Adventure 3 in his last Bow by Sir, Arthur Conan Doyle, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventure 3, The Adventure of the red circle part 1. Well, mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for uneasiness nor do I understand why I, whose time is of, some value should interfere in the
matter. I really have other things to engage me. So spoke Sherlock, Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in, which she was arranging and indexing, some of his recent material, but the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex, she held her ground firmly You arranged an affair for a larger of mine last year. She said Mr. Fairdale hops are yes, simple matter, but he would never cease talking of it. Your kindness sir, and the way in which you brought light into
the darkness. I remembered his words. When I was in doubt and darkness myself, I know you could. If you only would Holmes was accessible of on the side of flattery and also to do him Justice upon the side of kindness. The two forces made him lay down. His gun brush with a sigh of resignation and pushed back his chair. Well, well mrs. Warren, let us hear about it. Then you don't object to Tobacco. I take it. Thank you, Watson.
The matches you are uneasy as I understand because your new lodger remains in his rooms and you cannot see him. Why bless you mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger, you often would not see For weeks on end. No doubt sir but this is different. It frightens me mr. Holmes, I can't sleep for fright to hear his quickstep moving here and moving their from early morning to late at night and yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him. It's more than I can stand.
My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is out at his work all day while I get no rest from it. What is he hiding for? What has he done? It for the girl, I'm all alone in the house with him and it's more than my nerves can stand. Holmes leaned forward and laid his long thin fingers upon the woman's shoulder.
He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished the scared look faded from her eyes and her agitated features smoothed into their usual commonplace, she sat down in the chair which he had indicated. If I take it out by must understand every detail said, he take time to consider the smallest Point. May be the most essential. You say that the man came ten days ago and paid you for a
fortnight's board. And lodging, he asked, might answer, I said, fifty Shillings a week, there is a small sitting room and bedroom and all complete at the top of the house. Well, he said, I'll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms. I'm a poor woman sir and mr. Warren earns little and the money meant much to me. He took out a ten pound note and he held it out to me then and there you can have the same every Fortnight for a long time to come.
If you keep the terms, he said if not I'll have no more to do with you. What were the terms? Well sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house that was all right. Lodges often have them also that he was to be left entirely to himself and never upon any excuse to be disturbed. Nothing. Wonderful in that surely not in reason sir. But this is out of all reason he's been there for ten days and neither mr. Warren nor I nor the girl has
one set eyes upon him. We can hear that quickstep of his pacing up and down up and down, night, morning and noon, but except on that first night he had never once gone out of the house. Oh, he went out the first night, did he? Yes sir and returned very late after we were all in bed, he told me after he had taken the rooms that he would do, so and asked me not to bother door, I heard him. Come up, the stair after
midnight. But his meals, it was his particular direction that we should always when he rang. Leave his meal upon a chair outside his door. Then he Rings again when he was finished and we take it down from the same chair. If he wants anything else, he prints it on a slip of paper and leaves it prints it. Yes, sir, Prince it in pencil, just the word. Nothing more. Here's the one I brought to you. Show you soap. Here's another match. This is the one he left the first morning Daily Gazette.
I leave that paper with his breakfast every morning. Dear me. Watson said, Holmes staring with great curiosity at the slips of foolscap, which the landlady had handed to him. This is certainly a little unusual seclusion I can understand but why print printing is a clumsy process, why not right? What would it suggests, what sin does? He desire to conceal his handwriting but why what can it matter to him that his landlady should have a word of his right?
Still. It may be as you say then again, why such laconic messages. I cannot. Imagine it opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words are written with a broad pointed Violet, tinted pencil of a Not Unusual pattern, you will observe that the paper is torn away at the side here after the printing was done. So that the S of soap is partly gone. Watson. Is it not of caution. Exactly.
There was evidently some Mark, some thumbprint something, which might give a clue to the person's identity. Now, mrs. Warren you say that the man was of middle-sized dark and bearded. What age would he be youngish sir? Not over 30. Well, can you give me? No further indications? He spoke good English sir. And yet, I thought he was a foreigner by his accent and he was well dressed, very smartly dressed sir, quite the gentleman dark clothes. Nothing.
You would note. He gave no name no sir and as I had no letters or callers non, but surely, you are the girl enter his room of a morning? No, sir. He looks after himself entirely. Dear me, that is certainly remarkable. But what about his luggage? He had one big brown bag with him, nothing else. Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us. Do you say nothing has come out of that room.
Absolutely nothing. The landlady, Drew an envelope from her bag from it. She shook out to Burnt matches and a cigarette end upon the table. They were on his Trail. This morning, I brought them because I had heard that you can read great things out of small ones, Holmes Shrugged, his shoulders. There's nothing here. Said he, the matches have, of course, been used to light cigarettes, that is obvious from
the shortness of the burnt end. Half the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar, but dear me. This cigarette stub is certainly remarkable. The gentleman was bearded and moustached you say, yes, sir. I don't understand that. I should say that only a clean-shaven, man could have smoked this. Why Watson? Even your modest mustache would have been singed a holder? I suggested, no. No, the end is matted. I suppose that could not be to people in your rooms mrs. Warren.
