The Adventure of the Dancing Men, Part 1

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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 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes had been seated for some hours in silence with his long thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a particularly maladourous product.
[SPEAKER_00]: His head was sunk upon his breast, and he looked from my point of view like a strange
[SPEAKER_00]: So Watson, said he suddenly, you do not propose to invest in South African securities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave a start of astonishment.
[SPEAKER_00]: A custom, as I was, to Holmes' curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable.
[SPEAKER_00]: How on earth do you know that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked,
[SPEAKER_00]: He wheeled round upon his stool with a steaming test tube in his hand, and a gleam of amusement in his deep set eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because in five minutes, you will say that it is also absurdly simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am sure that I shall say nothing of the kind.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, my dear Watson, he propped his test tube in the rack and began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting point in the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious effect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it was not really difficult by an inspection of the groove between your left, four finger and thumb to feel sure that you did not propose to invest your small capital in the gold fields.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see no connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very likely not, but I can quickly show you a close connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here are the missing links of the very simple chain.
[SPEAKER_00]: One.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two.
[SPEAKER_00]: You put chalk there when you play billions to steady the cue.
[SPEAKER_00]: 3.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never play billions except with Thirston.
[UNKNOWN]: 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: You told me four weeks ago that Thirston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month and which he desired you to share with him.
[UNKNOWN]: 5.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your checkbook is locked in my drawer and you have not asked for the key.
[UNKNOWN]: 6.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do not propose to invest your money in this manner.
[SPEAKER_00]: how absurdly simple I cried.
[SPEAKER_00]: Quite so, said he a little nettle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is an unexplained one.
[SPEAKER_00]: See what you can make of that friend Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tossed a sheet of paper upon the table and turned once more to his chemical analysis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked with amazement at the absurd hieroglyphics upon the paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why homes it is a child's drawing, I cried.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's your idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: What else should it be?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what Mr. Hilton Kubit of writing thought manner Norfolk is very anxious to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: This little conundrum came by the first post and he was to follow by the next train.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a ring at the Bell Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should not be very much surprised if this were he.
[SPEAKER_00]: A heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and an instant later, they entered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and floored cheeks told of a life-led far from the fogs of Baker Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: He seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, fresh, bracing East Coast air with him as he entered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having shaken hands with each of us, he was about to sit down, when his eye rested
[SPEAKER_00]: which I had just examined and left upon the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Mr. Holmes, what do you make of these?
[SPEAKER_00]: He cried.
[SPEAKER_00]: They told me that you were fond of queer mysteries, and I don't think you can find a queerer one than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sent the paper on a head, so that you might have time to study it before I came.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is certainly rather a curious production said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first sight it would appear to be some childish prank.
[SPEAKER_00]: It consists of a number of absurd little figures dancing across the paper upon which they are drawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why should you attribute any importance to so-growth test can object?
[SPEAKER_00]: I never should, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: but my wife does, it is frightening her to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says nothing, but I can see terror in her eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I want to sift the matter to the bottom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes held up the paper so that the sunlight shone full upon it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a page torn from a notebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes examined it for some time, and then folding it carefully up, he placed it in his pocketbook.
[SPEAKER_00]: This promise is to be a most interesting and unusual case, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: You gave me a few particulars in your letter Mr. Hilton Cupid.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I should be very much obliged if you would kind of go over it all again for the benefit of my friend Dr. Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not much of a storyteller, said our visitor, nervously clasping and unclassping his great strong hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll just ask me anything that I don't make clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll begin at the time of my marriage last year, but I want to say first of all that, though I'm not a rich man, my people have been at riding thought for a matter of five centuries, and there is no better known family in the county of Norfolk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year I came up to London for the Jubilee and I stopped at a boarding house in Russell Square because Parker, the vicar of our parish, was staying in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was an American young lady there, Patrick was the name, LC Patrick.
[SPEAKER_00]: In some way we became friends until before my month was up I was as much in love as a man could be.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were quietly married at a registry office and we returned to Norfolk a wedded couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll think it very mad, Mr. Holmes, that a man of a good-old family should marry a wife in this fashion knowing nothing of her past or of her people.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you saw her and knew her, it would help you to understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was very straight about it was LC.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't say that she did not give me every chance of getting out of it if I wish to do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have had some very disagreeable associations in my life, said she.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish to forget all about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would rather never elude to the past, for it is very painful to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you take me, Hilton, you will take a woman who has nothing that she need be personally ashamed of.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you will have to be content with my word for it and to allow me to be silent as to all that passed up to the time when I became yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: If these conditions are too hard, then go back to Norfolk and leave me to the lonely life in which you found me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was only the day before our wedding that she said those very words to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her that I was content to take her on her own terms and I have been as good as my word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well we have been married now for a year and very happy we have been.
[SPEAKER_00]: But about a month ago at the end of June, I saw for the first time signs of trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day my wife received a letter from America.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the American stamp.
