The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, 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]: It was on a bitterly cold and frosty morning towards the end of the winter of 97 that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stupid face and told me at a glance that something was a miss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come Watson, come he cried, the game is a foot, not a word, into your clothes and come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ten minutes later we were both in a cab and rattling through the silent streets on our way to chair in cross station.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first faint winter's dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly see the occasional figure of an early workman as he passed us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes nestled in silence into his heavy coat, and I was glad to do the same for the air was most bitter, and neither of us had broken our fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not until we had consumed some hot tea at the station and taken our places in the Kentish train that we were sufficiently thought, he to speak, and I to listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holmes drew a note from his pocket and read aloud,
[SPEAKER_00]: Abbey Grange, Marsham Kent, 330 AM.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dear Mr. Holmes, I should be very glad of your immediate assistance in what promises to be a most remarkable case.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is something quite in your line.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except for releasing the lady I will see that everything is kept exactly as I have found it, but I beg you not to lose an instant, as it is difficult to leave so useless there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopkins has called me in seven times, and on each occasion, his summons has been entirely justified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said Holmes, I fancy that every one of his cases has found its way into your collection, and I must admit what's and that you have some power of selection, which atones for much which I deploy in your narratives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story, instead of as a scientific exercise, has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations.
[SPEAKER_00]: You slur over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite but cannot possibly instruct the reader.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you not write them yourself, I said, with some bitterness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will, my dear Watson, I will.
[SPEAKER_00]: At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my declining years
[SPEAKER_00]: which shall focus the whole art of detection into one volume, our present research appears to be a case of murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think this so useless is dead then?
[SPEAKER_00]: I should say so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopkins' writing shows considerable agitation, and he is not an emotional man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I gather there has been violence and that the body is
[SPEAKER_00]: As to the release of the lady, it would appear that she has been locked in her room during the tragedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are moving in high life, Watson, crackling paper, e.b.
[SPEAKER_00]: monogram, coat of arms, picture-esque address.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that friend Hopkins will live up to his reputation and that we shall have an interesting morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The crime was committed before 12 last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can you possibly tell?
[SPEAKER_00]: by an inspection of the trains and by reckoning the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The local police had to be called in.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had to communicate with Scotland Yard, Hopkins had to go out, and he in turn had to send for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that makes a fair night's work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, here we are at Chiselhurst Station, and we shall soon set our doubts at rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: a drive of a couple of miles through narrow country lanes brought us to a park gate, which was open for us by an old lodgekeeper, whose haggard face bore the reflection of some great disaster.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Avenue ran through a noble park between lines of ancient Elm's and ended in a low widespread house, piled in front after the fashion of Paladio.
[SPEAKER_00]: The central part was evidently of a great age and shrouded in ivy, but the large windows showed that modern changes had been carried out and one wing of the house appeared to be entirely new.
[SPEAKER_00]: The youthful figure and alert eager face of Inspector Stanley Hopkins confronted us in the open doorway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very glad you have come, Mr. Holmes, and you too, Dr. Watson,
[SPEAKER_00]: But indeed, if I had my time over again, I should not have troubled you for since the lady has come to herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has given so clear an account of the affair that there is not much left for us to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember that Lewisham gang of burglars?
[SPEAKER_00]: What the three Randals?
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly the father and two sons.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's their work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not a doubt of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did a job at Saddamer fortnight ago and were seen and described, rather cool to do another so soon and so near, but it is there, beyond all doubt, it's a hanging matter this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Eustace's dead then?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, his head was knocked in with his own poker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, one of the richest men in Kent, Lady Brackenstall is in the morning room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Poor Lady, she has had a most dreadful experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: She seemed half dead when I saw her first.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you had best see her and hear her account of the facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we will examine the dining room together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Brackenstall was no ordinary person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seldom have I seen so graceful a figure so, womanly a presence and so beautiful a face.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a blonde, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and would no doubt have had the perfect complexion which goes with such colouring.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had not a recent experience left her drawn and haggard.
[SPEAKER_00]: her sufferings were physical as well as mental.
