The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez, 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]: the adventure of the Golden Pense Ne, part 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gale had blown itself out next day, but it was a bit of morning when we started upon our journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw the cold winter sun rise over the dreary marshes of the tembs and the long-sull and reaches of the river, which I shall ever associate with our pursuit of the Andaman islander in the earlier days of our career.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a long and weary journey, we are lighted at a small station some miles from Chattam.
[SPEAKER_00]: While a horse was being put into a trap at the local inn, we snatched a hurried breakfast and so we were already for business when we at last arrived at Yoxley Old Place.
[SPEAKER_00]: A constable metters at the garden gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will Wilson any news?
[SPEAKER_00]: No reports of any stranger scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: No sir, down at the station they are certain that no stranger either came or went yesterday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you had inquiries made at Inns and lodgings?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes sir, there is no one that we cannot account for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's only a reasonable walk to chat him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone might stay there or take a train without being observed.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the garden path of which I spoke, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll pledge my word that was no mark on it yesterday.
[SPEAKER_00]: On which side were the marks on the grass?
[SPEAKER_00]: This side, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: This narrow margin of grass between the path and the flower bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't see the traces now, but they were clear to me then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, someone has passed along, said Holmes stooping over the grass border.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our lady must have picked her steps carefully, mushy knots, since on the one side she would leave a track on the path, and on the other and even clearer one on the softbed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir, she must have been a cool hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw an intent look pass over Holmes's face.
[SPEAKER_00]: You say that you must have come back this way?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir, there is no other.
[SPEAKER_00]: On this strip of grass?
[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, it was a very remarkable performance, very remarkable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think we have exhausted the path.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us go farther.
[SPEAKER_00]: This garden door is usually kept open, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then this visitor had nothing to do but to walk in.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea of murder was not in her mind, or she would have provided herself with some sort of weapon instead of having to pick this knife off the writing table.
[SPEAKER_00]: She advanced along this corridor, leaving no traces upon the coconut matting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she found herself in this study.
[SPEAKER_00]: How long was she there?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no means of judging.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not more than a few minutes, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Marker, the housekeeper, had been in their tidying not very long before, about a quarter of an hour, she says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that gives us a limit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our lady enters this room and what does she do?
[SPEAKER_00]: She goes over to the writing table.
[SPEAKER_00]: not for anything in the drawers.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there had been anything worth her taking, it would surely have been locked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it was for something in that wooden bureau, hello.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that scratch upon the face of it, just hold a match Watson?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did you not tell me of this Hopkins?
[SPEAKER_00]: The mark which he was examining began upon the brass work on the right-hand side of the keyhole and extended for about four inches, where it had scratched the varnish from the surface.
[SPEAKER_00]: I noticed it, Mr. Holmes, but you'll always find scratches round a keyhole.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is recent quite recent see how the brass shines where it is cut.
[SPEAKER_00]: An old scratch would be the same color as the surface.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at it through my lens.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the varnish too, like earth on each side of a furrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Mrs. Marker there?
[SPEAKER_00]: A sad-faced elderly woman came
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you dust this bureau yesterday morning?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you notice this scratch?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, sir, I did not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am sure you did not for a duster would have swept away these shreds of varnish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who has the key of this bureau?
[SPEAKER_00]: The professor keeps it on his watch chain.
[SPEAKER_00]: is it a simple key?
[SPEAKER_00]: No sir, it is a chub's key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mrs. Marker, you can go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we are making a little progress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau, and either opens it or tries to do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: While she is thus engaged, young willabiesmith enters the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: In her hurry to withdraw the key, she makes this scratch upon the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ceases her, and she, snatching up the nearest object, which happens to be this knife, strikes at him, in order to make him let go his hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: The blow is a fatal one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He falls and she escapes either with or without the object for which she has come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Susan the maid there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could anyone have got away through that door after the time that you heard the cry Susan?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, sir, it is impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I got down the stair, I'd have seen anyone in the passage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Besides, the door never opened or I would have heard it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That settles this exit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then no doubt the lady went out the way she came.
