereditary king of Bohemia. The King admits this, tearing
off his mask.

It transpires that the King is engaged to Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meiningen, a young Scandinavian
princess, but the King's in-laws-to-be would have a very low opinion of him if any evidence of his former
liaison with an opera singer named Irene Adler, originally from New Jersey, were ever revealed to them.
Unfortunately, that is what the lady herself is threatening to do, apparently not, though, for monetary
gain, for the King's agents have already tried to buy the evidence. They have also broken into Miss
Adler's house to find it, to no success.

It is a photograph described to Holmes as a cabinet (5 1/2 by 4 inches), and therefore too bulky for a
lady to carry upon her person, showing both the King (then the Crown Prince), and Adler. The King gives
Holmes £1,000 to cover any expenses. Holmes asks Dr Watson to join him at 221B Baker Street at 3
o'clock the following afternoon.

The next morning, Holmes goes out to Miss Adler's house dressed as an out-of-work groom and
manages to elicit useful information from the other stable workers. Irene Adler has a gentleman
friend Godfrey Norton, a lawyer, who calls at least once a day. On this particular day, Norton comes to
visit Miss Adler, and soon afterwards, takes a cab to the Church of St Monica in Edgware Road. Minutes
later, the lady herself gets in her landau bound for the same place. Holmes follows in a cab and, arriving,
finds himself dragged into the church to be a witness to Godfrey Norton and Irene Adler's wedding.
Curiously, they go their separate ways after the ceremony.

Holmes decides to make his move that evening, with Watson's help. Disguising himself as a simple-
minded clergyman, he arrives at Irene Adler's house and, with his agents' help, causes a commotion in
which he falls down with his face bloodied, just as Miss Adler, or Mrs Norton, arrives home. She has the
clergyman conveyed into the house where she tends to him. Watson, having been instructed to keep
near the sitting room window, waits for Holmes to raise his hand. At this signal, Watson throws a
plumber's rocket through the window and yells "Fire!", as do the assorted other characters in the street,
all hired by Holmes with the money from the King. Holmes observes Mrs Norton rushing to a panel in
the sitting room, opening it, and beginning to take something out. Having thus discovered where the
photograph is, he calls out that it is a false alarm, and contrives to leave the house and to meet Watson
at the corner as prearranged.

Upon arriving back at Baker Street, however, something odd happens: they hear a voice say "Good-
night, Mister Sherlock Holmes". Holmes recognizes the voice but cannot place it. If he could, he would
deduce what the episode meant.

Holmes, Watson, and the King go to Adler's house early the next morning to see about achieving what
Holmes did not have the opportunity to do the night before, namely stealing the photograph. However,
they find that she and her husband have left England never to return. The picture is gone, and in its
stead another has been left, showing only her.
She has also left a letter for Holmes, making it plain that she knew who he was — her suspicions were
aroused by the "fire" — and that he was likely to be hired by the King. She declares that she loves and is
loved by Godfrey Norton and no longer feels the need to mire her former lover in scandal, and also that
the King need never worry now about the photograph—unless he is foolish enough to take any
threatening action against her. She has, of course, kept it. She also reveals that she followed him home
after the fire and she was the one that said "goodnight" to him.

The king is satisfied with this outcome, and offers a valuable ring to Holmes as his reward. Holmes,
however, is impressed by Adler's intelligence, and asks instead to keep her portrait saying Irene Alder
was the only one to outsmart the great Sherlock Holmes. Later Holmes receives a gold snuff box from
the King.

02.The Adventure of the Red-Headed League

Doctor John Watson steps into the home of his friend, the famous private detective Sherlock Holmes.
Watson, the story’s narrator, finds Holmes deep in conversation with Jabez Wilson, a man who would be
entirely unremarkable except for his blazing red hair. Holmes asks Watson to stay and lend his
assistance, claiming that he has never heard a case as bizarre as Jabez Wilson’s.

