Sherlock Holmes - The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez

<v Speaker 1>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, where Sir John Gielgot and
<v Speaker 1>Sherlock Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as our story teller,
<v Speaker 1>Doctor James Watson.
<v Speaker 2>It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of
<v Speaker 2>November eighteen ninety four. Hose and I sat together in
<v Speaker 2>silence all the evening outside. The wind howled down Baker Street,
<v Speaker 2>but the rain beat fiercely against the windows. On such
<v Speaker 2>a night, we were not at all pleased to hear
<v Speaker 2>keb draw up at our door and a ring at
<v Speaker 2>the bell.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, come in, Hopkins. I hope you no professional designs
<v Speaker 1>upon us on a night like this. Throw up a chair,
<v Speaker 1>worn't you a warmer toes? Thank you, Miss Holmes. I
<v Speaker 1>suppose it must be something important to bring you here
<v Speaker 1>at this hour and in such a gale. It is indeed,
<v Speaker 1>mister Holmes, I have had a bustling afternoon, I promise
<v Speaker 1>you on the Yochsley case, I caught the last train
<v Speaker 1>back to town and came straight on my cap from
<v Speaker 1>Chane Cross. Yet, dear, that means I suppose that you're
<v Speaker 1>not quite curb case. I make neither head nor tail
<v Speaker 1>of it. There's no motive, mister Holmes, and that's what
<v Speaker 1>bothers me. A man killed and no reason on earth
<v Speaker 1>why anyone should wish him any harm. Very well, let's
<v Speaker 1>hear about it. It happened in the house of an
<v Speaker 1>old man called Professor Korham. He's a semi invalid, keeps
<v Speaker 1>to his dead half the time. An elderly housekeeper and
<v Speaker 1>a maid look after him, are both of excellent character.
<v Speaker 1>The professor's writing a book on Coptic manuscripts and keeps
<v Speaker 1>a secretary to help him. The last mister Willoughby Smith,
<v Speaker 1>was the third. He's had a young man straight from
<v Speaker 1>the university, quiet, hard working fellow. Yet this was the
<v Speaker 1>lad who met his death this morning in the professor's study,
<v Speaker 1>under circumstances that can only point to murder. It was
<v Speaker 1>between eleven and twelve this morning, Susan Tarton. The maid
<v Speaker 1>was hanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom. Professor
<v Speaker 1>Korum was still in bed. He celemnizes before midday. The
<v Speaker 1>housekeeper was busy at the back of the house. Willoughby
<v Speaker 1>Smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as
<v Speaker 1>a sitting room. The maid heard him come out of
<v Speaker 1>his room go along the passage and downstairs to the
<v Speaker 1>studies at the room below him. A minute or later
<v Speaker 1>there was a dreadful cry from that room. A wild
<v Speaker 1>horse screamed. At the same instant there was a heavy
<v Speaker 1>sud ritual whole house, then silence. The maid stood petrified
<v Speaker 1>for a moment, then, recovering her courage, she ran downstairs.
<v Speaker 1>So the study door was shut and she opened it.
<v Speaker 1>Inside mister Willoughbysmith was stretched on the floor and blood
<v Speaker 1>was pouring from a wound in his neck. On the
<v Speaker 1>floor nearby was a bloodstained stiletto. She recognized it as
<v Speaker 1>one the professor kept on his desk and used as
<v Speaker 1>a paper knife. I take it that the young man
<v Speaker 1>was already dead. At first the maid thought so, But
<v Speaker 1>when she poured some water over his forehead, he opened
<v Speaker 1>his eyes for a second.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, oh, sad, what happened?
<v Speaker 1>Oh kill me? Tell me the professor h it was she?
<v Speaker 1>M h. Those were his last words. He tried desperately
<v Speaker 1>to say something else, then he fell back deare. The
<v Speaker 1>housekeeper arrived just after he had died, leaving Susan with
<v Speaker 1>the body. She had into the Professor's room. He was
<v Speaker 1>sitting up in bed terribly agitated, the housekeeper told him
<v Speaker 1>what had happened? You've questioned the professor, of course, Oh yes,
<v Speaker 1>he says he heard the distant cry, but knows nothing more.
