[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 Golden Pense Ne, Part 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our work for the year 1894, I confess that it is very difficult for me out of such a wealth of material to select the cases which are most interesting in themselves, and at the same time most conducive
[SPEAKER_00]: As I turn over the pages, I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby, the banker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here also I find an account of the Adleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British Barrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: the famous Smith Mortimer Succession case, comes also within this period and so does the tracking and arrest of Hurett the boulevard assassin, an exploit which won for homes and autograph letter of thanks from the French President and the Order of the Legion of Honor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each of these would furnish a narrative, but on the whole I am of opinion that none of them unite so many singular points of interest as the episode of Yoxley Old Place, which includes not only the lamentable death of young Willoughby Smith, but also those subsequent developments which through so curious a lighter on the causes of the crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of November.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: He engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription upon a palimpsest, by deep in a recent treatise upon surgery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Outside the wind held down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely against the windows.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was strange there in the very depths of the town with 10 miles of man's handiwork on every side of us to feel the iron grip of nature and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London was no more than the mole hills that dot the fields.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked to the window and looked out on the deserted street.
[SPEAKER_00]: The occasional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and shining pavement.
[SPEAKER_00]: A single cab was splashing its way from the Oxford street end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well Watson hits as well we have not to turn out tonight, said Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done enough for one sitting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is trying work for the eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So far as I can make out it is nothing more exciting than an abyss account stating from the second half of the 15th century.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, hello, hello, what's this?
[SPEAKER_00]: amid the droning of the wind that had come the stamping of a horse's hooves, and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped against the curb.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cab which I had seen had pulled up at our door.
[SPEAKER_00]: What can he want I ejaculated as a man stepped out of it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Want?
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, my poor Watson, want overcoats and crevats and galoshes, and every aid that man ever invented to fight the weather.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait a bit, though?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the cab off again.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's hope yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd have kept it if he had wanted us to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Run down my dear fellow and open the door for all virtuous folk have been long in bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was young Stanley Hopkins, a promising detective, in whose career homes had several times shown a very practical interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is he in?
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked eagerly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come up, my dear sir, said homes is voice from above.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you have no designs upon us such a night as this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The detective mounted the stairs and our lamp gleamed upon his shining water proof.
[SPEAKER_00]: I helped him out of it, while Holmes knocked a blaze out of the logs in the great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now my dear Hopkins draw up and warm your toes, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot water and a lemon, which is good medicine on a night like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must be something important which has brought you out in such a gale.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is indeed, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a bustling afternoon, I promise you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you see anything of the yoksly case in the latest editions?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen nothing later than the 15th century today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was only a paragraph and all wrong at that, so you have not missed anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't let the grass grow under my feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's down in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three from the railway line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was wired for at 3.15, reached Yoxley Old Place at 5, conducted my investigation, was back at Charing Cross by the last train, and straight to you by cab.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means I suppose that you are not quite clear about your case.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means that I can make neither head nor tail of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So far as I can see it is just as tangled of businesses ever I handled and yet at first it seemed so simple that one couldn't go wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no motive, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what bothers me I can't put my hand on a motive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a man dead, there's no denying that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But so far as I can see no reason on earth why anyone should wish him harm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes lit his cigar and lean back in his chair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us hear about it, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got my facts pretty clear, since Stanley Hopkins.
[SPEAKER_00]: All I want now is to know what they all mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: The story, so far as I can make it out, is like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some years ago, this country house, Yoxley Old Place, was taken by an elderly man who gave the name of Professor Kauram.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was an invalid, keeping his bed half the time, and the other half hobbling round the house with a stick, or being pushed about the grounds by the gardener in a bath chair.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was well-liked by the few neighbors who called upon him, and he has the reputation down there of being a very learned man.
[SPEAKER_00]: His household used to consist of an elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Marker, and of a maid, Susan Talton.
[SPEAKER_00]: These have both been with him since his arrival and they seem to be women of excellent character.
[SPEAKER_00]: The professor is writing a learning book and he found it necessary about a year ago to engage a secretary.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first two that he tried were not successes but the third, Mr. Willerby Smith, a very young man straight from the university, seems to have been just what his employer wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: His work consisted in writing all the morning to the professor's dictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up references and passages which bore upon the next day's work.
[SPEAKER_00]: This will be Smith has nothing against him, either as a boy at Uppingham, or as a young man at Cambridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have seen his testimonials and from the first he was a decent, quiet, hard-working fellow with no weak spot in him at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet this is the lad who has met his death this morning in the Professor's study under circumstances which can point only to murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Wind Howled and screamed at the windows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes and I drew closer to the fire while the young inspector slowly and point by point developed his singular narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to search all England, said he, I don't suppose you could find a household more self-contained or freer from outside influences.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whole weeks would pass, and not one of them go past the garden gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: The professor was buried in his work and existed for nothing else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Young Smith knew nobody in the neighborhood and lived very much as his employed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two women had nothing to take them from the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mortimer, the gardener, who wheels the bath chair is an army pensioner, an old Crimean man of excellent character.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does not live in the house but in a three-roomed cottage at the other end of the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the only people that you would find within the grounds of Yoxley Old Place.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, the gate of the garden is 100 yards from the main London to Chetam Road.
