Sherlock Sunday: The Naval Treaty
May. 18th, 2025 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapi"The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" was published in the Oct-Nov 1893 edition of The Strand.
Here's the summary:
Percy Phelps, a Foreign Office employee, seeks Sherlock Holmes' help after a valuable naval treaty is stolen from him. Holmes deduces it was taken by someone using the back stair. Phelps, still recovering from an illness and being cared for by his fiancée Annie, lays out the case. Holmes investigates, suspecting the involvement of the Tangeys and clerk Gorot. Lord Holdhurst reveals the treaty hasn't reached foreign governments yet. Returning to Briarbrae, Holmes discovers the hired nurse has been dismissed by Phelps. That night, someone tries to break into Phelps' room with a knife, but flees when caught. Holmes secretly orders Annie to stay in the room and has Phelps and Watson leave for London. After uncovering Joseph as the thief, Holmes retrieves the stolen treaty from him after a brawl.
I think this story is most notable for Holmes' Rose Speech:
'There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,' said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. 'It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'
What the Annotated says about the moss rose: 1. intensely fragrant, 2. with large blossoms and many petals, 3. petals and sepals appear to be covered in green or reddish moss, 3. mutated from damask and cabbage roses, 4. in the language of flowers a moss rosebud means 'confession of love.' and in Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone Sergeant Cuff has thoughts on the moss rose not being grafted to the dog rose.
I think the subplot in BBC Sherlock's episode "The Great Game" was based on this. That why I kept thinking that it was a Mycroft story when it isn't in canon (in the show, Mycroft brings the case to Sherlock and Sherlock pawns it off on John).
The Annotated also says that the Oxford English dictionary credits this story with the first usage of the word 'snick' to mean a sound:
Then grew louder, and suddenly there came from the window a sharp, metallic snick.
And I think another feature of interest is the melodramatic flair of Holmes to put the recovered top secret documents under a covered breakfast of curried chicken. I mean, really:
Here's the summary:
Percy Phelps, a Foreign Office employee, seeks Sherlock Holmes' help after a valuable naval treaty is stolen from him. Holmes deduces it was taken by someone using the back stair. Phelps, still recovering from an illness and being cared for by his fiancée Annie, lays out the case. Holmes investigates, suspecting the involvement of the Tangeys and clerk Gorot. Lord Holdhurst reveals the treaty hasn't reached foreign governments yet. Returning to Briarbrae, Holmes discovers the hired nurse has been dismissed by Phelps. That night, someone tries to break into Phelps' room with a knife, but flees when caught. Holmes secretly orders Annie to stay in the room and has Phelps and Watson leave for London. After uncovering Joseph as the thief, Holmes retrieves the stolen treaty from him after a brawl.
I think this story is most notable for Holmes' Rose Speech:
'There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,' said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. 'It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'
What the Annotated says about the moss rose: 1. intensely fragrant, 2. with large blossoms and many petals, 3. petals and sepals appear to be covered in green or reddish moss, 3. mutated from damask and cabbage roses, 4. in the language of flowers a moss rosebud means 'confession of love.' and in Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone Sergeant Cuff has thoughts on the moss rose not being grafted to the dog rose.
I think the subplot in BBC Sherlock's episode "The Great Game" was based on this. That why I kept thinking that it was a Mycroft story when it isn't in canon (in the show, Mycroft brings the case to Sherlock and Sherlock pawns it off on John).
The Annotated also says that the Oxford English dictionary credits this story with the first usage of the word 'snick' to mean a sound:
Then grew louder, and suddenly there came from the window a sharp, metallic snick.
And I think another feature of interest is the melodramatic flair of Holmes to put the recovered top secret documents under a covered breakfast of curried chicken. I mean, really:
no subject
Date: 2025-05-18 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-05-18 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-05-19 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-05-19 11:32 am (UTC)The subplot with the train points and the body fall off and not having a ticket on it. It's secret documents on a flash drive and a sister, a fiance, and the sister's brother (the culprit) so I am guessing that's what they were echoing.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-19 08:11 am (UTC)Re “snick” , I disagree with the OED, and annotated unless my dates of publication are incorrect…if Naval Treaty was in the Strand in the early 1890s, Kipling’s Ballad of East and West, containing the line…
“…ye may hear the breech-bolt snick where never a man was seen…”
appears to have been published in 1889.
😇
no subject
Date: 2025-05-19 11:30 am (UTC)