Wilson reveals that he is a pawnbroker and has an assistant named Vincent Spaulding, who is working
for half the usual salary to learn the business. Wilson says that Spaulding is a fine worker, although he is
interested in photography and often goes alone into the basement of the shop to develop photos. About
two months ago, Spaulding drew Wilson’s attention to an advertisement in the paper for an opening in
the League of Red-Headed Men. According to Spaulding, the league is a foundation established by an
eccentric and wealthy American to promote the interests of redheaded men by paying them to perform
small tasks. Spaulding encouraged Wilson to apply, and the two went to the offices listed in the
advertisement. After fighting through a crowd of redheaded men waiting outside, Spaulding and Wilson
made their way to the manager, another redheaded man by the name of Duncan Ross, who promptly
hired Wilson. The league paid Wilson to copy pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica, forbidding him from
leaving the office for any reason during his four-hour shifts.

Wilson says that he worked for the league for eight weeks and was paid handsomely for his efforts. The
morning on which the story begins, however, Wilson arrived at the offices to find that the Red-Headed
League had been dissolved and that Duncan Ross was nowhere to be found. Wilson went immediately
to Sherlock Holmes, hoping that Holmes could help him find out whether he had been the victim of a
practical joke. Holmes asks Wilson a few questions about Vincent Spaulding and discovers that Spaulding
came to work for Wilson only about a month before the whole mysterious affair began. Holmes tells
Wilson that he will have an answer in a few days.

After smoking three pipes in a row, Holmes leaps up and asks Watson to accompany him to a concert.
Along the way, they stop in front of Wilson’s shop, where Holmes thumps his walking stick on the
pavement and knocks on the door to ask Spaulding for directions. After Spaulding and Holmes finish
talking, Holmes tells Watson that he believes that Spaulding is the fourth-smartest man in London.
Holmes also tells Watson that he saw on the knees of Spaulding’s trousers exactly what he wanted to
see. Even though Watson is mystified by these remarks, Holmes refuses to explain them further and
instead leads Watson around to a busy street behind Wilson’s shop. Holmes notices aloud that there’s a
bank behind Wilson’s shop, and, finished for the day, he and Watson go to the concert.

After the concert, Holmes asks Watson to meet him at his office at ten o’clock that night, saying that a
serious crime is about to be committed. Watson agrees but is entirely bewildered by Holmes’s actions.
Watson notes that he and Holmes have seen and heard exactly the same information about the case but
that Holmes seems to have arrived at some conclusions that he himself has failed to draw.

That night, Watson meets up with Holmes, along with two other men—a Scotland Yard detective named
Peter Jones and a bank manager named Mr. Merryweather. Holmes says that the four men are about to
have a run-in with John Clay, a notorious criminal. The men depart in carriages to Mr. Merryweather’s
City and Suburban Bank—the same bank Holmes and Watson had discovered behind Wilson’s shop. The
four men wait for an hour in the darkness of the cellar filled with French gold. Suddenly, they notice a
light shining through a crack in the floor. The light gets brighter and brighter, until the crack finally
widens and a man’s hand breaks through. The man climbs out of the opening the floor and begins to
help another man through when Holmes and Detective Jones leap on the two men. They capture the
first man, John Clay, also known as Jabez Wilson’s hardworking assistant, Vincent Spaulding. The other
man escapes through the crack in the floor.

Later that night, Holmes tells Watson how he solved the case. Holmes realized from the beginning that
the Red-Headed League was simply too preposterous to be real and that it must therefore have been a
ploy to get Wilson out of his shop for a few hours every day. The fact that Spaulding was willing to work
for so little money and spent a lot of time alone in the basement suggested to Holmes that Spaulding
was doing something illicit in the cellar. When he noticed the bank nearby, Holmes had suspected that
Spaulding was digging a tunnel to the bank. Holmes pounded on the sidewalk outside Wilson’s shop to
determine whether the ground was hollow underneath, and he knocked on the door for directions so
that he could see whether the knees of Spaulding’s pants were worn away. The fact that the league
dissolved so suddenly suggested to Holmes that the robbery was imminent, and he was therefore able
to make preparations and capture John Clay.