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The Church of St Monica is a church located on the Edgware Road in London. It was the location of the marriage of Irene Adler and Godfrey Norton, with Sherlock Holmes acting (in disguise) as the witness.

"A Scandal in Bohemia"[]

After obtaining in disguise a job as a groom at Briony Lodge, Irene's London home, Holmes learned of her relationship with Godfrey Norton, a lawyer of the Inner Temple. While trying to figure out whether he was her lawyer, friend, or lover, a cab bearing none other than Mr Norton pulled up to the house, and he sprang inside the house where he remained for half an hour. When he emerged, he rushed to the cab and instructed the driver to drive to Gross and Hankey's in Regent Street, and then the Church of St Monica, promising half a guinea if he managed it in twenty minutes. Shortly after Irene herself came out, and instructed her landau to head directly to the church in under 20 minutes. So Holmes called a third and gave him the same instructions.

When he arrived at the church, Holmes found it empty except for Norton, Irene, and a clergyman clustered around the altar. When they noticed his entrance, Norton hurriedly dragged him over to act as a witness to his marriage to Irene: the priest had been unwilling to marry the two without a witness, so Holmes' entrance was critical to the wedding going ahead. After the ceremony was completed, Irene gave him a gold sovereign for his trouble, which he kept as a souvenir of the strange event.

Trivia[]

  • This is one of the parts of "A Scandal in Bohemia" which has no parallel in "A Scandal in Belgravia", presumably because another man in Irene's life would lessen the tension, or at least vastly complicate the strange flirtation, between her and Sherlock.
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