The Adventuress (49 page)

“Irene Adler, being dead, has nothing to say about it, Holmes.”

“I would be careful in my statement of facts if I were you, Watson. It is best not to make assumptions.”

“The papers reported the deaths of a Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Norton in a train wreck in the Alps—on the St. Gothard line—shortly after Irene Adler married and fled London last autumn. I am perfectly convinced that I may say anything I like about the lady, as long as the facts support me.”

“Well, Watson, the quill is mightier than the sword and will leap in where angels fear to tread.”

“I fear you have mixed your metaphors, Holmes.”

“Still, I suggest caution. If one aspires to print, one can never know when a careless word or phrase may come back to haunt one.”

“Irene Adler will haunt nothing now but some Alpine meadow. A pity. A greater pity that you and she never met face-to-face, undisguised. She was a most... perspicacious and appealing woman, despite her dubious memory, was she not?”

“That she was, Watson, that she was. Now, where have you put my shag while I was gone? I am used to a certain inspired disorder in my possessions that serves to counter the impeccably logical order in my mind.”

CODA

The foregoing
narrative is a collation of the recently discovered diaries of Penelope Huxleigh, an obscure Shropshire parson’s daughter, with fragments of previously unknown writings attributed to John H. Watson, M.D.

Readers will be intrigued by the light this work sheds on personalities of an earlier day and a farther place, particularly on that vexing figure that many ordinarily intelligent scholars attempt to dismiss as a mere figment of the collective—or even the literary—imagination; Sherlock Holmes, the English consulting detective.

As companion to Irene Adler, the enterprising opera singer turned problem solver, Penelope Huxleigh was as closely situated as Holmes’s biographer, Dr. Watson, to record for posterity the events surrounding this equally charismatic figure.

The current compilation touches on some obscure points in the Holmes “canon” as recorded by Dr. Watson and further proves the historicity of all involved, despite benighted opinions to the contrary, masquerading as literary scholarship.

“My practice has extended recently to the Continent,” Holmes tells his biographer over his old briar-root pipe in the adventure published as “The Sign of the Four” in 1890.

Sherlock Holmes was indeed involved in the matter of a French will” (now known to have been referred to him by Godfrey Norton), and did permit the French detective, le Villard, to translate his monographs into the French language. The full collection may be viewed today at the Vielle Bibliotheque in Paris (where also may be found that formidable volume, the
Necronomicon
), and it is a remarkable series of documents. The English versions, alas, have vanished and would be worth a pretty penny if found.

It should be noted that Penelope Huxleigh’s disdain of the French is a reaction to the day’s Gallic chauvinism. These diaries are presented unexpurgated.

Holmes himself was highly complimentary to Francois le Villard of the French detective service, a courtesy he did not extend to his compatriots at Scotland Yard.

Dr. Watson does not record that Holmes assisted le Villard on the Montpensier case, but briefly alludes to Holmes’s locating a girl in America after a female relative had been suspected of murdering her; the account can be found at the end of that famous tale, “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

This citation raises more questions than it settles, vis-à-vis the Huxleigh diaries. Dr. Watson claims that Madame Montpensier was suspected of murdering her step-daughter, a Mile. Carere, not a step-niece. He also says that the young lady was found alive and married in New York City some six months later (which one assumes is better than being found dead and married).

This is not the first—nor will it be the last—time that two separate historical sources provide contrary material for speculation. My research proves one fact undeniable: “Carere” was Honoria Montpensier’s maiden name!

Could the good doctor have been trifling with factual details again, in order to avoid embarrassment for the principals, or for himself? That seems likely; the Huxleigh material agrees impeccably with the historical facts (including Bram Stoker’s rescue attempt of a drowned man missing one finger, who was never identified) and was never submitted for publication while the principals lived, unlike the Watson accounts.

It seems even likelier that Sherlock Holmes kept far more information than previously suspected from his Boswell.

This intriguing speculation sets the hackles to rising on the literary hound. Imagine what amazing exploits Holmes may have engaged in unknown to history, especially his adventures on the Continent, which are scantily recorded—by Dr. Watson, at least! Further study of the voluminous Huxleigh diaries could prove enlightening.

Other points in the Huxleigh narrative coincide scrupulously with the historical facts.

On Oct. 30, 1889, Alice, Duchess of Richelieu,
nee
Heine, did marry Prince Albert Grimaldi of Monaco a month after the death of his father, Prince Charles—and more than a year after the events of this narrative. The nuptials took place in Paris, where both a civil and a religious ceremony were necessary. The Nortons and Penelope Huxleigh attended the latter, as did Sarah Bernhardt. Newspaper accounts cite the “angelic” singing of one Madame Norton, a friend of the bride.