<v Speaker 1>His first action was to send for the police. I've
<v Speaker 1>been put in charge of the case, mister Holmes, but ah,
<v Speaker 1>I'm so battled. I come to you as a friend. Well, well, well,
<v Speaker 1>we must see what we can do. Can you give
<v Speaker 1>me some idea as to the disposition of the rooms?
<v Speaker 1>You say the study door was closed? Was that the
<v Speaker 1>only door to that room?
<v Speaker 2>There were three doors to the study, the one by
<v Speaker 2>which the maid and willoughb Smith had entered, and two
<v Speaker 2>other doors at the opposite ends of the room. Of these,
<v Speaker 2>one led by way of a corridor till the professor's room,
<v Speaker 2>the other led by a cinelar corridor to the back
<v Speaker 2>door of the house, which was unlocked. There could be
<v Speaker 2>little doubt but that the murderer had entered this way,
<v Speaker 2>and there was no other way about which he or
<v Speaker 2>she could possibly have left without meeting the maid at
<v Speaker 2>one door, or running into the professor's bedroom by way
<v Speaker 2>of the other.
<v Speaker 1>The path to the back door was saturated with rain
<v Speaker 1>and would certainly have shown any footmarks. My examination showed
<v Speaker 1>me that I was dealing with a cautious and expert criminal,
<v Speaker 1>For there were no footmarks to be found on the path,
<v Speaker 1>but the grass verge was trodden down, and my inquiries
<v Speaker 1>proved that it could only have been trodden down by
<v Speaker 1>the murderer. Well well, well, now these tracks on the grass,
<v Speaker 1>coming or going or both, it was impossible to say.
<v Speaker 1>There was never any outline, large footprints or small ones.
<v Speaker 1>I wasn't able to make them out. Well, it's been
<v Speaker 1>pouring with rain and blowing a hurrican ever since. They'll
<v Speaker 1>be harder to read tomorrow morning. Anything else in the study,
<v Speaker 1>there's a desk, a bureau and a cupboard. The professor
<v Speaker 1>assures me that nothing is missing. So it seems certain
<v Speaker 1>that robbery was not the murderer's aim. How about the
<v Speaker 1>wound on the body. The stamp was on the right
<v Speaker 1>side of the neck and from behind, so that it's
<v Speaker 1>almost impossible it could have been self in fleet unless
<v Speaker 1>he fell on the knife exactly. The idea crossed my mind.
<v Speaker 1>But the knife was some feet away, and that other
<v Speaker 1>man's dying words. But most important of all, the dead
<v Speaker 1>man had a small object tightly grasped in his right hand.
<v Speaker 4>Well, Watson, what do you make of thee The object
<v Speaker 4>was a pair of gold rimmed spectacles, or more properly
<v Speaker 4>a golden pasney, a type of glass which clip onto
<v Speaker 4>the bridge of the nose.
<v Speaker 2>From them hung two broken ends of black silk cord.
<v Speaker 2>Holmes examined the glasses with the greatest attention.
<v Speaker 1>He held them on.
<v Speaker 2>His nose, he tried to read through them, he looked
<v Speaker 2>out of the window, and then he handed them back to.
<v Speaker 1>Hopkins with a chapel. Well, my dear Hopkins wanted a
<v Speaker 1>woman of good address, a tide like a lady. She
<v Speaker 1>has a remarkably thick nose, with eyes that are set
<v Speaker 1>close upon either side of it, a packet forehead, appearing expression,
<v Speaker 1>and probably runded shoulders. As she has been to an
<v Speaker 1>optician at least twice during the last few months, it
<v Speaker 1>should be easy enough to trace her. But how did
<v Speaker 1>you find all that out? Simplicity itself. From their delicacy
<v Speaker 1>and the dying man's last words, I deduced they belong
<v Speaker 1>to a woman. Anybody who wore such expensive and elegant
<v Speaker 1>glasses would be pretty sure to be well dressed. The
<v Speaker 1>width of the clips tells me she has a broad nose,
<v Speaker 1>and the position of the lens tells me that her
<v Speaker 1>eyes are set closely together. You will see that the
<v Speaker 1>glasses are of unusual strength. A lady whose vision is
<v Speaker 1>so contractedly sure to have the physical characteristics of such
<v Speaker 1>vision the forehead of the eyelids and shoulders. But how
<v Speaker 1>do you arrive at the double visit to the optician?
