The Secret Documents of Sherlock Holmes

by June Thomson

  * Mr Sherlock Holmes apparently never wrote the monograph. However, in formulating such a theory, he was well ahead of his time for it was not until the 1980s that a similar method, known as ‘offender profiling,’ was first used in a murder inquiry in England. From the data supplied by the police, Dr David Canter, a professor of psychology at Surrey University, was able to provide the detectives with a ‘profile’ of the murderer, consisting of seventeen points regarding his age, the vicinity in which he lived and so on. This information led to the arrest of John Duffy for the rape and murder of several young women. He was sentenced to seven terms of life imprisonment in 1988. Aubrey B. Watson.

  * The quotation is taken from Isaiah, Chapter 61, Verse 2 which reads: ‘To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.’ Dr John F. Watson.

  * Dr John H. Watson refers to the case in ‘The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez’ in which he states that he has kept notes on ‘the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker’. Dr John F. Watson.

  APPENDIX

  An hypothesis regarding the real identity of the King of Bohemia

  Those readers who are familiar with the canon will not need reminding that the King of Bohemia is featured in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia,’ an account which was first published in the Strand Magazine in July 1891.

  The date on which this particular case began can also be established without difficulty. It was on the evening of 20th March 1889,* some weeks after his marriage to Miss Mary Morstan, that Dr Watson, who had returned to private practice as a general practitioner and had moved out of 221B Baker Street to his new address in Paddington, called on his old friend Sherlock Holmes at his former lodgings. It was here that Dr Watson was introduced to a masked man who, at first, claimed to be Count von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman, although Holmes soon saw through the disguise and established his identity as the King of Bohemia.

  The reason for the King’s presence in Baker Street is also perfectly straightforward. Five years earlier, on a lengthy visit to Warsaw, he had met and formed a liaison with the American opera singer, Irene Adler, who was then performing at the Imperial Opera House in that city. Although Dr Watson is too discreet to define the exact nature of their relationship, leaving that to the imagination of his readers, it had involved some compromising letters sent to Irene Adler by the King and a photograph of the two of them together which Irene Adler, now retired from the stage and living in London, had threatened to send to the King of Scandinavia whose daughter Holmes’ royal client was proposing to marry. Fearing that the resulting scandal might bring about the end of his engagement, the King of Bohemia wanted Holmes to retrieve both the letters and the photograph.

  The main problem facing the reader concerning this case is the real identity of the King of Bohemia. Who exactly was he?

  Before setting out my own hypothesis regarding this matter, certain background information must first be established.

  Bohemia had ceased to be an independent Kingdom in 1526 when, on the death of its monarch, King Ferdinand of Austria had contrived to have himself elected to the vacant throne. In 1889, it was ruled over by the Hapsburg Emperor, Franz Joseph, as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Indeed, Dr Watson himself hints at a Hapsburg connection by describing the King of Bohemia as having ‘a thick, hanging lip, and a long straight chin,’ both of which were characteristic physical features of the Hapsburgs.

  Because of this description, some commentators have identified the King of Bohemia as Emperor Franz Joseph’s son, the Crown Prince Rudolf, who was a well-known ladies’ man.

  However, by March 1889, Prince Rudolf was dead. Two months earlier, on 30th January, his body was found at the royal hunting lodge at Mayerling, together with that of his seventeen-year-old mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera. Both had been shot in circumstances which suggested the Prince had first killed the Baroness before committing suicide.

  Queen Victoria’s eldest son, Edward, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, another well-known womaniser, is another candidate for the role of King of Bohemia. However, in 1889 the Prince of Wales was forty-nine and, although he had married the Danish princess, Alexandra, which might accord with the King of Bohemia’s engagement to the daughter of the Scandinavian King, the wedding had taken place twenty-six years earlier in 1863.

  Nevertheless, Dr Watson has given us several clues in his account which could point to the King’s real identity.

  He was German; he was a thirty-year-old bachelor; he was hoping to marry a princess; he was of royal blood and possessed the hereditary title to a kingdom; at the time he consulted Holmes he had some connection with a Scandinavian monarch which a scandal might compromise and which was causing him acute anxiety. Moreover, despite the mask, Holmes recognised his voice and, once the mask was removed, was familiar with his features. In addition, Holmes openly showed his disapproval of him during the interview. Lastly and decisively, the man was in London in March 1889.

  There is one person who, as far as I am aware, has never been suggested as a candidate for the King of Bohemia but whose identity matches the majority of Dr Watson’s clues.

  He was a German count who, while not of royal descent, was the son of a prince and could be regarded as heir, if not to a royal throne, then to a position of such power and prestige that it far outweighed any regal claim to some minor kingdom. He was also a bachelor who, it was rumoured, was in love with a princess whom he hoped to marry. She was not Scandinavian but German and a member of that other great European dynasty, the Hohenzollern family, to which the Count in question had very close ties. There were also Scandinavian connections but of a political rather than a matrimonial nature. In addition, his identity, if correct, would go a long way in explaining Holmes’ cold and dismissive attitude towards him.

  As a final and, to my mind, decisive factor, the Count was in London in March 1889 on a delicate diplomatic mission which the least hint of scandal could well have ruined.

