Sherlock Holmes reread: The Naval Treaty
Jun. 12th, 2025 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vivdunstanNearing the end of Memoirs and on to this tale of a stolen secret treaty ...
which has a tendency in my memory to overlap with the later "Bruce-Partington Plans". Not least because the two stories were reworked together for an episode of BBC's Sherlock series.
This is a really long short story, but well worth reading. It's a story of three parts: the initial recounting of the crime, Holmes investigating at the Foreign Office, and then events at the victim's house. A secret naval treaty is stolen from a clerk's office where he has been copying it. And it must be recovered.
In many respects the first part is a fairly standard Holmesian set up, with a puzzle around the physical layout of the location where the theft occurred - the story even includes a sketch drawing showing this layout! - combined with suspicions aimed at several other individuals there.
The middle part was more of a shakeup to the usual. Holmes interviews various people, including a senior official at the Foreign Office. Past cases - those described directly, and others mentioned in passing - have involved high-stakes and high-status crimes. But this is the first one directly in the canon involving matters of national security. Which Holmes has been entrusted to investigate. Which feels a little strange to be honest, as Holmes manoeuvres around, in his often seemingly at a distance kind of a way. But then Holmes could be relied on for both discretion and great insight.
The resolution of the crime in the third section is satisfying, including a strong female character, and a family member who turns out to be the guilty party, with a surprising hiding place revealed for the stolen treaty, and a clever technique used by Holmes to reveal it. Some parts of this section feel somewhat familiar, with the setup with a locked room and things inside visible from the outside. It calls back especially to "The Speckled Band" and "The Copper Beeches". Even the story itself acknowledges the echoes of the first of those stories.
So yes, a good one, different from the usual format in a number of ways, and worth reading, despite its length.
which has a tendency in my memory to overlap with the later "Bruce-Partington Plans". Not least because the two stories were reworked together for an episode of BBC's Sherlock series.
This is a really long short story, but well worth reading. It's a story of three parts: the initial recounting of the crime, Holmes investigating at the Foreign Office, and then events at the victim's house. A secret naval treaty is stolen from a clerk's office where he has been copying it. And it must be recovered.
In many respects the first part is a fairly standard Holmesian set up, with a puzzle around the physical layout of the location where the theft occurred - the story even includes a sketch drawing showing this layout! - combined with suspicions aimed at several other individuals there.
The middle part was more of a shakeup to the usual. Holmes interviews various people, including a senior official at the Foreign Office. Past cases - those described directly, and others mentioned in passing - have involved high-stakes and high-status crimes. But this is the first one directly in the canon involving matters of national security. Which Holmes has been entrusted to investigate. Which feels a little strange to be honest, as Holmes manoeuvres around, in his often seemingly at a distance kind of a way. But then Holmes could be relied on for both discretion and great insight.
The resolution of the crime in the third section is satisfying, including a strong female character, and a family member who turns out to be the guilty party, with a surprising hiding place revealed for the stolen treaty, and a clever technique used by Holmes to reveal it. Some parts of this section feel somewhat familiar, with the setup with a locked room and things inside visible from the outside. It calls back especially to "The Speckled Band" and "The Copper Beeches". Even the story itself acknowledges the echoes of the first of those stories.
So yes, a good one, different from the usual format in a number of ways, and worth reading, despite its length.