[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 one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But why Turkish asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes gazing fixedly at my boots.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, and my protruded feet had attracted his ever active attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: English, I answered in some surprise, I got them at Latamas in Oxford
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patients.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bath, he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why the relaxing and expensive Turkish rather than the invigorating home made article?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because for the last few days I've been feeling rheumatic and old, a Turkish bath is what we call an alternative in medicine, a fresh starting point, a cleanser of the
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, Holmes, I added, I have no doubt the connection between my boots and a Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one to a logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you if you would indicate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The train of reasoning is not very obscure Watson, said Holmes with a mischievous twinkle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It belongs to the same elementary class of deduction which I should illustrate if I were
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation, said I with some asperity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bravo Watson, a very dignified and logical remonstrance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see what were the points.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take the last one first, the cab.
[SPEAKER_00]: You observe that you have some splashes on the left sleeve and shoulder of your coat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had you sat in the center of a handsome you would probably have had no splashes and if you
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, it is clear that you sat at the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, it is equally clear that you had a companion.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is very evident.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obserredly common places it not.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the boots and the bath.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are in the habit of doing up your boots in a certain way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see them on this occasion fastened with an elaborate double bow, which is not your usual method of tying them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have, therefore, had them off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who has tied them?
[SPEAKER_00]: A bootmaker?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or the boy at the bath?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is unlikely that it is the bootmaker since your boots are nearly new.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what remains, the bath, absurd is it not, but for all that the Turkish bath has served a purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: You say that you have had it because you need a change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me suggest that you take one.
[SPEAKER_00]: How would Lose Anne do my dear Watson?
[SPEAKER_00]: First class tickets and all expenses paid on a princely scale.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's blended, but why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his pocket.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the most dangerous classes in the world said he, is the drifting and friendless woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is the most harmless and often the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable insider of crime in others.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is helpless, she is migratory,
[SPEAKER_00]: She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is lost as often as not in a maze of obscure pensions and boarding houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a strayed chicken in a world of foxes.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she is gobbled up she is hardly missed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I much fear that some evil has come to the Lady France's carfax.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was relieved that this sudden descent from the general to the particular.
[SPEAKER_00]: homes consulted his notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Francis, he continued, is the sole survivor of the direct family of the late Earl of Ruffton.
[SPEAKER_00]: The estate's went as you may remember in the mail line.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was left with limited means, but with some very remarkable old Spanish jewelry of silver and curiously cut diamonds to which she was fondly attached.
[SPEAKER_00]: A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Francis, a beautiful woman still in fresh middle age and yet by a strange change, the last derelict of what only 20 years ago was a goodly fleet.
[SPEAKER_00]: What has happened to her then?
[SPEAKER_00]: What has happened to the Lady Francis is she a live or dead?
[SPEAKER_00]: There is our problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a lady of precise habits, and for four years it has been her invariable custom to write every second week to Miss Dobny, her old governess, who has long retired and lives in Campbellwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is this Miss Dobny, who has consulted me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nearly five weeks have passed without a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last letter was from the Hotel National at Loseanne.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady France is seems to have left there and given no address, the family are anxious and as they are exceedingly wealthy, no sum will be spared if we can clear the matter up.
[SPEAKER_00]: is missed dogney the only source of information.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely she had other correspondence.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is one correspondence who is a sure draw Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Single ladies must live and their passbooks are compressed diaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: She banks at Silvestors.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have glanced over her account.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last check but one paid her bill at Loseanne but it was a large one and probably left her with cash in hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: only one check has been drawn since.
[SPEAKER_00]: To whom and where?
[SPEAKER_00]: To Miss Murray Divine, there is nothing to show where the check was drawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was cashed at the Credi Lione at Montpellier Less than 3 weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sum was £50.
[SPEAKER_00]: And who is Miss Murray Divine?
[SPEAKER_00]: that also I have been able to discover.
[SPEAKER_00]: Miss Marie Divine was the maid of Lady Francis Carfax.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why she should have paid her this check we have not yet determined.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt, however that your researchers will soon clear the matter up.
[SPEAKER_00]: My researches
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that I cannot possibly leave London, while old Abraham's is in such mortal terror of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Besides, on general principles it is best that I should not leave the country, Scotland Yardfields lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go then, my dear Watson, and if my humble counsel can ever be valued at so extravagant a rate as two-pence a word, it waits your disposal night and day at the end of the
[SPEAKER_00]: Two days later found me at the Hotel National at Loseanne, where I received every courtesy at the hands of Monsieur Mosa, the well-known manager.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Francis, as he informed me, had stayed there for several weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been much liked by all who met her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her age was not more than 40.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was still handsome and bore every sign of having in her youth been a very lovely woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: was your mosa new nothing of any valuable jewelry, but it had been remarked by the servants that the heavy trunk in the ladies bedroom was always scrupulously locked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Marie divine the maid was as popular as her mistress.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was actually engaged to one of the headwaters in the hotel, and there was no difficulty in getting her address.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was eleven, rude, atrage on, Montpellier.