[SPEAKER_00]: For over one eye rose a hideous, plum-coloured swelling, which her maid, a tall or steer woman, was bathing assiduously with vinegar and water.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lady lay back exhausted upon a couch, but her quick, observant gaze as we entered the room, and the alert expression of her beautiful features, showed that neither her wits nor her courage had been shaken by her terrible experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was enveloped in a loose dressing gown of blue and silver, but a black sequin-covered dinner dress lay up on the couch beside her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have told you all that happened Mr. Hopkins, she said weirdly, could you not repeat it for me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you think it necessary, I will tell these gentlemen what occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have they been in the dining room yet?
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought they had better hear your ladyship's story first.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shall be glad when you can arrange matters, it is horrible to me to think of him still lying there.
[SPEAKER_00]: She shuddered and buried her face in her hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: As she did so, the loose gown fell back from her forearms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes uttered an exclamation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have other injuries madam, what is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Two vivid red spots stood out on one of the white round limbs.
[SPEAKER_00]: She hastily covered it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is nothing, it has no connection with this hideous business tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you and your friend will sit down, I will tell you all I can.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the wife of Sir Yustus Brackenstall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been married about a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose that it is no use my attempting to conceal that our marriage has not been a happy one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fear that all our neighbours would tell you that, even if I were to attempt to deny it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps the fault may be partly mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was brought up in the freer less conventional atmosphere of South Australia, and this English life, with its proprieties and its primness is not congenial
[SPEAKER_00]: but the main reason lies in the one fact, which is notorious to everyone, and that is that so useless was a confirmed drunkard.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be with such a man for an hour is unpleasant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine what it means for a sensitive and high-spirited woman to be tied to him for day and night?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a sacrilege, a crime, a villainy to hold that such a marriage is binding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say that these monstrous laws of yours will bring a curse upon the land.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will not let such wickedness endure.
[SPEAKER_00]: For an instant she set up, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes blazing from under the terrible mark upon her brow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the strong soothing hand of the austere may drew her head down onto the cushion, and the wild anger died away into passionate sobbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you about last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are aware perhaps that in this house all the servants sleep in the modern wing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This central block is made up of the dwelling rooms, with the kitchen behind and our bedroom above.
[SPEAKER_00]: My maid Theresa sleeps above my room.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no one else and no sound could alarm those who are in the farther wing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This must have been well known to the robbers, or they would not have acted as they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sir used us retired about half past ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: The servants had already gone to their quarters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only my maid was up, and she had remained in her room at the top of the house until I needed her services.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sat until after eleven in this room absorbed in a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I walked round to see that all was right before I went upstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was my custom to do this myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: for as I have explained, so useless was not always to be trusted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went into the kitchen, the butler's pantry, the gun room, the billiard room, the drawing room, and finally the dining room.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I approached the window which is covered with thick curtains, I suddenly felt the wind blow up on my face and realized that it was open.
[SPEAKER_00]: I flung the curtain aside and found myself face-to-face with a broad shouldered elderly man who had just stepped into the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: window is a long French one, which really forms a door leading to the lawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: I held my bedroom candle lit in my hand and by its light, behind the first man I saw two others who were in the active entering.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stepped back but the fellow was on me in an instant.
[SPEAKER_00]: He caught me first by the wrist and then by the throat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I opened my mouth to scream, but he struck me a savage blow with his fist over the eye and felled me to the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must have been unconscious for a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: For when I came to myself, I found that they had torn down the bell rope, and it secured me tightly to the oak and chair which stands at the head of the dining table.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so firmly bound that I could not move and a handkerchief round my mouth prevented me from uttering a sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had evidently heard some suspicious sounds, and he came prepared for such a scene as he found.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was dressed in night shirt and trousers with his favourite black thorn cudgelin his hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He rushed at the burglars, but another, it was an elderly man, stooped, picked the poker out of the great and struck him a horrible blow as he passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He fell with a grown and never moved again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fainted once more, but again it could only have been for a very few minutes during which I was insensible.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I opened my eyes I found that they had collected the silver from the sideboard, and they had drawn a bottle of wine which stood there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each of them had a glass in his hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have already told you, have I not, that one was elderly, with a beard, and the others young hairless lads.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might have been a father with his two sons.
