The Adventure of the Second Stain
Encyclopedia
"The Adventure of the Second Stain", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes
short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes
.
Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Second Stain" eight in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories.
Bellinger, the Prime Minister
, and Trelawney Hope, the Secretary of State
for Europe
an Affairs, come to Holmes in the matter of a document stolen from Hope's dispatch box, which he kept at home in Whitehall Terrace when not at work. If divulged, this document could bring about very dire consequences for all Europe, even war
. They are loath to tell Holmes at first the exact nature of the document's contents, but eventually they feel that they must tell him that it was a rather injudicious letter from a foreign potentate
. It disappeared from the dispatch box one evening when Hope was out for four hours. No-one in the house knew about the document, not even the Secretary's wife, with whom he will not discuss his work. None of the servants could have guessed what was in the box.
Holmes decides to begin with some spies
known to him, and is then astonished to hear from Dr. Watson that one of them that he names has been murder
ed. Eduardo Lucas of Godolphin Street, near Whitehall
, was stabbed to death at his house last night. Holmes is sure that this is beyond coincidence.
Before Holmes has a chance to act, another piece of the puzzle arrives at 221B Baker Street
in the form of Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope, the European Secretary's wife. She asks Holmes about the stolen document's contents, saying that it is in her husband's best interest for her to know. Holmes will only reveal that there would be very unfortunate consequences if the document were not found. Holmes reads terror in Lady Hilda's eyes. Lady Hilda also begs Holmes to tell her husband nothing of her visit.
Holmes’s spy hunt does not go well. It lasts days without result. As for the murder, the police arrest Mitton, Lucas’s valet, but soon release him as he has a solid alibi
.
Four days after the murder, a newspaper
report from Paris
connects Madame Henri Fournaye to Lucas's death. A woman matching her description was seen in London
, where Mme Fournaye has recently been. She is, it seems, Lucas's wife, Eduardo Lucas and Henri Fournaye having been the same person, as established by photograph
s. She is of no use as a witness
, however, as she has gone insane
.
Inspector Lestrade
calls Holmes to the murder scene to examine something odd. Lucas bled over a drugget, and the blood
soaked through it, but curiously, there is no bloodstain on the floor under the drugget. However, there is one under the opposite edge of the carpet. It can only mean that the constable
guarding the crime scene has been foolish enough to let someone in, and leave them alone while they moved things in the room, including the carpet. Holmes tells Lestrade to take the constable to a back room and obtain a confession, which he does, vigorously.
While Lestrade is remonstrating with his wayward constable, and therefore cannot learn anything about the other investigation involving the document, Holmes pulls the unfastened carpet aside and quickly finds a hiding place in the floor, but it is empty.
Lestrade and the constable come back, and the latter tells Holmes that the unauthorized visitor was a young woman. She apparently fainted at the sight of the blood, and the constable then actually went out to get some brandy
to revive her, but she had left before he got back. As Holmes is leaving Lucas's house, he shows the constable a photograph, and he recognizes it as the visitor.
Holmes now knows where the stolen document is, but not why it was stolen. He goes to the Hope household and confronts Lady Hilda with the evidence
. At first, she denies everything, but is forced to admit her wrongdoing under threat of certain scandal
. She was a blackmail
victim. Eduardo Lucas had got hold of a compromising letter written by Lady Hilda years earlier, and demanded the contents of her husband's dispatch box for the return thereof (a spy in her husband's office had made Lucas aware of the document). She went to his house to do the business when, as it happens, his wife from Paris showed up and confronted him about his affair, believing that Lady Hilda was his mistress. Lady Hilda hurriedly left.
She returned, however, to fetch the stolen document after her visit to Holmes convinced her that she needed to do this. She hands the document to Holmes. Her only problem is how to return it. Holmes suggests putting it back in the dispatch box using Lady Hilda’s duplicate key.
They do this, and when Hope arrives back home with the Prime Minister, Holmes pretends to believe that the evidence has convinced him that the document must still be in the box. It is soon found, and Hope rejoices that it was only a mistake.
In this way, the lost document is restored without Lady Hilda’s part in the affair being revealed - though at the possible price of making her husband look a bit stupid. The Prime Minister, however, is no fool. He can see that there is an underlying story. Holmes simply tells him that he also has diplomatic secrets.
Watson in the beginning mentions that publication of the affair was possible because "the times were ripe", but does not elaborate. it can be assumed, though he does not say so, that by the time of publication both Trelawney Hope and his wife Hilda are no longer alive - since the publication would most likely have ruined both their reputations and their marriage - and even so, Watson's indiscretion in publishing their names is not truly explained.