[SPEAKER_00]: All this I jotted down and felt that Holmes himself could not have been more adroit in collecting his facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only one corner still remained in the shadow.
[SPEAKER_00]: No light which I possessed could clear up the cause for the lady's sudden departure.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was very happy at Loseanne.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was every reason to believe that she intended to remain for the season in her luxurious rooms overlooking the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: and yet she had left at a single day's notice, which involved her in the useless payment of a week's rent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only Jules Vibar, the lover of the maid had any suggestion to offer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He connected the sudden departure with the visit to the hotel a day or two before of a tall, dark, bearded man.
[SPEAKER_00]: the man had rooms somewhere in the town.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been seen talking earnestly to Madam on the promenade by the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he had called.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had refused to see him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was English, but of his name there was no record.
[SPEAKER_00]: Madam had left the place immediately afterwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jules Vibar and what was of more importance Jules Vibar's sweetheart thought that this call and the departure were cause and effect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only one thing Jules would not discuss.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the reason why Marie had left her mistress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of that he could or would say nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I wish to know I must go to Montpellier and ask her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So ended the first chapter of my inquiry.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second was devoted to the place which Lady France's carfax had sought when she left Loseanne.
[SPEAKER_00]: Concerning this, there had been some secrecy which confirmed the idea that she had gone with the intention of throwing someone off her track.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, why should not her luggage have been openly labelled for Barton?
[SPEAKER_00]: both she and it reached the Danish spa by some secuities route.
[SPEAKER_00]: This much I gathered from the manager of Cook's local office.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to Barden I went after dispatching to homes and account of all my proceedings and receiving in reply a telegram of half humorous commendation.
[SPEAKER_00]: At Barden the track was not difficult to follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Francis had stayed at the English-A-Hoff for a fortnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: While there she had made the acquaintance of a doctor Schlesinger and his wife, a missionary from South America.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like most lonely ladies, Lady Francis found her comfort and occupation in religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Schlesinger's remarkable personality, his whole hearted devotion, and the fact that he was recovering from a disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic duties affected her deeply.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had helped Mrs. Schlesinger in the nursing of the convalescent saint.
[SPEAKER_00]: He spent his day as the manager described it to me upon a lounge chair on the veranda, with an attendant lady upon either side of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was preparing a map of the Holy Land, with special reference to the kingdom of the Midianites, upon which he was writing a monograph.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, having improved much in health, he and his wife had returned to London, and Lady Francis had started thither in their company.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was just three weeks before, and the manager had heard nothing since.
[SPEAKER_00]: As to the maid Marie, she had gone off some days beforehand in floods of tears after informing the other maids that she was leaving service forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Schlesinger had paid the bill of the whole party before his departure.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, said the landlord in conclusion, you are not the only friend of Lady Francis Carfax, who is inquiring after her just now,
[SPEAKER_00]: Only a week or so ago we had a man here upon the same errand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did he give a name?
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked.
[SPEAKER_00]: None, but he was an Englishman, though of an unusual type.
[SPEAKER_00]: A savage, said I, linking my facts after the fashion of my illustrious friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: That describes him very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a bulky, bearded sunburned fellow who looks as if he would be more at home in a farm as in than in a fashionable hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: A hard fierce man I should think and one whom I should be sorry to offend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Already the mystery began to define itself as Figur's grow clearer with the lifting of a fog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here was this good and pious lady pursued from place to place by a sinister and unrelenting figure.
[SPEAKER_00]: she feared him or she would not have fled from Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had still followed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sooner or later he would overtake her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had he already overtaken her?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that the secret of her continued silence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could the good people who were her companions not screen her from his violence or his blackmail?
[SPEAKER_00]: What horrible purpose?
[SPEAKER_00]: What deep design lay behind this long pursuit?
[SPEAKER_00]: There was the problem which I had to solve.
[SPEAKER_00]: To Holmes, I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had got down to the roots of the matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: In reply, I had a telegram asking for a description of Dr. Schlesinger's left ear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes' ideas of humour are strange and occasionally offensive, so I took no notice of his ill-time gest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all that she could tell me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a devoted creature who had only left her mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands and because her own approaching marriage made a separation inevitable in any case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, shown some irritability of temper towards her during their stay in Barton and had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions
[SPEAKER_00]: and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise have been.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Francis had given her 50 pounds as a wedding present.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like me Marie viewed with deep distrust the stranger who had driven her mistress from Loseanne.