[SPEAKER_00]: She turned deadly white, read the letter, and threw it into the fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: She made no illusion to it afterwards, and I made none.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a promise is a promise, but she has never known an easy hour from that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is always a look of fear upon her face.
[SPEAKER_00]: A look as if she were waiting and expecting.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would do better to trust me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would find that I was her best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: But until she speaks, I can say nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mind you, she is a truthful woman, Mr. Holmes, and whatever trouble that may have been in her past life, it has been no fault of hers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm only a simple Norfolk Squire.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is not a man in England who ranks his family on a more highly than I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: She knows it well and she knew it well before she married me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would never bring any stain upon it of that I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well now I come to the queer part of my story.
[SPEAKER_00]: About a week ago it was the Tuesday of last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found on one of the windowcills a number of absurd little dancing figures like these upon the paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were scrolled with chalk.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that it was the stable boy who had drawn them but the lads swore he knew nothing about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyhow, they had come there during the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had them washed out and I only mentioned the matter to my wife afterwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: To my surprise, she took it very seriously and begged me if any more came to let her see them.
[SPEAKER_00]: None did come for a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then yesterday morning I found this paper lying on the sundial in the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: I showed it to Elsie and down she dropped in a dead faint.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since then she has looked like a woman in a dream, half-dazed, and with terror always lurking in her eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was then that I wrote and sent the paper to you, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: but you will tell me what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a rich man, but if there is any danger threatening my little woman I would spend my last copper to shield her.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a fine creature, this man of the old English soil, simple, straight and gentle, with his great earnest blue eyes and broad, cumbly face.
[SPEAKER_00]: His love for his wife and his trust in her shone in his features.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes had listened to his story with the utmost attention, and now he sat for some time in silent thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you think Mr. Cupid said he had last that your best plan would be to make a direct appeal to your wife and to ask her to share her secret with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hilton Cupid shook his massive head.
[SPEAKER_00]: If L.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: wished to tell me she would, if not, it is not for me to force her confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am justified in taking my own line, and I will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I will help you with all my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the first place, have you heard of any strangers being seen in your neighborhood?
[SPEAKER_00]: I presume that it is a very quiet place, any fresh face would cause comment.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the immediate neighbourhood, yes, but we have several small watering places not very far away, and the farmers take in lodges.
[SPEAKER_00]: These higher gliffings have evidently a meaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it is a purely arbitrary one, it may be impossible for us to solve it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If, on the other hand, it is systematic, I have no doubt that we shall get to the bottom of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this particular sample is so short that I can do nothing, and the facts which you have brought me are so indefinite that we have no basis for an investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would suggest that you return to Norfolk, that you keep a keen look out, and that you take an exact copy of any fresh dancing men which may appear.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a thousand pitties that we have not a reproduction of those which were done in chalk upon the window sill.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make a discreet inquiry also as to any strangers in the neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have collected some fresh evidence, come to me again.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the best advice which I can give you Mr. Hilton Cupid.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there are any pressing fresh developments, I shall be always ready to run down and see you in your Norfolk home.
[SPEAKER_00]: The interview left Sherlock Holmes very thoughtful, and several times in the next few days, I saw him take his slip of paper from his notebook and look long and earnestly at the curious figures in scribe upon it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He made no illusion to the affair, however, until one afternoon a fortnight or so later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going out when he called me back.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had better stay here, Watson?
[SPEAKER_00]: because I had a wire from Hilton Cupid this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember Hilton Cupid of the dancing men?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was to reach Liverpool Street at 120.
[SPEAKER_00]: He may be here at any moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gather from his wire that there have been some new incidents of importance.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had not long to wait for our Norfolk Squire came straight from the station as fast as a handsome could bring him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was looking worried and depressed, with tired eyes and a lined forehead.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting on my nerves this business, Mr. Holmes, said he, as he sank, like a weird man into an armchair.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's bad enough to feel that you are surrounded by unseen, unknown folk, who have some kind of design upon you, but when in addition to that you know that it is just killing your wife by inches, then it becomes as much as flesh and blood can endure.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's wearing a way under it, just wearing a way before my eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Has she said anything yet?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Mr. Holmes, she has not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet there have been times when the poor girl has wanted to speak, and yet could not quite bring herself to take the plunge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have tried to help her, but I dare say I did it clumsily and scared her from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has spoken about my old family and our reputation in the county and our pride in our unsullied honour.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always felt it was leading to the point, but somehow it turned off before we got there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you have found out something for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: A good deal, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have several fresh dancing men pictures for you to examine and what is more important.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the man who draws them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I saw him at his work, but I will tell you everything in order.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I got back after my visit to you, the very first thing I saw next morning was a fresh crop of dancing men.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had been drawn in chalk upon the black wooden door of the toolhouse, which stands beside the lawn in full view of the front windows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took an exact copy, and here it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He unfolded a paper and laid it upon the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is a copy of the hieroglyphics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent, pray continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I had taken the copy, I rubbed out the marks, but two mornings later, a fresh inscription had appeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes rubbed his hands and chuckled with delight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our material is rapidly accumulating, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three days later a message was left scrolled upon paper and placed under a pebble upon the sun dial.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: The characters are, as you see, exactly the same as the last one.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, I determined to lie and wait, so I got out my revolver and I sat up in my study which overlooks the lawn and garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: About two in the morning I was seated by the window, all being dark, save for the moonlight outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I heard steps behind me, and there was my wife in her dressing gown.
