Sherlock Holmes: The Versailles Vision, or A Walk in the Past (Holmes Afoot Book 1)

"I SHALL NEVER see a ghost,” announced Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective, with just  a touch of arrogance. “I am incapable of it.”
With this boast begins an early adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, set in the autumn of 1887, before the events described in 'The Sign of Four.'
The premise of this case is the true story of two scholarly spinster ladies, Miss C.A.E. Moberly and Miss E.F. Jourdain, who in the early 1900s had a visionary experience of pre-Revolutionary France while wandering near the Petit Trianon at Versailles. They saw strange scenes and encountered spectral figures, including the doomed Queen Marie-Antoinette.
The ladies wrote a book about their vision, which was seen by both in daylight, and was of figures, buildings and landscapes in the grounds of the Château, as they were before the destruction of the Bourbon monarchy in the Terror of the 1790s.
In this story, the vision of the Versailles ghosts has been put back some twenty years and adapted as fiction to conform to the period and style of the Holmes canon. The incident becomes a criminal case for Sherlock Holmes when one of the ladies vanishes at Versailles a year to the day after the date of the vision, and the other comes to Baker Street to request the detective’s help in solving the mystery.
This is not only a detective story, in which Holmes and Watson hunt for criminals; they also hunt for the lost lady, for treasure, and above all for the truth about the ghosts. The investigation takes place amidst the sinister grandeur of Versailles, where the eerie atmosphere of the vision of the gardens, as they were in the shadow of the guillotine, still lingers. It grows yet more sinister in view of the tragedy which may have occurred there, for the missing lady was rich, and twenty thousand pounds is missing too. And it is an exploration of Holmes’s attitude to the supernatural, since in the absence of other evidence the ghostly vision must be treated logically as a source of clues to the crime.
Holmes has been removed from London and must function in a foreign country instead of in the familiar environs of Britain’s great metropolis. However, it should not be forgotten that Holmes has French forebears; the sojourn in Versailles arouses Dr. Watson’s curiosity about his friend's Continental antecedents. As is well known, Conan Doyle, in the preamble to 'The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter' (1893), tells us that Holmes has ‘art in the blood’ and is descended through his grandmother from the family of French painters called Vernet. It happens that both Carle Vernet and his son Horace, prolific painters of military scenes early in the 19th century, found patronage at Versailles. Their works hang in the Palace, and Horace had a studio in the town. The family connection is acknowledged in the plot, for it is while studying a painting by his grand-uncle, Carle Vernet, that Holmes finds the key to the mystery of the ghosts and the missing lady.
The treasure hunt is a sub-plot, suggested by the display in an English museum of a real doll which was dressed by Marie-Antoinette for her daughter while awaiting execution. The French doll in this story, property of Holmes’s client, is dressed as a Dairymaid, with reference to the Queen’s pastime of playing at rustic life at her Hameau, the model village at Versailles. The doll carries a riddle which hints at the hiding-place of a fabulous necklace of Baroque pearls, worn by Marie-Antoinette in the Dairy and consequently known as  'La Crème de la Crème.' The publicity given to the ‘cursed’ doll annoys Sherlock Holmes; and alerts someone who wants the pearls. The Versailles adventure includes various crimes: two bodies in a well; murder; bigamy; blackmail, espionage, burglaries; and conspiracies. There are treasures: money, pearls, and a sapphire garter. There are three romances: one happy, one disastrous, and one deadly.
Will Sherlock Holmes see a ghost? Read on.