Latest / Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas / Sherlock Holmes: The Tragedy Of The Gasfitter’s Ball (EP0912)

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Sherlock Holmes: The Tragedy Of The Gasfitter’s Ball (EP0912) · Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas

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Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho. This
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is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it
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Slash Radio Detectives. Well, before we do get started, I do want
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Fly the Day. It's the sequel to Tales of the dymn Night, the
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I say, This is a sequel where we follow the further adventures of Powerhouse
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many obstacles, including senecal CEOs and robotic lawyers. It's available now for nine
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dollars and ninety nine cents in paperback or three forty nine for the kendle.
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Now it's time for today's episode of Sherlock Holmes The Adventure of the gas Lighter's
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Ball The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, where Sir John Gielgood and Sherlock Holmes and
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Sir Ralph Richardson as our storyteller, Doctor James Watson, I want to tell
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you this humble tale of poor miss Sutherland of the Duchess of Devonshire. Heck
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on the gray feather bar. Holmes solved her problem by shared deduction without moving
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once from Beata Street. So now I'll ask you to come back with me
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to those old chambers of ours on an early spring evening long ago, when
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we sat smoking contentedly together on either side of a cheerful fire. What is
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it, Holmes? What are you're looking at? A client? If I'm
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not mistaken, Watson? There do you see her down there in the street,
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coming up towards our front door? But the young woman with the big
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head fidgeting nervously on the pavement. I've seen those symptoms before, and was
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fidgeting on the pavement being pray usually, And I feared you, Cur Watson.
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She'd like some advice, no doubt. But if she isn't now quite
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sure that the matter isn't rather too delicate for her to reveal after all.
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Ah, But now she plunges like a swimmer leaving the bank. Oh my
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soul, already are impossible. I suppose you can find some further influence from
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the very ringing of the bell. Of course, even that one may discriminate.
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A bell may be wrung in a hundred different ways. On this occasion,
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we may take it that there is a love matter, But that's somewhat
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sizeable. Maiden, isn't so much angry as perplexed or or greed. Will
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you kind lead me time, my dear fellow, and then we can resolve
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our doubts? Of course, I'm all eagerness. Good evening now, asked
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mister mister Sherlock Holmes. Sir, yes, yes, suddenly, and the
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name Miss Mary Sutherland. Oh, come in with Sutherland. This is mister
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Holmes. I'm his friends and partner, Miss Mary Sutherland Holmes, Ah,
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Miss Sutherland, good evening. Do sit down, Good evening, don't you
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find it with your short sight? It's a little trying to do so much
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typewriting. Well I did it first, sir, but I got mister Holmes.
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You must have heard of me. How did you know that it's my
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business to know things? Otherwise? Why should you come to consult me?
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This gentleman here is doctor Watson. By the bye, you can rely entirely
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upon his discretion. Thank you, sir, You see our kind. Because
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I've heard of you, mister Holmes, I knew you helped people who are
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in trouble. And what trouble are you in, Miss Sutherland. Oh,
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sir, I'd give anything if you could solve it for me. Not rich,
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mister Holmes, but I've still got a hundred doughter in my own right.
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I'd give it all to know what's become of mister Angel. We can
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discuss the financial aspect later, Miss Sutherland, but tell me why did you
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come away to consult me in such a very great hurry. You know that
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too, mister Holmes, No doubt Doctor Watson understands how I know it.
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Hey, Watson, homes, don't rub it in. I gather it's true,
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Miss some of them, Yes, sir, I did me out of
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the house rather mister Wendy back to get all that easy. Somehow wouldn't go
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to the police or anything, so I just dontmer things and came right away
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to you, mister Holmes. Mister winder Bank, you said, yes,
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he's my father. Surely your stepfather, Miss Sutherland, since the name is
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different. That's right. Things funny, don't it? Because I call him
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father, and he's only really five years older than I am, indeed,
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and your mother's still alive. Oh, yes, of course I don't.
