那位女子

The King's face turned pale with worry, but Holmes pushed calmly past the empty rooms and walked straight to the sitting room, straight to the sliding panel beside the fireplace. He pressed it open with steady hands. Inside, instead of the compromising photograph, they found only a single letter and, beside it, a photograph of a woman standing quite alone.

The letter was addressed, in careful handwriting, to Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself. Astonished, Holmes broke the seal and read it aloud to Watson and the King. "My dear Mr. Holmes," it began, "you played your part very well indeed. Even after the alarm of fire, I suspected nothing at first. But then I remembered how a kind old clergyman had entered my house only minutes before, and I understood at once who my visitor truly was."

"I have been an actress myself," the letter continued, "and disguise is an old friend to me, as it is to you. I dressed as a young man that very night and followed you home to Baker Street, just to be certain. I saw your face, Mr. Holmes, and I knew I had been outwitted by the one detective in London clever enough to defeat me."

"You must not think badly of me," she wrote further. "I love Godfrey Norton, and he loves me, and we are now free to live together as husband and wife, far from this troubled kingdom. I once cared for the King, but that time has long passed. I will keep the photograph only to protect myself, should he ever try to harm me again. But I give you my word, as an honest woman: I will never use it against him. His secret is safe."

The King read these last lines with tears of relief and gratitude in his eyes. "What a woman!" he said softly, shaking his head. "I only wish she had been born a queen instead of a poor singer. My kingdom is saved from scandal, and I owe it entirely to you, Mr. Holmes. Ask of me any reward you wish, and it shall be granted at once."

Holmes bowed politely but firmly refused the King's gold and jewels. "There is only one reward I truly want," he said, lifting the photograph of the woman alone. "Allow me to keep this picture, as payment for my trouble." The King, surprised but grateful, agreed at once, and shook his hand warmly before returning at last to his own kingdom.

From that day on, whenever anyone spoke of clever women, or of any person who had once, just once, outwitted the great Sherlock Holmes, he would grow strangely quiet, take out that single photograph, and look at it for a long moment. To him, she was no longer simply Irene Adler. She was, and would always remain, the woman.