[SPEAKER_00]: It opens with a latch, and there is nothing to prevent anyone from walking in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I will give you the evidence of Susan Talton, who is the only person who can say anything positive about the matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in the forenoon between 11 and 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was engaged at the moment in hanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Professor Koram was still in bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: For when the weather is bad, he seldom rises before midday.
[SPEAKER_00]: The housekeeper was busyed with some work in the back of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Willoughby Smith had been in his bedroom which he uses as a sitting room.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the maid heard him at that moment pass along the passage and descend to the study immediately below her.
[SPEAKER_00]: she did not see him, but she says that she could not be mistaken in his quick firm trade.
[SPEAKER_00]: She did not hear the study door closed, but a minute or so later there was a dreadful cry in the room below.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a wild horse scream, so strange and unnatural that it might have come either from a man or a woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same instant there was a heavy thud which shook the old house and then all was silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: The maids stood petrified for a moment and then, recovering her courage she ran downstairs,
[SPEAKER_00]: the study door was shut and she opened it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside young Mr. Willaby Smith was stretched upon the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first she could see no injury, but as she tried to raise him she saw that blood was pouring from the underside of his neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was pierced by a very small but very deep wound which had divided the carotid artery.
[SPEAKER_00]: The instrument with which the injury
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of those small, sealing wax knives to be found on old-fashioned writing tables.
[SPEAKER_00]: With an ivory handle and a stiff blade, it was part of the fittings of the Professor's own desk.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first the maid thought that young Smith was already dead but on pouring some water from the caraphover his forehead, he opened his eyes for an instant.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Professor, he murmured, it was she.
[SPEAKER_00]: The maid is prepared to swear that those were the exact words.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tried desperately to say something else, and he held his right hand up in the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he fell back dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime the housekeeper had also arrived upon the scene, but she was just too late to catch the young man's dying words.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leaving Susan with the body, she hurried to the professor's room.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was sitting up in bed horribly agitated.
[SPEAKER_00]: For he had heard enough to convince him that something terrible had occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mrs. Marco is prepared to swear that the professor was still in his nightclothes, and indeed it was impossible for him to dress without the help of Mortimer, whose orders were to come at 12 o'clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: The professor declares that he heard the distant cry but that he knows nothing more.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can give no explanation of the young man's last words.
[SPEAKER_00]: it was she.
[SPEAKER_00]: But imagines that they were the outcome of delirium.
[SPEAKER_00]: He believes that Willa Be Smith had not an enemy in the world and can give no reason for the crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: His first action was to send Mortimer the gardener for the local police.
[SPEAKER_00]: A little later the chief constable sent for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing was moved before I got there, and strict orders were given that no one should walk upon the path leading to the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a splendid chance of putting your theories into practice Mr. Sherlock Holmes there was really nothing wanting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except Mr. Sherlock Holmes said my companion with a somewhat bitter smile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let us hear about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What sort of a job did you make of it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I must ask you first Mr. Holmes to glance at this rough plan, which will give you a general idea of the position of the Professor's study and the various points of the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will help you in following my investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He unfolded the rough chart which I hear reproduce and he laid it across Holmes's knee.
[SPEAKER_00]: I rose and standing behind Holmes, studied it over his shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is very rough, of course, and it only deals with the points which seem to me to be essential.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the rest you will see later for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, first of all, presuming that the assassin entered the house, how did he or she come in?
[SPEAKER_00]: Undoubtedly, by the garden path and the back door, from which there is direct access to the study.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any other way would have been exceedingly complicated.
[SPEAKER_00]: The escape must have also been made along that line.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the two other exits from the room one was blocked by Susan as she ran downstairs and the other leads straight to the professor's bedroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I therefore directed my attention at once to the garden path, which was saturated with recent rain and would certainly show any footmarks.
[SPEAKER_00]: My examination showed me that I was dealing with a cautious and expert criminal.
[SPEAKER_00]: No footmarks were to be found on the path.
[SPEAKER_00]: There could be no question, however, that someone had passed along the grass border which lines the path, and that he had done so in order to avoid leaving a track.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could not find anything in the nature of a distinct impression, but the grass was trotting down, and someone had undoubtedly passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could only have been the murderer since neither the gardener nor anyone else had been there that morning, and the rain had only begun during the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: One moment, said Holmes, where does this path lead to?
[SPEAKER_00]: To the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: How long is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: A hundred yards or so.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the point where the path passes through the gate, you could surely pick up the tracks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, on the road itself, no, it was all trodden into Maya.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tuck, tut, well then these tracks upon the grass where they coming or going.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was impossible to say there was never any outline.
[SPEAKER_00]: A large foot or a small...
[SPEAKER_00]: homes gave an ejaculation of impatience.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been pouring rain and blowing a hurricane ever since, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be harder to read now than that palampsist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well well it can't be helped.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you do Hopkins?
