The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes, and Sir Ralph Richardson as our storyteller, Dr. James Watson. It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of November 1894. Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening. Outside, the wind howled down Baker Street as the rain beat fiercely against the windows. On such a night, we were not at all pleased to hear a cab draw up at our door and a ring at the bell.
I hope you've no professional designs upon us on a night like this. Try up a chair, won't you, and warm your toes. Thank you, Mr. Holmes. I suppose it must be something important to bring you here at this hour, and in such a gale. It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I've had a bustling afternoon, I promise you, on the Yoxley case. I caught the last train back to town and came straight on by cab from Charing Cross. Yeah, dear, that means I suppose that you're not quite clear.
I can make neither head nor tail of it. There's no motive, Mr. Holmes, and that's what bothers me. A man killed, and no reason on earth why anyone should wish him any harm. Very well, let's hear about it. It happened in the house of an old man called Professor Coram. He's a semi-invalid, keeps to his bed half the time. An elderly housekeeper and a maid look after him, both of excellent character.
The professor's writing a book on Coptic manuscripts and he's a secretary to help him. The last, Mr. Willoughby-Smith, was the third he's had. A young man straight from the university, quiet, hard-working person. Yet this was the lad who met his death this morning in the professor's study under circumstances that can only point to murder. It was between 11 and 12 this morning.
Susan Tarleton, the maid, was hanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom. Professor Coram was still in bed. He seldom rises before midday. The housekeeper was busy at the back of the housekeeper. Willoughby Smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as a sitting room. The maid heard him come out of his room, go along the passage and downstairs to the study at the room below her. A minute or two later, there was a dreadful cry from that room.
A wild, hoarse scream. At the same instant, there was a heavy sud which shook the whole house. The maid stood petrified for a moment, then, recovering her courage, she ran downstairs. The study door was shut, and she opened it. Inside, Mr. Willoughby Smith was stretched on the floor and blood was pouring from a wound in his neck. On the floor, nearby, was a blood-stained stiletto. She recognized it as one the professor kept on his desk and used as a paper knife.
I take it that the young man was already dead. At first the maid thought so, but when she poured some water over his forehead, he opened his eyes for a second. Oh, sir. What's happened? Oh, kill me. Kill me. The professor. It was... She... Those were his last words. He tried desperately to say something else. Then he fell back dead.
The housekeeper arrived just after he'd died. Leaving Susan with the body, she hurried to the professor's room. He was sitting up in bed, terribly agitated. The housekeeper told him what had happened. You've questioned the professor, of course. Oh, yes. He says he heard the distant cry but knows nothing more. His first action was to send for the police.
I've been put in charge of the case, Mr. Holmes, but I'm so battled I've come to you as a friend. Well, well, well, we must see what we can do. Can you give me some ideas for the disposition of the rooms? You say the study door was closed. the one by which the maid and Willoughby Smith had entered, and two other doors at the opposite ends of the room. Of these, one led by way of a corridor to the professor's room, the other led by a similar corridor to the back door of the house.
There could be little doubt but that the murderer had entered this way and there was no other way by which he or she could possibly have left without meeting the maid at one door or running into the professor's bedroom by way of the other. The past in the back door was saturated with rain and would certainly have shown any footmark.
My examination showed me that I was dealing with a cautious and expert criminal. Well, there were no footmarks to be found on the path, but the grass verge was trodden down. And my inquiries proved that it could only have been trodden down by the murderer. Well, well, well. Now, these tracks on the grass...
Coming or going, or both? It was impossible to say. There was never any outline. Large footprints or small ones? I wasn't able to make them out. Well, it's been pouring with rain and blowing a hurricane ever since. It'll be harder to read tomorrow morning. Anything else? In the study, there's a desk, a bureau and a cupboard. The professor assures me that nothing is missing, so it seems certain that robbery was not the murderer's aim.
How about the wound on the body? The stab was on the right side of the neck, and from behind... So that it's almost impossible it could have been self-inflicted. Unless he fell on the knife. Exactly. The idea crossed my mind. But the knife was some feet away. And another man's dying work. But most important of all, the dead man had a small object tightly grasped in his right hand. Well, Watson, what do you make of these?
The object was a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, or more properly, a golden pince-nez, a type of glass which clip onto the bridge of the nose. From them hung two broken ends of black silk cord. Holmes examined the glasses with the greatest attention. He held them on his nose. He tried to read through them. He looked out of the window.
