The King of Bohemia arrives at 221B Baker Street, his face hidden behind a mask. He is to marry a respectable princess, but a former lover—the brilliant American opera singer Irene Adler—holds a compromising photograph. If released, the marriage collapses. The King needs Holmes to retrieve it.
The next time you open that PDF, listen closely. Past the copyright page, past the table of contents, there is a line you might miss: “I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
The photograph is gone. In its place? A portrait of Adler—and a note revealing she has fled with her new husband. Holmes, defeated but awestruck, asks for her photograph as payment. The King is stunned. “What a woman!” he cries. Holmes replies, coldly: “To Sherlock Holmes, she is always the woman.”