No sir. He eats so little, as I often wondered can keep life. One. Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After all, you have nothing to complain of. You have received your rent and he is not a Troublesome lodger. No, he is certainly an unusual one, he pays you. Well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no Direct business of yours. We have no excuse for an intrusion upon his privacy. Until we have some reason to think that there is a guilty reason for it.
I've taken up the matter and I won't lose sight of it report to me. If anything, fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistants, if it should be needed. There are certainly some points of interest in this case Watson, he remarked when the landlady had left us. It may have caused be trivial individual eccentricity or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that
the person. Now, in the rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them. Why should you think so? Well, apart from this cigarette end, was it not suggestive? That the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms? He came back or someone came back. When all Witnesses were out of the way, we have no proof that the person who came back was the person who went out. Then again, the man who took the room spoke English.
Well, this other however, prints match when it should have been matches are Imagine that the word was taken out of a dictionary which would give the noun, but not the plural, the laconic style, maybe to conceal the absence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson. There are good reasons to suspect. There has been a substitution of lodges But for what possible end. Ah, there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of Investigation. He took down the great book in which day, by day.
He filed. The agony column of the various London journals. Dear me said he turning over the pages, water chorus, of groans, cries and bleating 's, what a ragbag of singular happenings, but surely the most valuable hunting ground that ever was given to a student of the unusual. This person is alone and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that absolute
secrecy, which is desired. How is any news, or any message to reach him from without obviously, by advertisement through a newspaper, there seems no other way. And fortunately, we need to concern ourselves with one paper. Only here are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last Fortnight lady with a black bow at Prince's Skating Club. That we may pass. Surely Jimmy will not break his mother's heart.
That appears to be irrelevant if the lady who fainted on Brixton bus she does not interest me every day my heart longs bleeped, Watson, unmitigated bleat this is a little more possible. Listen to this be patient, we'll find some sure means of communications. Meanwhile this column That is two days after mrs. Warrens lodger arrived. It sounds plausible. Does it not the mysterious one could understand English even if he could not print it? Let us see if we can pick up the
trace again. Yes, here we are three days later and making successful Arrangements patience and prudence the clouds will pass. Gee nothing for a week after that. Then come something much more definite. The path is clearing if I find chance signal message. Remember code. Agreed. 1 a 2 B and so on you will hear soon. Gee that was in yesterday's paper and there is nothing in today's it's all very appropriate to mrs.
Warrens lodger if we wait a little Watson I don't doubt that the affair will grow more intelligible. So it proved four in the morning. I found my friends standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face. How's this Watson? He cried picking up the paper from the table. Hi, red house with white stone facings, third floor, second window left after dusk G.
That is definite enough. I think after breakfast, we must make a little reconnaissance of mrs. Warrens neighborhood. Mrs. Warren, what news do you bring us this morning? Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy, which told us some new and momentous development hits, a police matter mr. Holmes, she cried, I'll have no more of it. He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I would have gone straight up and told him.
So only I thought it was but fair to you to take your opinion first, but I'm at the very end of my patience and when it comes to knocking my old man, About knocking mr. Warren about using him roughly anyway, but who used him roughly. Oh, that's what we want to know. It was this morning, sir, mr. Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and way lights in Tottenham Court Road. He has to be out of the house before seven. Well, this morning he had not gone ten Paces down the road.
When two men came up behind him through a coat over his head, and bundled him into a cab. Was beside the curb, they drove him an hour, and then opened the door and shut him out. He lay in the roadway. So shaken in his wits that he never saw what became of the cab when he picked himself up. He found he was on Hampstead Heath. So he took a bus home and there he lies. Now on his sofa. While I came straight round to
tell you what had happened. Most interesting said Holmes and did he observe the appearance of these men? Did he hear them talk? No he is. Clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as if by Magic and dropped as if by Magic to at least were in it and maybe three and you connect this attack with your lodger Well, we've lived there 15 years and no such happenings ever came before. I've had enough of him. Money's not everything. I'll have him out of my house
before the day is done. Wait a bit mrs. Warren do nothing rash. I begin to think that this affair may be very much more important than appeared at first sight. It is clear. Now that some dangerous threatening your lodger, it is equally clear. That is enemies. Lying in wait for him near your door, mistook your husband for him. In the foggy morning, light on discovering their mistake. They released him. What they would have done, had it not been a mistake, we can
only conjecture. Well, what am I to do? Mr. Holmes, I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours. Mrs. Warren. I don't see how that is to be managed unless you break in the door. I always hear him unlock it, as I go down the stair. After I leave the tray. He has to take the tray in surely, we could conceal ourselves and see him do it. The landlady thought for a moment, well, sir there's the Box room opposite, I could arrange a Looking Glass, maybe.
And if you're behind the door, excellent said. Holmes, when does he lunch about one sir then? Dr. Watson and I will come around in time for the present. Mrs. Warren goodbye. At 12:30, we found ourselves upon the steps of mrs. Warren's house, a high thin, Yellow Brick, edifice in Great, Ormond, Street, and narrow thoroughfare at the Northeast side of the British museum standing as it does near the corner of the street.