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that this other passage leads only to the professor's room.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no exit that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: We shall go down it and make the acquaintance of the professor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello Hopkins.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is very important, very important indeed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The professor's corridor is also lined with coconut matty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sir, what of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you see any bearing upon the case?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, I don't insist upon it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No doubt I am wrong, and yet it seems to me to be suggestive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come with me and introduce me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We passed down the passage which was of the same length as that which led to the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end was a short flight of steps ending in a door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our guide knocked and then ushered us into the professor's bedroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very large chamber lined with innumerable volumes which had overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the corners or were stacked all round at the base of the cases.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bed was in the center of the room, and in it propped up with pillows was the owner of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have seldom seen a more remarkable looking person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a gond to aqueline face which was turned towards us, with piercing dark eyes, which lurked in deep hollows under overhang and tuffeted brows.
[SPEAKER_00]: His hair and beard were white, saved that the latter was curiously stained with yellow around his mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: a cigarette glowed amid the tangle of white hair, and the air of the room was fettled with stale tobacco smoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he held out his hand to Holmes, I perceived that it was also stained with yellow nicotine.
[SPEAKER_00]: A smokeer, Mr. Holmes, said he, speaking in well-chosen English, with a curious little
[SPEAKER_00]: Pray, take a cigarette, and you, sir, I can recommend them for I have them, especially prepared by I-O-90s of Alexandria.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sends me a thousand at a time, and I grieve to say that I have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bad sir, very bad, but an old man has few pleasures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tobacco and my work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is all that is left to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes had lit a cigarette, and was shooting little darting glances all over the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tobacco and my work, but now only Tobacco.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old man exclaimed, a lass, what a fatal interruption.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who could have for scenes such a terrible catastrophe?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, estimable a young man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I assure you that after a few months training, he was an admirable assistant, what do you think of the matter, Mr. Holmes?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not yet made up my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light where all is so dark to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself such a blow is paralyzing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I seem to have lost the faculty of thought, but you are a man of action.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a man of affairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is part of the everyday routine of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can preserve your balance in every emergency.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are fortunate indeed in having you at our side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old professor was talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I observed that he was smoking with extraordinary rapidity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was evident that he shared our hosts liking for the fresh Alexandrian cigarettes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow, said the old man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is my Magnum Opus, the pile of papers on the side table yonder.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundation of revealed religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: With my infeable health, I do not know whether I shall ever be able to complete it, now that my assistant has been taken from me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dear me, Mr. Holmes, why you are even a quickest
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a connoisseur," said he, taking another cigarette from the box, his fourth, and lighting it from the stub of that which he had finished.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination Professor Koram since I gather that you were in bed at the time of the crime and could know nothing about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would only ask this, what do you imagine that this poor fellow meant by his last words?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Professor, it was she.
[SPEAKER_00]: The professor shook his head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan is a country girl, said he, and you know the incredible stupidity of that class.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fancy that the poor fellow murmured some incoherent delirious words and that she twisted them into this meaningless message.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Possibly an accident possibly I only breathe it among ourselves a suicide.
[SPEAKER_00]: Young men have their hidden troubles, some affair of the heart perhaps which we have never known.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a more probable supposition than murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the eyeglasses... Ah, I am only a student, a man of dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot explain the practical things of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But still, we are aware my friend that love gauges may take strange shapes.
[SPEAKER_00]: By all means take another cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a pleasure to see anyone appreciate them, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: A fan a glove, glasses, who knows what article may be carried as a token or treasured when a man puts an end to his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: This gentleman speaks of footsteps in the grass, but after all it is easy to be mistaken
[SPEAKER_00]: as to the knife it might well be thrown far from the unfortunate man as he fell.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is possible that I speak as a child, but to me it seems that Willaby Smith has met his fate by his own hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Home seemed struck by the theory thus put forward, and he continued to walk up and down for some time, lost in thought and consuming cigarette after cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me Professor Koram, he said at last, what is in that cupboard in the bureau?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing that would help a thief.
[SPEAKER_00]: Family papers, letters from my poor wife, diplomas of universities which have done me on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is the key.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can look for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes picked up the key and looked at it for an instant than he handed it back.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I hardly think that it would help me," said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should prefer to go quietly down to your garden, and turn the whole matter over in my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is something to be said for the theory of suicide which you have put forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: We must apologise for having intruded upon you Professor Koram, and I promise that we won't disturb you until after lunch.
[SPEAKER_00]: At 2 o'clock we will come again and report to you anything which may have happened in the interval.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes was curiously distraint and we walked up and down the garden path for some time in silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you a clue?
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked at last.
