A Study in Scarlet - Part 2, Chapter 7: The Conclusion

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part two, Chapter seven of A Study in Scarlet. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. A Study
in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Cunnan Doyle, Part two, Chapter seven.

(00:20):
The conclusion. We had all been worn to appear before
the magistrates upon the Thursday, but when the Thursday came
there was no occasion for our testimony. A higher judge
had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson Hope had
been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would be
meted out to him. On the very night after his capture,

(00:41):
the aneurysm burst, and he was found in the morning,
stretched upon the floor of the cell with a placid
smile upon his face, as though he had been able
in his dying moments to look back upon a useful
life and on work well done. Gregson and Lestrade will
be wild about his death, Holmes remarked, as we chatted
it over next evening, Where will their grand advertisement be? Now?

(01:07):
I don't see that they had very much to do
with his capture. I answered, what you do in this
world is a matter of no consequence, returned my companion bitterly.
The question is what can you make people believe that
you have done? Never Mind, he continued more brightly, after
a pause, I would not have missed the investigation for anything.

(01:29):
There has been no better case within my recollection. Simple
as it was, there were several most instructive points about it. Simple,
I ejaculated. Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,
said Sherlock Holmes, smiling at my surprise. The proof of
its intrinsic simplicity is that, without any help, save a

(01:51):
few very ordinary deductions, I was able to lay my
hand upon the criminal within three days. That is true,
said I. I have already explained to you that what
is out of the common is usually a guide rather
than a hindrance. And solving a problem of this sort,
the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.

(02:12):
That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one,
but people do not practice it much in the every
day affairs of life. It is more useful to reason forward,
and so the other comes to be neglected. There are
fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.
I confess, said I, that I do not quite follow you.

(02:36):
I hardly expected that you would. Let me see, if
I can make it clearer, Most people, if you describe
a train of events to them, will tell you what
the result would be. They can put those events together
in their minds and argue from them that something will
come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if
you told them a result, would be able to evolve

(02:56):
from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which
led up to that result. This power is what I
mean when I talk of reasoning backward or analytically. I understand,
said I. Now, this was a case in which you
were given the result and had to find everything else
for yourself. Now let me endeavor to show you the

(03:18):
different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning,
I approached the house, as you know, on foot and
with my mind entirely free from all impressions. I naturally
began by examining the roadway, and there, as I have
already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of
a cab, which I ascertained by inquiry must have been

(03:40):
there during the night. I satisfied myself that it was
a cab and not a private carriage. By the narrow
gage of the wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably
less wide than a gentleman's rooum. This was the first
point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden path,
which happened to be composed of a cla soil peculiarly

(04:01):
suitable for taking impressions. No doubt, it appeared to you
to be a mere trampled line of slush, But to
my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had a meaning.
There is no branch of detective science which is so
important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.
Happily I have always laid great stress upon it, and

(04:22):
much practice has made it second nature to me. I
saw the heavy foot marks of the constables, but I
saw also the track of the two men who had
first passed through the garden. It was easy to tell
that they had been before the others, because in places
their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming
upon the top of them. In this way my second

(04:43):
link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors
were two in number. One remarkable for his height, as
I calculated from the length of his stride, and the
other fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and elegant
impression left by his boots on entering the house. This
last inference was confirmed. My well booted man lay before me.

(05:06):
The tall one then had done the murder, If murder
there was. There was no wound upon the dead man's person,
but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that
he had foreseen his fate before it came upon him.
Men who die from heart disease or any sudden natural cause, never,
by any chance, exhibit agitation upon their features. Having sniffed

(05:29):
the dead man's lips, I detected a slightly sour smell,
and I came to the conclusion that he had had
poison forced upon him. Again, I argued that it had
been forced upon him from the hatred in fear expressed
upon his face. By the method of exclusion, I had
arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet
the facts. Do not imagine that it was a very

(05:52):
unheard of idea. The forcible administration of poison is by
no means a new thing in criminal annals. The cases
of Dulski in Odessa, and of Leturier and Montpelier will
occur at once to any toxicologist. And now came the
great question as to the reason why robbery had not
been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken.

