Adler

It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.

"The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you."

I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler."

"I was half-dragged up to the altar, and before I knew where I was I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor.

Irene Adler, as I will still call her, had hurried up the steps; but she stood at the top with her superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking back into the street.

The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to "Sherlock Holmes, Esq.

And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman.

The incident that gave him his third shock was the execution of one of the men on the Adler for carrying a box of matches.

The Adler hung at the zenith immediately alongside the flagship.

They hung the man from the Adler. They gave him sixty feet of rope, so, that he should hang and dangle in the sight of all evil-doers who might be hiding matches or contemplating any kindred disobedience.