Adolphe de Gallo - a real-world Sherlock?

 I stumbled across this article in an Australian newspaper, coincidentally while searching for Australian commentary on the 'death' of Sherlock Holmes in 1893.

I have transcribed the article below:

Evening News (Sydney)
Sat 19 Feb 1898

Sherlock Holmes

By the death of Adolph de Gallo, private detective, announced in the "Evening News" yesterday, London loses the most distinguished continental detective of his time.

An "Evening News" representative, who recently made the acquaintance of the deceased, writes: De Gallo was the Sherlock Holmes of real life. For twenty-five years he practised in London, playing an important part in a large proportion of the most sensational international cases of the last quarter of a century, and yet sedulously evading notoriety. 

It was one of his proudest boasts that never once did his name get into the papers. He would talk freely over his adventures on the continent and in London, but always first established the understanding that his communications were not for publication.

At the time of his death he was engaged upon the Dreyfus case, and it was largely due to his discoveries that events took the turn they did. The adventure he liked best to relate was that in which he arrested in a house off the Old Kent road the gang of foreigners who forged the plates for Russian rouble notes, twenty years ago. He enlisted the services of a woman known to them all in trapping them, and then protected his fair accomplice from being arrested on suspicion of confederacy. Two-thirds of his work within the past few years lay among West End victims of black-mailing, which, he said, was appallingly prevalent. Among his clients were many distinguished members of the aristocracy; and authors, actors, and artists constantly sought his services. At his house in Regent's Park there have been many callers since his death, some expressing the wish to see his body. Hundreds more of his grateful clients will read this obituary notice with unfeigned regret ; to say nothing of the foreign population of London, amongst whom he was well known and respected.

Hardly a month passed but Mr. de Gallo spent a week or more in different parts of the continent prosecuting his commissions. In late years he devoted much of his ingenuity to private clients in London. It mattered nothing to him whether he worked for or against the police and Scotland Yard never had a more efficient ally or a more subtle opponent.

His diary, faithfully kept all these years, reads like a romance, and affords convincing proof that truth is stranger than fiction. The names therein mentioned, if revealed, would astonish London. Yet the dead detective's name is quite unknown -save among his clientele — outside the police circles of the world.

A Hanoverian by birth, the late Mr. de Gallo served through the Franco-Prussian War, his rank being that of lieutenant-colonel ; he was a nobleman in his own country and owned a coronet. He is survived by a wife and family, his widow being the daughter of the late Henry Hart Davis, one of the architects of the Thames Embankment.
— London "Evening News" January 1.

------------------------------

Wow! What do we make of this? Is it a hoax? It sounds a little more Poirot (still two decades away) than Sherlock. But then again, the unpublished diaries have a hint of the Watson's Tin Box about them.

Was this man real? The above article is the only time his accomplishments made it to the Australian papers.

I can see that Adolph Georg H Voon GALLO married Barbara Eleanor DAVIS in 1869 in the registration indexes.

In the 1891 UK census shows Adolphe de Gallo living (possibly after a great hiatus?) in Rodney Place, London. In the family is wife Barbara E (same as above marriage record!). Adolphe de Gallo's occupation is "interpreter and private enquiry agent", born in Germany. Children were born in Germany, Bristol, and Kent.

de Gallo operated offices on Great Marlborough Street, where directories in the 1890s listed him as a 'interpreter & translator & private inquiry agent'. Regular advertisements in newspapers advertise his business:

London Evening Standard

Monday 09 August 1897
SECRET SERVICE DETECTIVE OFFICE, 39, Great Marlborough-street, London, W. for divorce and general detective work. Foreign languages spoken. References barristers, solicitors, and bankers. Advice free. - A. de Gallo.

London Evening Standard

Wednesday 16 July 1890

A. de GALLO's DETECTIVE OFFICES, for private inquiries of all classes, with secrecy and despatch. Male and female agents in England and Continent. Terms moderate. Consultations free. Communications by telegraph or letter attended to without delay. - Address 39, Great Marlborough-street, Regent-street, W.

The 1881 census shows de Gallo with the occupation of 'Solicitor's Managing Clerk'.  Supporting de Gallo's death in 1898 is a cemetery cremation index entry for 3 Jan 1898 at Camden. Probate reveals an estate of only 13 pounds when it was settled in 1900, so he certainly didn't manage to accumulate the income that Sherlock did.

British newspapers do have mentions of de Gallo, but very few. Most are the same or similar articles announcing de Gallo's death, but one reports his cremation and interment of remains and provides a little more colour:

The Era (London)

Sat 08 Jan 1898

The remains of Adolphe De Gallo were taken to their last resting-place in Finchley Cemetery on Monday, and were followed thence by the two sons, Charles and Fritz, Sylvester Schaffer and his son. The deceased gentleman was a born detective, and established himself in London, at Great Marlborough-street, after the Franco-German War. in which he fought under the victorious Von Moltke. Foreign artists in London sought him to arrange dramatic and other contracts with English managers, and also Continental speculators; while our home artists found him a safe guide in dealing with the managers of St. Petersburg, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Buda-Pest, and many other cities. 

Paul Cinquevalli, the Schaffers, and other distinguished professionals have much to thank the late detective for. A year or two back he saved a leading English dramatist from the machinations of a man and woman in London, who were bent on ruining him, body and soul. The late Sir Augustus Harris possessed a high opinion of De Gallo's powers. 

Last January the deceased detective was taken ill. His lungs were attacked, and he terribly faded. Reviving a little in the summer he attended duty, and a few weeks back he was called in to aid the Dreyfus case. While engaged on this he was knocked down by a cab, came home, took to his bed, and never recovered the shock. He has left copious notes of many cases, and these may be judiciously used for dramatic and literary purposes, though, of course, excessive care wilt be imperative. Sylvester Schaffer placed a magnificent wreath on the coffin, and spoke with tears in his eyes of the old friend who had aided him in contracts representing thousands of pounds. De Gallo has left a widow and seven children, the eldest daughter being on the press. 

The only other newspaper mentions are several articles in 1890 describing a 'West End Scandal' in which de Gallo and others were charged with 'conspiring to defeat the due course of the law' (for which Sherlock was guilty) - and amazingly de Gallo was charged with trying to have people involved in a case moved to Australia (very canonical)! This was in fact the famous Cleveland Street scandal, (from Wiki:) "when a homosexual male brothel and house of assignation on Cleveland Street, London, was discovered by police. The government was accused of covering up the scandal to protect the names of aristocratic and other prominent patrons." - it is incredible reading, and de Gallo was charged with assisting to facilitate covering up the scandal : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Street_scandal  

So what do we have here? A Sherlock Holmes detective in London who avoided public attention in the newspapers (no side-kick to document the cases?), and died in 1898. I need to know more about this man! Where are his papers? I wondered whether his death announcement in 1898 was a publicity stunt (similar to Sherlock's own faked death and hiatus) but cremation records support that he died - why can I not find a death registration though? And why doesn't de Gallo have a biography?