Then he handed them back to Hopkins with a chapel. Well, my dear Hopkins, wanted a woman of good address, attired like a lady. She has a remarkably thick nose with eyes that are set close upon either side of it. A puckered forehead, a peering expression, and probably rounded shoulders. As she has been to an optician at least twice during the last few months, it should be easy enough to trace her. But how did you find all that out?
simplicity itself, from their delicacy and the dying man's last words I deduce they belong to a woman. Anybody who wore such expensive and elegant glasses would be pretty sure to be well-dressed. The width of the clips tells me she has a broad nose and the position of the lens tells me that her eyes are set closely together. You will see that the glasses are of unusual strength. A lady whose vision is so contracted is sure to have the physical characteristics of such vision.
The forehead, the eyelids and shoulders. But how do you arrive at the double visit to the optician? Ah, the clips are lined with tiny bands of cork. One newer than the other, both comparatively new. They exactly correspond, so I presume that the lady went to the same optician for both. Well, Hopkins, if you've nothing more to tell me, I suggest we all turn in for the night. You'll be quite comfortable on this sofa, I believe, and in the morning we can make an early start.
The gale had blown itself out next day, but it was a bitter morning when we started upon our journey. We saw the cold winter sun rise over the dreary marshes of the Thames. and the long sullen reaches of the river.
Well, at last, we've reached the end of our journey. This is the garden path of which I told you, Mr. Holmes. And which side were the marks on the grass verge? This side. You can't see them now, I'm afraid, but they were clear enough yesterday. Yes, yes, yes. I can see someone has walked along. The lady must have picked her way very carefully, mustn't she? Not very wise.
And you say she must have come back the same way. She must have done. There was no other way open to her. Mmm, a remarkable performance. Quite remarkable. One thing we can be sure of, the murder was not premeditated, or the lady would have brought some weapon with her rather than picking up that paper knife off the desk. Well, let us go into the house.
We entered the back door and advanced along the corridor to the door of the study. As the floor was covered with coconut matting, there was nothing to be learned from it. When we reached the study, Holmes conducted his usual thorough examination of the walls, floor, and furniture. Before the bureau, he paused. Hello. A scratch on the lock of this bureau.
A prank ring for the maid, will you, my dear Watson? Why didn't you tell me about this, Hopkins? You'll always find scratches on the key. Oh, sure. Yes, yes, yes, but this is quite a recent one. Ah. did you ring sir yes I did when was this room dusted last oh yesterday morning sir I did it myself did you notice the scratch No, sir. I didn't. I'm sure you didn't. A duster would have swept away those shreds of varnish I can see through my glass.
Who has the key to this bureau? The professor keeps it on his watch chain. It was in his bedroom with him at the time of the murder. Very good. We seem to be making a little progress. Our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau, and either opens it or tries to do so. While she is thus engaged, Willoughby Smith enters the room. In her hurry to withdraw the key, she makes the scratch near the lock.
And she is snatching up the nearest object, which happens to be the stiletto, strikes him in the neck to make him let go his hold. Smith is fatally wounded, falls to the floor, and his assailant escapes either with or without the object for which she came. Now then, Susan, could anyone have got a way through that door over there at the time you heard the cry? Oh, no, sir. It's impossible. I'd have seen them in the passage. Thank you. Then you were quite right about the exit, Hopkins.
The lady must have gone out the way she came in. But what about this third door? I think you said that leads to the professor's room. There's no other exit by it from the house that way. No, sir. And nobody could have hidden in the corridor without being found by the housekeeper when she ran to tell the professor what had happened. Well, let us go and make the professor's acquaintance.
Oh, this corridor also is lined with coconut matting, I see. Oh, what of that? Do you think it's important? Well, well, I don't insist upon it, but no doubt I'm wrong, but it seems to me to be suggestive. Come along, I'm anxious to meet the professor. We passed down the passage, which was the same length as that which led to the garden. As Hopkins knocked at the door... Come in. Good morning, Professor. May I present Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson?
and books that had overflowed from their shelves lay in piles on the floor and around the bed and were stacked in heaps at the side of a huge bookcase. The bed was in the centre of the room and on it, propped up with pillows, was the owner of the house. The cigarette glowed amid the tangle of his white beard. The air of the room was stale with tobacco smoke.
As he held out his hand to Holmes, I perceived that it also was stained yellow with nicotine. Well, well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. This is a surprise. A smoker, Mr. Holmes? Pray take a cigarette. And you, sir? No, no, sir. I can recommend them, for I have them specially prepared by Ionides of Alexandria. He sends me a thousand at a time. But I grieve to say I have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight.
