The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (77 page)

4
.
the Trepoff murder
: General Fedor Fedorovich Trepov(1812–89), Governor of St Petersburg 1866–78, was shot on 24 January 1878 by V. I. Zasulich after ordering the flogging of the Nihilist agitator Bogolinbov. The story is told in the Holmesian pastiche ‘The Adventure of the Seven Clocks' from
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
by Adrian M. Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr.

5
.
Trincomalee
: City in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and a British naval base from 1795 to 1957.

6
.
reigning family of Holland
: The Dutch monarch in 1888 was William III who ruled 1849–90.

7
.
gasogene
: Soda syphon.

8
.
half a crown
: Two shillings and sixpence, the equivalent of what would now be 12
^½
pence. The coin, first known under that name during the reign of Henry VIII, passed out of the British currency in 1970.

9
.
Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer
: Probably the
Gazetteer of the World
, first published in 1885.

10
.
Eglow, Eglonitz… Egria. It is in a German-speaking country
: Eglow and Eglonitz are fictitious. Egria, also known as Eger, is now Cheb in the far west of what was then Bohemia and is now the Czech Republic. It was at the centre of the late nineteenth-century Pan-German
Schonerer
movement, which opposed Czech nationalism and giving the Czech language equal status with German.

11
.
Carlsbad
: Carlsbad or Karlsbad is now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. Karl Marx famously visited Carlsbad to use the renowned spa waters.

12
.
Wallenstein
: Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein(1583–1634), Duke of Friedland, Sagan and Mecklenburg, was a Bohemian general assassinated in Egria after being suspected of treason during the Thirty Years War.

13
.
paper mills
: Egria was a textile rather than a paper-making area.

14
.
Bohemia
: It was then a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, later came under the auspices of Germany, then Czechoslovakia, and is now part of the Czech Republic.

15
.
brougham
: A four-wheeled carriage named after the essayist and designer Henry Brougham(1778–1868).

16
.
A hundred and fifty guineas
: Pre-decimalization, the guinea had the value of one pound and one shilling (now £1. 05p). It took its name from the Guinea coast in Africa where the gold used to mint it was mined. Although the coin was last issued in 1813 during the reign of George III it was still in use for pricing various luxury goods and doctors' fees in the twentieth century, and today is often used in valuing race-horses.

17
.
I am lost without my Boswell
: James Boswell (1740–95), essayist, journalist and biographer, whose close relationship with Dr Johnson resulted in his
Life of Johnson
, probably the best-loved biography in the English language. Contrast Holmes's praise for Watson in this instance with his derisory ‘you have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales' in the later ‘The Copper Beeches'.

18
.
thick, hanging lip
: A well-known feature of the Habsburgs, rulers of Austria-Hungary.

19
.
the great House of Ormstein
: Fictitious.

20
.
Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Falstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia
: ‘Wilhelm' was the name of the contemporary German kaiser; ‘Gottsreich' is German for ‘God's kingdom'; ‘Cassel-Falstein' is probably based on Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost province of Germany. The kings of Bohemia were not always hereditary, and in the Middle Ages were often elected by noblemen. The Bohemian throne was subsumed into that of Austria in 1526, but in 1619 Calvinists took control and chose as their new king Elector Palatine Frederick, who was married to Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England. Their grandson, George Louis, Elector of Hanover, became George I of England in 1714. By the nineteenth century there was no longer a king of Bohemia and the territory had become part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Historically the best-known ‘king' of Bohemia was Wenceslas (
c.
907–29), subject of the Christmas carol ‘Good King Wenceslas', who was actually a duke.

Holmes scholars are divided over the prototype for the King of Bohemia. At the end of the nineteenth century the Austro-Hungarian throne was occupied by Emperor Franz Josef von Habsburg (1830–1916), Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, who, having been born in 1830, is too old to fit the bill (we are later told that the King of Bohemia is thirty). His son, the Grand Duke Rudolph (1858–89), fits the age requirement but as a bit of a rake would not have been worried about such a photograph and in any case was married in 1881. Rudolph died in a hunting accident in 1889, the year after the one in which the story is set. Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914), Emperor Franz Josef 's nephew, also fits the age requirement. He became heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne following Rudolph's death and didn't marry until 1900. It was his assassination by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo in 1914 that sparked the First World War.

Other Holmesologists have suggested Crown Prince Wilhelm von Hohenzollern of Prussia (1859–1941), later Wilhelm II of Germany, who had an affair with an American opera singer; or even Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. Although his age in 1888 (forty-seven) would preclude
him he was no stranger to scandal and affairs (for instance, with the actress Lillie Langtry). Edward is also the likely model for the figure whose name is a ‘household word all over the earth – one of the highest, noblest, most exalted names in England' who in ‘The Beryl Coronet' (see below) seeks to pawn one of the crown jewels.

21
.
Prague
: Then capital of Bohemia, now capital of the Czech Republic.

22
.
Hebrew Rabbi
: Is there any kind of rabbi other than a Hebrew one? The rabbi in question is either Nathan Adler, Chief Rabbi of the United Congregations of the British Empire until 1890, or his son Hermann who succeeded him as Chief Rabbi.

23
.
La Scala
: Well-known Milan opera house.

24
.
Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia
: Saxe-Meningen was a duchy in Germany. The King of Scandinavia, i.e. of Norway and Sweden as a united kingdom, was then Oscar II.