  The man in question was Count Herbert von Bismarck, German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the son of Otto von Bismarck, the powerful Chancellor to William II, the young German Kaiser, who had been awarded the title of Prince for his services to the Hohenzollern imperial family.

  In March 1889, Count Herbert was forty years old and still a bachelor. Although this makes him ten years older than the age Dr Watson ascribes to the King of Bohemia, this may be a deliberate ploy on the doctor’s part to mislead his readers, as may also be his description of the King of Bohemia as a flamboyantly dressed giant of a man, over six feet six inches tall.

  The princess whom he was said to have fallen in love with and hoped to marry was Victoria, second daughter of the late Kaiser, Frederick III, and the former Empress, who was herself the daughter of Queen Victoria. A marriage between Count Herbert and Princess Victoria would, of course, have greatly benefited the Bismarcks, bringing them into the Hohenzollern royal family and thus strengthening their ties with the Kaiser.

  Count Herbert’s mission to London in March 1889 was to promote an Anglo-German alliance, not an easy task as there were deep-seated personal as well as political antipathies towards the Bismarcks in particular and Germany in general. The British royal family resented their treatment of the former Empress, Queen Victoria’s daughter, and suspected that they were responsible for conducting a vendetta against her because of her too liberal English views.

  On a political level, there was a long-standing disagreement between Germany and Great Britain over the Schleswig-Holstein question. These two duchies had been ruled over by Denmark until 1863 when Austria and Prussia combined to force the Danish King to relinquish them. Britain supported the Danes and the dispute took on a more personal nature when the Prince of Wales married the Danish princess, Alexandra, that same year.

  It is in this area of international politics where the Scandinavian connection with Count Herbert von Bismarck, alias the King of Bohemia, had
arisen.

  The British government was also suspicious of Germany’s attempts to form alliances with other European countries, in particular with France and Russia, Great Britain’s traditional enemies.

  In treating his client with such brusqueness, Holmes may have been expressing this official mistrust or the antipathy may have been due to more personal reasons. Count Herbert was a conceited, overbearing man with an unfortunate habit for someone in his position of German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of issuing orders rather than discussing international affairs in a diplomatic manner with his opposite numbers. Holmes’ attitude towards him may reflect the private opinion of Mycroft and his colleagues in the British Foreign Office who may well have experienced the Count’s high-handed manner during the Anglo-German negotiations.

  It is also highly likely that, through his brother Mycroft, who had important government contacts, Sherlock Holmes was introduced to the Count at an official reception which was how he was able to recognise his client by his voice even before he removed the mask.

  In the event, Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister, refused to sign the Anglo-German agreement and the Count returned home empty-handed.

  Count Herbert von Bismarck’s anxiety to retrieve his photograph and letters from Irene Adler and so avoid any scandal may well have been sharpened by recent events connected with another King and an opera singer.

  The King in question was Prince Alexander of Battenburg, second son of Prince Alexander of Hesse. In 1879, with Russian backing, the Prince had been elected ruler of Bulgaria, a newly created state formed from the eastern part of Armenia after the Russians had defeated the Turks and driven them out of the area. In supporting Prince Alexander’s nomination to the Bulgarian throne, the Russians assumed he would act as a puppet King and carry out the Tsar’s policies.

  It was also hoped, particularly by Queen Victoria, that the Prince, a handsome, intelligent young man, would marry her granddaughter, the Hohenzollern Princess Victoria with whom Count Herbert was said to be in love. Naturally, the Bismarcks objected to such a marriage and, using their influence, persuaded certain members of the Hohenzollern family to oppose the match.

  Matters came to a head in 1886 when Prince Alexander, who had angered the Tsar by his independent attitude, was kidnapped by Russian secret agents and was forced to abdicate at gunpoint. In the meantime, he had transferred his affections from Princess Victoria to Joanna Loisinger, an opera singer, whom he secretly married in February 1889, a mere month before Count Herbert’s arrival in London. Because of this liaison, Alexander was obliged to give up the title of Prince and, taking the name of Count Hartenu, retired from public life.

  It is therefore hardly surprising that Count Herbert, aware of Prince Alexander’s fate, should be so very anxious to conceal his relationship with Irene Adler and seek Holmes’ help in averting a similar scandal which could have brought about his own public disgrace and ruined his political career.

  Dr John F. Watson D.Phil. (Oxon)

  All Saints’ College,

  Oxford.

  6th June 1933

  * In ‘A Scandal in Bohemia,’ Dr John H. Watson gives the year as 1888, clearly a mistake as on that date he was still unmarried and living in Baker Street. Dr John F. Watson.

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  About the Author

  JUNE THOMSON, a former teacher, has published over thirty novels, twenty of which feature her series detective Inspector Jack Finch and his sergeant, Tom Boyce. She has also written seven pastiche collections of Sherlock Holmes short stories. Her books have been translated into many languages. June Thomson lives in Rugby, Warwickshire.

  By June Thomson

  THE SHERLOCK HOLMES COLLECTION

  The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes

  The Secret Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

  The Secret Journals of Sherlock Holmes

  Holmes and Watson

  The Secret Documents of Sherlock Holmes

  The Secret Notebooks of Sherlock Holmes

  The Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes

  THE JACK FINCH MYSTERIES

  Going Home

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain in 1997.

  This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2014.

  Copyright © 1997 by JUNE THOMSON

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1662–3