Who was the client in the Sherlock Holmes story 'A Scandal in Bohemia'?

The client in “A Scandal in Bohemia” is the King of Bohemia. He initially disguises himself as Count von Kramm, but Sherlock Holmes quickly deduces that the imposing visitor is Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, hereditary king of Bohemia and Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein.

The king asks Holmes to recover a compromising photograph showing him with Irene Adler, an American opera singer with whom he had previously had a secret relationship. He fears that Adler will use the photograph to disrupt his planned marriage to a Scandinavian princess. Holmes’s assignment is therefore a royal damage-control mission rather than a conventional murder investigation.

Adler outwits Holmes. Disguised as a clergyman, he tricks her into revealing where the photograph is hidden, but she realizes what has happened and leaves England with her new husband, Godfrey Norton. She leaves behind a letter promising not to expose the king. Watson’s closing description of Adler as “the woman” reflects Holmes’s admiration for her intelligence, not a romance established by Doyle’s original story.