The Naval Treaty
A secret treaty vanishes from a Foreign Office desk in the few minutes its copyist goes to look for his coffee, and Holmes finds it hidden under the floor of the sickroom where the ruined young man has lain for nine weeks.
📖 Read the full storyThe complete public-domain text, then come back to check what you caughtPercy Phelps, Watson’s old schoolfriend, was trusted by his uncle the Foreign Secretary to copy a secret naval treaty alone at night. He stepped out for a few minutes to find his coffee, a bell rang in the empty room, and when he ran back the treaty was gone. Nine weeks of brain fever later, his career is in ruins and the police have nothing. Then someone tries to break into his bedroom window with a knife on the first night he sleeps alone.
What happens in The Naval Treaty
In the July after his marriage, Watson receives a letter from Percy Phelps, nicknamed ‘Tadpole’ at school, now a Foreign Office official, begging him to bring Holmes to his home, Briarbrae, in Woking. Holmes, who notes the letter was written by a woman of rare character, goes at once. They meet Joseph Harrison, a cheerful, stout man whose sister Annie is engaged to Percy and has nursed him through nine weeks of brain fever. Percy tells his story. On 23 May his uncle, Lord Holdhurst, the Foreign Secretary, gave him the original of a secret treaty between England and Italy to copy alone after hours. That evening Percy hoped to finish in time to catch the late train home with Joseph, who was in town. Growing drowsy, he rang for coffee. The commissionaire’s wife answered. When the coffee did not come he went down and found the commissionaire asleep, and just then the bell from Percy’s own room rang. Racing back, he found the room empty and the treaty gone, though the copy remained. A policeman in the street had seen only the commissionaire’s wife, Mrs. Tangey, hurrying off, and she was searched without result. Percy broke down and has been ill ever since in Joseph’s former bedroom, nursed by Annie. Holmes asks a few questions, then picks up a moss-rose and talks about the goodness of Providence shown in flowers, to everyone’s dismay. In London he advertises for the cab that he thinks brought the thief, questions Forbes of Scotland Yard, and visits Lord Holdhurst, who notes that the treaty has not yet surfaced abroad and will soon stop being secret. Back at Woking, Percy reports that someone tried to force his window with a knife on the first night he slept without a nurse. Holmes looks over the grounds, then secretly asks Annie to stay in the room all day and lock it from outside at night. He sends Percy to Baker Street with Watson and stays behind. That night he hides in the shrubbery. At two in the morning Joseph Harrison slips out of the house, opens the window with his knife, lifts a board by the door and takes out the treaty. Holmes catches him, is cut on the hand in the struggle, takes the papers, and lets him go, wiring Forbes in the morning. At breakfast in Baker Street, Holmes serves Percy a covered dish holding the treaty. He then explains. Joseph, in debt from speculating in shares, had called at the office for Percy, rung the bell in the empty room, seen the treaty, and pocketed it. He hid it under the floor of his bedroom, meaning to sell it, but Percy came home ill and was put in that very room, which was never left empty again.
Where and when The Naval Treaty happens
The Foreign Office, Charles Street
Percy’s office at the end of a dim corridor, with a side stair to the Charles Street door that lets someone come and go unseen.
Briarbrae, Woking
A large house among fir woods and heather, where Percy lies in a flower-filled sickroom that was once Joseph’s bedroom.
Downing Street and Scotland Yard
Where Holmes interviews Lord Holdhurst and Forbes, the official world whose secrets the treaty threatens.
May to July, the summer after Watson’s marriage
The theft on a wet night in late May and the investigation in a dry July, a contrast that matters, since the rain explains the cab and the drought hides the footprints.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- The appeal A letter from Tadpole
Percy Phelps, Watson’s old schoolfellow, writes in a woman’s hand begging Holmes to come to Woking.
- The crime The bell in the empty room
Percy tells how the secret treaty vanished from his desk while he went down for coffee and the bell of his room rang.
- The pause The moss-rose
Holmes lifts a rose at the window and speaks about flowers as proof of a good Providence, to his clients’ dismay.
- The inquiry Forbes and Lord Holdhurst
In London Holmes advertises for a cab, questions the police, and learns from Lord Holdhurst that the treaty has not yet reached any enemy.
- The threat A knife at the window
Percy reports that a cloaked man tried to force his bedroom window on the first night he slept without a nurse.
- The trap Watching from the rhododendrons
Holmes sends Percy to London, keeps Annie in the room all day, and waits outside until Joseph Harrison comes for the hidden treaty.
- The reveal Breakfast at Baker Street
Holmes serves Percy the treaty under a breakfast cover and explains that Joseph stole it and hid it in the sickroom.
Characters and how they connect
Sherlock Holmes
Consulting detective
A reasoner who sorts a case swamped by too many clues, pauses to praise a rose, and cannot resist ending with a theatrical surprise.
