[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]: The adventure of the empty house
[SPEAKER_00]: part two.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated beside him in a handsome, my revolver in my pocket, and the thrill of adventure in my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes was cold and stern and silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the gleam of the street lamps flashed upon his
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured from the bearing of this master huntsman that the adventure was a most grave one.
[SPEAKER_00]: While the sardonic smile which occasionally broke through his ascetic gloom, bowded little good for the object of our quest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street but Holmes stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square.
[SPEAKER_00]: I observed that as he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not followed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our route was certainly a singular one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes is knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly and with an assured step through a network of mues and stables, the very existence
[SPEAKER_00]: We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street and so to Blanford Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here he turns swiftly down a narrow passage past through a wooden gate into a deserted yard and then opened with a key, the backdoor of a house.
[SPEAKER_00]: We entered together and he closed it behind us.
[SPEAKER_00]: but it was evident to me that it was an empty house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our feet creaked and crackled over the bear planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in ribbons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes' cold thin fingers closed round my wrists and led me forward down a long haul, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, homes turned suddenly to the right, and we found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the center from the lights of the street beyond.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no lamp near, and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only just discern each other's figures within.
[SPEAKER_00]: My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know where we are?
[SPEAKER_00]: He whispered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely that is Baker Street, I answered, staring through the dim window.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old quarters.
[SPEAKER_00]: But why are we here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it commands so excellent of view of that picturesque pile,
[SPEAKER_00]: Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms?
[SPEAKER_00]: The starting point of so many of your little fairy tales.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window.
[SPEAKER_00]: As my eyes fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement.
[SPEAKER_00]: The blind was down, and a strong light was burning in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard black outline upon the luminous screen of the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squerness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features.
[SPEAKER_00]: The face was turned half round and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a perfect reproduction of homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So amazed was I that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was quivering with silent laughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good heavens, I cried, it is marvellous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I trust that age-duth-not-with-a-nor-custom-stale-my-infinite-variety," said he, and I recognised in his voice the joy and pride which the artist takes in his own creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really is rather like me, is it not?
[SPEAKER_00]: I should be prepared to swear that it was you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar-Munier of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the molding.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a bust in wax.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: But why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you thought the rooms were watched?
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that they were watched by whom.
[SPEAKER_00]: By my old enemies Watson, by the charming society whose leader lies in the right and back fall, you must remember that they knew and only they knew that I was still alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: They watch them continuously and this morning they saw me arrive.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I recognise their Sentinel when I glanced out of my window.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the Jews' harp.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cared nothing for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bosom friend of Moriati, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the man who is after me tonight Watson and that is the man who is quite unaware that we are after him.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friends' plans were gradually revealing themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: From this convenient retreat, the watches were being watched and the track has tracked.
[SPEAKER_00]: That angular shadow up Yonder was the bait, and we were the hunters.
[SPEAKER_00]: In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the hurrying figures who passed and repost in front of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes were silent and motionless, but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passes by.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a bleak and boisterous night and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people were moving too and fro, most of them muffled in their coats and crevats.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once or twice, it seemed to me that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house some distance up the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to draw my companions attention to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: but he gave a little ejaculation of impatience and continued to stare into the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: More than once he fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy and that his plans were not working out altogether as he had hoped.
[SPEAKER_00]: At last, as midnight approached in the street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was about to make some remark to him when I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again experienced almost as greater surprise as before.
[SPEAKER_00]: I clutched Holmes' arm and pointed upward.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shadow has moved, I cried.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was indeed no longer the profile but the back, which was turned towards us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three years had certainly not smoothed the disparities of his temper, or his impatience with the less active intelligence than his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course it has moved, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I such a farsical bungalow Watson that I should erect an obvious dummy and expect that some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been in this room two hours and Mrs Hudson has made some change in that figure
[SPEAKER_00]: She works it from the front so that her shadow may never be seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He drew in his breath with a shrill excited intake.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: His whole attitude rigid with attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Outside the street was absolutely deserted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them.
[SPEAKER_00]: All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, in the utter silence, I heard that thin, sibilant note, which spoke of intense suppressed excitement.
[SPEAKER_00]: An instant later, he pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room and I felt his warning hand upon my lips.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fingers which clutched me were quivering.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched lonely and motionless before us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already distinguished.