[SPEAKER_00]: It depends upon those cigarettes that I smoked, said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is possible that I am utterly mistaken.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cigarettes will show me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dear Holmes, I exclaimed, how on earth
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, you may see for yourself if not there's no harm done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, we always have the optician clue to fall back upon, but I take a shortcut when I can get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, here is the good Mrs. Marker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us enjoy five minutes of instructive conversation with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I may have remarked before that Holmes had when he liked to peculiarly ingratiating way with women,
[SPEAKER_00]: In half the time which he had named, he had captured the housekeeper's good will and was chatting with her as if he had known her for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes Mr. Holmes it is as you say sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does smoke something terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: All day and sometimes all night sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen that room of a morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sir, you'd have thought it was a London fog.
[SPEAKER_00]: The poor young Mr. Smith, he was a smoker also, but not as bad as the professor.
[SPEAKER_00]: His health?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't know that it's better nor worse for the smoking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, said Holmes, but it kills the appetite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't know about that, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose the professor eats hardly anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he is variable.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say that for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll wait for he took no breakfast this morning and won't face his lunch after all the cigarettes I saw him consume.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you're out there, sir, as it happens for he ate a remarkable big breakfast this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know when I've known him make a better one and he's ordered a good dish of cutlets for his lunch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm surprised myself, since I came into that room yesterday and saw young Mr. Smith lying there on the floor, I couldn't bear to look at food.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it takes all sorts to make a world, and the professor hasn't let it take his appetite away.
[SPEAKER_00]: We looted the morning away in the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stanley Hopkins had gone down to the village to look into some rumours of a strange woman who had been seen by some children on the
[SPEAKER_00]: As to my friend, all his usual energy seemed to have deserted him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had never known him handle a case in such a half-hearted fashion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the news brought back by Hopkins that he had found the children, and that they had undoubtedly seen a woman exactly corresponding with Holmes' description, and wearing either spectacles or eyeglasses, failed to rouse any sign of keen interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was more attentive when Susan, who waited upon us at lunch, volunteered the information that she believed Mr. Smith had been out for a walk yesterday morning, and that he had only returned half an hour before the tragedy occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could not myself see the bearing of this incident, but I clearly perceived that Holmes was weaving it into the general scheme, which he had formed in his brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two o'clock gentlemen, said he, we must go up and have it out with our friend, the professor.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old man had just finished his lunch and certainly his empty dish bore evidence to the good appetite with which his housekeeper had credited him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was, indeed, a weird figure as he turned his white mane and his glowing eyes towards us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The eternal cigarette smoldered in his mouth,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Mr. Holmes, have you solved this mystery yet?
[SPEAKER_00]: He shoved the large tin of cigarettes which stood on a table beside him towards my companion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes stretched out his hand at the same moment, and between them they tipped the box over the edge.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a minute or two, we were all on our knees retrieving stray cigarettes from impossible places.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we rose again, I observed Holmes' eyes were shining and his cheeks tingeed with colour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only at a crisis have I seen those battle signals flying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, said he, I have solved it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stanley Hopkins and I stared in amazement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something like a sneer quivered over the gaunt features of the old professor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, in the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, when?
[SPEAKER_00]: This instant.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are surely joking, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can tell me to tell you that this is too serious a matter to be treated in such a fashion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have forged and tested every link of my chain Professor Korum, and I am sure that it is sound, what your motives are, or what exact part you play in this strange business, I am not yet able to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a few minutes I shall probably hear it from your own lips.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile I will reconstruct what is passed for your benefit, so that you may know the information which I still require.
[SPEAKER_00]: She came with the intention of possessing herself of certain documents which were in your bureau.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had a key of her own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have had an opportunity of examining yours and I do not find that slight discoloration, which the scratch made upon the varnish would have produced.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were not an accessory, therefore, and she came so far as I can read the evidence without your knowledge to rob you.
[SPEAKER_00]: the professor blew a cloud from his lips.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is most interesting and instructive, said he, have you no more to add?
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely having traced this lady so far, you can also say what has become of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will endeavor to do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the first place she was seized by your secretary and stabbed him in order to escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: This catastrophe, I am inclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for I am convinced that the lady had no intention of inflicting so grievous and injury, and assassin does not come unarmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Horrified by what she had done, she rushed wildly away from the scene of the tragedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately for her, she had lost her glasses in the scuffle, and as she was extremely
[SPEAKER_00]: She ran down a corridor, which she imagined to be that by which she had come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both were lined with coconut matty, and it was only when it was too late that she understood that she had taken the wrong passage, and that her retreat was cut off behind her.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was she to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: She could not go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: She could not remain where she was.
