Skandal di Bohemia

"Skandal di Bohemia" adalah cerita pertama dari 56 cerita pendek yang ditulis oleh Arthur Conan Doyle dan dipublikasikan dalam The Strand Magazine dan cerita Sherlock Holmes pertama yang diilustrasikan oleh Sidney Paget. (Dua dari empat novel Sherlock Holmes - Penelusuran Benang Merah dan Empat Pemburu Harta - diterbitkan mendahului penerbitan cerita pendek tersebut). Doyle memasukkan Skandal di Bohemia ke peringkat kelima dalam daftar 20 cerita Holmes favoritnya.

Daftar
1. Ringkasan Cerita
2. Adaptasi
3. Kerajaan Fiksi

Ringkasan Cerita

Saat Dr. Watson yang baru saja menikah mengunjungi Holmes, seorang pengunjung lainnya tiba, memperkenalkan dirinya sebagai Count Von Kramm, agen dari seorang klien yang kaya raya. Bagaimanapun juga, Holmes dengan cepat mendeduksi bahwa dia sebenarnya adalah Wilhem Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke dari Cassel-Felstein dan pewaris tahta Raja Bohemia. Menyadari bahwa Holmes telah membuka penyamarannya, sang Raja mengaku dan melepas topengnya.

While the currently married Dr. Watson is paying Holmes a visit, a visitor arrives, introducing himself as Count Von Kramm, an agent for a wealthy client. However, Holmes quickly deduces that he is in fact Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and the hereditary King of Bohemia. Realizing Holmes has seen through his guise, the King admits this and tears off his mask.

It transpires that the King is to become engaged to Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meiningen, a young Scandinavian princess. However, five years previous to the events of the story he had a liaison with an American opera singer, Irene Adler, while she was serving a term as prima donna of the Imperial Opera of Warsaw, who has since then retired to London. Fearful that should the strictly principled family of his fiancée learn of this impropriety, the marriage would be called off, he had sought to regain letters and a photograph of Adler and himself together, which he had sent to her during their relationship as a token. The King's agents have tried to recover the photograph through sometimes forceful means, burglary, stealing her luggage, and waylaying her. An offer to pay for the photograph and letters was also refused. With Adler threatening to send them to his future in-laws, which Von Ormstein presumes is to prevent him marrying any other woman, he makes the incognito visit to Holmes to request his help in locating and obtaining the photograph.