乔装、婚礼与一场假火警

"I walked past Briony Lodge and made friends with the local stable men," Holmes explained, laughing at his own trick. "They love to talk about their mistress, and I learned a great deal for the cost of a few coins and a little beer. Irene Adler is a woman admired by all who work near her, kind to the poor and generous to her servants. But I also learned something far more useful."

"This very afternoon," Holmes continued, "Miss Adler is to be married, quietly and in secret, to a lawyer named Godfrey Norton. I watched Mr. Norton arrive at her house in great excitement, and I followed their carriage straight to a small church. Since no witness could be found on such short notice, I offered myself, still dressed as a groom, and stood beside them as they were married. It was, I confess, a strange way to spend a morning."

Watson stared at his friend in wonder. "But how does a wedding help the King's photograph?" he asked. Holmes smiled a clever, quiet smile. "A married woman thinks differently than an engaged one," he said. "But more importantly, I now know her house, her habits, and her servants. Tonight, Watson, I will need your help for a small trick of fire."

That evening, Holmes changed his disguise once more, becoming an elderly clergyman, gentle and harmless in appearance. He arranged for a group of loud, rough men to start a small fight directly outside Briony Lodge. When the clergyman was struck and fell, bleeding, kind neighbors carried the poor old man straight into Irene Adler's own sitting room to rest, exactly as Holmes had planned.

Watson, following his instructions exactly, waited outside beneath her window, holding a strange smoking object hidden in his coat. At the signal, a wave of Holmes's pale hand from the window, Watson threw the smoking object through the open glass and shouted, at the top of his voice, that terrible word every household fears: "Fire!"

Instantly, cries of alarm rose through the house. Smoke filled the room, and Irene Adler, believing her home to be truly burning, did exactly what any person does in a moment of danger: she ran, without thinking, straight to the one object she valued above everything else. Her eyes went at once to a sliding panel hidden beside the fireplace.

Holmes, watching closely from his chair despite his supposed injury, saw everything. When the false smoke cleared and the neighbors realized there was no true fire after all, Holmes quietly thanked his kind hosts and slipped away into the dark street to find Watson. "I now know exactly where that photograph is hidden," he said, his eyes shining with quiet victory. "Tomorrow morning, we shall bring the King, and take it."