", written 11 years earlier in 1893. In that story, Watson says that this case has "interest of such importance and implicates so many of the first families in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to make it public." On the other hand, Watson also refers there to "Monsieur Dubuque of the Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the well-known specialist of Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies upon what proved to be side-issue" who do not appear in the published version of the story. In My Dear Holmes, a biography of Holmes by Gavin Brend, Brend hypothesises that their mention suggests there could be a second adventure featuring a "second stain".
A reference in this same story makes it clear that "The Adventure of the Second Stain" is set in July 1888.
The British Cabinet never had such a position as "Secretary for European Affairs", and the post filled by Trelawney Hope is clearly that of Foreign Secretary. Evidently, Conan Doyle used a fictional term because the Foreign Secretary of the time (Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne
) might have objected to the less than flattering depiction of his fictional counterpart and especially of the fictional counterpart's wife and their married life.
Watson states that, due to Holmes' retirement, the detective has been trying to avoid publicity, and only allowed Watson to publish the story because the doctor had "promised" to in "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty."
A spy called Oberstein appears both in this story and in The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
(again listed as one of the three most prominent agents in London), set seven years later.
The device Lady Hilda uses in the story is mirrored in Agatha Christie
's 1923 novel The Murder on the Links, when a character acts very similarly in order to steal a knife.
The Granada TV Adaptation with Jeremy Brett
is faithful to the original story except that Holmes slips the letter back into the dispatch box while Hope is reviewing the documents with the Prime Minister; it also has Holmes in comic relief
- remarking to the report of the Valet being out {"They always are"} and the housekeeper hearing nothing {"They never do"}.
Actually, shortly after the story was written Britain signed the Entente Cordiale
and thereby joined one of the "confederacies" mentioned (i.e. France and Russia) against the other (Germany and Austro-Hungaria). However, the actual war was to show the two alliances evenly matched, also with Britain already committed to one of them, and the role of "holding the scales" and deciding the outcome by joining one side was to be eventually fulfilled by the United States.
The unnamed "foreign potentate" - who was "ruffled by some recent Colonial developments" of Britain and who without consulting his ministers wrote an undiplomatic and provocative personal note to the British government - is very likely to be Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The fictional behavior attributed to him in this story closely anticipated his actual conduct a year later, when he was indeed "ruffled by some recent Colonial developments" (in that case, of France in Morocco) and made provocative statements which precipitated the First Moroccan Crisis
.
In the story, the British Prime Minister talks of the possibility of Britain being plunged into "a great war" - a term which would a decade later be capitalized into "The Great War", a name commonly used for what is now usually remembered as The First World War. The fictional PM estimates that such a great war "may well mean the expenditure of a thousand millions [pounds] and the lives of a hundred thousand men" - nightmare figures for the readers in the still peaceful Britain of 1904, but a gross underestimation of the price in money and lives which the actual war would exact. The figure for Great Britain's WWI deaths at Wikipedia {excepting Australia; Canada; Newfoundland; New Zealand} is 885,138 {military} + 109,000 {civilian}= 994,138 with an additional 1,663,435 military wounded.
’s Murder on the Links
, Dulcie Duveen employs an identical trick with Captain Hastings, in order to steal the dagger.
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of 13 Sherlock Holmes stories, originally published in 1903-1904, by Arthur Conan Doyle.-History:...
.
Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Second Stain" eight in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories.
Synopsis
LordLord
Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...
Bellinger, the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
, and Trelawney Hope, the Secretary of State
Secretary of State (United Kingdom)
In the United Kingdom, a Secretary of State is a Cabinet Minister in charge of a Government Department ....
for Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an Affairs, come to Holmes in the matter of a document stolen from Hope's dispatch box, which he kept at home in Whitehall Terrace when not at work. If divulged, this document could bring about very dire consequences for all Europe, even war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
. They are loath to tell Holmes at first the exact nature of the document's contents, but eventually they feel that they must tell him that it was a rather injudicious letter from a foreign potentate
Potentate
Potentate is an informal term for a person with potent, usually supreme, power.-Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine:...
. It disappeared from the dispatch box one evening when Hope was out for four hours. No-one in the house knew about the document, not even the Secretary's wife, with whom he will not discuss his work. None of the servants could have guessed what was in the box.
Holmes decides to begin with some spies
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
known to him, and is then astonished to hear from Dr. Watson that one of them that he names has been murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed. Eduardo Lucas of Godolphin Street, near Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
, was stabbed to death at his house last night. Holmes is sure that this is beyond coincidence.