[SPEAKER_00]: She must go on, she went on.
[SPEAKER_00]: the old man sat with his mouth open staring wildly at homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: A maizement and fear were stamped upon his expressive features.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, with an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and burst into insincere laughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: All very fine, Mr. Holmes, said he, but there is one little flaw in your splendid theory.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was myself in my room and I never left it during the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm aware of that Professor Korum.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mean to say that I could lie upon that bed and not be aware that a woman had entered my room?
[SPEAKER_00]: I never said so.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were aware of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You spoke with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: You recognized her.
[SPEAKER_00]: You aided her to escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had risen to his feet, and his eyes glowed like embers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are mad, he cried, you are talking insanely, I helped her to escape, where is she now?
[SPEAKER_00]: She is there, said Holmes, and he pointed to a hide bookcase in the corner of the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsion passed over his grim face, and he fell back in his chair.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same instant, the bookcase at which Holmes pointed swung round upon a hinge, and a woman rushed out into the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are right, she cried in a strange foreign voice, you are right, I am here.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebs which had come from the walls of her hiding place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her face too was streaked with grime, and at the best she could never have been handsome for she had the exact physical characteristics which homes had deviant with in addition, a long and obstinate chin.
[SPEAKER_00]: What with her natural blindness and what with the change from dark to light,
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, in spite of all these disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in the woman's bearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A gallantry in the defiant chin and in the upraised head, which compelled something of respect and admiration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stanley Hopkins had laid his hand upon her arm and claimed her as his prisoner, but she waived him aside gently, and yet with an over-mastering dignity, which compelled obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old man lay back in his chair with a twitching face and stared at her with brooding eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir, I am your prisoner, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: From where I stood, I could hear everything and I know that you have learned the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confess it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was I who killed the young man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you are right, you who say it was an accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not even know that it was a knife which I held in my hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: For in my despair, I snatched anything from the table and struck at him to make him let me go.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the truth that I tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Madam said Holmes, I am sure that it is the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fear that you are far from well.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had turned a dreadful colour the more ghastly under the dark dust streaks upon her face.
[SPEAKER_00]: She seated herself on the side of the bed, then she resumed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have only a little time here, she said, but I would have you to know the whole truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am this man's wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is not an Englishman.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a Russian.
[SPEAKER_00]: His name I will not tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the first time the old man stirred,
[SPEAKER_00]: God bless you, Anna.
[SPEAKER_00]: He cried, God bless you.
[SPEAKER_00]: She cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why should you cling so hard to that wretched life of your surgeys?
[SPEAKER_00]: Said she.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has done harm to many and good to none, not even to yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: However it is not for me to cause the frail thread to be snapped before God's time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold of this cursed house, but I must speak, or I shall be too late.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have said gentlemen that I am this man's wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was 50, and I have foolish girl of 20 when we married.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in a city of Russia, a university.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not name the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: God bless you Anna, murmured the old man again.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were reformers, revolutionists, nihilists you understand, he and I and many more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there came a time of trouble, a police officer was killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in order to save his own life and to earn a great reward, my husband betrayed his own wife and his companions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we were all arrested upon his confession.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us found our way to the gallows and some to Siberia.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was among these last but my term was not for life.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband came to England with his ill-gotten gains and has lived in quiet ever since, knowing well that if the brotherhood knew where he was,
[SPEAKER_00]: the old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am in your hands, Anna," said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are always good to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not yet told you the height of his villainy," said she.
[SPEAKER_00]: Among our comrades of the order, there was one who was the friend of my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was noble and selfish, loving,
[SPEAKER_00]: We were all guilty if that is guilt, but he was not.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote for ever dissuading us from such a course.
[SPEAKER_00]: These letters would have saved him, so would my diary, in which from day to day I had entered both my feelings towards him and the view which each of us had taken.
[SPEAKER_00]: my husband found and kept both diary and letters.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hid them and he tried hard to swear away the young man's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this he failed, but Alexis was sent a convict to Siberia where now at this moment he works in a salt mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think of that you villain you villain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, now, at this very moment, Alexis, a man whose name you are not worthy to speak, works and lives like a slave, and yet I have your life in my hands and I let you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were always a noble woman, Anna, said the old man puffing at his cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must finish, she said.