[SPEAKER_00]: A low stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which we lay concealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: A door opened and shut,
[SPEAKER_00]: An instant later steps crept down the passage, steps which were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes crouched back against the wall, and I did the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hand closing upon the handle of my revolver.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peering through the glue my saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing into the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was within three yards of us this sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring, before I realised that he had no idea of our presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: He passed close beside us, stole over to the window and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he sank to the level of this opening, the light of the street no longer dimmed by the dusty glass fell full upon his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man seemed to be beside himself with excitement.
[SPEAKER_00]: His two eyes shone like stars and his features were working convulsively.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was an elderly man with a thin projecting nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache.
[SPEAKER_00]: An opera hat was pushed to the back of his head and an evening dress shirt front gleamed out through his open-over coat.
[SPEAKER_00]: His face was gaunt and sworthy, scored with deep savage lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: In his hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor, it gave a metallic clang.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then from the pocket of his overcoat, he drew a bulky object, and he busyed himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click.
[SPEAKER_00]: As if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still kneeling upon the floor, he bent forward and threw all his weight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long whirling grinding noise ending once more in a powerful click.
[SPEAKER_00]: He straightened himself then and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapened butt.
[SPEAKER_00]: He opened it at the breach, put something in, and snapped the breach lock.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long mustache droop over the stock, and his eye gleam as it peered along the sights.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cutled the butt into his shoulder and saw that amazing target the black man on the yellow ground standing clear at the end of his foresight.
[SPEAKER_00]: For an instant he was rigid and motionless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then his finger tightened on the trigger.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a strange loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that instant, Holmes sprang like a tiger onto the marksman's back and hurled him flat upon his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was up again in a moment and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver and he dropped again upon the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fell upon him and as I held him my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was the clatter of running feet upon the pavement and two policemen in uniform with one plane-clothes detective rushed through the front entrance and into the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: That you, Lestrade, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took the job myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to see you back in London, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you want a little unofficial help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three undetected murders in one year won't do less rad.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you handled the Molesi mystery with less than your usual.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's to say, you handled it fairly well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had all risen to our feet up Prisoner Breathing Hard with a stalwart constable on each side of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Already a few loiterers had begun to collect in the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: homes stepped up to the window, closed it and dropped the blinds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lestrade had produced two candles and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes with their drooping cynical lids, or upon the fierce aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading nature's plainest danger signals.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes' face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended.
[SPEAKER_00]: "'You fiend,' he kept on muttering.
[SPEAKER_00]: "'You clever, clever fiend.'"
[SPEAKER_00]: Our Colonel said Holmes arranging his rumpled collar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favored me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the right-hand back fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cunning, cunning, fiend was all that he could say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not introduced you yet, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: This gentleman is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of her Majesty's Indian Army, and the best heavy game shot that our eastern empire has ever produced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe I am correct Colonel in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivaled.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fierce old man said nothing but still glad at my companion.
[SPEAKER_00]: With his savage eyes and bristling
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder that my very simple strategy could deceive so old as she'd carry," said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must be very familiar to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree?
[SPEAKER_00]: Lane above it with your rifle and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger.
[SPEAKER_00]: This empty house is my tree and you are my tiger.
[SPEAKER_00]: you have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you.
[SPEAKER_00]: These, he pointed around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are my other guns?
[SPEAKER_00]: The parallel is exact.
[SPEAKER_00]: Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the constables dragged him back.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fury upon his face was terrible to look at.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confessed that you had one small surprise for me, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and this convenient front window.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had imagined you as operating from the street where my friend Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you.
[SPEAKER_00]: With that exception, all has gone as I expected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may or may not have just caused for arresting me," said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the jobs of this person.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's reasonable enough," said Lestrod.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing further you have to say Mr. Holmes before we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes had picked up the powerful air gun from the floor and was examining its mechanism.
[SPEAKER_00]: An admirable and unique weapon said he, noiseless and of tremendous power.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty.
[SPEAKER_00]: For years I have been aware of its existence, though I have never before had the opportunity of handling it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I commend it very specially to your attention, the Strad and also the bullets which fit it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes, Strad, as the whole party moved towards the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything further to say, only to ask what charge you intend to prefer.
[SPEAKER_00]: What charge sir?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why of course the attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Solar Strad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not propose to appear in the matter at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: To you and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which you have affected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, LeStrad, I congratulate you with your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got whom, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain, Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the honorable Ronald Adair with an expanding bullet from an air gun through the open window of the second floor front of number 427 Park Lane upon the 30th of last month.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the charges, strad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of mycroft homes, and the immediate care of Mrs Hudson.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I entered I saw it is true and unwanted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all in their place.