[SPEAKER_00]: They talked together in whispers, then they came over and made sure that I was securely bound.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, they withdrew, closing the window after them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was quite a quarter of an hour before I got my mouth free.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I did so, my screams brought the maid to my assistance.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other servants were soon alarmed, and we sent for the local police who instantly communicated with London.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is really all that I can tell you gentlemen, and I trust that it will not be necessary for me to go over so painful a story again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any questions Mr. Holmes, last Hopkins?
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not impose any further tax upon Lady Brackenstall's patience and time," said Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I go into the dining room, I should like to hear your experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked at the maid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the men before ever they came into the house, said she.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I sat by my bedroom window, I saw three men in the moonlight down by the lodge gate
[SPEAKER_00]: It was more than an hour after that I heard my mistress scream and down I ran to find her poor lamb just as she says, and him on the floor with his blood and brains over the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was enough to drive a woman out of her wits, tied there, and her very dress spotted with him but she never wanted courage, did Miss Mary Fraser of Adelaide and Lady Brackenstall of Abbey Grange hasn't learned new ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've questioned her long enough, you gentlemen.
[SPEAKER_00]: and now she is coming to her own room just with her old Theresa to get the rest that she badly needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: With a motherly tenderness, the gaunt woman put her arm round her mistress and led her from the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has been with her all her life, said Hopkins, nursed her as a baby and came with her to England when they first left Australia 18 months ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Theresa right is her name.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the kind of maid you don't pick up nowadays.
[SPEAKER_00]: This way, Mr. Holmes, if you please?
[SPEAKER_00]: The keen interest had passed out of Holmes' expressive face, and I knew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had departed.
[SPEAKER_00]: There still remained an arrest to be affected, but what were these commonplace rogues that he should soil his hands with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: An abstruse and learned specialist who finds that he has been called in for a case of measles would experience something of the annoyance which I read in my friends eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet the scene in the dining room of the Abbey Grange was sufficiently strange to arrest his attention and to recall his waning interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very large and high chamber with carved oak ceiling open paneling and a fine
[SPEAKER_00]: At the further end from the door was the high-french window of which we had heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three smaller windows on the right-hand side filled the apartment with cold winter sunshine.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the left was a large deep fireplace with a massive overhanging oak mantelpiece.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beside the fireplace was a heavy oak and chair with arms and crossbars at the bottom.
[SPEAKER_00]: In and out through the open woodwork was woven a crimson cord, which was secured at each side to the cross-peast below.
[SPEAKER_00]: In releasing the lady the cord had been slipped off her but the knots with which it had been secured still remained.
[SPEAKER_00]: These details only struck our attention afterwards for our thoughts were entirely absorbed by the terrible object which lay upon the tiger's skin hathraug in front of the fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the body of a tall, well-made man about 40 years of age.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lay upon his back, his face upturned with his white teeth grinning through his short black beard.
[SPEAKER_00]: His two clenched hands were raised above his head, and a heavy black-thorn stick lay across them.
[SPEAKER_00]: His dark, handsome, acroline features were convulsed into a spasm of vindictive hatred, which
[SPEAKER_00]: He had evidently been in his bed when the alarm had broken out, for he wore a phopish embroidered night shirt, and his bare feet projected from his trousers.
[SPEAKER_00]: His head was horribly injured, and the whole room bore witness to the savage ferocity of the blow which had struck him down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beside him lay the heavy poker bent into a curve by the concussion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes examined both it and the indescribable wreck which it had
[SPEAKER_00]: He must be a powerful man, this elder Randall, he remarked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, said Hopkins, I have some record of the fellow and he is a rough customer.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should have no difficulty in getting him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the slightest.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been on the lookout for him and there was some idea that he had got away to America.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't see how they can escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the news at every seaport already and a reward will be offered before evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: What beats me is how they could have done so mad a thing knowing that the lady could describe them and that we could not fail to recognise the description.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: One would have expected that they would silence lady Brackenstall as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: They may not have realized I suggested that she had recovered from her faint.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is likely enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: If she seemed to be senseless, they would not take her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: What about this poor fellow Hopkins?