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I'm saying, mister Holmes, that I wasn't best pleased when she married again,
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particularly so soon after father's death, and a man that was nearly fifteen
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years younger, and she was. You mentioned having a little income of your
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own. My uncle ned in Auckland left me. It's in stark or sam
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Sat and I can only touch the interest, which is about a hundred a
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year, gratifying some of a single girls Suliman. Well, mister Holmes,
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I really don't feel I need it much, you know, So I'll let
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mister Wendy Bagnet's father. I'll let him draw it for me, and he
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gives some of it to mother and keeps the rest. Can't have makes me
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feel I'm not a drain on them. Living at home, I can make
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my cup and a sheet from my typewriting. See. But mister Holmes,
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I'm so worried. If only you could help me, if i'd mister Angel,
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well, let's first hear all about his disappearance. What is his full
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name? May, I ask Ozma Ozma Angel. I used to think it
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was such a nice name. You see, I meet him at the guest
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Fitters ball. I'm a sullen may as the Angel Again. If the quick
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dancer asked me for mister Angel, maybe I might ask for another one too,
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before it's done sudden, Maybe another two there on the other another two's
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to anger, Well, maybe I might even I asked to call on you
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tomorrow is Sudivan. Oh it's de Angel. Why don't you call me?
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Hus Me hive be floor Mary, lovely Helfman, lovely be Mary, lovely
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Helfener. I wish you could go on and go on forever, Haspan,
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just all aunt leather on And I did a card of way it, did
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you see, mister Holmes, because I used to meet him for walks in
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the dark evenings. We talk and talk about the ball and the way he
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taking me for all those dancing most interesting, I'm sure. And when your
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stepfather came back from France, well it had to end then, of course,
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because father didn't like young men at the house. But then he went
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away again. You see, so her Husman used to coms before. And
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did you write you in the intervals. Oh, yes, and so did
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I. I brought his letters with me. Mister Holmes said they were I
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thought you might manage to find one of your famous clues in there. Well,
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I'm no doubt, I'm a mis Sumlin. Thank you so much.
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And then he he asked me to marry him, mister Holmes, with your
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stepfather's consent on Coursman Sutherlan, Oh no, sir, mister Winderbout would never
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have given it. After he gone to France, Osma came to the house
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for a night in dreadful earnest and made me swear with my hands on the
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testament that I'd always be true to him whatever happened. He said, could
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we be married before father came back from his latest street? And I said
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yes. My mother was all right too, She was on our side,
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and so well. In the Sutherland it was all arranged for last Friday,
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very quietly, as and saviors near King's Cross. Oh, mister home,
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Oh please please climb yourself in Sutherland Watson your handkerchief, perhaps, if you'd
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be so good, Yes, yes, yes, but you're very kind.
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You see. Osma came the mother at millner Hands and he put us both
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into it. Then he got into a four wheel because it was the only
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other cab in the street. And when we got to the church, mister
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Hilton, the cab was empty. Holmes, how did you guess? It's
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too dark tape? He just disappeared and I've never seen him. See,
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I'm so afraid for it seems to mean that you'll be most shameful of kidd
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in the Southern Oh no, sir, no Osma was good and kind.
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Something dreadful has happened to it. I know he's never forsaked me of his
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own. Will you must find him, mister her Well, I'll do my
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best in suthern Il must certainly do my very best. You can let me
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have a description of mister angel kunjul. I put an advertisement in the papers
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the other day. Yay kids, mister Holmes, you'll find it there.
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Ah, yes, thank you, dark whiskers, unusually soft voice. He
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had the quincy when he was young and it left him in a week,
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so I see, and his address I never knew it. What about the
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letters you exchange? I used to act the post office in Letano Street.
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Not a cork for Ah, and his letters to you are unheaded I see
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very well with Suthern. You've made your statement very well, very clearly,
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and I shall certainly do all I possibly can for you. You will leave
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me your address, won't you, so that I can get in touch with
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you. Oh yeah, in my bag. I'll ate it down before I
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left blended. Thank you, mister Holmes, you've been so kind, not
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at all. Good day, sir, Good day, doctor Watson, Good
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day, Good day, my dear, Oh Holmes, O water a sad
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story. Have you have you a theory? No doubt I shall have,
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Watson, we must think. Will you have a pinch of snuff? Oh?