[SPEAKER_00]: When my term was over, I set myself to get the diary and letters which, if sent to the Russian government, would procure my friends' release.
[SPEAKER_00]: after months of searching I discovered where he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that he still had the diary.
[SPEAKER_00]: For when I was in Siberia I had a letter from him once, reproaching me and quoting some passages from its pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet I was sure that with his revengeful nature he would never give it to me of his own free will.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must get it for myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: With this object I engaged an agent from a private detective firm who entered my husband's
[SPEAKER_00]: It was your second secretary, Sirgeus, the one who left you so hurriedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: He found that papers were kept in the cupboard, and he got an impression of the key.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would not go farther.
[SPEAKER_00]: He furnished me with a plan of the house, and he told me that in the forenoon the study was always empty, as the secretary was employed up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at last I took my courage in both hands, and I came down to get the papers for myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I succeeded.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had just taken the paper and was locking the cupboard when the young man seized me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had seen him already that morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had met me on the road, and I had asked him to tell me where Professor Koram lived, not knowing that he was in his employ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The secretary came back and told his employer of the woman he had met.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in his last breath, he tried to send a message that it was she, the she, whom he had just discussed with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must let me speak, said the woman in an imperative voice, and her face contracted as if in pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he had fallen, I rushed from the room, chose the wrong door, and found myself in my husband's room.
[SPEAKER_00]: He spoke of giving me up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I showed him that if he did so his life was in my hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he gave me to the law, I could give him to the brotherhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not that I wished to live for my own sake, but it was that I desired to accomplish my purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew that I would do what I said that his own fate was involved in mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: for that reason, and for no other, he shielded me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He thrust me into that dark hiding place, a relic of old days, known only to himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took his meals in his own room and so was able to give me part of his food.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was agreed that when the police left the house I should slip away by night and come back no more, but in some way you have read our plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are my last words," said she.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is the packet which will save Alexis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can find it to your honor and to your love of justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will deliver it at the Russian embassy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I have done my duty and... Stop her, cried homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had bounded across the room and had wrenched a small file from her hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Too late, she said, sinking back on the bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Too late.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took the poison before I left my hiding place.
[SPEAKER_00]: My head swims.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going.
[SPEAKER_00]: I charge you sir to remember the packet.
[SPEAKER_00]: A simple case and yet in some ways an instructive one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes remarked as we travel back to town.
[SPEAKER_00]: It hinged from the outset upon the past nay.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the fortunate chance of the dying man having seized these, I'm not sure that we could ever have reached our solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was clear to me from the strength of the glasses that the wearer must have been very blind and helpless when deprived of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you ask me to believe that she walked along a narrow strip of grass without once making a false step, I remarked as you may remember that it was a note worthy performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my mind, I set it down as an impossible performance, save in the unlikely case that she had a second pair of glasses.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was forced therefore to consider seriously the hypothesis that she had remained within the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: On perceiving the similarity of the two corridors, it became clear that she might very easily have made such a mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that case, it was evident that she must have entered the professor's room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was keenly on the alert, therefore, for whatever would bear out this supposition, and I examined the room narrowly for anything in the shape of a hiding place.
[SPEAKER_00]: The carpet seemed continuous and firmly nailed, so I dismissed the idea of a trapdoor.
[SPEAKER_00]: There might well be a recess behind the books.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you are aware, such devices are common in old libraries.
[SPEAKER_00]: I observed that books were piled on the floor at all other points, but that one bookcase was left clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: This then might be the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could see no marks to guide me, but the carpet was of a done color, which lends itself very well to examination.
[SPEAKER_00]: I therefore smoked a great number of those excellent cigarettes and I dropped the ash all over the space in front of the suspected bookcase.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a simple trick but exceedingly effective.
[SPEAKER_00]: I then went downstairs and I ascertained in your presence Watson without your perceiving the drift of my remarks that Professor Corrum's consumption of food had increased.
[SPEAKER_00]: As one would expect, when he is supplying a second person.
[SPEAKER_00]: We then ascended to the room again when by upsetting the cigarette box, I obtained a very excellent view of the floor, and was able to see quite clearly from the traces upon the cigarette ash that the prisoner had in our absence come out from her retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Hopkins here we are at Charing Cross and I congratulate you on having brought your case to a successful conclusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are going to headquarters no doubt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what's
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.