Though Holmes was much addicted to his briar pipe, I'd never known him accept a cigarette before. Indeed, he seemed on the point of refusing it on this occasion. When changing his mind, he accepted it. and began to smoke with a strange, nervous rapidity. Tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco. Alas, what a fatal interruption to my book. Who could have foreseen such a terrible tragedy? So estimable a young man. I assure you that after a few months' training, he was an admirable...
What do you think of the matter, Mr. Holmes? I'm afraid I've not yet made up my mind, Professor. I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw light where all is dark to us. To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself, such a blow is paralyzing. Well, I will do everything in my power to clear it up. By the way, I find these cigarettes unusually good. Might I... Oh, but of course. Please help yourself. Thank you, thank you. Most delightful to the palate.
Quite a refreshing change for me, Watson. And smoking with a rapidity I'd never seen before, Sherlock Holmes began to pace up and down the bed. Holmes continued to pace up and down the room, still smoking feverishly, as he listened to the sonorous flow of speech. That pile of papers on the table there is my magnum opus, and work which will cut deep into the very foundations of revealed religion.
I won't trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination, since I gather you were in bed here when the crime was committed and could not possibly know anything about it. I would only ask this. What do you imagine, the poor fellow? Professor, it was she. Susan is a country girl, Mr. Holmes, and you know the incredible stupidity of the class. I fancy the poor fellow murmured some incoherent, delirious words, and she twisted them into this meaninglessness.
I see. You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy? Possibly an accident? Possibly a suicide. We must apologize for having disturbed you so long, Professor Coram. I promise we shan't include on you again until after luncheon. I'll have another look around the garden, if I may, and at two o'clock, report to you anything that may have emerged in the meanwhile.
We withdrew from the bedroom and made our way out into the garden. Holmes was curiously distrayed, and we walked up and down for some time in silence. At last, I broke in on his thoughts by asking him whether he'd found any clue. It all depends on these cigarette types.
It's possible I'm quite mistaken, of course. But those cigarettes will show me... My dear Holmes, how on earth... Well, you'll see for yourself. If not, there's no harm done. Ah, there's the housekeeper. I should like a word with her. Yes, Mr. Holmes, it's as you say, sir. He does smoke something terrible. All day and sometimes all night, sir. And his health. Well, I don't know whether it's better or worse for the smoking. Aha, but smoking as much as that kills the epitaph, doesn't it?
Well, I don't know about that, sir. I mean, I suppose the professor eats hardly anything at all. Well, he's variable. I'll say that for him. I'll wager he took no breakfast this morning. After all, there's cigarettes I saw him get through. Well, you're out there, sir, as it happens. For he ate a remarkably big breakfast this morning, and I'm surprised myself.
Because 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. Oh, well, it takes all sorts to make a world. As you say, Mrs. Marker, it takes all sorts to make a world. We loitered the rest of the morning away in the garden. Susan, who waited upon us at lunch, volunteered the information that Mr. Smith had been out for a walk the previous morning and had only returned some half an hour before the tragedy occurred.
Two o'clock, gentlemen. We can now go up and have it out with our friend, the professor. Well, Mr. Holmes, have you solved this mystery yet? Another cigarette after your lunch. Oh, thank you. Oh, dear. How careless of me. Let me pick them up. Yes, wonderful. How far they roll, isn't it? Yeah, I think that's... No harm done. After the mystery, yes, I've solved it. You have? Indeed, out in the garden? No, no, no, in here. Very well, Mr. Holmes. I shall be very interested.
Yesterday a lady entered your study She came with the intention of possessing herself of certain documents which were in your bureau She had a key of her own I've had an opportunity of examining yours, as you may remember, but I didn't find that slight discoloration which a scratch made upon the varnish of the Bureau would have produced. So you weren't an accessory. And she came, as far as I can read the evidence, to rob you without your knowledge.
In the first place, she was seized by your secretary whilst re-locking the bureau and stabbed him with a knife in order to escape. I fancied the stabbing was an unhappy accident, for I am convinced the lady had no intention of injuring him seriously. A murderess doesn't come unarmed. But, horrified by what she had done, she rushed wildly away from the scene of the tragedy. Unfortunately for her, she had lost her glasses in the skull.
And as she was extremely short-sighted, she was really helpless without them. She ran down a corridor, as she thought the one by which she had entered the study, and only when it was too late did she realize that she'd taken the wrong door and the wrong passage, and that her retreat was cut off behind her.
