The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, Part 2

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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 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: An hour later, homesless stradini stood upon the underground railroad at the point where it emerges from the tunnel immediately before old gate station.
[SPEAKER_00]: A courteous red-faced old gentleman represented the railway company.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where the young man's body lays, said he indicating a spot about three feet from the metals.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could not have fallen from above for these, as you see, are all blank walls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, it could only have come from a train, and that train so far as we can trace it must have passed about midnight on Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have the carriages been examined for any sign of violence?
[SPEAKER_00]: There are no such signs and no ticket has been found.
[SPEAKER_00]: no record of a door being found open.
[SPEAKER_00]: None.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have had some fresh evidence this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Siddlestrad.
[SPEAKER_00]: A passenger who passed Old Gate in an ordinary metropolitan train about 1140 on Monday night declares that he heard a heavy thought as of a body striking the line just before the train reached the station.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was dense fog, however, and nothing could be seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He made no report of it at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever is the matter with Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend was standing with an expression of strained intensity upon his face, staring at the railway metals where they curved out of the tunnel.
[SPEAKER_00]: All gate is a junction, and there was a network of points.
[SPEAKER_00]: On these his eager questioning eyes were fixed, and I saw on his keen alert face that tightening of the lips, that quiver of the nostrils, and concentration of the heavy, tough-toed brows which I knew so well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Points.
[SPEAKER_00]: He mattered.
[SPEAKER_00]: The points.
[SPEAKER_00]: What of it?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose there are no great number of points on a system such as this.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they are very few.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a curve to points and a curve by jove, if it were only so.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it, Mr. Holmes?
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you a clue?
[SPEAKER_00]: An idea, an indication no more, but the case certainly grows in interest, unique, perfectly unique, and yet why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not see any indications of bleeding on the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were hardly any, but I understand that there was a considerable wound.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bone was crushed, but there was no great external injury.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet one would have expected some bleeding, would it be possible for me to inspect the train which contained the passenger who heard the thud of a fall in the fog?
[SPEAKER_00]: I fear not Mr. Holmes, the train has been broken up before now, and the carriages redistributed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can assure you, Mr. Holmes, sentence-strad, that every carriage has been carefully examined.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw to it myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of my friends' most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with less alert intelligences than his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very likely, said he, turning away.
[SPEAKER_00]: As it happens, it was not the carriages which I desired to examine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watson, we have done all we can here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need not trouble you any further, Mr. LaStrade.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think our investigations must now carry us to Woolwich.
[SPEAKER_00]: At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram to his brother, which he handed to me before dispatching it.
[SPEAKER_00]: See some light in the darkness, but it may possibly flick around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, please send by messenger to await return at Baker Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: A complete list of all foreign spies or international agents known to be in England with Full Address.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sherlock.
[SPEAKER_00]: That should be helpful Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: He remarked as we took our seats in the Woolwich train.
[SPEAKER_00]: We certainly owe brother Mycroft a debt for having introduced us to what promises to be a really very remarkable case.
[SPEAKER_00]: His eager face still wore that expression of intense and high-strung energy, which showed me that some novel and suggestive circumstance had opened up a stimulating line of thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: See the foxhound, with hanging ears and drooping tail as it lolls about the kennels, and compare it with the same hound, as with gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it runs upon a breast-high scent, such was the change in home since the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a different man from the limp and lounging figure in the mouse-coloured dressing gown who had prowled so restlessly, only a few hours
[SPEAKER_00]: There is material here, there is scope, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm dull indeed not to have understood its possibilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even now they are dark to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which may lead us far.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man met his death elsewhere, and his body was on the roof of a carriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the roof,
[SPEAKER_00]: Remarkable, is it not?
[SPEAKER_00]: But consider the facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it a coincidence that it is found at the very point where the train pitches and sways as it comes round on the points?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is not that the place where an object upon the roof might be expected to fall off?
[SPEAKER_00]: The points would affect no object inside the train.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either the body fell from the roof or a very curious coincidence has occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now consider the question of the blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, there was no bleeding on the line if the body had blood elsewhere, each factor suggestive in itself, together they have a cumulative force.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ticket, too, I cried.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could not explain the absence of a ticket.
[SPEAKER_00]: This would explain it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything fits together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are still as far as ever from unraveling the mystery of his death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, it becomes not simpler but stranger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps, said Holmes thoughtfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps.
[SPEAKER_00]: He relapsed into a silent reverie, which lasted until the slow train drew up at last in Woolwich Station.