25
.
the Langham
: The Langham Hotel, Portland Place, central London, was then probably London's most luxurious hotel and was where Conan Doyle was commissioned to write what became the second Holmes novella,
The Sign of Four
, after a meeting with the American literary agent Joseph Stoddart in the hotel in August 1889. (Oscar Wilde, also present at the meeting, was commissioned to write
The Picture of Dorian Gray
as a result.) In the twentieth century the Langham was taken over by the BBC, whose head offices are based opposite, but has since reverted to a hotel. It features elsewhere in the Holmes canon as the hotel where Mary Morstan's father, Captain Morstan, stays in
The Sign of Four
and as the base of the Hon. Philip Green in ‘The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax' from
His Last Bow
.

26
.
St John's Wood
: An exclusive inner London suburb which lies one mile north of Baker Street. In the late nineteenth century St John's Wood was noted for its brothels (Algernon Swinburne used to visit one in Circus Road) and the homes of the mistresses of wealthy men. Briony Lodge and Serpentine Avenue are fictitious.

27
.
Was the photograph a cabinet
: A cabinet photograph was 3
^⅞
× 5
^½
inches in size.

28
.
the two crimes which I have elsewhere recorded
: i.e. those recorded in the first two Holmes novellas,
A Study in Scarlet
and
The Sign of Four
.

29
.
a glass of half-and-half
: A mix of two types of beer, usually mild and bitter.

30
.
the Inner Temple
: One of the Inns of Court in central London occupied by law students and barristers, of which four, the Inner and Outer Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn, remain.

31
.
hansom cab
: A two-wheeled covered carriage drawn by one horse, and named after its designer, J. A. Hansom (1803–82).

32
.
Gross and Hankey's in Regent Street
: Fictitious.

33
.
St Monica in the Edgware Road
: Fictitious, but possibly based on St Mark's just off Edgware Road on Old Marylebone Road. Edgware Road is the name given to the part of the ancient Roman Road of Watling Street (the north-west route out of London, now the A5), that runs between St John's Wood Road and Marble Arch.

34
.
landau
: A two-seat four-wheeled covered vehicle named after the German town where it was first constructed.

35
.
It was twenty-five minutes to twelve
: Until 1886 marriages had to be solemnized before noon. Then the deadline was extended to 3 p.m., but not for Roman Catholic churches.

36
.
in search of a best man
: In English law two witnesses are required for a wedding service.

37
.
sovereign
: Gold £1 coin named after the effigy of the ruler as inscribed on the obverse. It was last coined in England in 1917.

38
.
the Park
: Presumably Regent's Park, which is situated to the south-east of St John's Wood.

39
.
Mrs Turner
: A strange inconsistency as at all other times the landlady is Mrs Hudson.

40
.
Mr John Hare
: Victorian/Edwardian actor-manager (1844–1921) associated from 1879 to 1888 with the St James's Theatre off Piccadilly.

41
.
tossed my rocket into the room
: This recalls the scene in Edgar Allan Poe's ‘The Purloined Letter' in which a ‘pretended lunatic' in the pay of Dupin fires a musket in the street.

42
.
Darlington Substitution Scandal
: It was expounded upon as a short story in
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
, Adrian M. Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr.

43
.
the Arnsworth Castle business
: The story is fleshed out in ‘The Adventure of the Red Widow' from the above volume.

44
.
Charing Cross
: The terminus of the South-Eastern Railway, on the Strand. The station also features on a number of occasions in the Holmes canon including ‘The Golden Pince-Nez', ‘The Abbey Grange' and ‘The Second Stain' from
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
and ‘The Bruce-Partington Plans' from
His Last Bow
.

First published in the
Strand
in September 1891. The story could be set in 1887.

1
.
most stale and unprofitable
: ‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world.' Hamlet, from Shakespeare's
Hamlet
I.ii.133.

2
.
Irene Adler papers
: Referring to the previous story, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia', except that there were no papers (though some letters are mentioned). However, the case centred on a photograph.

3
.
reigning family of Holland
: The House of Orange.

4
.
coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion
: As in Gainsborough's 1783 portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana Cavendish (1757–1806), a well-known society beauty of the day.

5
.
Tottenham Court Road
: Amajor traffic route which runs north from the eastern end of Oxford Street to Somers Town, the area around Euston Station. It is on Tottenham Court Road that Holmes finds the broker who sells him a Stradivarius in ‘The Cardboard Box' (included in some editions of
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
), and where Morton and Waylight's is situated in ‘The Red Circle' from
His Last Bow
. Henry Baker loses his goose in ‘The Blue Carbuncle' (see below) on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Goodge Street.

6
.
Leadenhall Street
: Major street, to the north-east of London Bridge in the City of London, that takes its name from the covered Leadenhall Market which still stands and which originally had a leaden roof.

7
.
St Saviour's near King's Cross
: The church stood on the north-west corner of Maple Street and Whitfield Street in what is now Fitzrovia.

8
.
St Pancras Hotel
: Flamboyant and grandiose red-brick Gothic building fronting St Pancras Station. It was built to the design of George Gilbert Scott in 1872 and is now seen as a quintessential Victorian masterpiece despite being pilloried by previous generations for its outré appearance. The building was a hotel until 1935 when it was converted to offices, but is now mostly deserted, awaiting restoration.

9
.
31 Lyon Place, Camberwell
: A fictitious address in what is a mainly working-class suburb of south-east London three miles from the centre.

10
.
Fenchurch Street
: A small, bustling City turning which converges with Leadenhall Street by Aldgate Pump and is best known for the eponymous railway terminus, opened in 1841 for the London and Blackwall Railway.

11
.
Balzac
: Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), French novelist best known for
Le Père Goriot
(1834).