[SPEAKER_00]: With her own eyes she had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the public promenade by the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a fierce and terrible man.
[SPEAKER_00]: She believed that it was out of dread of him that Lady Francis had accepted the escort of the Schlesinger's to London.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had never spoken to Marie about it, but many little signs had convinced the maid that her mistress lived in a state of continual nervous apprehension.
[SPEAKER_00]: So far she had got in her narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: When suddenly she sprang from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and fear,
[SPEAKER_00]: See?
[SPEAKER_00]: She cried.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mystery and follow still, there is the very man of whom I speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the open sitting room window I saw a huge swore the man with a bristling black beard walking slowly down the center of the street and staring eagerly at the numbers of the houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was clear that, like myself, he was on the track of the maid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Acting upon the impulse of the moment I rushed out and accosted him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are an Englishman, I said.
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I am?
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked with a most villainous scowl.
[SPEAKER_00]: May I ask what your name is?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you may not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said he with decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: The situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where is the Lady France's carfax I asked?
[SPEAKER_00]: He stared at me with amazement.
[SPEAKER_00]: What have you done with her?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why have you pursued her?
[SPEAKER_00]: I insist upon an answer, said I.
[SPEAKER_00]: the fellow gave a bellow of anger and sprang upon me like a tiger.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have held my own in many a struggle, but the man had a grip of iron and the fury of a feigned.
[SPEAKER_00]: His hand was on my throat and my senses were nearly gone before an unshaven French uvrior in a blue blouse darted out from a cabaret opposite, with a cudgel in his hand, and struck my assailant a sharp crack over the forearm, which made him leave go his hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stood for an instant fuming with rage and uncertain whether he should not renew his attack.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, with a snarl of anger, he left me and entered the cottage from which I had just come.
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned to thank my preserver, who stood beside me in the roadway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well Watson, said he, a very pretty hash you have made of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I rather think you had better come back with me to London by the night express.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our afterwards, Sherlock Holmes in his usual garb and style, was seated in my private room at the hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: His explanation of his sudden and opportune appearance was simplicity itself, for finding that he could get away from London he determined ahead me off at the next obvious point of my travels.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the disguise of a working man, he had sat in the cabaret, waiting for my appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a singularly consistent investigation you have made my dear Watson, said he, I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted.
[SPEAKER_00]: The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps you would have done no better, I answered bitterly.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no perhaps about it, I have done better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is the Honorable Philip Green, who is a fellow lodger with you in this hotel, and we may find him the starting point for a more successful investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: A card had come up on a salver and it was followed by the same bearded ruffian who had attacked me in the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: He started when he saw me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is this, Mr. Holmes?
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had your note and I have come.
[SPEAKER_00]: but what is this man to do with the matter?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my old friend and associate Dr. Watson who is helping us in this affair.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stranger held out a huge sunburned hand with a few words of apology.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope I didn't harm you.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you accused me of hurting her, I lost my grip of myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, I'm not responsible in these days.
[SPEAKER_00]: My nerves are like live wires, but this situation is beyond me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I want to know in the first place Mr. Holmes is how in the world you came to hear of my existence at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am in touch with Miss Dobny, Lady Francis'
[SPEAKER_00]: And she remembers you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in the days before before you found it better to go to South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see you know my whole story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need hide nothing from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I swear to you, Mr. Holmes, that there never was in this world a man who loved a woman with a more whole hearted love than I had for Francis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a wild youngster, I know, not worse than others of my class.
[SPEAKER_00]: But her mind was pure as snow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when she came to hear of things that I had done, she would have no more to say to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet she loved me, that is the wonder of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love me well enough to remain single all her sainted days just for my sake alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the years had passed and I had made my money at Barbaton, I thought perhaps I could seek her out and soften her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had heard that she was still unmarried, I found her at Loseanne and tried all I knew.
[SPEAKER_00]: She weakened, I think, but her will was strong, and when next I called, she had left the town.
[SPEAKER_00]: I traced her to Barton, and then after a time heard that her maid was here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a rough fellow, fresh from a rough life, and when Dr. Watson spoke to me as he did, I lost hold of myself for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for God's sake, tell me what has become of the lady Francis.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is for us to find out, said Sherlock Holmes with peculiar gravity.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is your London address, Mr. Green?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Langham Hotel will find me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then may I recommend that you return there and be on hand in case I should want you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no desire to encourage false hopes, but you may rest assured that all that can be done will be done for the safety of Lady Francis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can say no more for the instant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will leave you this card so that you may be able to keep in touch with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Watson, if you will pack your bag, I will cable to Mrs Hudson to make one of her best efforts for two hungry travelers at 730 tomorrow.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.