Before Holmes has a chance to act, another piece of the puzzle arrives at 221B Baker Street
221B Baker Street
221B Baker Street is the London address of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the United Kingdom, postal addresses with a number followed by a letter may indicate a separate address within a larger, often residential building...
in the form of Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope, the European Secretary's wife. She asks Holmes about the stolen document's contents, saying that it is in her husband's best interest for her to know. Holmes will only reveal that there would be very unfortunate consequences if the document were not found. Holmes reads terror in Lady Hilda's eyes. Lady Hilda also begs Holmes to tell her husband nothing of her visit.
Holmes’s spy hunt does not go well. It lasts days without result. As for the murder, the police arrest Mitton, Lucas’s valet, but soon release him as he has a solid alibi
Alibi
Alibi is a 1929 American crime film directed by Roland West. The screenplay was written by West and C. Gardner Sullivan, who adapted the 1927 Broadway stage play, Nightstick, written by Elaine Sterne Carrington, J.C...
.
Four days after the murder, a newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
report from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
connects Madame Henri Fournaye to Lucas's death. A woman matching her description was seen in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where Mme Fournaye has recently been. She is, it seems, Lucas's wife, Eduardo Lucas and Henri Fournaye having been the same person, as established by photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
s. She is of no use as a witness
Witness
A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...
, however, as she has gone insane
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
.
Inspector Lestrade
Inspector Lestrade
Inspector G. Lestrade is a fictional character, a Scotland Yard detective appearing in several of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle used the name of a friend from his days at the University of Edinburgh, a Saint Lucian medical student by the name of Joseph Alexandre Lestrade....
calls Holmes to the murder scene to examine something odd. Lucas bled over a drugget, and the blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
soaked through it, but curiously, there is no bloodstain on the floor under the drugget. However, there is one under the opposite edge of the carpet. It can only mean that the constable
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
guarding the crime scene has been foolish enough to let someone in, and leave them alone while they moved things in the room, including the carpet. Holmes tells Lestrade to take the constable to a back room and obtain a confession, which he does, vigorously.
While Lestrade is remonstrating with his wayward constable, and therefore cannot learn anything about the other investigation involving the document, Holmes pulls the unfastened carpet aside and quickly finds a hiding place in the floor, but it is empty.
Lestrade and the constable come back, and the latter tells Holmes that the unauthorized visitor was a young woman. She apparently fainted at the sight of the blood, and the constable then actually went out to get some brandy
Brandy
Brandy is a spirit produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35%–60% alcohol by volume and is typically taken as an after-dinner drink...
to revive her, but she had left before he got back. As Holmes is leaving Lucas's house, he shows the constable a photograph, and he recognizes it as the visitor.
Holmes now knows where the stolen document is, but not why it was stolen. He goes to the Hope household and confronts Lady Hilda with the evidence
Evidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
. At first, she denies everything, but is forced to admit her wrongdoing under threat of certain scandal
Scandal
A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed...
. She was a blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
victim. Eduardo Lucas had got hold of a compromising letter written by Lady Hilda years earlier, and demanded the contents of her husband's dispatch box for the return thereof (a spy in her husband's office had made Lucas aware of the document). She went to his house to do the business when, as it happens, his wife from Paris showed up and confronted him about his affair, believing that Lady Hilda was his mistress. Lady Hilda hurriedly left.
She returned, however, to fetch the stolen document after her visit to Holmes convinced her that she needed to do this. She hands the document to Holmes. Her only problem is how to return it. Holmes suggests putting it back in the dispatch box using Lady Hilda’s duplicate key.
They do this, and when Hope arrives back home with the Prime Minister, Holmes pretends to believe that the evidence has convinced him that the document must still be in the box. It is soon found, and Hope rejoices that it was only a mistake.
In this way, the lost document is restored without Lady Hilda’s part in the affair being revealed - though at the possible price of making her husband look a bit stupid. The Prime Minister, however, is no fool. He can see that there is an underlying story. Holmes simply tells him that he also has diplomatic secrets.
Watson in the beginning mentions that publication of the affair was possible because "the times were ripe", but does not elaborate. it can be assumed, though he does not say so, that by the time of publication both Trelawney Hope and his wife Hilda are no longer alive - since the publication would most likely have ruined both their reputations and their marriage - and even so, Watson's indiscretion in publishing their names is not truly explained.