Dr. Watson
Holmes’s friend and the story’s teller
Phelps’s old schoolfellow, who brings the case to Holmes and spends a long, anxious night keeping the restless invalid company.
Percy Phelps
The client
A brilliant, nervous young official whose career and health collapse after the theft, and who never once suspects the man nearest him.
Annie Harrison
Percy’s fiancée and nurse
A woman of strong character who writes Percy’s letters, nurses him day after day, and follows Holmes’s strange orders to the letter.
Joseph Harrison
Annie’s brother
A plump, merry, seemingly harmless guest who is in fact the thief, ruined by speculation and willing to sacrifice his sister’s happiness.
Lord Holdhurst
Percy’s uncle and the Foreign Secretary
A courteous statesman of modest means whom Holmes calmly treats as a possible suspect before ruling him out.
Forbes
Scotland Yard detective
A sharp, prickly young officer who resents Holmes until Holmes reminds him that the police take the credit in nearly every case.
Mrs. Tangey
The commissionaire’s wife
A suspicious-looking charwoman who answered Percy’s bell and hurried away, the obvious suspect and a false trail.
Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
Family
Rivalry / conflict
Friendship / ally
Connection
Themes in The Naval Treaty what the story is really about
Trust and betrayal
The treaty is stolen not by a foreign spy but by a family friend who knew the office and the household, which makes the betrayal personal as well as political.
Too much evidence
Holmes says the difficulty was not too few clues but too many, so the skill lies in separating what matters from what merely distracts.
Faith and goodness
Holmes’s speech on the rose argues that beauty is an extra, not a need, and that only goodness gives extras, a rare glimpse of hope and belief in a man usually known for cold logic.
Honour and reputation
For Percy the treaty’s loss means disgrace, and both he and Holmes speak of the case as a matter of honour, with Holmes saying his own was at stake too.
Hope in the future
From the train Holmes sees London’s new board schools as lighthouses of a wiser England, a view of progress through education that matches his hope in the rose.
Symbols & motifs
The moss-rose
Holmes uses a single flower to argue that the world was made by a good Providence, and the scene, puzzling to his clients, shows that his reasoning reaches beyond crime.
The bell
The bell that rings in an empty room is the case’s great mystery, and it turns out to be an innocent visitor’s summons that became a thief’s alarm.
The sickroom
The room that should be a place of healing is also the hiding place of the cause of Percy’s illness, so the cure was under his feet the whole time.
The breakfast dish
Serving the treaty under a cover, like a meal, turns a matter of state into a domestic joke and shows Holmes’s love of a dramatic reveal.
Recurring motifs
Illness and nerves. Percy’s brain fever, his relapse into nerves, and his nightly draught, which Joseph has tampered with, run through the story and give the thief his chances.
Doors, windows and keys. The side door at the Foreign Office, the bedroom window forced with a knife and the key Annie turns from outside track the movements of the thief and the trap.
Watching and waiting. A policeman watching Charles Street, a nurse watching Percy and Holmes watching from the shrubbery: the case is solved by patient observation, not pursuit.
Conflicts
Person vs. person
Holmes against Joseph Harrison, a contest that ends in a knife fight outside the window at two in the morning.
Person vs. self
Percy against his own nerves, as shame and fear make him so ill that he cannot help himself.
Person vs. society
Percy faces a government world that makes no allowance for accidents, and where his family connection makes his failure harder, not easier, to forgive.
Literary devices
- The deduction chain
- Holmes reasons in steps. Percy’s room and corridor had no hiding place, so the thief came from outside. It had rained all evening, yet there were no wet marks on the linoleum examined minutes later, so the thief came by cab. Only Percy and his uncle knew of the task, so the theft was chance, not planned. The treaty has not reached any foreign power in ten weeks, so the thief has been unable to sell it, as if something had stopped him. Joseph was in London that night and meant to travel home with Percy, so he might well have called at an office he knew. When someone tries to get into the one bedroom where only Joseph could have hidden anything, and on the first night the nurse is gone, suspicion becomes certainty: the treaty is still in that room.
- Two-part structure
- The Strand Magazine printed the story in two installments, and it falls into two halves: the first lays out the puzzle and the false leads, the second springs the trap at Woking.
- Red herrings
- Mrs. Tangey’s flight, the clerk Gorot’s French name and even Lord Holdhurst’s position all draw suspicion, and Holmes treats each fairly before setting it aside.
- Withheld information
- Watson travels to London with Percy and does not see what Holmes does at Woking, so readers share their puzzlement until the breakfast scene.
- Intertextual reference
- Holmes compares his night in the rhododendrons to the vigil in The Speckled Band, and Watson mentions an unpublished case, The Second Stain, which Doyle did not publish until 1904.
Important quotes
“Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers.”
“But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it.”
“Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wise, better England of the future.”
“out of my last fifty-three cases my name has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the credit in forty-nine.”
“Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.”
“What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant.”
