The Adventure of the Naval Treaty - Definition and Overview

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.

Synopsis

Dr. Watson receives a letter from his old school-friend, Percy Phelps, who is now a governemt clerk in the Foreign Office. Phelps had been entrusted to copy a top-secret treaty, but the document was stolen from his office while he was getting a cup of coffee. The shock give Phelps a nervous breakdown, and he needs Sherlock's help to recover both the document and his sanity.

Holmes starts their investigation at the Foreign Office, but gets nowhere. However, the beauty of a rose seems to give him inspiration, and he finds the document in the last place that anyone would think to look for it.

Trivia

This story contains the first reference to The Adventure of the Second Stain, which would not be published until around 11 years later.

The school buildings "rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea", which Holmes points out to Watson from a train near Clapham Junction still exist today, and can still be seen by passengers on that railway line.

External links

• Full text of The Adventure of the Naval Treaty (http://www.bakerstreet221b.de/canon/nava.htm)
• The Adventure of the Naval Treaty (http://sherlock-holmes.classic-literature.co.uk/the-naval-treaty/) - in easy to read HTML format.
• Free eBook of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9555) at Project Gutenberg (including The Adventure of the Naval Treaty)