Background
This case was first mentioned in "The Adventure of the Naval TreatyThe Adventure of the Naval Treaty
"The Adventure of the Naval Treaty", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" nineteenth in a list of his nineteen...
", written 11 years earlier in 1893. In that story, Watson says that this case has "interest of such importance and implicates so many of the first families in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to make it public." On the other hand, Watson also refers there to "Monsieur Dubuque of the Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the well-known specialist of Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies upon what proved to be side-issue" who do not appear in the published version of the story. In My Dear Holmes, a biography of Holmes by Gavin Brend, Brend hypothesises that their mention suggests there could be a second adventure featuring a "second stain".
A reference in this same story makes it clear that "The Adventure of the Second Stain" is set in July 1888.
The British Cabinet never had such a position as "Secretary for European Affairs", and the post filled by Trelawney Hope is clearly that of Foreign Secretary. Evidently, Conan Doyle used a fictional term because the Foreign Secretary of the time (Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne
Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne
Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, KG, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC was a British politician and Irish peer who served successively as the fifth Governor General of Canada, Viceroy of India, Secretary of State for War, and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs...
) might have objected to the less than flattering depiction of his fictional counterpart and especially of the fictional counterpart's wife and their married life.
Watson states that, due to Holmes' retirement, the detective has been trying to avoid publicity, and only allowed Watson to publish the story because the doctor had "promised" to in "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty."
A spy called Oberstein appears both in this story and in The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
"The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow...
(again listed as one of the three most prominent agents in London), set seven years later.
The device Lady Hilda uses in the story is mirrored in Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's 1923 novel The Murder on the Links, when a character acts very similarly in order to steal a knife.
The Granada TV Adaptation with Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett , born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.-Early life:...
is faithful to the original story except that Holmes slips the letter back into the dispatch box while Hope is reviewing the documents with the Prime Minister; it also has Holmes in comic relief
Comic relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...
- remarking to the report of the Valet being out {"They always are"} and the housekeeper hearing nothing {"They never do"}.
The International Situation
The international situation which forms an indispensable background to the story is that of 1904 when it was written, rather than of 1888 when it supposedly takes place - i.e., a time of fast escalating tensions between competing military alliances: "The whole of Europe is an armed camp. There is a double league which makes a fair balance of military power. Great Britain holds the scales. If Britain were driven into war with one confederacy, it would assure the supremacy of the other confederacy, whether they joined in the war or not."Actually, shortly after the story was written Britain signed the Entente Cordiale
Entente Cordiale
The Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent...
and thereby joined one of the "confederacies" mentioned (i.e. France and Russia) against the other (Germany and Austro-Hungaria). However, the actual war was to show the two alliances evenly matched, also with Britain already committed to one of them, and the role of "holding the scales" and deciding the outcome by joining one side was to be eventually fulfilled by the United States.
The unnamed "foreign potentate" - who was "ruffled by some recent Colonial developments" of Britain and who without consulting his ministers wrote an undiplomatic and provocative personal note to the British government - is very likely to be Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The fictional behavior attributed to him in this story closely anticipated his actual conduct a year later, when he was indeed "ruffled by some recent Colonial developments" (in that case, of France in Morocco) and made provocative statements which precipitated the First Moroccan Crisis
First Moroccan Crisis
The First Moroccan Crisis was the international crisis over the international status of Morocco between March 1905 and May 1906. Germany resented France's increasing dominance of Morocco, and insisted on an open door policy that would allow German business access to its market...
.
In the story, the British Prime Minister talks of the possibility of Britain being plunged into "a great war" - a term which would a decade later be capitalized into "The Great War", a name commonly used for what is now usually remembered as The First World War. The fictional PM estimates that such a great war "may well mean the expenditure of a thousand millions [pounds] and the lives of a hundred thousand men" - nightmare figures for the readers in the still peaceful Britain of 1904, but a gross underestimation of the price in money and lives which the actual war would exact. The figure for Great Britain's WWI deaths at Wikipedia {excepting Australia; Canada; Newfoundland; New Zealand} is 885,138 {military} + 109,000 {civilian}= 994,138 with an additional 1,663,435 military wounded.
Later Influence
As mentioned above, Lady Hilda, pretending morbid curiosity, induces the constable to show her the crime scene. She then feigns fainting, so that, while the constable is away fetching brandy, she retrieves the letter. In Agatha ChristieAgatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
’s Murder on the Links
Murder on the Links
The Murder on the Links is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by The Bodley Head in May 1923 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in of the same year.It features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings...
, Dulcie Duveen employs an identical trick with Captain Hastings, in order to steal the dagger.