What was she to do? She couldn't go back. She couldn't remain where she was. She must go on, and she went on. She went through the corridor, pushed open the door, and found herself in this room. All very fine, Mr. Holmes. But there is one little flaw in your splendid theory.
I was myself in this room, and I never left it during the whole day. Yes, I'm quite aware of that, Professor Collins. And you mean to say I could lie in bed and not be aware that a woman had entered my room? I never said so. You were aware of it. You spoke to her. You recognized her. You aided her to escape. You're mad. You're talking insanely. I helped her to escape. Where is she now? There.
Even as Holmes spoke, a woman stepped out from behind the big bookcase. I saw at once that she had the exact physical characteristics that Holmes had divined. What was her short sight? and the sudden bright light that blinded her, she stood as one dazed, blinking about her to see who we were. I give myself up to you, sir. I am your prisoner. From where I stood, I could hear everything. And I know that you have learned the truth. I confess it all.
It was I who killed the young man. I have only a little time here. But I would have you know the whole truth. I am this man's wife. He is a Russian, but his name I will not tell. God bless you, Anne. Why should you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius? It has done harm to many and good to none. Not even to yourself. However, it is not for me to give you away. I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold of this curse.
The story she told us was almost incredible in its characters and setting. Russia, Siberian prison camps, and Nile. Both the professor and she, his wife, had been engaged in revolutionary activities many years before. Along with their comrades, they had been arrested. In order to save his own life, her husband had betrayed not only his friends, but her as well. She and the others had been sent to Siberia. The professor had been set free and had come to England under an assumed name.
Not content with that little piece of villainy. He had let an innocent man suffer along with the guilty. He was noble, unselfish, loving. All that my husband was not. He hated violence and wrote forever, dissuading me from such a cause. Those letters of his would have saved him. So would my diary in which I had written about him and our secret love. My husband found and kept both the diary and the letters. He hid them and he tried to swear away the young man's life.
In this he failed. But Alexis was sent to Siberia, where he is still working in a salt mine. When my sentence had been served, I followed my husband to England, and after months of searching, I discovered where he was living. My one aim was to get my hands upon those letters and the diary and give them to the Russian government. To make them release my innocent friend. Yesterday, I took the paper.
The rest is as you said. Two points are not yet quite clear to me, madame. How did you come to have a duplicate key to the Bureau? I had employed a private inquiry agent to take a position as my husband's secretary. It was your last secretary, Serbius, who left so suddenly. He told me where the papers must be kept, and he gave me a wax impression of the key.
But he would go no further. I understand. And yesterday, as you were coming to get those papers, you met a young man in the street. It was... It was the young man I... I killed. I asked him to wait at the professor's house. I did not be alive until he was. Ah, that explains it all. Smith had told you about the meeting, Professor, hadn't he? As soon as he came in.
And that was what he meant afterwards by his dying words. He was trying to say who his assailant was. That woman he had told you about some few minutes before, but... Stop her! Alas, we were too late to save her. Even as Holmes saw the glint of the gun, she had shot herself in the breast. With her dying breath, she charged him with seeing that the little packet of letters and the diary should be given to the Russian embassy in London, which in due course they were.
And as we travelled back to Baker Street that night, Holmes at last condescended to explain how the mystery had been solved. A simple case, yet in some ways an instructive one. It hinged from the outset on the pencil.
It was clear to me from the strength of the glasses that the wearer would be almost blind without them. She would certainly not have been able to pick her way a hundred yards along a narrow grass verge to the gate. As there was no other way that she could have escaped, it occurred to me that perhaps she hadn't escaped at all. When I saw that both corridors were covered with coconut netting, I began to wonder whether she hadn't mistaken one for the other and burst in on the professor in his room.
So I examined that room thoroughly. I noticed that although books were piled all over the floor, they were not piled in front of that big bookcase in the corner. and I began to wonder whether the mysterious lady might not still be hiding behind it, since she had no possible chance of escaping later with the police guard in the premises.
So I spilled a lot of cigarette ash just in front of the bookcase. You remember how many cigarettes I smoked, and waited until the professor had had his lunch. Then I upset his box of cigarettes in order to examine the ash. had been right. It was trodden down by someone who had stepped from behind the bookcase while we were at our lunch. In fact, I was not at all surprised to find how hearted the professor had been eating since the tragedy, for he had needed to order enough for two.