<v Speaker 1>The clips are lined with tiny bands of cork, one
<v Speaker 1>newer than the other, both comparatively new. They exactly correspond.
<v Speaker 1>So I presume that the lady went to the same
<v Speaker 1>optician for both. Well, Hopkins, if you've nothing more to
<v Speaker 1>tell me, I suggest we all turn in for the night.
<v Speaker 1>It will be quite comfortable on this sofa, I believe,
<v Speaker 1>and in the morning we can make an early start.
<v Speaker 2>The gale blown itself out next day, but it was
<v Speaker 2>a bitter morning when we started upon our journey. We
<v Speaker 2>saw the cold winter sun rise over the dreary marshes
<v Speaker 2>of the Thames, and the long sunthern reaches of the river.
<v Speaker 1>Well, at last we reached the end of our journey.
<v Speaker 1>This is the garden path of which I told you,
<v Speaker 1>mister Holmes, and which side. Were the marks on the
<v Speaker 1>glass verge this side. M. You can't see them, I'm afraid,
<v Speaker 1>but they were clear enough yesterday. Yes, he says, I
<v Speaker 1>can see someone who's walked along as the lady must
<v Speaker 1>have picked her way very carefully, mustn't she not very wide?
<v Speaker 1>And you say she must have come back the same
<v Speaker 1>way she must have done. There was no other way
<v Speaker 1>open to her. M. Not remarkable performance, quite remarkable. One
<v Speaker 1>thing we can be sure of. The murder was not premeditated,
<v Speaker 1>or the lady would have brought some weapon with her
<v Speaker 1>rather than picking up that paper knife off the desk.
<v Speaker 2>Well, let us go into the house. We entered the
<v Speaker 2>back door and advanced along the corridor to the door
<v Speaker 2>of the study. As the floor was covered with coconut matting,
<v Speaker 2>there was nothing to be learned from it. When we
<v Speaker 2>reached the study, Holmes conducted his usual patanah examination of
<v Speaker 2>the walls, floor, and furniture.
<v Speaker 1>Before the bureau, he paused, Hello, scratch on the lock
<v Speaker 1>of this bureau A pray ring for the maid? Will you,
<v Speaker 1>my dear Watson, Why didn't you tell me about this? Hopkins?
<v Speaker 1>You'll always find sketches around a key? Sure, yes, yes, yes,
<v Speaker 1>but this is quite a recent one. Ah, yes, did
<v Speaker 1>you ring, sir? Yes, I did. When was this room
<v Speaker 1>dusted last yesterday morning? Sir? I did it myself. Did
<v Speaker 1>you notice this scratch? No, sir, I didn't. I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>you didn't. A duster I would have threwn away those
<v Speaker 1>shreds of varnish. I can see through my glass. Who
<v Speaker 1>has the key to this bureau The professor keeps it
<v Speaker 1>on his watch chain. It was in his bedroom with
<v Speaker 1>him at the time of the murder. Very good, we
<v Speaker 1>seem to be making a little progress. A lady enters
<v Speaker 1>the room, advances to the burea, and either opens it
<v Speaker 1>or tries to do so. While she's thus engaged, Willeby
<v Speaker 1>Smith enters the room. In her hurry to withdraw the key,
<v Speaker 1>she makes this scratch near the lock. He seizes the intruder,
<v Speaker 1>and she is snatching up the nearest object, which happens
<v Speaker 1>to be the stiletto, strikes him in the neck to
<v Speaker 1>make him let go his hold. Smith is fatally wounded,
<v Speaker 1>falls to the floor, and his assailant escapes, either with
<v Speaker 1>or without the object for which she came. Now, then, Susan,
<v Speaker 1>could anyone have got away? Through that door over there
<v Speaker 1>at the time you heard the cry.
<v Speaker 3>Oh no, sir, it's impossible.