[SPEAKER_00]: She implored me to come to bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her frankly that I wish to see who it was who played such absurd tricks upon us.
[SPEAKER_00]: She answered that it was some senseless practical joke and that I should not take any notice of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it really annoys you Hilton, we might go and travel you and I and so avoid this nuisance.
[SPEAKER_00]: What be driven out of our own house by a practical joke, said I, why, we should have
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, come to bed, said she, and we can discuss it in the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, as she spoke, I saw her white face grow white, yet in the moonlight, and her hand tightened upon my shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something was moving in the shadow of the toolhouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw a dark, creeping figure which crawled around the corner and squatted in front of the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seizing my pistol I was rushing out when my wife threw her arms round me and held me with convulsive strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to throw her off, but she clung to me most desperately.
[SPEAKER_00]: At last I got clear but by the time I had opened the door and reached the house, the creature was gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had left a trace of his presence however, for there on the door was the very same arrangement of dancing men which had already twice appeared and which I have copied on that paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no other sign of the fellow anywhere, though I ran all over the grounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet the amazing thing is that he must have been there all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: For when I examined the door again in the morning he had scrolled some more of his pictures under the line which I had already seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you that fresh drawing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is very short but I made a copy of it and here it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: again he produced a paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: The new dance was in this form.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me, said Holmes, and I could see by his eyes that he was much excited, was this a mere addition to the first or did it appear to be entirely separate?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was on a different panel of the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: excellent.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is far the most important of all for our purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: It fills me with hopes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Mr. Hilton Cupid, please continue your most interesting statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have nothing more to say, Mr. Holmes, except that I was angry with my wife that night for having held me back when I might have caught the skulking rascal.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said that she feared that I might come to harm.
[SPEAKER_00]: For an instant it had crossed my mind that perhaps what she really feared was that he might come to harm, for I could not doubt that she knew who this man was and what he meant by these strange signals.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a tone in my wife's voice, Mr. Holmes, and a look in her eyes which forbid doubt, and I am sure that it was indeed my own safety that was in her mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the whole case, and now I want your advice as to what I ought to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: My own inclination is to put half a dozen of my farmlads in the shrubbery, and when this fellow comes again to give him such a hiding that he will leave us in peace for the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fear it is too deeper case for such simple remedies, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: How long can you stay in London?
[SPEAKER_00]: I must go back today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would not leave my wife alone all night for anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is very nervous and begged me to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I dare say you are right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you could have stopped, I might possibly have been able to return with you in a day or two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, you will leave me these papers, and I think that it is very likely that I shall be able to pay you a visit shortly, and to throw some light upon your case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherlock Holmes preserved his calm professional manner until our visitor had left us, although it was easy for me who knew him so well, to see that he was profoundly excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment that Hilton cubits brought back a disappeared through the door, my comrade rushed to the table, laid out all the slips of paper containing dancing men in front of him, and
[SPEAKER_00]: For two hours I watched him as he covered sheet after sheet of paper with figures and letters, so completely absorbed in his task that he had evidently forgotten my presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes he was making progress, and whistled and sang at his work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes he was puzzled, and would sit for long spells with a furrowed brow and a vacant eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, he sprang from his chair with a cry of satisfaction and walked up and down the room rubbing his hands together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he wrote a long telegram upon a cable form.
[SPEAKER_00]: If my answer to this is as I hope you will have a very pretty case to add to your collection Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said he, I expect that we shall be able to go down to Norfolk tomorrow and to take our friends some very definite news as to the secret of his annoyance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confess that I was filled with curiosity, but I was aware that Holmes liked to make his disclosures at his own time and in his own way, so I waited until it should suit him to take me into his confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two days of impatience followed, during which Holmes pricked up his ears at every ring of the bell.
[SPEAKER_00]: always quiet with him saved that a long inscription had appeared that morning upon the pedestal of the sun dial.
[SPEAKER_00]: He enclosed a copy of it which is here reproduced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes bent over this grotesque freeze for some minutes and then suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and dismay.
[SPEAKER_00]: His face was haggard with anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a train to North Walsham tonight?
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned up the timetable.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last had just gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the morning, said homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our presence is most urgently needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, here is our expected cable gram.
[SPEAKER_00]: One moment Mrs Hudson there may be an answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that is quite as I expected.
[SPEAKER_00]: This message makes it even more essential that we should not lose an hour in letting Hilton cube it know how matters stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: For it is a singular and a dangerous web in which our simple Norfolk Squire is entangled.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: you
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.