[SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome to the Sherlock Holmes Bedtime Stories podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each episode is a section from a classic Sherlock Holmes story with relaxing music to help you fall asleep.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining us this evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's time to relax.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let your body fall into a comfortable position in your bed and drift gently into a state of total relaxation with tonight's story.
[SPEAKER_00]: part 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the detective departed, my friend Rose and made his preparations for the day's work with the alert air of a man who has a congenial task before him.
[SPEAKER_00]: My first movement Watson, said he as he bustled into his fraught coat, must as I said be in the direction of blackheath.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because we have, in this case, one singular incident coming close to the heels of another singular incident.
[SPEAKER_00]: The police are making the mistake of concentrating their attention upon the second, because it happens to be the one which is actually criminal.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is evident to me that the logical way to approach the case is to begin by trying to throw some light upon the first incident.
[SPEAKER_00]: The curious will, so suddenly made, and to so unexpected and
[SPEAKER_00]: it may do something to simplify what followed.
[SPEAKER_00]: No idea fellow, I don't think you can help me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no prospect of danger or I should not dream of stirring out without you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I trust that when I see you in the evening I will be able to report that I have been able to do something for this unfortunate youngster who has thrown himself upon my protection.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was late when my friend returned, and I could see by a glance at his haggard and anxious face that the high hopes with which he had started had not been fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_00]: For an hour he'd drawn away upon his violin, endeavouring to sue his own ruffled spirits.
[SPEAKER_00]: At last he flung down the instrument, and plunged into a detailed account of his misadventures.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all going wrong what's and all as wrong as it can go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kept a bold face before the strad, but upon my soul, I believe that for once the fellow is on the right track and we are on the wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: All my instincts are one way and all the facts are the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that picture of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over the strad's facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: did you go to Black-Eath?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, once, and I went there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I found very quickly that the late lamented old acre was a pretty considerable black guard.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father was a way in search of his son.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mother was at home, a little fluffy, blue-eyed person in a tremor of fear and indignation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, she would not admit even the possibility of his guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: but she would not express either surprise or regret over the fate of Old Acre.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the contrary, she spoke of him with such bitterness that she was unconsciously considerably strengthening the case of the police for of course if her son had heard her speak of the man in this fashion, it would predispose him towards hatred and violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was more like a malignant and cunning ape than a human being, such he, and he always was, ever since he was a young man.
[SPEAKER_00]: you knew him at that time, said I. Yes, I knew him well, in fact, he was an old suitor of mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank heaven that I had the sense to turn away from him and to marry a better if poorer man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was engaged to him, Mr. Holmes, when I heard a shocking story of how he had turned a cat loose in an avery, and I was so horrified at his brutal cruelty that I would have nothing more to do with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: She rummaged in a bureau, and presently, she produced a photograph of a woman shamedfully defaced and mutilated with a knife.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is my own photograph.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, he sent it to me in that state with his curse upon my wedding morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, said I. At least he has forgiven you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since he has left all his property to your son,
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither my son nor I want anything from Jonas Olderick a dead or alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cried with a proper spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a God in heaven, Mr. Holmes, and that same God who has punished that wicked man will show in his own good time that my son's hands are guiltless of his blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well I tried one or two leads, but could get at nothing which would help our hypothesis and several points which would make against it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave it up at last and off I went to Norwood.
[SPEAKER_00]: This place, deep-dean house, is a big modern villa of staring brick, standing back in its own grounds with a laurel clumped lawn in front of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the right and some distance back from the road, was the timber yard which had been the scene of the fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a rough plan on a leaf of my notebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: This window on the left is the one which opens into Old Acres Room.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can look into it from the road you see.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is about the only bit of consolation I've had today.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Strad was not there, but his head constable did the honors.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had just found a great treasure trove.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had spent the morning raking among the ashes of the burned wood pile.
[SPEAKER_00]: And besides the charred organic remains, they had secured several discoloured metal discs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I examined them with care, and there was no doubt that they were trouser buttons.
[SPEAKER_00]: I even distinguished that one of them was marked with the name of Hayams, who was old at his tailor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I then worked the lawn very carefully for signs and traces, but this drought has made everything as hard as Iron.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing was to be seen, save that some body or bundle had been dragged through a low-private hedge which is in a line with a wood pile.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that of course fits in with the official theory.