<v Speaker 1>Have you seen him in the passage? Thank you? Then
<v Speaker 1>you were quite right about the exit, Hopkins. The lady
<v Speaker 1>must have gone out the way she came in. But
<v Speaker 1>what about this third door? I think you said that
<v Speaker 1>leads to the Professor's room. There's no other exit by
<v Speaker 1>it from the house that way, and nobody could have
<v Speaker 1>hidden in the corridor without being found by the huskeeper
<v Speaker 1>when she ran to tell the Professor what had happened. Well,
<v Speaker 1>let us go and make the professor the quaintance. Oh,
<v Speaker 1>this corridor also is lined with coconut matting. I see.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think it's important? Well, well, I don't insist
<v Speaker 1>upon it, but no doubt I'm wrong, but it seems
<v Speaker 1>to me to be suggestive. Come along, I am anxious
<v Speaker 1>to meet the professor.
<v Speaker 2>We passed down the passage, which was the same length
<v Speaker 2>as that which led to the garden. As Hopkins knocked
<v Speaker 2>at the door, I mean.
<v Speaker 1>Good ning. Professor now presents mister Sherlock, Holmes and doctor Watson.
<v Speaker 2>It was a large room, and books that had overflowed
<v Speaker 2>from their shelves lay in piles on the floor and
<v Speaker 2>around the bed were stacked in the heaps at the
<v Speaker 2>side of a huge bookcase. The bed was in the
<v Speaker 2>center of the room, and on it, popped up with pillows,
<v Speaker 2>was the owner of the house. The cigarette glowed amid
<v Speaker 2>the tangle of his white beard. The air of the
<v Speaker 2>room was stale tobacco smoke. As he held out his
<v Speaker 2>hand to Holmes, I perceived that it also was stained
<v Speaker 2>yellow with nicotine.
<v Speaker 5>Well, well, mister Charlock Holmes, this is a surprise a smoker.
<v Speaker 1>Mister Holmes, pray take a cigarette and you.
<v Speaker 5>Sir, No nothing I can recommend them, for I have
<v Speaker 5>them specially prepared by Ionidas of Alexandria. He sends me
<v Speaker 5>a thousand at a time, but I grieve to say
<v Speaker 5>I have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight.
<v Speaker 2>Though Holmes was much addicted to his briar pipe, i'd
<v Speaker 2>never learn him accept a cigarette before. Indeed, he seemed
<v Speaker 2>on the point of refusing it on this occasion, when
<v Speaker 2>changing his mind, he accepted it and began to smoke
<v Speaker 2>with a strange nervous rapidity. For batro in my work,
<v Speaker 2>but now only to macco alas.
<v Speaker 5>What a fatal interruption to my book Who could have
<v Speaker 5>foreseen such a terrible tragedy so estimably young man, I
<v Speaker 5>assure you that after a few months training he was
<v Speaker 5>an admirable assistant. What do you think of the matter, mister.
<v Speaker 1>Holmes, I'm afraid I've not yet made up my mind. Professor.
<v Speaker 5>I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can
<v Speaker 5>throw light where all is dark to us for a
<v Speaker 5>poor bookworm and invalid like myself, such a blow he
<v Speaker 5>is paralyzing.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I will do everything in my power to clear
<v Speaker 1>it up. By the way I find these figure, that's
<v Speaker 1>unusually good and might I but of course please help yourself.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, thank you, most delightful to the palace, and
<v Speaker 1>quite a refreshing change for me.
<v Speaker 2>Watson and spoking with a rapidity I've never seen before,
<v Speaker 2>Charrock Holmes began to pace up and down the bedroom.
<v Speaker 2>Holmes continued to pace up and down the room, still
<v Speaker 2>smoking feverishly as he listened for the sonorous flow of speech.
<v Speaker 1>That pile of papers on the table.
<v Speaker 5>There is my magnum opus, some work which will cut
<v Speaker 5>deep into the very foundations of revealed religion.
<v Speaker 1>And I won't trouble you with any lengths across examination.
<v Speaker 1>Since I gather you were in bed here when the
<v Speaker 1>crime was committed and could not possibly know anything about it,
<v Speaker 1>I would only ask this, what do you imagine the
<v Speaker 1>poor fellow meant by his last words? The professor?