The ending of The Naval Treaty, explained
The ending happens off the page and is then served up at breakfast. Holmes arrives at Baker Street with a bandaged hand, lets Percy believe he has failed, and then has him lift the cover on a dish. Under it lies the treaty. Percy dances round the room and nearly faints. Holmes explains his night. He walked to Ripley, returned to Briarbrae after dark, climbed the fence, and hid in the rhododendrons opposite Percy’s window. Annie, as he had instructed, sat in the room all day, then locked it from outside at night. At about two in the morning Joseph Harrison came out of the servants’ door, opened the window and shutters with a long knife, lifted a board near the door that covered a gas-pipe joint, and took out the treaty. Holmes caught him outside, took a cut across the knuckles in the struggle, recovered the papers and let him go. He has wired Forbes but half hopes Joseph escapes, since Lord Holdhurst and Percy would both prefer the affair never reached a court. The explanation shows the theft was an accident of opportunity. Joseph, who had lost heavily on the stock market, called at the office to travel home with Percy, found the room empty, rang the bell, saw the treaty, and pocketed it. He hid it under the floor of his own bedroom at Briarbrae, but that night Percy was brought home raving and put in that room, which was never left without a watcher. Joseph probably drugged Percy’s nightly draught for his first attempt, which failed because Percy skipped it. Holmes ends with a dry warning that he would not trust his life to Joseph’s mercy. The story ran in two parts in The Strand in October and November 1893, longer than any other case in the Memoirs. In the 1894 book it comes just before The Final Problem, in which Holmes faces Moriarty.
Common misreadings
MythA foreign spy stole the treaty to sell to France or Russia.
ActuallyJoseph Harrison, Percy’s future brother-in-law, took it on impulse when he found it lying on the desk, and he never managed to sell it.
MythMrs. Tangey, the commissionaire’s wife, was the thief.
ActuallyShe was searched and cleared. By her account she hurried home only because she was late and had brokers to pay off.
MythHolmes’s speech about the rose is a distraction with no point.
ActuallyIt does nothing for the plot, but it shows a side of Holmes rarely seen, a belief that beauty points to a good Providence, and readers have quoted it ever since.
Test yourself
1. What does Holmes notice about Percy’s letter?
Percy dictated it to Annie Harrison, who was nursing him.
2. Why does Holmes believe the thief came in a cab?
Someone arriving on foot on so wet a night would have left damp prints.
3. Who rang the bell in Percy’s empty office?
Joseph found the room empty and rang, then saw the treaty and took it.
4. Where was the treaty hidden?
Joseph hid it under the floor of his own bedroom, which then became Percy’s sickroom.
5. How does Holmes return the treaty to Percy?
Holmes admits he can never resist a touch of the dramatic.
Percy Phelps works for the government and is given a secret treaty to copy. He leaves his office for a few minutes, a bell rings in the empty room, and when he gets back the treaty is gone. He becomes very sick for weeks and thinks his life is ruined. Sherlock Holmes looks into it and realises the thief must be someone who knew both the office and Percy’s house. When a stranger tries to break into Percy’s bedroom, Holmes sets a trap and hides outside at night. The thief is Joseph, the brother of Percy’s fiancée. He had hidden the treaty under the floor of the very room where Percy was lying sick, and he had not been able to get it back.
Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know
Nice work.
Compare & connect the story universe
The Purloined Letter
A stolen state document is hidden in a room the searchers cannot see past, and the detective recovers it by understanding the thief rather than tearing the place apart.
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
Holmes himself compares his long night in the shrubbery to the deadly vigil in the dark at Stoke Moran.
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
In that story Holmes looks at the countryside and sees only isolation and hidden sin, while here he looks down on London and sees schools as beacons of hope.
Adaptation. The Naval Treaty (1984, Television episode).
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- Who stole the naval treaty in Sherlock Holmes
- What does Holmes say about the rose in The Naval Treaty
- Why did the bell ring in The Naval Treaty
- How does The Naval Treaty explore the theme of trust and betrayal?
- How does The Naval Treaty explore the theme of too much evidence?
- What is the central conflict in The Naval Treaty, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how Arthur Conan Doyle develops the theme of trust and betrayal in The Naval Treaty. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the moss-rose in The Naval Treaty. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does Arthur Conan Doyle use the deduction chain to shape the reader’s experience of The Naval Treaty?
- Some readers assume that a foreign spy stole the treaty to sell to France or Russia. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- Who stole the naval treaty in Sherlock Holmes
- What does Holmes say about the rose in The Naval Treaty
- Why did the bell ring in The Naval Treaty
- Where was the naval treaty hidden
- Why did Holmes let Joseph Harrison go
- What is the treaty about in The Naval Treaty
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. The text and the quotations follow the Standard Ebooks edition of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894). The story first appeared in The Strand Magazine in two parts, in October and November 1893. It is in the public domain.