[SPEAKER_00]: There, he called a cab and drew my crops paper from his pocket.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have quite a little round of afternoon calls to make, said he, I think that Sir James Walter claims our first attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: The House of the Famous Official was a fine villa with green lawn stretching down to the tembs.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we reached it, the fog was lifting, and a thin watery sunshine was breaking through.
[SPEAKER_00]: A butler answered our ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: So James, sir, said he with solemn face.
[SPEAKER_00]: So James died this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good heavens, cried homes in amazement.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did he die?
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and see his brother, Colonel Valentine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we had best do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were ushered into a dimlit drawing room, where an instant later we were joined by a very tall handsome, light bearded man of 50, the younger brother of the dead scientist.
[SPEAKER_00]: His wild eyes, stained cheeks and unkempt hair all spoke of the sudden blow which had fallen upon the household.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was hardly articulate as he spoke of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my brother, Sir James, was a man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair.
[SPEAKER_00]: It broke his heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was always so proud of the efficiency of his department, and this was a crushing blow.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had hoped that he might have given us some indications which would have helped us to clear the matter up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I assure you that it was all a mystery to him as it is to you and to all of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had already put all his knowledge at the disposal of the police, naturally he had no doubt that Codagan West was guilty, but all the rest was inconceivable.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot throw any new light upon the affair,
[SPEAKER_00]: I know nothing myself, say what I have read or heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no desire to be discurtious, but you can understand Mr. Holmes that we are much disturbed at present, and I must ask you to hasten this interview to an end.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is indeed an unexpected development said my friend when we had regained the cab.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if the death was natural, or whether the poor old fellow killed himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the latter, may it be taken as some sign of self-reproach for duty neglected.
[SPEAKER_00]: We must leave that question to the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we shall turn to the Codugan Wests.
[SPEAKER_00]: A small but well-kept house in the outskirts of the town sheltered the bereaved mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old lady was too dazed with grief to be of any use to us, but at her side was a white-faced young lady who introduced herself as Ms. Violet Westbury the fiancé of the dead man and the last to see him upon that fatal night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not shut an eye since the tragedy, thinking thinking thinking night and day what the true meaning of it can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Arthur was the most single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon Earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would have cut his right hand off before he would sell a state secret confided to his keeping.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the facts, Miss Westbury?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, I admit I cannot explain them.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, his needs were very simple and his salary ample.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had saved a few hundreds and we were to marry at the new year.
[SPEAKER_00]: No signs of any mental excitement, come Miss Westbury, be absolutely frank with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner.
[SPEAKER_00]: She coloured and hesitated
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, she said it last.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a feeling that there was something on his mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: For long?
[SPEAKER_00]: Only for the last week or so, he was thoughtful and worried.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I pressed him about it, he admitted that there was something and that it was concerned with his official life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is too serious for me to speak about, even to you," said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could get nothing more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes looked grave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go on, Ms. Westbury.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it seems to tell against him, go on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot say what it may lead to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed I have nothing more to tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: He spoke one evening of the importance of the secret, and I have some recollection that he said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a great deal to have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend's face grew gravestyl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything else?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that we were slack about such matters, that it would be easy for a traitor to get the plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: was it only recently that he made such remarks?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, quite recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now tell us of that last evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were to go to the theatre.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fog was so thick that a cab was useless.
[SPEAKER_00]: We walked and our way took us close to the office.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly he darted away into the fog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without a word, he gave an exclamation that was all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I waited, but he never returned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I walked home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next morning, after the office opened, they came to inquire about 12 o'clock we heard the terrible news.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Mr. Holmes, if you could only only save his honor, it was so much to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes shook his head sadly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come Watson, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our way is lie elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our next station must be the office from which the papers were taken.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was black enough before against this young man but our inquiries make it blacker.
[SPEAKER_00]: He remarked as the cab lumbered off.
[SPEAKER_00]: His coming marriage gives a motive for the crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: He naturally wanted money.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea was in his head since he spoke about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He nearly made the girl an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is all very bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: But surely Holmes, character, goes for something?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then again why should he leave the girl in the street and dart away to commit a felony?
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, there are certainly objections, but it is a formidable case which they have to meet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Sydney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us at the office, and received us with that respect which my companion's card always commanded.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a thin, gruff, bespectical man of middle age.
[SPEAKER_00]: His cheeks haggard and his hands twitching from the nervous strain to which he had been subjected.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you heard of the death of the chief?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have just come from his house.
[SPEAKER_00]: The place is disorganized.