<v Speaker 5>It was she susan easy country girl, mister Holmes, and
<v Speaker 5>you know the incredible stupidity of the class.
<v Speaker 1>I fancy the.
<v Speaker 5>Poor fellow murmured some cohering, delirious words, and she twisted
<v Speaker 5>them into this meaningless message. I see you had no
<v Speaker 5>explanation in yourself of the tragedy, possibly an accident, possibly
<v Speaker 5>is suishie.
<v Speaker 1>We must apologize for having disturbed you so long, Professor Cohen.
<v Speaker 1>I promise we shan't include on you again until after luncheon.
<v Speaker 1>I'll have another look round the garden, if I may,
<v Speaker 1>and at two o'clock report to you anything that may
<v Speaker 1>have emerged in the meanwhile, we.
<v Speaker 2>Withdrew from the bedroom and made our way out into
<v Speaker 2>the garden. Holmes was curiously display and we walked up
<v Speaker 2>and down for some time in silence. At last, I'd
<v Speaker 2>broke in on his thoughts by asking him whether he'd
<v Speaker 2>found any clue.
<v Speaker 1>It all depends on these cigarettes. I smoked. It's possible.
<v Speaker 1>I'm quite mistaken, of course, But those cigarettes will show me.
<v Speaker 1>My dear Holmes, how on ear will you see for yourself?
<v Speaker 1>If not, there's no harm done. Ah, there's a housekeeper.
<v Speaker 1>I should like a word with her.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, mister Holmes, is as you say, Sir. He does
<v Speaker 3>smoke something terrible all day and sometimes all night. Sir,
<v Speaker 3>Sniff's health, Well, I don't know whether it's better or
<v Speaker 3>worse for smoking.
<v Speaker 1>Ah, But smoking as much as that kills the epithet,
<v Speaker 1>doesn't it. Well, I don't know about that, Sir. I
<v Speaker 1>mean I suppose the Professor eats hardly anything at all.
<v Speaker 3>Well, he's dariable, I'll say.
<v Speaker 1>That for him. I wait here. He took no breakfast
<v Speaker 1>this morning and weren't facing a lunch after all those
<v Speaker 1>cigarettes I saw him get through the willy are out there, Sirs.
<v Speaker 3>It happens for THEETA remarkably big breakfast this morning, and
<v Speaker 3>I'm surprised myself. So since I came into that room
<v Speaker 3>yesterday and saw young mister Smith lying there on the floor,
<v Speaker 3>I couldn't bear to look at food. Oh well, it
<v Speaker 3>takes all sorts to make a world, do you say?
<v Speaker 1>Missus Marka. It takes all sorts to make a world.
<v Speaker 2>We lightered the rest of the morning away in the garden.
<v Speaker 2>Susan Will awaited the Bollus at lunch volunteer the information
<v Speaker 2>that mister Smith had been out for a walk the
<v Speaker 2>previous morning and had only returned some half an hour
<v Speaker 2>before the tragedy occurred.
<v Speaker 1>Two o'clock. Gentlemen, you can now go up and have
<v Speaker 1>it out with our friend, the professor Will.
<v Speaker 5>Mister Holmes, have you solved this mystery? Yet another figure?
<v Speaker 5>Right after your lunch?
<v Speaker 1>Thank you? I don't go, dear, I careless of me
<v Speaker 1>and let me pick them up. Yes, it's wonderful. How
<v Speaker 1>far they role, isn't it?
<v Speaker 5>Ah?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think that's the lost. No harm done, that's
<v Speaker 1>the mystery. Yes, I've solved it. You have indeed out
<v Speaker 1>in the garden. No, no, no, in here. Very well,
<v Speaker 1>mister Holmes, I shall be very interested. Yesterday lady entered
<v Speaker 1>your study. She came with the intention of possessing herself
<v Speaker 1>of certain documents which were in your bureau. She had
<v Speaker 1>a key of her own. I've had an opportunity of
<v Speaker 1>examining yours, as you may remember, but I didn't find
<v Speaker 1>that slight discoloration, which was scratch made the varnish of
<v Speaker 1>the bureau would have produced, so you weren't an accessory.
