The Case of the Sow’s Ear

The second of a series of Sherlock Holmes forbidden-to-be-published adventures, presented under the Imprimatur of the Conan-Doyle Estate:
There are two major, intertwined plot lines in this book:

1. A voyage to China at the sponsored behest of a wealthy and desperate father to rescue his head-strong daughter who has become incommunicado

2. The discovery while en route, of a complex and highly dangerous plot to destroy the silk trade, involving the ship and much of its crew and many others, bankrolled by the “Silk Merchant” in England who proves (eventually) to be a disgruntled relative of the Queen.

The plot lines are interdependent because of the urgency of the first (it unfolds that she and a travel companion have been kidnapped by pirates who are active in the Oriental/Arabic flesh market so they are in danger of being sent to the Middle East without a trace) and a similarly urgent need to scotch the silk plot before it is irredeemably executed (a parasite that destroys the mulberry plant essential to the silk worm is planned to be introduced to China, and once unleashed would be unstoppable.)

Holmes and Watson find themselves in double jeopardy, with the pirates and the silk plotters (independently) intent on killing them on board the ship and then in China, where life and death are cheap, and afterward as well.

Subplots include:
a) The behavior of a perfidious Chinese police Inspector assigned to aid in the search for the kidnapped young ladies, who turns out to be in league with the pirate activity

b) The unexpected behavior of the young lady’s companion, who prefers not to be rescued (and who much later proves to have become an estimable force in a Sheikdom)

c) A somewhat mysterious woman also being held by the pirates, who aides Holmes and Watson and proves to be a key (through a powerful and vengeful uncle) to inhibiting the silk plot at the Chinese end. (He also arranges for the elimination of the treacherous police Inspector)

d) The unexpected romantic escapades of the rescued young lady amongst the adult children of the multi-national diplomatic corps in Shanghai

e) The repeated, increasingly ingenious attempts by the silk plotters upon the lives of Holmes and Watson during their land route (roughly tracing Marco Polo and the Orient Express in reverse) return to England.

Holmes and Watson wrestle with many difficulties, e.g., Watson’s mal de mer, a typhoon at sea, the unusual encipherment of the missing captain’s private writings, the baffling concealment of his absence implying mutiny, and the frisky behavior of the young lady, to which their considerable life experience provides no antidote.

Upon return to England, the Queen’s relative is properly (though privately) punished, and the tentacles of the silk plot are carefully quashed. The Queen, who proves to have been an avid reader of Watson’s accounts of past adventures, prevails upon him to postpone release of this tale for generations. She also becomes a very private patient of the Doctor.

(The story itself unfolds much more smoothly than this staccato rendition.)