[SPEAKER_00]: The chief dead, Kadagan West dead, are papers stolen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, when we closed our door on Monday evening, we were as efficient and officers any in the government service.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good God, it's dreadful to think of that west of all men should have done such a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are sure of his guilt then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can see no other way out of it, and yet I would have trusted him as I trust myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: At what hour was the office closed on Monday?
[SPEAKER_00]: At five.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you close it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am always the last man out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where were the plans in that safe?
[SPEAKER_00]: I put them there myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there no watchman to the building?
[SPEAKER_00]: There is, but he has other departments to look after as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is an old soldier and a most trustworthy man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw nothing that evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the fog was very thick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose that Codug and West wished to make his way into the building after hours, he would need three keys, would he not before he could reach the papers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he would.
[SPEAKER_00]: The key of the outer door, the key of the office, and the key of the safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only Sir James Walter and you had those keys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no keys of the doors, only of the safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his habits?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I think he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that so far as those three keys are concerned, he kept them on the same ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have often seen them there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that ring went with him to London.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said so.
[SPEAKER_00]: And your key never left your possession.
[SPEAKER_00]: never.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then West, if he is the culprit, must have had a duplicate, and yet none was found upon his body.
[SPEAKER_00]: One other point, if a clerk in this office desired to sell the plans would it not be simpler to copy the plans for himself than to take the originals as was actually done.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in an effective way.
[SPEAKER_00]: but I suppose either Sir James or you or West has that technical knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: No doubt we had, but I beg you won't try to drag me into the matter Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the use of our speculating in this way when the original plans were actually found on West?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking originals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have equally served his turn.
[SPEAKER_00]: singular note out, and yet he did so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now there are three papers still missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are, as I understand, the vital ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that is so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers?
[SPEAKER_00]: And without the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington submarine?
[SPEAKER_00]: I reported to that effect to the Admiralty, but today I have been over the drawings again and I am not so sure of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The double valves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of the papers which have been returned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until the foreigners had invented that for themselves, they could not make the boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they might soon get over the difficulty.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the three missing drawings are the most important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Undoubtedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll around the premises.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not recall any other question which I desired to ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally the iron shutters of the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was only when we were on the lawn outside that his interest was strongly excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a laurel bush outside the window and several of the branches bore signs of having been twisted or snapped.
[SPEAKER_00]: He examined them carefully with his lens and then some dim and vague marks upon the earth beneath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, he asked the chief clerk to close the iron shutters, and he pointed out to me that they hardly met in the centre, and that it would be possible for anyone outside to see what was going on within the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: The indications are ruined by three days delay, they may mean something or nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well Watson, I do not think that Woolwich can help us further.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a small crop which we have gathered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left Woolwich Station.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Clark in the ticket office was able to say with confidence that he saw Cadogan West, whom he knew well by sight, upon the Monday night and that he went to London by the 815 to London Bridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was alone and took a single third-class ticket.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Clark was struck at the time by his excited and nervous manner.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Shaky was he that he could hardly pick up his change and the clerk had helped him with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: A reference to the timetable showed that the 815 was the first train which it was possible for West to take, after he had left the lady about 730.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us reconstruct Watson, said Holmes after half an hour of silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not aware that in all our joint researchers we have ever had a case which was more difficult to get at.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every fresh advance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond, and yet we have surely made some appreciable progress.
[SPEAKER_00]: The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been against young Kadagun West, but the indications that the window would lend themselves to a more favorable hypothesis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us suppose, for example, that he had been approached by some foreign agent.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might have been done under such pledges as would have prevented him from speaking of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet would have affected his thoughts in the direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancé.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will now suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he suddenly in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in the direction of the office.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was an impetuous man, quick in his decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything gave way to his duty.
[SPEAKER_00]: He followed the man, reached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued the thief.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this way we get over the objection that no one would take originals when he could make copies this outsider had to take originals, so far it holds together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we come into difficulties.
[SPEAKER_00]: One would imagine that under such circumstances the first act of young Caddug and West would be to seize the villain and raise the alarm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did he not do so?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could it have been an official superior who took the papers?
[SPEAKER_00]: That would explain West's conduct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or could the chief have given West the slip in the fog?
[SPEAKER_00]: And West started at once to London to head him off from his own rooms, presuming that
[SPEAKER_00]: The call must have been very pressing since he left his girl standing in the fog and made no effort to communicate with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our scent runs cold here, and there is a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of West's body, with seven papers in his pocket on the roof of a metropolitan train.
[SPEAKER_00]: My instinct now is to work from the other end.
[SPEAKER_00]: If mycroft has given us the list of addresses we may be able to pick our man and follow two tracks instead of one.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: you
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.