<v Speaker 1>And she came, as far as I can read the evidence,
<v Speaker 1>to rob you without your knowledge. In the first place,
<v Speaker 1>she was seized by your secretary whilst relocking the bureau,
<v Speaker 1>and stabbed him with a knife in order to escape.
<v Speaker 1>I fancied the stabbing was an unhappy accident, but I
<v Speaker 1>am convinced the lady had no intention of injuring him. Seriously,
<v Speaker 1>a murderess doesn't come unarmed. But horrified by what she
<v Speaker 1>had done, she rushed wildly away from the scene of
<v Speaker 1>the tragedy. Unfortunately for her, she had lost her glasses
<v Speaker 1>in the scuffle, and as she was extremely short sighted,
<v Speaker 1>she was really helpless without them. She ran down a corridor,
<v Speaker 1>as she thought the one by which she had entered
<v Speaker 1>the study, and only when it was too late that
<v Speaker 1>she realized that she'd taken the wrong door and the
<v Speaker 1>wrong passage, and that her a treat was cut off
<v Speaker 1>behind her. What was she to do? She couldn't go back,
<v Speaker 1>she couldn't remain where she was. She must go on,
<v Speaker 1>and she went on. She went through the corridor, pushed
<v Speaker 1>open the door, and found herself in this room.
<v Speaker 5>Already find, mister Holmes. But there's one little flaw in
<v Speaker 5>your splendid theory. I was myself in this room, and
<v Speaker 5>I never left it during.
<v Speaker 1>The whole day. As I'm quite aware of that professor calling.
<v Speaker 5>You mean to say I could lie in bed and
<v Speaker 5>not be aware that a woman had entered my room.
<v Speaker 1>I never said so. You were aware of it. You
<v Speaker 1>spoke to her, you recognized her. You aided her to escape.
<v Speaker 1>Ha ha ha ha. You're your mad you're talking, insaney.
<v Speaker 1>I helped her to escape. Where is she now?
<v Speaker 2>There?
<v Speaker 1>Even as Holmes spoke, a woman stepped out from behind
<v Speaker 1>the big bookcase.
<v Speaker 2>I saw at once that she had the exact physical
<v Speaker 2>characteristics that Holmes had divined. What at her short sight
<v Speaker 2>and the sudden bright light that blinded her. She stood
<v Speaker 2>as one dazed, blinking about her to see who we were.
<v Speaker 6>I give myself up to you, sir. I am your prisoner.
<v Speaker 6>From where I stood, I could hear everything, and I
<v Speaker 6>know that you have learned the truth. I confess it all.
<v Speaker 6>It was I who killed the young man. I have
<v Speaker 6>only a little time here, but I would have you
<v Speaker 6>know the whole truth.
<v Speaker 1>I am this man's wife.
<v Speaker 6>He is a Russian, but his name I will not tell.
<v Speaker 6>God bless you, and why should you cling so hard
<v Speaker 6>to that wretched life of your Circius. It has done
<v Speaker 6>harm to many and good to none, not even to yourself.
<v Speaker 1>However, it is not for me to give you a way.
<v Speaker 1>I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed
<v Speaker 1>the threshold of this cursor.
<v Speaker 2>The story she told us was almost incredible in its
<v Speaker 2>characters and setting Russia, Siberian prison camps, and Nihilists. Both
<v Speaker 2>the professor and she his wife, had been engaged in
<v Speaker 2>revolutionary activities many years before, along with their comrades. There
<v Speaker 2>have been a rad in order to save his own life.
<v Speaker 2>Her husband had betrayed not only his friends, but her
<v Speaker 2>as well. She and the others had been sent to Siberia.
<v Speaker 2>The professor had been set free, that had come to
<v Speaker 2>England under an assumed name. What content with that little
<v Speaker 2>piece of dilanay? He had let an innocent man suffer
<v Speaker 2>along with the guilty.
<v Speaker 6>He was noble, unselfish, loving all that my husband was not.