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Thanks, I say, well, don't make nifficent box old gold with
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an emissis. Yes. Oh, of course I forgot to tell you,
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Watson. It arrived this morning by special messenger while you were out, a
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little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my assistance in the case
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of the Irene Adler papers. Oh so, from the glories of Bohemia to
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the guest fitters ball from the cots of Europe. To were Mary Sutherland.
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Poor Mary Sutherland, Yes, poor, indeed, my dear Watson. Once
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long ago, at the time when we first met in the Milderton case,
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I said, I think that there were crimes that weren't crime in any recognized.
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Since it is one of them, you mean you've solved at home.
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I had a glimmering, at least a glimmering, my dear fellow, that
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passed me my violin. Will you it only remains to think for a little
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Watson, It only remains to think. The capital snuff this capital bless you,
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my dear fellow. I had, as it happened, a professional case
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of my own of some gravity at the time, and I had spend all
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that night and all the next day at the bedside of my patient. But
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I confessed that during the long dark watches, my thoughts went back and back
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to Miss Sutherland and her property. For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous
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face, there's been something rather touching, and the single face of that unusual
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visitor of ours. At last, however, I found myself free, with
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my patient out of danger. I hurried to Baker Street. There was Holmes,
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half asleep in his armchair and half invisible through the fumes for his pipe
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a formidable array of bottles and test tubes. Told me that he'd spent the
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day in one of the chemical experiments that were so dear to him. Well,
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well, my dear Holmes, wake up, old fellow had disharted it.
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What oh, oh, it's you, Watson. What's the matter,
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Well, I mean the mystery at home miss Sutherland. Who oh, sit
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down, Sit down, my dear Watson, who seemed quite eduitated. It's
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absurd, I know, but I just can't get that girl out of my
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mind. Were things such an idiotic problem? Somehow it was never a problem
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at all, my dear fellow. You will find a parallel case in andover
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in seven to seven if you can sult my index. And there was something
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of the same sort of the hague on the last year. The idea has
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really quite hoped, you know, our confess it's new to me at least.
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Whatever it is, well, it has one or two unusual features,
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perhaps which aren't without interest. Oh, I'm awake now, I'm sorry for
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yourself. Some whisky, and so to my dear Watson, And let me
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give you a little lesson in observation. While we're waiting waiting for what for
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home, for someone who may help us to lay our hands on that missing
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Ozma angel the only drawback is that, even when we do find him,
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I'm afraid there isn't any law that can touch the scoundrel. What puzzles me
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with his motives? The girl said herself there was no question of money if
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it even married her first and then deserted her. I have understood it better.
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He seemed to be singularly interested in the technique of matrimonial desertion. My
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dear Watson, My dear, I've only increagued by the mistress quite so if
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you might pour me a whiskey too, will you? Poh? So we
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must take first things first, Watson. We must consider the fair damsel in
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some detail. I did try to notice one or two things about her excellent
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for example, Well, but one of her gloves was worn through at the
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right forefinger, for instance, And they've been good gloves to start with.
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So I guessed that she was fairly well to do, in a kind of
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jolly, easy going way, a bit careless and so far, I mean,
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before she told us about her hundred a year admirable you progress, Watson.
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Nothing else about the worn blood. Oh, I can't say the words
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particularly, Oh, but I did see the little dents of the past name
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marks on either side of her nose. I wasn't quite as surprised as she
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was when you told her she was short sighted. Blendid. It's splendid,
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my dear fellow. And the typewriting, of course, and the fact that
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she'd come to see us in a great hurry. You perceived all that naturally,
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No, not a bit of it. You're headn't there, I'm afraid.
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Ah Well, then let me give you a golden hint. Watson,
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always look at a woman's sleeve first. With a man, it's perhaps better
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to take the knees of his trousers. But I did look at her sleeve,
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a kind of purple plush, exactly, and there's hardly a better material
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for showing traces. The double line a little above the wrist was most beautifully
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defined, just where the typest presses against the table, of course, are
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come homes. There must be dozens of other activities where the same thing happened.
