I have been reading “Moriarty’s Rivals - 12 Female Masterminds” for a while now, starting with last week’s topic “The Sorceress of the Strand” and reaching more modern masterminds by now. When I looked through the index, I was a little surprised to also spot “A Scandal in Bohemia” by Arthur Conan Doyle in there, but in hindsight, I shouldn’t have been.
Ever since the first Sherlock Holmes movies, Irene Adler has been cast as the only love interest of the Great Detective and also as a femme fatale of sorts. Often, she’s working with or for Professor Moriarty (in “Elementary” she is Moriarty) and usually it’s her job to somehow lure Sherlock Holmes to his fate. More often than not, she has a change of heart at some point, tries to help him, and gets killed for it.
More modern interpretations shift away from Holmes as a focus for Irene Adler’s life, though. The Athena Club by Theodora Goss presents her as the equal of Mycroft Holmes - overseeing spy work for the Austrian Government from her house in Vienna. At that point in time, she’s a widow and lives and works under the name Irene Norton. “Angels of Music” casts her as a member of the first trio of the Phantom of the Opera’s ‘angels’ (the book by Kim Newman is a crossover between “Phantom of the Opera” and “Charlie’s Angels”) who in the end takes the position of the Persian, being approachable and bringing in the cases. In “Moriarty the Patriot”, she fakes her death and joins the ranks of the brothers’ organisation under the new identity of James Bond (no, I am not joking - read the manga).
If you read the only original story she’s in, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, though, you will find it starts with Watson stating that while Irene is ‘the Woman’ to Holmes, there is no romantic angle to it. Irene Adler is ‘the Woman’ - the epitome of idealized womanhood - to Sherlock Holmes because she beat him at his own game. That, given the end of Professor Moriarty himself, definitely elevates her to ‘mastermind’ status. At the end of “The Final Problem”, Moriarty is crushed in a waterfall. At the end of “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Irene Adler leaves London with her husband and the photographs Holmes was hired to steal from her. See the difference?
After having been hired by Irene’s ex-beau, the future king of Bohemia, to steal several photographs from Irene which, if sent to the man’s future wife, could cause a catastrophe, Holmes is not shy of applying all of his skills, but especially his skill at disguises. He spies on Irene, who has so far kept the photographs despite several searches of her house and luggage over time, even being present at her wedding (where the coachman he’s playing is actually asked by her future husband to be best man, so the marriage will be legal). He manages to find out where she keeps the pictures through a rather convoluted piece of theatre which involves a paid mob and a smoke grenade. When he comes back the next day to get the photographs, though, the house is empty. Irene has suspected the parson he played to be Sherlock Holmes, dressed up as a boy to follow him (remember, she’s an opera singer, so she has acting training), found out she was right, and left before he could act. A letter arriving later assures the future king that she won’t use the photographs, now being happily married herself, and includes an official photograph of her (those were already a staple for performers at that time). Holmes asks for that photograph as his payment and, according to Watson, keeps it for the rest of his life. Why? Because Irene Adler proved to Sherlock Holmes that a woman can outthink him.
Of course, this Irene Adler, the original, is no criminal with her own organisation and her minions and her evil schemes. She’s not the same kind of mastermind as Professor Moriarty (unless it’s in “Elementary”, where ‘Irene Adler’ is merely an identity Jamie Moriarty has adopted to get closer to Sherlock Holmes). Yet, being able to outmanoeuvre Sherlock Holmes is no mean feat and not something most of his other enemies have been able to do. Even Moriarty succumbs at the end, but Irene Adler walks away from Holmes and keeps what he was sent to take from her.
Needless to say that the whole thing was not quite above board from the beginning - the photographs in question were not stolen by Irene, they were taken while she and the future king had an affair. That they could be damaging to him later is something he should have thought of, but he hadn’t.
Her modern incarnations show her full range of skills, making her a person who can very well be a mastermind, criminal or otherwise.
Spymaster Irene Norton in “European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman” by Theodora Goss is a woman who knows what she is doing and has a good reason for only employing female spies - they are much less likely to be spotted or caught. She’s also on good terms with both Carmilla von Karnstein and Mina Murray.
‘Erik’s Angel’ Irene Adler is the only one of the first trio who is not influenced by his mesmerism and the only one who returns for the big finale (Trilby being dead and Christine far from Paris). When Erik is missing, presumed dead, and the Persian is definitely dead (his funeral starts the last story), Irene takes over one of the two permanent positions (the other, Erik’s position, is taken by the female detective ‘The Marmoset’ who receives serious burns during the last story). The Phantom Agency will continue to work, will continue to employ a vast range of different women who have different skills (among them are, as an example, Lady Snowblood, Eliza Doolittle, and Sophie Katreides - another woman who challenged Sherlock Holmes), and will have Irene Adler as its face.
Even Jamie Moriarty aka. Irene Adler proves herself very dangerous - in the end, she is not tricked or defeated by Sherlock Holmes, but by Joan Watson (the officially gender-switched character in the series).
Irene Adler deserves more than the role of love interest and femme fatale. She deserves to be more than just a minion of Professor Moriarty. After all, she took on Sherlock Holmes and won - the professor paid for a similar challenge with his life. If you have the chance to, look into the original and read the story she is in, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, instead of watching her in movies which regularly miscast her. Or give her more modern interpretations a look.
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