The commands of you down, how street with its more pretentious houses, Holmes pointed with a chuckle, to one of these are row of residential Flats which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye. See, Watson said he, hi, red house with stone facings. There is the signal station. All right, we know the place and we know the code. So surely our task should be simple. There's a to let card in that window. It is evidently an empty flat to which the Confederate has
access. Well mrs. Warren what. Now, I have it all ready for you if you will both come up and leave your boots Below on the landing. I'll put you that now. It was an excellent hiding place which she had arranged. The mirror was so placed that seated in the dark, we could very plainly. See the door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it and mrs. Warren left us when a distant tinkle announce that our
mysterious neighbor had rung. Presently the landlady appeared with the tray laid, it down upon a chair, beside the closed door, and then treading heavily departed. Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror suddenly as the landlady's, footsteps died away. There was the Creak of a turning key the handle revolved and too thin hands. Darted out and lifted the tray from the chair.
An instant later it was hurriedly replaced and I caught a glimpse of a dark beautiful horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the Box room, then the door crash to the key turned. Once more and all was silence homes, twist my sleeve and together, we stole down the stair. I will call again in the evening, said he to the expectant landlady. I think Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters. My surmise, as you saw proved to
be correct. Said he speaking from the depths of his easy chair, there has been a substitution of lodges. What I did not foresee, is that we should find a woman and no ordinary woman Watson. She saw us. Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain the general sequence of events is pretty clear. Is it not a couple seek refuge in London from a very terrible and Danger. The measure of that danger is the rigor of their precautions.
The man who has some work, which he must do desires to leave the woman in absolute safety while he does. It, it is not an easy problem, but he solved it in an original fashion and so effectively that her presence was not even known to the landlady who supplies her with food, the printed messages as is now evident were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing. The man cannot come near the woman or he will guide their enemies to her.
Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far all is clear but what is at the root of it? Ah, yes, Watson, severely practical as usual. What is at the root of it? All mrs. Warrens Whimsical problem, in largest somewhat and assumes a more Sinister aspect as Proceed this much, we can say that it is. No Ordinary Love, Escapade. You saw the woman's face at the
sign of danger. We have heard two of the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the lodger. These alarms and the desperate need for secrecy argue that. The matter is one of life or death, the attack upon mr. Warren further shows that the enemy whoever they are are themselves not aware of the Substitution of the female lodger for the mail. It is very curious and complex Watson. Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?
What indeed? It is Art For Art's Sake Watson. I suppose, when you doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee, for my education, homes education, never ends Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last, this is an instructive case. There is neither money nor Credit in it and yet one would wish to tidy it up. When dust comes, we should find ourselves one stage advanced in our investigation. When we return to mrs. Warrens rooms.
The Gloom of a London. Winter evening had sickened into one grey curtain, a dead monotone of color broken, only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the Blurred Halos of the gas lamps as we peered from the darkened, sitting room of the lodging house, one more dim light, glimmered. High up through the obscurity. Someone is moving in that room said Holmes in a whisper his gaunt and eager face. Thrust forward to the windowpane. Yes, I can see his shadow.
There he is, again, he has a candle in his hand. Now he is peering across. He wants to be sure that she is on the lookout. Now he begins to flash take the message. Also Watson that we may check each other. A single flash. That is a surely. Now, then, how many did you make it 20? So, did I that That should mean t-80 that's intelligible enough. Another tea surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now then tenter dead, stop. That can't be all Watson at enter gives no sense.
Nor is it any better as three words at 10 tar unless ta are a person's initials. There it goes again. What's that? Tte, why it is a same message over again. Curious Watson. Very curious. Now he's off once more 80. Why he is repeating it for the third time? ATT ENT, a at enter three times. How often will you repeat it? No, that seems to be the Finish. He's withdrawn from the window. What do you make of it? Watson, a cipher message homes?
My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension and not a very obscure Cipher Watson said he why? Of course it is Italian. The a means that it is addressed to a woman, beware beware, beware, how's that Watson? I believe you've hit it. No doubt of it. It is a very urgent message, Thrice, repeated to make it more. So, But beware of what? Wait? A bit. He's coming to the window once more.
Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the Whisk of the small flame across the window as the signals were renewed, they came more rapidly than before. So rapid that it was hard to follow them. Perico low Petty collaroy. What's that Watson danger? Isn't it? Yes, by jove it's a danger signal. Here he goes again a pear, tree. Hello what on Earth the light had, suddenly gone out the glimmering square of window and disappeared.
In the third floor, formed a dark band around the lofty. Building with its tears of shining casements. That last warning cry had been suddenly cut short, how and by whom the same thought occurred on the instant to us both Holmes sprang up from where he crouched by the window. This is serious Watson. He cried there is some devilry going forward. Why should such a message stop in such a way? I should put Scotland Yard in touch with this business and yet it is too pressing for us to
leave. Shall I go for the police? We must Define the situation a little more clearly it may bear some more innocent interpretation come Watson. Let us go across ourselves and see what we can make of it. And the adventure of the red circle, part 1. And the adventure of the red circle, part 1.