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What, for instance, a sewing machine, say of the hand and
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type well done, that leaves an exactly similar mark, but only on the
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left arm, my dear fellow, and on the side of it furthest from
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the thumb, not right across the broadest path as it was in this case.
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All right, you win. But the hurry she'd come in after the
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sleeve the boots, Watson, Well, I did glance at her at her
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feet here to consider the trim turn of her ankle, no doubt, whereas
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I observed that her boots, although it is similar, didn't match, and
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that one was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of the five,
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and the other only at the first, third and fifth, showing plainly that
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she dressed quickly, except that it could also illustrate my own point from the
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gloves that she was easy going, careless. The gloves confirmed the haste,
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not the carelessness. What you didn't notice, Watson, was that both the
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glove and the finger through it was slightly stained with violet ink. So she'd
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written something before leaving home, but after being fully addressed to go out,
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she'd written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. And it must
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indeed have been on this very morning, or else the mark wouldn't have been
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so clear. That was the address she wrote down and gave us from her
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bed exactly. Well, well, I give your best again the home,
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thank you. It was all quite elementary. You know, you're really an
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excellent fellow, Watson. Indeed, and why pray quite to put up with
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me as you do when I'm so unbearably pretty sure? Ah well, let's
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get back to the missing bridegroom homes a redoubtable Hosma Angel. Very well then,
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and about him, Watson, Well, I'm afraid I can tell you
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practically nothing at all beyond what you can read yourself from the girl's description in
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the advertisement, and from what his own letters imply. The descriptions common place
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enough, it doesn't without some points of interest, however, just read it.
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About five feet seven, she black side, whiskers, mustache, tinted
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glasses, unusually as soft voice. Hardly much there, I'd say, And
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the letters to miss Sutherland singularly trites in sentiment. He said that he quotes
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Balzac ones anything else but that typewritten splendid Watson, which in itself is hardly
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notable, perhaps except that the signature's typewritten too. Now that is strange.
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So and here, if I'm not mistaken as the visitor I was expecting,
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not Hasmi Angel himself home James Windebank, the girl's father, Watson or rather
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stepfather. It's always as well to do business with male relatives in cases like
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this. I wrote to him immediately, and Harold replied to say that he'd
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call on us at six thirty this evening. Will you kind to let him
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in? Yes? Yes, of course? Shall I describe him to you
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Watson before he knocks? But how can you you've never seen him. Nevertheless,
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you will find him tallish, clean shaven, somewhat loud voiced, and
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with a pair of wonderfully penetrating eyes. You'll see Watson here. He comes
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the shagns or he come in. Come in, mister Windebank, my colleague
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here, Doctor Watson's seems a little stunned by your appearance. I really can't
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think why. I think it's a bit of tapest holes. I'm many kind
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of apologize. See why what forms to Winderbank? Do Sit down? Oh
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girl, Amma's stepdaughter traveling with all this on the country. It has been
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no trouble at all. Were very very excitable, an impossive, you see,
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she would come to here, But why not? It's what I'm here
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for. Whoa it's might have These family troubles might public, you know.
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Besides, it's getting us, is expects, how could you possibly find this
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scoundrel? Possible Angel? But I have every reason to believe that I have
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found mister Windebank the id do real it? I thought you would be,
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Watson, do come and join us. Sit down, my dear fellow,
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and stand standing there. Now let me tell you both a little story and
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start at homes, A fairy story prefaced by some remarks perhaps on the typewriter
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and its relationship to crime. Look here, what's all this about? Now?
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Know? Two typewriters are quite like you know, mister Windebank. They
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are in fact as distinctive as handwriting. To the expert I now, in
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these groups of letters I have before me, you will notice the broken ease,
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and they are that has lost it errifly interesting, eh, mister Winderbank,
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what's all this fantastic talk? If you can catch his Osma Ange,
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you'll catch him. Let me know when you've done it, certainly, Watson,
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will you lock the door? Please? What lock it? Mister Winderbang,
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I have caught Ozma Angel. Well, I mean, well, come,
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come come, this won't do it? Really won't. It's only too
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clear. Con Thank you, mister shullg Gubbs, it is nextionable. No,
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I'm very much afraid that it isn't. But between ourselves it was about
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as mean a trick as I ever met in my life. Well, I
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say, Homes, what's all this about? What do you mean? I
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mean, Watson that my fairest story is about a wicked stepfather who had a
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hundred a year only so long as his wife's daughters stayed with him. He
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was terrified lest she'd get married someday, so he begins by denying her any
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form of entertainment where she might possibly meet personable young men. And when he
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discovers that that won't work forever, it becomes a personal or young man himself
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upon my just So, with the connivance of his wife, who seems to
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be as mean as he is, he adopts characteristics exactly opposite of his own.