[SPEAKER_00]: After you had made certain that you had made certain of nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I made certain of a good deal, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that someone had entered the house cautiously from without.
[SPEAKER_00]: I next examined the corridor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is lined with coconut matting and had taken no impression of any kind.
[SPEAKER_00]: This brought me into the study itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a scantily furnished room.
[SPEAKER_00]: The main article is a large writing table with a fixed bureau.
[SPEAKER_00]: This bureau consists of a double column of drawers with the central small cupboard between them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The draws were open, the cupboard locked.
[SPEAKER_00]: The draws it seems were always open, and nothing of value was kept in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were some papers of importance in the cupboard, but there were no signs that this had been tampered with and the professor assures me that nothing was missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is certain that no robbery has been committed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I come now to the body of the young man,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was found near the bureau and just to the left of it, as marked upon that chart.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stab was on the right side of the neck and from behind forward, so that it is almost impossible that it could have been self-inflicted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless he fell upon the knife, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, the idea crossed my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we found the knife some feet away from the body, so that seems impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then of course there are other man's own dying words, and finally there was this very important piece of evidence which was found clasped in the dead man's right hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: From his pocket Stanley Hopkins drew a small paper packet.
[SPEAKER_00]: He unfolded it and disclosed a golden pass near, with two broken ends of black silk cord dangling from the end of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Willoughby Smith had excellent sight he added.
[SPEAKER_00]: There can be no question that this was snatched from the face or the person of the assassin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherlock Holmes took the glasses into his hand and examined them with the utmost attention and interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: He held them on his nose, endeavored to read through them, went to the window and stared up the street with them, looked at them most minutely in the full light of the lamp.
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, with a chuckle, seated himself at the table and wrote a few lines upon a sheet of paper, which he tossed across to Stanley Hopkins.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the best I can do for you, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may prove to be of some use.
[SPEAKER_00]: The astonished detective read the note aloud.
[SPEAKER_00]: It ran as follows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wanted a woman of good address attired like a lady.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has a remarkably thick nose with eyes which are set close upon either side of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has a puckered forehead, appearing expression, and probably rounded shoulders.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are indications that she has had recourse to an optician at least twice during the last few months.
[SPEAKER_00]: As her glasses are of remarkable strength, and as opticians are not very numerous, there
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes smiled at the astonishment of Hopkins, which must have been reflected upon my features.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely my deductions are simplicity itself, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be difficult to name any articles which afford a finer field for inference than a pair of glasses, especially so remarkable a pair as these, that they belong to a woman I infer from their delicacy, and also of course from the last words of the dying man.
[SPEAKER_00]: as to her being a person of refinement and well-dressed, they are, as you perceive, handsomely mounted in solid gold, and it is inconceivable that anyone who wore such glasses could be slattingly in other respects.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will find that the clips are too wide for your nose, showing that the ladies nose was very broad at the base.
[SPEAKER_00]: This sort of nose is usually a short and coarse one,
[SPEAKER_00]: but there is a sufficient number of exceptions to prevent me from being dogmatic or from insisting upon this point in my description.
[SPEAKER_00]: My own face is a narrow one, and yet I find that I cannot get my eyes into the center, nor near the center of these glasses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, the ladies' eyes are set very near to the sides of the nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will perceive what's and that the glasses are concave and of unusual strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lady whose vision has been so extremely contracted all her life is sure to have the physical characteristics of such vision, which are seen in the forehead, the eyelids and the shoulders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I said, I can follow each of your arguments.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confess, however, that I am unable to understand how you arrive at the double visit to the optician.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will perceive, he said, that the clips are lined with tiny bands of cork to soften the pressure upon the nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of these is discolored and worn to some slight extent, but the other is new.
[SPEAKER_00]: Evidently one has fallen off and been replaced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should judge that the older of them has not been there more than a few months.
[SPEAKER_00]: They exactly correspond.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I gather that the lady went back to the same establishment for the second.
[SPEAKER_00]: By George it's marvellous, cried Hopkins in an ecstasy of admiration, to think that I had all that evidence in my hand and never knew it, I had intended however to go the round of the London Opticians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course you would, meanwhile have you anything more to tell us about the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing Mr. Holmes, I think that you know as much as I do now,
[SPEAKER_00]: probably more.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have had inquiries made as to any strangers seen on the country roads or at the railway station.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have heard of none.
[SPEAKER_00]: What beats me is the utter want of all object in the crime, not a ghost of a motive can anyone suggest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, there I am not in a position to help you, but I suppose you want us to come out tomorrow,
[SPEAKER_00]: If it is not asking too much Mr. Holmes, there's a train from chairing cross to Chattam at 6 in the morning and we should be at yoksley old place between 8 and 9.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we shall take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your case has certainly some features of great interest and I shall be delighted to look into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's nearly one and we had best get a few hours sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I dare say you can manage all right on the sofa in front of the fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll like my spirit lamp and give you a cup of coffee before we start.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.