[SPEAKER_00]: I seem to have heard some queer stories about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend when he was drunk or rather when he was half drunk.
[SPEAKER_00]: The devils seem to be in him at such times and he was capable of anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: From what I hear in spite of all his wealth and his title, he very nearly came our way once or twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a scandal about his drenching a dog with petroleum and setting it on fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her ladyship's dog to make them at a worse and that was only hushed up with difficulty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he threw a decanter at that maid Theresa Wright.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was trouble about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the whole and between ourselves, it will be a brighter house without him.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you looking at now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes was down on his knees, examining with greater tension than not upon the red cord with which the lady had been secured.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he carefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end, where it had snapped off when the burglar had dragged it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: When this was pulled down, the bell in the kitchen must have wrung loudly, he remarked.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one could hear it, the kitchen stands right at the back of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did the burglar know no one would hear it?
[SPEAKER_00]: How dare he pull at a bell rope in that reckless fashion?
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, Mr. Holmes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: You put the very question which I have asked myself again and again,
[SPEAKER_00]: There can be no doubt that this fellow must have known the house and its habits.
[SPEAKER_00]: He must have perfectly understood that the servants would all be in bed at that comparatively early hour, and that no one could possibly hear a bell ring in the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore he must have been in close league with one of the servants.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely that is evident.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are eight servants and all of good character.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other things being equal, said Holmes, one would suspect the one who's head the master through a decanter, and yet that would involve treachery towards the mistress to whom this woman seems devoted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, the point is a minor one, and when you have Randall you will probably find no difficulty in securing his accomplice.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lady's story certainly seems to be corroborated if it needed corroboration by every detail which we see before us.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are no signs here, but the ground is iron hard, and one would not expect them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see that these candles in the mantelpiece have been lighted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it was by their light and that of the ladies bedroom candle that the burglars saw their way about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what did they take?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where they did not take much, only half a dozen articles of plate off the sideboard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Yustus, that they did not ransack the house as they would otherwise have done.
[SPEAKER_00]: No doubt that is true and yet they drank some wine I understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: To steady their nerves, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: These three glasses upon the sideboard have been untouched, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and the bottle stands as they left it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us look at it, hello, hello, what is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: The three glasses were grouped together, all of them tingeed with wine, and one of them containing some dregs of beeswing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bottle stood near them, two thirds full, and beside it lay a long, deeply stained cork.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's appearance and the dust upon the bottle showed that it was no common vintage which the murderers had enjoyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: A change had come over Holmes' manner.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had lost his listless expression, and again I saw an alert light of interest in his keen deep set eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He raised the cork and examined it minutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did they draw it?
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopkins pointed to a half-open drawer.
[SPEAKER_00]: In it lay some table linen and a large corkscrew.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did Lady Brackenstahl say that screw was used?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you remember that she was senseless at the moment when the bottle was opened?
[SPEAKER_00]: quite so, as a matter of fact, that screw was not used.
[SPEAKER_00]: This bottle was opened by a pocket screw, probably contained in a knife, and not more than an inch and a half long.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you will examine the top of the cork, you will observe that the screw was driven in three times before the cork was extracted.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has never been transfixed.
[SPEAKER_00]: This long screw would have transfixed it and drawn it up with a single pull.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you catch this fellow, you
[SPEAKER_00]: excellent said Hopkins.
[SPEAKER_00]: But these glasses do puzzle me, I confess.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Bracken stole actually saw the three men drinking, did she not?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, she was clear about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there is an end of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What more is to be said?
[SPEAKER_00]: and yet you must admit that the three glasses are very remarkable Hopkins.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: You see nothing remarkable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, let it pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, it must be a mere chance about the glasses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning Hopkins.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't see that I can be of any use to you and you appear to have your case very clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will let me know when Randall is arrested and any further developments which may occur.