(06:16):
Was it politics, then, or was it a woman? That
was the question which confronted me. I was inclined from
the first to the latter supposition. Political assassins are only
too glad to do their work and to fly. This
murder had, on the contrary, been done most deliberately, and
the perpetrator had left his tracks all over the room

(06:37):
showing that he had been there all the time. It
must have been a private wrong, and not a political one,
which called for such a methodical revenge. When the inscription
was discovered upon the wall, I was more inclined than
ever to my opinion, the thing was too evidently a blind.
When the ring was found, however, it settled the question clearly.

(06:58):
The murderer had used it to run his victim of
some dead or absent woman. It was at this point
that I asked Gregson whether he had inquired in his
telegram to Cleveland as to any particular point in mister
Drebber's former career, He answered, you remember in the negative.
I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room,

(07:19):
which confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer's height,
and furnished me with the additional details as to the
trichinopoly cigar and the length of his nails. I had
already come to the conclusion, since there were no signs
of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor
had burst from the murderer's nose in his excitement. I
could perceive that the track of blood coincided with the

(07:41):
track of his feet. It is seldom that any man,
unless he is very full blooded, breaks out in this
way through emotion. So I hazarded the opinion that the
criminal was probably a robust and ruddy faced man. Events
proved that I had judged correctly. Having left the house,
I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected. I telegraphed

(08:04):
to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my
inquiry to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drebber.
The answer was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had
already applied for the protection of the law against an
old rival in love named Jefferson Hope, and that this
same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now

(08:25):
that I held the clue to the mystery in my hand,
and all that remained was to secure the murderer. I
had already determined in my own mind that the man
who had walked into the house with Drebber was none
other than the man who had driven the cab. The
marks in the road showed me that the horse had
wandered on in a way which would have been impossible

(08:45):
had there been any one in charge of it. Where
then could the driver be unless he were inside the house. Again,
it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would
carry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as
it were, of a third person who was sure to
betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished to dog another

(09:05):
through London, what better means could he adopt than to
turn cab driver. All these considerations led me to the
irresistible conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among
the jarvis of the metropolis. If he had been one,
there was no reason to believe that he had ceased
to be on the contrary. From his point of view,
any sudden change would be likely to draw attention to himself.

(09:29):
He would probably, for a time at least, continue to
perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose that
he was going under an assumed name. Why should he
change his name in a country where no one knew
his original one. I therefore organized my street Arab detective
corps and sent them systematically to every cab proprietor in

(09:49):
London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted.
How well they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage
of it, are still fresh in your recollection. Order of
Stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected, but which
could hardly in any case, have been prevented. Through it,
as you know, I came into possession of the pills,

(10:10):
the existence of which I had already surmised. You see,
the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without
a break or flaw. It is wonderful. I cried, Your
merits should be publicly recognized. You should publish an account
of the case. If you want, I will for you.

(10:30):
You may do what you like, doctor, He answered, see
here he continued, handing a paper over to me. Look
at this. It was that echo for the day, and
the paragraph to which he pointed was devoted to the
case in question. The public, it said, have lost a
sensational treat through the sudden death of the man Hope,

(10:51):
who was suspected of the murder of mister Enoch Drebber
and of mister Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case
will probably be never known now, though we are informed
upon good authority that the crime was the result of
an old standing and romantic feud in which Lave and
Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both the victims belonged,

(11:12):
in their younger days to the latter day Saints, and Hope,
the deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If
the case has had no other effect, it at least
brings out, in the most striking manner the efficiency of
our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson
to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle
their feuds at home, and not to carry them on

(11:33):
to British soil. It is an open secret that the
credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well
known Scotland Yard officials measures Lestrade and Gregson. The man
was apprehended. It appears in the rooms of a certain
mister Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an amateur, shown
some talent in the detective line, and who, with such instructors,

(11:54):
may hope in time to attain to some degree of
their skill. It is expected that a testimonial of some
sort will be presented to the two officers as a
fitting recognition of their services. Didn't I tell you so
when we started, cried Sherlock Holmes with a laugh. That's
the result of all our study in Scarlet to get

(12:15):
them a testimonial. Never Mind, I answered, I have all
the facts in my journal, and the public shall know them.
In the meantime, you must make yourself contented by the
consciousness of success, like the Roman miser populous may sibilat
at mihi plaudo ipse domi simil ac numos contemplore in ARCA,

(12:38):
end of Part two, chapter seven. This concludes a study
in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle