The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, Part 1

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[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]: In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog settled down upon London.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the Monday to the Thursday, I doubt whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker Street to see the loom of the opposite houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first day homes had
[SPEAKER_00]: The second and third had been patiently occupied upon a subject, which he had recently made his hobby, the music of the Middle Ages.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when, for the fourth time after pushing back our chairs from breakfast, we saw the greasy, heavy, brown swirl still drifting past us and condensing in oily drops upon the windowpains, my comrades impatient and active nature could endure this drab existence no longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He paced restlessly about our sitting room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing of interest in the paper Watson he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was aware that by anything of interest homes meant anything of criminal interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: there was the news of a revolution, of a possible war, and of an impending change of government, but these did not come within the horizon of my companion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could see nothing recorded in the shape of crime which was not common place and futile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes groaned and resumed his restless meanderings.
[SPEAKER_00]: The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow, said he in the quarrelous voice of the sportsman whose game has failed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look out this window Watson, see how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and then blend once more into the cloud bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thief or the murderer could roam London on such a day as the tiger does the jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evident only to his victim.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their hap, said I, been numerous petty thefts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes snorted his contempt.
[SPEAKER_00]: This great and somber stage is set for something more worthy than that, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is indeed said I heartily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose that I were Brooks or Woodhouse, or any of the 50 men who have good reason for taking my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: How long could I survive against my own pursuit?
[SPEAKER_00]: A summons, a bogus appointment, and all would be over.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is well they don't have days of fog in the Latin countries the countries of assassination.
[SPEAKER_00]: By, jove.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here comes something at last to break our dead monotony.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the maid with a telegram.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes tore it open and burst out laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, what next?
[SPEAKER_00]: Said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brother Mycroft is coming round.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is as if you met a tram car coming down a country lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them, his pal Mal lodgings the Diogenes Club White Hall that is his cycle, once and only once he has been here.
[SPEAKER_00]: What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Does he not explain?
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes handed me his brother's telegram.
[SPEAKER_00]: must see you over Kaduggan West coming at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mycroft.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kaduggan West.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have heard the name.
[SPEAKER_00]: It recalls nothing to my mind, but that mycroft should break out in this erratic fashion, a planet might as well leave it's orbit.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, do you know what mycroft is?
[SPEAKER_00]: I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of the adventure of the Greek interpreter.
[SPEAKER_00]: You told me that he had some small office under the British government.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes chuckled.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not know you quite so well in those days.
[SPEAKER_00]: One has to be discreet when one talks of high matters of state.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are right in thinking that he is under the British government.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would also be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the British government.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dear homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I might surprise you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mycroft draws 450 pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind,
[SPEAKER_00]: but remains the most indispensable man in the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, his position is unique.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has made it for himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: There has never been anything like it before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nor will be again.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has the tidiest and most orderly brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the greatest capacity for storing facts of any man living.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same great powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used for this particular business.
[SPEAKER_00]: The conclusions of every department are past to him and he is the central exchange the clearinghouse which makes out the balance.
[SPEAKER_00]: All other men are specialist but his specialistism is omniscience.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the navy, India, Canada, and the bi-metallic question.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only mycroft can focus them all and say offhand how each factor would affect the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: They began by using him as a shortcut, a convenience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he has made himself an essential.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-hold and can be handed out in an instant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again and again his word has decided the national policy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lives in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He thinks of nothing else safe when as an intellectual exercise he unbends if I call upon him and ask him to advise me on one of my little problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jupiter is descending today.
[SPEAKER_00]: What on earth can it mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is Kadagan West and what is he to Minecraft?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have it, I cried and plunged among the litter of papers upon the sofa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, here he is, sure enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kadagan West was the young man who was found dead on the underground on Tuesday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Home sat up at attention his pipe halfway to his lips.
[SPEAKER_00]: This must be serious Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: A death which has caused my brother to alter his habits can be no ordinary one.
[SPEAKER_00]: What in the world can he have to do with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: The case was featureless as I remember it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The young man had apparently fallen out of the train and killed himself, he had not been robbed and there was no particular reason to suspect violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that not so?
[SPEAKER_00]: There has been an inquest, said I, and a good many fresh facts have come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Looked at more closely, I should certainly say that it was a curious case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be a most extraordinary one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He snuggled down in his armchair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Watson, let us have the facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man's name was Arthur Kadagan West.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was 27 years of age unmarried and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night, was last seen by his fiancé Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog about 730 that evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no quarrel between them, and she can give no motive for his action.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing heard of him was when his dead body was discovered by a plate-layer named Mason, just outside Old Gate Station on the underground system in London.
[SPEAKER_00]: the body was found at six on Tuesday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was lying wide of the metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes eastward, at a point close to the station, where the line emerges from the tunnel in which it runs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The head was badly crushed an injury which might well have been caused by a fall from the train.
[SPEAKER_00]: The body could only have come on the line in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had it been carried down from any neighboring street, it must have passed the station barriers where a collector is always standing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This point seems absolutely certain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very good, the case is definite enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man, dead or alive, either fell or was precipitated from a train.
[SPEAKER_00]: So much is clear to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: The trains which traversed the lines of rail beside which the body was found are those which run from west to east, some being purely metropolitan, and some from Villston, and outlying junctions.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be stated for certain that this young man when he met his death was travelling in this direction at some later hour of the night, but at what point he entered the train it is impossible to state.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no ticket in his pockets.
[SPEAKER_00]: No ticket.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dear me Watson, this is really very singular.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to my experience, it is not possible to reach the platform of a metropolitan train without exhibiting one's ticket.
[SPEAKER_00]: Presumably then, the young man had one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it taken from him in order to conceal the station from which he came?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: or did he drop it in the carriage?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is also possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the point is of curious interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that there was no sign of robbery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently not.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a list here of his possessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: His purse contained £2.15.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had also a checkbook on the Woolwich branch of the Capital and Counties Bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through this, his identity was established.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were also two dress-circle tickets for the Woolwich Theatre dated for that very evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also a small packet of technical papers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: There we have it at last Watson, British government Woolwich Arsenal, technical papers, Brother Mycroft, the chain is complete.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here he comes if I am not mistaken to speak for himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: A moment later, the tall and partly form of Minecraft homes was ushered into the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: heavily built and massive.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame there was perch to head so masterful in its brow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So alert in its steel grey deep set eyes, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its play of expression that after the first glance, one forgot the gross body, and remembered only the dominant mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: At his heels came our old friend, Lestrade of Scotland, Yard, Thin and Osteer.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gravity of both their faces foretold some weighty quest.
[SPEAKER_00]: The detective shook hands without a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mycroft Holmes struggled out of his overcoat and subsided into an armchair.
[SPEAKER_00]: a most annoying business Sherlock set he.
[SPEAKER_00]: I extremely dislike altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial, in the present state of siam it is most awkward that I should be away from the office, but it is a real crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never seen the Prime Minister so upset.
[SPEAKER_00]: As to the Admiralty, it is buzzing like an overturned beehive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you read up the
[SPEAKER_00]: we have just done so.
[SPEAKER_00]: What were the technical papers?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, there's the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, it has not come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The press would be furious if it did.
[SPEAKER_00]: The papers which this wretched youth had in his pocket were the plans of the Bruce Partington submarine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mycroft Holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of the importance of the subject,
[SPEAKER_00]: His brother and I sat expectant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely you have heard of it, I thought everyone had heard of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only as a name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Its importance can hardly be exaggerated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been the most jellously guarded of all government secrets.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may take it from me that naval warfare becomes impossible within the radius of a Bruce-Partington's operation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years ago a very large sum was smuggled through the estimates and was expended in acquiring a monopoly of the invention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every effort has been made to keep the secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: The plans, which are exceedingly intricate, comprising some 30-separate patents, each essential to the working of the whole, are kept in an elaborate safe in a confidential office adjoining the arsenal with burglary proof doors and windows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Under no conceivable circumstances were the plans to be taken from the office.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the chief constructor of the Navy desired to consult them,
[SPEAKER_00]: even he was forced to go to the Woolwich office for the purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet here we find them in the pocket of a dead junior clerk in the heart of London, from an official point of view it's simply awful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you have recovered them.
[SPEAKER_00]: No Sherlock, no, that's the pinch we have not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ten papers were taken from Woolwich.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were seven in the pocket of Cadaggan West.
[SPEAKER_00]: The three most essential agon, stolen, vanished.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must drop everything Sherlock.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the police court.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a vital international problem that you have to solve.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did Kadagun West take the papers?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are the missing ones?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did he die?
[SPEAKER_00]: How came his body where it was found?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can the evil be set right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Find an answer to all these questions and you will have done good service for your country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you not solve it yourself, Minecraft?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see as far as I.
[SPEAKER_00]: possibly Sherlock, but it is a question of getting details.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me your details and from an armchair I will return you an excellent expert opinion, but to run here and run there, to cross question railway guards and lie on my face with a lens to my eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not my mateier.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you are the one man who can clear the matter up.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a fancy to
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend smiled and shook his head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I play the game for the game's own sake, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the problem certainly presents some points of interest, and I shall be very pleased to look into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some more facts, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have jotted down the more essential ones upon this sheet of paper, together with a few addresses which you will find of service.
[SPEAKER_00]: The actual official guardian of the papers is the famous government expert, Sir James Walter, whose decorations and subtitles fill two lines of a book of reference.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has grown gray in the service, is a gentleman, a favored guest in the most exalted houses, and above all, a man whose patriotism is beyond suspicion.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is one of two who have a key of the safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I may add that the papers were undoubtedly in the office during working hours on Monday, and that Sir James left for London about three o'clock, taking his key with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was at the house of Admiral Sing Claire at Buckley Square during the whole of the evening when this incident occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: Has the fact been verified?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, his brother Colonel Valentine Walter has testified to his departure from Woolwich, and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in London, so Sajames is no longer a direct factor in the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who was the other man with a key?
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a man of 40, married, with five children.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a silent, morose man, but he has on the whole an excellent record in the public service.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is unpopular with his colleagues but a hard worker.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to his own account, corroborated only by the word of his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was at home the whole of Monday evening after office hours, and his key has never left the watch chain upon which it hangs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about Codugan West.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has been 10 years in the service and has done good work.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has the reputation of being hotheaded and imperious but a straight, honest man.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have nothing against him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was next Sydney Johnson in the office.
[SPEAKER_00]: His duties brought him into daily personal contact with the plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one else had the handling of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: who locked up the plans that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Sydney Johnson, the senior clerk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is surely perfectly clear who took them away.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are actually found upon the person of this junior clerk, Kadagun West.
[SPEAKER_00]: That seems final, does it not?
[SPEAKER_00]: It does Sherlock and yet it leaves so much unexplained.
[SPEAKER_00]: I presume they were a value.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could have got several thousands for them very easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you suggest any possible motive for taking the papers to London except to sell them?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I cannot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we must take that as our working hypothesis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this could only be done by having a false key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Several false keys he had to open the building in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had then several false keys.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took the papers to London to sell the secret, intending no doubt to have the plans themselves back in the safe next morning before they were missed.
[SPEAKER_00]: how.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will suppose that he was traveling back to Woolwich when he was killed and thrown out of the compartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: All gate where the body was found is considerably past the station London Bridge which would be his route to Woolwich.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many circumstances could be imagined under which he
[SPEAKER_00]: There was someone in the carriage, for example, with whom he was having an absorbing interview.
[SPEAKER_00]: This interview led to a violent scene in which he lost his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Possibly he tried to leave the carriage, fell out on the line, and so met his end.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other closed the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a thick fog, and nothing could be seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: and yet consider Sherlock, how much you leave untouched.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will suppose for argument's sake that young Kodagan West had determined to convey these papers to London.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would naturally have made an appointment with the foreign agent and kept his evening clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of that, he took two tickets for the theatre.
[SPEAKER_00]: Escorted his fiancé halfway there and then suddenly disappeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: A blind, said Lestrade, who had set listening with some impatience to the conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: A very singular one, that is objection number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Objection number two, we will suppose that he reaches London and sees the foreign agent, he must bring back the papers before morning or the loss will be discovered.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took away ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only seven were in his pocket.
[SPEAKER_00]: He certainly would not leave them of his own free will, then, again, where is the price of his treason?
[SPEAKER_00]: One would have expected to find a large sum of money in his pocket.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems to me perfectly clear, said the Strad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt at all as to what occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took the papers to sell them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw the agent.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could not agree as to price.
[SPEAKER_00]: but the agent went with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the train the agent murdered him took the more essential papers and threw his body from the carriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would account for everything would it not?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why had he no ticket?
[SPEAKER_00]: The ticket would have shown which station was near as the agent's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore he took it from the murdered man's pocket.
[SPEAKER_00]: a good-lost rod, very good, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your theory holds together.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if this is true, then the case is at an end.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the one hand, the traitor is dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the other, the plans of the Bruce Partenton submarine are presumably already on the continent.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is there for us to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: to act Sherlock, to act, cried my craft, springing to his feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: All my instincts are against this explanation, use your powers, go to the scene of the crime, see the people concerned, leave no stone unturned.
[SPEAKER_00]: In all your career you have never had so great a chance of serving your country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well well said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders, come Watson, and you lestrade, could you
[SPEAKER_00]: We will begin our investigation by a visit to Old Gate Station.
[SPEAKER_00]: Goodbye, my Croft, I shall let you have a report before evening, but I warn you in advance that you have little to expect.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.