<v Speaker 6>He hated violence and wrote forever dissuading me from such
<v Speaker 6>a course. Those letters of his would have saved him,
<v Speaker 6>so would my dairy in which I had written about
<v Speaker 6>him and our secret love. My husband found and kept
<v Speaker 6>both the dary and the letters. He hid them and
<v Speaker 6>he tried to swear away the young man's life. In
<v Speaker 6>this he failed, but Alexis was sent to Siberia, where
<v Speaker 6>he's still working in the salt mine. When my sentence
<v Speaker 6>had been served, I followed my husband to England, and
<v Speaker 6>after months of searching I i discovered where he was living.
<v Speaker 6>My one aim was to get my hands upon those
<v Speaker 6>letters and the Daddy and give them to the Russian
<v Speaker 6>government to make them release my innocent friend. Yesterday I
<v Speaker 6>took the papers.
<v Speaker 1>The rest is as you said. Two points are much
<v Speaker 1>yet quite clear to me, madam. How did you come
<v Speaker 1>to have a duplicate key to the bureau.
<v Speaker 6>I had employed a private inquiry agent to take a
<v Speaker 6>position as my husband's secretary. It was your last secretary
<v Speaker 6>soldiers who left. So suddenly he told me where the
<v Speaker 6>papers must be kept, and he gave me a wax
<v Speaker 6>impression of the key.
<v Speaker 1>But he would go no further. I understand, And yesterday,
<v Speaker 1>as you were coming to get those papers, you met
<v Speaker 1>a young man in the street.
<v Speaker 6>It was it was the young man I killed.
<v Speaker 1>I asked him to wait to the Professor's house. He
<v Speaker 1>did not be a mind to him. Ah, that explains
<v Speaker 1>it all. Smith had told you about the meeting professor,
<v Speaker 1>hadn't he as soon as he came in? And that
<v Speaker 1>was what he meant outwards. By his dying words. He
<v Speaker 1>was trying to say who his assailant was, that woman
<v Speaker 1>he had told you about some few minutes before. But
<v Speaker 1>stop up. At last we were too late to save her.
<v Speaker 2>Even as Holmes saw the glint of the gun, she
<v Speaker 2>had shot herself in the breast. With her dying breath,
<v Speaker 2>she charged him with seeing that the little packet of
<v Speaker 2>letters and the dary should be given to the Russian
<v Speaker 2>embassy in London, which in due course they were. And
<v Speaker 2>as we traveled back to Baker Street that night, Holmes
<v Speaker 2>at last condescended to explain how the mystery had been solved.
<v Speaker 1>A simple case here, in some ways an instructed one.
<v Speaker 1>It hinged from the outset on the passaree. It had
<v Speaker 1>clayed to me from the strength of the glasses, that
<v Speaker 1>the wearer would be almost blind without them. She would
<v Speaker 1>certainly not have been able to pick her way a
<v Speaker 1>hundred yards and on a narrow glass verge to the gate,
<v Speaker 1>and there was no other way that she could have his.
<v Speaker 1>It occurred to me that perhaps she hadn't escaped at all.
<v Speaker 1>When I saw that both corridors were covered with coconut netting,
<v Speaker 1>I began to wonder whether she hadn't mistaken one for
<v Speaker 1>the other and burst in on the professor in his room.
<v Speaker 1>So I examined that room thuddly. I noticed that although
<v Speaker 1>books were piled all over the floor, they were not
<v Speaker 1>piled in front of that big bookcase in the corner,
<v Speaker 1>and I began to wonder whether the mysterious lady might
<v Speaker 1>not still be hiding behind it, since she had no
<v Speaker 1>possible chance of escaping. Later, with the police guard in
<v Speaker 1>the premises, so I spilled a lot of cigarette airs
<v Speaker 1>just in front of the bookcase to remember how many
<v Speaker 1>cigarettes I smoked, and waited until the professor had had
<v Speaker 1>his lunch. Then I upset his box of cigarettes in
<v Speaker 1>order to examine the sh I'd been right. It was
<v Speaker 1>trodden down by someone who had stepped from behind the
<v Speaker 1>bookcase while we were at our luck. In fact, I
<v Speaker 1>was not a tall surprise to find how hearted the
<v Speaker 1>Professor had been eating since the tragedy, for he had
<v Speaker 1>needed to order enough for two l