[SPEAKER_00]: There upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrapbooks and books of reference which many of our fellow citizens would have been so glad to burn.
[SPEAKER_00]: The diagrams, the violin case and the pipe rack, even the Persian Slipper which contained the tobacco, all met my eyes as I glanced round me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were two occupants of the room, one, Mrs Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other, the strange dummy which had played so important to part in the evening's adventures.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a wax-colored model of my friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile.
[SPEAKER_00]: It stood on a small pedestal table with an old dressing gown of homes is so draped round
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to it on my knees, just as you told me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_00]: You carried the thing out very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you observe where the bullet went?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes sir, I'm afraid it has spoiled your beautiful bust for it past right through the head and flattened itself on the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I picked it up from the carpet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes held it out to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: there's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a thing fired from an air gun.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Mrs Hudson, I am much obliged for your assistance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now what's and let me see you in your old seat once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had thrown off the CD Frockcoat and now he was the homes of old in the mouse-colored dressing gown, which he took from his effigy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old Chikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness nor his eyes their keenness," said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead of his bust.
[SPEAKER_00]: Plum in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the brain he was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you heard the name?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I have not.
[SPEAKER_00]: well-well such as fame.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then if I remember right, you had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great brains of the century.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just give me down my index of biographies from the shelf.
[SPEAKER_00]: He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing great clouds from his cigar.
[SPEAKER_00]: My collection of M's is a fine one, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the Poisoner, and Meridue of a Bominable Memory, and Matthews who knocked out my left canine in the waiting room at Charing Cross and, finally, here is our friend of tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: He handed over the book and I read.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moran, Sebastian, Colonel, Unemployed, formerly First Bangalore pioneers, Born London, 1840, Son of Sir Augusta's Moran, CB, once British Minister to Persia, Educated Eaton and Oxford, served in Jawaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Characayab Despatches, Sharper and Carbel.
[SPEAKER_00]: author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas, 1881, three months in the jungle, 1884.
[SPEAKER_00]: Address, conduit street, clubs, the Anglo-Indian, the tank of ill, the Bagatelle card club.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the margin was written in Holmes' precise hand, the second most dangerous man in London.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is astonishing, said I, as I handed back the volume.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man's career is that of an honorable soldier.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is true, Holmes answered, up to a certain point he did well.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some trees Watson which grow to a certain height and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will see it often in humans.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree.
[SPEAKER_00]: The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family.
[SPEAKER_00]: it is surely rather fanciful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well I don't insist upon it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without any open scandal he still made India too hot to hold him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriati, to whom for a time he
[SPEAKER_00]: Moriarty supplied him liberally with money and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart of Lorder in 1887.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved.
[SPEAKER_00]: So cleverly was the kernel concealed that even when the Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember at that date when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of air guns?
[SPEAKER_00]: No doubt you thought me fanciful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew exactly what I was doing for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we were in Switzerland, he followed us with Moriati, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the right and back ledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my sojourn in France, on the lookout for any chance of laying in by the heels.
[SPEAKER_00]: So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have been worth living.
[SPEAKER_00]: Night and day the shadow would have been over me and sooner or later his chance must have come.
[SPEAKER_00]: What could I do?
[SPEAKER_00]: I could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no use appealing to a magistrate, they cannot interfere on the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I could do nothing, but I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then came the death of this Ronald Adair.
[SPEAKER_00]: My chance had come at last.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing what I did was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it, he had played cards with the lad, he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through the open window.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was not a doubt of it, the bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came over at once, I was seen by the Sentinel who would I knew direct the Colonel's attention to my presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I left him an excellent mark in the window and having worn the police that they might be needed by the way Watson used spotted their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does anything remain for me to explain?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, said I. You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's motive in murdering the honourable Ronald Adair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture where the most logical mind may be at fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence and yours is as likely to be correct as mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: you have formed one then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It came out in evidence that Colonel Moran and Young Adair had between them one a considerable amount of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Moran undoubtedly played foul of that I have long been aware.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that on the day of the murder, Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating.
[SPEAKER_00]: very likely he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him, unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the club, and promised not to play cards again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is unlikely that a youngster like a dare would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much older than himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably he acted as I suggest.
[SPEAKER_00]: The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten cardgains.
[SPEAKER_00]: He therefore murdered a dare, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his partner's foul play.
[SPEAKER_00]: He locked the door less the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and coins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will it pass?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be verified or disproved at the trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, come what may Colonel Moran will trouble us no more.
[SPEAKER_00]: The famous air gun of Fawn Hearder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems,
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: you