The newlyweds’ triumphal return to Monte Carlo was made in the following January, to Monégasque cheers. Thus Alice Heine became the first beautiful, blond American Princess of Monaco. Film star Grace Kelly would repeat this role sixty-seven years later, when she married Prince Rainier, Prince Albert’s great-grandson by his brief first marriage to the “Scottish” Lady Hamilton.

As Her Serene Highness, Princess Alice won the people’s hearts for requiring the casino to contribute five million francs to local charities. By 1892, the Monte Carlo Opera House was completed. It was renowned for mounting exquisite and ground-breaking works well into the twentieth century.

Such endurance was not granted to the royal couple. Although Prince Albert named two yachts after her, Alice ultimately proved to be a poor sailor. The prince became engrossed in his sea-going expeditions and in establishing his world-renowned oceanographic museum at Monte Carlo. His and his wife’s paths diverged; there were rumors that Princess Alice took lovers, which would not surprise readers of the foregoing narrative. Blind Prince Charles proved not to have been so blind after all: the fairy-tale couple separated in 1902, never to reconcile, although neither did they divorce.

Prince Albert’s “mothballed” attitudes toward women, as Alice described them to Penelope Huxleigh, may have hastened the estrangement. Shortly before the separation, the prince told the dancer Loie Fuller: “You American women are too new. You leave too little room for the lords of creation. How can we hold our own if you make inroads upon the intellectual domain which has always been sacred to us? Your women are cold sepulchers; they have too much head power. They may be statuesque, but masterful women are an abomination.”

It is fortunate that the prince did not have more dealings with Irene Adler Norton than he did.

As for the Divine Sarah, she continued to live on her usual lavish scale, both financially and emotionally, and publicly debuted as Hamlet in 1899, becoming renowned in her later years for her portrayals of male roles.

No documentation exists on the longevity or final disposition of the Indian green snake known as Oscar.

Fiona Witherspoon, Ph.D., A.I.A.*

November 5, 1991

*Advocates of Irene Adler

NEXT . . .

THE ADVENTURESS

READER’S GUIDE

"Perhaps it has taken until the end of this century for an author like 'Douglas to be able to imagine a female protagonist who could be called 'the’ woman by Sherlock Holmes."

—GROUNDS FOR MURDER, 1991

"With Good Night, Mr. Holmes ‘Douglas ushered in a 1990’s explosion of women-centered history-mystery, reschooling us about the ornery presence of women in both social and literary history.”—
JO ELLYN CLAREY
,
THEY DIED IN VAIN

ABOUT THIS READERS GROUP GUIDE

To encourage the reading and discussion of Carole Nelson Douglas’ acclaimed novels examining the Victorian world from the viewpoint of one of the most mysterious woman in literature, the following descriptions and discussion topics are offered. The author interview, biography, and bibliography at the end will aid discussion as well.

Set in the 1880-1889 London, Paris, Prague, Monaco, Transylvania, and later the U.S. and New York City, the Irene Adler novels reinvent the only woman to have outwitted Sherlock Holmes as the complex and compelling protagonist of her own stories.

Douglas’ portrayal of “this remarkable heroine and her keen perspective on the male society in which she must make her independent way,” noted the
New York Times,
recasts her “not as a loose-living adventuress but a woman ahead of her time.”

In Douglas’ hands, the fascinating but sketchy American prima donna from “A Scandal in Bohemia” becomes an aspiring opera singer moonlighting as a private inquiry agent. When events force her from the stage into the art of detection, Adler’s exploits rival those of Sherlock Holmes himself as she crosses paths and swords with the day’s leading creative and political figures while sleuthing among the Bad and the Beautiful of pre-Belle Epoque Europe.

Critics praise the novels’ rich period detail, numerous historical characters, original perspective, wit, and “welcome window on things Victorian.”

“The private and public escapades of Irene Adler Norton [are] as erratic and unexpected and brilliant as the character herself,” noted
Mystery Scene
of
Another Scandal in Bohemia
(formerly
Irene’s Last Waltz),
“a long and complex jeu d’esprit, simultaneously modeling itself on and critiquing Doylesque novels of ratiocination coupled with emotional distancing. Here is Sherlock Holmes in skirts, but as a detective with an artistic temperament and the passion to match, with the intellect to penetrate to the heart of a crime and the heart to show compassion for the intellect behind it.”

ABOUT THIS BOOK