[SPEAKER_00]: I crawled about the lawn with an august son on my back, but I got up at the end of an
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, after this fiasco I went into the bedroom and examined that also.
[SPEAKER_00]: The blood stains were very slight, mere smears and discoloration, but undoubtedly fresh.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stick had been removed, but there also the marks were slight.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no doubt about the stick belonging to our client.
[SPEAKER_00]: He admits it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Foot marks of both men could be made out on the carpet, but none of any third person, which again is a trick for the other side.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were piling up their score all the time and we were at a standstill.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only one little gleam of hope did I get, and yet it amounted to nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I examined the contents of the safe, most of which had been taken out and left on the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: The papers had been made up into sealed envelopes, one or two of which had been opened by the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were not so far as I could judge of any great value.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nor did the bank book show that Mr. Oldacre was in such very affluent circumstances, but it seemed to me that all the papers were not there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were illusions to some deeds, possibly the more valuable, which I could not find.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, of course, if we could definitely prove it, would turn the Strahd's argument against himself, for who would steal a thing if he knew that he would shortly inherit it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, having drawn every other cover and picked up no scent, I tried my luck with the housekeeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mrs. Lexington is her name, a little, dark, silent person, with suspicious and side-long eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: She could tell her something if she would.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm convinced of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she was as close as wax.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, she had let Mr. McFarlane in at half past nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wished her hand had withered before she had done so.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had gone to bed at half past 10.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her room was at the other end of the house and she could hear nothing of what had passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. McFarlane had left his hat and to the best of her belief, his stick in the hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been awakened by the alarm of fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her poor dear master had certainly been murdered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had he any enemies?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, every man had enemies, but Mr. Oldaker kept himself very much to himself and only met people in the way of business.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had seen the buttons and was sure that they belonged to the clothes which he had worn last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: The woodpile was very dry for it had not rained for a month.
[SPEAKER_00]: It burned like tinder, and by the time she reached the spot, nothing could be seen but flames.
[SPEAKER_00]: She and all the firemen smelled the burned flesh from inside it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She knew nothing of the papers, nor of Mr. Oldake as private affairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, and yet, he clenched his thin hands in a parixism of conviction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's all wrong, I feel it in my bones.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is something that has not come out and that housekeeper knows it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a sort of sulky defiance in her eyes, which only goes with guilty knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, there's no good talking anymore about it Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: But unless some lucky chance comes our way, I fear that the Norwood Disappearance case will not figure in that chronicle of our successes, which I foresee that a patient public will sooner or later have to endure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely, said I, the man's appearance would go far with any jury.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a dangerous argument, my dear Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember that terrible murder of Bert Stephens, who wanted us to get him off in 87, was there ever a more mild-mannered Sunday school young man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless we succeed in establishing an alternative theory, this man is lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can hardly find a floor in the case which can now be presented against him, and
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, there is one curious little point about those papers, which may serve us as the starting point for an inquiry.
[SPEAKER_00]: On looking over the bank book, I found that the low state of the balance was principally due to large checks which have been made out during the last year to Mr Cornelius.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confess that I should be interested to know who this Mr Cornelius may be, with whom a retired builder has such very large transactions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it possible that he has had a hand in the affair?
[SPEAKER_00]: Cornelius might be a broker, but we have found no script to correspond with these large payments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Failing any other indication my research is must now take the direction of an inquiry at the bank for the gentleman who has cashed these checks.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I fear my dear fellow that our case will end in gloriously, by the strad hanging our client, which will certainly be a triumph for Scotland yard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not know how far Sherlock Holmes took any sleep that night, but when I came down to breakfast I found him pale and harassed, his bright eyes, the brighter for the dark shadows round them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The carpet round his chair was littered with cigarette ends and with the earlier additions of the morning papers, an open telegram lay upon the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was from Norwood and Rannas' follows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Important fresh evidence to hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: McFarlane's guilt definitely established.
[SPEAKER_00]: Advise you to abandon case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's try.
[SPEAKER_00]: This sound serious, said I. It is Lestrade's little cock-a-doodle of victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: and yet it may be premature to abandon the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing and may possibly cut in a very different direction to that which lestrard imagines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take your breakfast, Watson, and we will go out together and see what we can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel as if I shall need your company and your moral support today.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: you
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.