[SPEAKER_00]: I trust that I shall soon have to congratulate you upon a successful conclusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come Watson, I fancy that we may employ ourselves more profitably at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: During our return journey I could see by Holmes' face that he was much puzzled by something
[SPEAKER_00]: Every now and then, by an effort, he would throw off the impression, and talk as if the matter were clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then his doubts would settle down upon him again, and his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his thoughts had gone back once more to the great dining room of the Abbey Grange, in which this midnight tragedy had been enacted.
[SPEAKER_00]: At last, by a sudden impulse, just as our train was crawling out of a suburban station, he sprang onto the platform and pulled me out after him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Excuse me, my dear fellow, said he, as we watch the rear carriages of our train disappearing round a curve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am sorry to make you the victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life Watson, I simply can't leave that case in this condition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every instinct that I possess cries out against it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll swear that it's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: and yet the lady's story was complete.
[SPEAKER_00]: The maid's corroboration was sufficient, the detail was fairly exact.
[SPEAKER_00]: What have I to put up against that three wine glasses that is all?
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I had not taken things for granted, if I had examined everything with the care which I should have shown had we approach the case to Nova and had no cut and dried story to warp my mind, should I not then have found something more definite to go upon?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course I should.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sit down on this bench Watson until a train for chiselhurst arrives and allow me to lay the evidence before you, imploring you in the first instance to dismiss from your mind the idea that anything, which the maid or her mistress may have said, must necessarily be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lady's charming personality must not be permitted to warp our judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely there are details in her story which if we looked at in cold blood would excite our suspicion.
[SPEAKER_00]: These burglars made a considerable hall at Siddenham a fortnight ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some account of them, and of their appearance, was in the papers, and would naturally occur to anyone who wished to invent a story, in which imaginary robbers should play a part.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a matter of fact, burglars who have done a good stroke of business are, as a rule, only too glad to enjoy the proceeds in peace and quiet, without embarking on another perilous undertaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it is unusual for burglars to operate at so early an hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is unusual for burglars to strike a lady to prevent her screaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since one would imagine that was the sure way to make her scream.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is unusual for them to commit murder when their numbers are sufficient to overpower one man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is unusual for them to be content with a limited plunder when there was much more within their reach and finally I should say, that it was very unusual for such meant to leave
[SPEAKER_00]: How do all these unusual strike you Watson?
[SPEAKER_00]: Their cumulative effect is certainly considerable, and yet each of them is quite possible in itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: The most unusual thing of all, as it seems to me, is that the lady should be tied to the chair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I am not so clear about that Watson for it is evident that they must either kill her or else secure her in such a way that she could not give immediate notice of their escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at any rate I have shown have I not that there is a certain element of improbability about the lady's story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, on the top of this, comes the incident of the wine glasses.
[SPEAKER_00]: What about the wine glasses?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you see them in your mind's eye?
[SPEAKER_00]: I see them clearly.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are told that three men drank from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that strike you as likely?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: There was wine in each class.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, but there was beeswing only in one glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must have noticed that fact.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last glass filled would be most likely to contain beeswing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not at all the bottle was full of it and it is inconceivable that the first two glasses were clear and the third heavily charged with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are two possible explanations and only two.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is that after the second glass was filled the bottle was violently agitated and so the third glass received the beeswing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That does not appear probable.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, I'm sure that I'm right.
[SPEAKER_00]: What then do you suppose?
[SPEAKER_00]: That only two glasses were used and that the drags of both were poured into a third glass, so as to give the false impression that three people had been here.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that way all the beeswing would be in the last glass, would it not?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I am convinced that this is so.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I have hit upon the true explanation of this one small phenomenon, then in an instant the case rises from the commonplace to the exceedingly remarkable, for it can only mean that Lady Bracken stole and her maid have deliberately lied to us, that not one word of their stories to be believed, that they have some very strong reason for covering the real criminal, and that we must construct our case for ourselves without any help from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the mission which now lies before us and here Watson is the Siddenham train.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.