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A soft voice, tinted glasses to cover his bright eyes, meets her
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only in the dark. Up, dad, you jock? At first?
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Oh, really was it to make a fool of that poor simple girl win
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her confidence and her love, make her swear on the testament that she'd always
20:22
be true to you? And then when your own continual visits to France became
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too much trouble to take her to the very door of the church, mister
20:30
Windebank, and then convenient to disappear by that old trick of stepping into one
20:33
door of a four wheeler and out of the other. By Joe, he's
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sicken me, Windebank. While you knew perfectly well she'd never forget that one
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romance of hers, who knew she was tied to you for at least ten
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years to come by the tragedy of Hosmo Angel's disappearance, and all for the
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sake of a hundred pounds a year, you greedy wretch or right it may
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be, so, it may not, but it's you. It's breaking the
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law and not me as long as you keep that door locked. Heres who
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opened an action for a legal a state? Unlock it? Watson, huh
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No, the law can't touch you, window Bank. You're quite right there.
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If that poor girl Mary Sutherland had a brother or a friend, he
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ought to lay a horsewhip across your miserable shoulders. Hi jove, I have
21:15
half a nine to serve my holmes. Confound it, help I hunt him?
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Cropper, No, you got it? Think a me thig I got
21:21
me. Oh you pa, let him go, Watson. He really isn't
21:26
worth a charge for assault one. I like a fellow, puzzily nately ill
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Holmes, I'm all the scoldly trick dust. So, my dear fellow,
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I suspected it from the start, of course, and when I got his
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letter confirming our appointment, and I typed, of course on the very machine
21:41
that Angel's letters have been written on to disguise his own handwriting, which she'd
21:45
have known, of course, What a cowardly, tricky Watson. Oh but
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Mary, Holmes, miss Sutherland, what are you going to say to her?
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I've decided, Watson, that this is a case in which I shall
21:55
have to disappoint my client. What can one tell her? If I gave
21:59
her the truth, she wouldn't believe it. There's a person saying there is
22:03
danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches
22:08
a delusion from a woman. We must leave for Mary with her memory of
22:15
Osma, And so ended the tragedy of the gas fitters ball the floor.
22:27
Mary can help me, lovely damn Mary Blackly Husan. I wish you could
22:34
go on downt Forever Housman, just Aunt Clever. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
23:29
based on the original stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, have been dramatized
23:33
in You, with original music composed by Sydney Corch. Sir Ralph Richardson played
23:37
the part of Doctor Watson and Sir John Gilguod that of Sherlock Holmes. The
23:42
program was produced by Harry Allen Towers. Welcome back, Well, this one
24:23
followed pretty close to the book's version of a case of identity, which it
24:33
leaves with a kind of downbeat ending. To me, it seems like there
24:38
had to be something to charge them with, if nothing else, fraud.
24:47
This tends to me along with Valley of Fear, one of my least favorite
24:53
endings to a Sherlock Holme story. But well performed. I think Gilgood and
25:00
Richardson just did a fantastic job with the script. All right, Well,
25:06
now we turn to listener comments and feedback, and we have a new review
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on the Apple on Who's App Listener s C Y L L A C A
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T Rights. Of course I love the show and the app works great and
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over on the website. Justin comments, keep up the good work. I
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love this podcast. Thank you so much for your comments and support that will
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actually do it for today. We will be back tomorrow with yours truly,
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Johnny Dowler, and then join us next Thursday for another episode of Sherlock Holmes.
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In the meanwhile, your comments appreciated. It box thirteen at Great Detectors
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