The Japanned Box - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Japan Box by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was
a curious thing, said the private tutor. One are those
grotesque and whimsical incidents which occur to one as one
goes through life. I lost the best situation which I
am ever likely to have through it. But I am
glad that I went to Thorpe Place, for I gained. Well.

(00:22):
As I tell you the story, you will learn what
I gained. I don't know whether you are familiar with
that part of the Midlands which is drained by the Avon.
It is the most English part of England. Shakespeare, the
flower of our whole race was born right in the
middle of it. It is a land of rolling pastures,
rising in the higher folds to the westwards until they

(00:44):
swell into the Malvern Hills. There are no towns, but
numerous villages, each with its gray Norman church. You have
left the brick of the southern and eastern counties behind you,
and everything is stone. Stone for the walls, and iken
slabs of stone for the roofs. It is all grim
and solid and massive, as befits the heart of a

(01:06):
great nation. It was in the middle of this country,
not far from Eversham, that Sir John Boulimore lived in
the old ancestral home of Thorpe Place, and thither it
was that I came to teach his two little sons.
Sir John was a widower. His wife had died three
years before, and he had been left with these two lads,

(01:28):
aged eight and ten, and one dear little girl of seven.
Miss Witherton, who is now my wife, was governess to
this little girl. I was tutored to the two boys.
Could there be a more obvious prelude tunan engagement? She
governs me now and I tutor two little boys of
our own. But there I have already revealed what it

(01:50):
was which I gained in Thorpe Place. It was a
very very old house, incredibly old pre Norman some of it,
and the Boulmore claimed to have lived in that situation
since long before the conquest. It struck a chill to
my heart when I first came there, those enormously thick

(02:10):
gray walls, the crude crumbling stones, the smell as from
a sick animal which exhaled from the rotting plaster of
the aged building. But the modern wing was bright and
the garden was well kept. No house could be dismal,
which had a pretty girl inside it and such a
show of roses in front. Apart from a very complete

(02:31):
staff of servants, there were only four of us in
the household. These were Miss Witherton, who was at that
time four and twenty and as pretty well as pretty
as Miss Colemore is now myself, Frank Colemore, aged thirty,
missus Stevens, the housekeeper, a dry, silent woman, and mister Richards,

(02:52):
a tall, military looking man who acted as steward to
the Bolimoor estates. We four always had our meals together,
but Sir John had his, usually alone in the library.
Sometimes he joined us at dinner, but on the whole
we were just as glad when he did not, for
he was a very formidable person. Imagine a man six

(03:14):
feet three inches in height, majestically built, with a high
nosed aristocratic face, brindled hair, shaggy eyebrows, a small pointed
Mephistophelene beard, and lines upon his brow and round his
eyes as deep as if they had been carved with
a penknife. He had gray eyes, weary, hopeless looking eyes,

(03:36):
proud and yet pathetic eyes which claimed your pity and
yet dared you to show it. His back was rounded
with study. But otherwise he was as fine a looking
man of his age five and fifty, perhaps, as any
woman would wish to look upon. But his presence was
not a cheerful one. He was always courteous, always refined,

(03:58):
but singularly silent, retiring. I have never lived so long
with any man at a known so little of him.
If he were indoors, he spent his time either in
his own small study in the Eastern tower, or in
the library in the modern wing. So regular was his
routine that one could always say at any hour exactly

(04:18):
where he would be. Twice in the day he would
visit his study, once after breakfast, and once about ten
at night. You might set your watch by the slam
of the heavy door. For the rest of the day
he would be in his library, save that for an
hour or two in the afternoon he would take a
walk or a ride, which was solitary, like the rest

(04:40):
of his existence. He loved his children and was keenly
interested in the progress of their studies. But they were
a little awed by the silent, shaggy browed figure, and
they avoided him as much as they could indeed we
all did that. It was some time before I came
to know anything about the circum instances of Sir John

(05:01):
Boulimoor's life, for Missus Stevens, the housekeeper, and mister Richards,
the land steward, were too loyal to talk easily of
their employer's affairs. As to the Governess, she knew no
more than I did, and her common interest was one
of the causes which drew us together. At last. However,

(05:21):
an incident occurred which led to a closer acquaintance with
mister Richards and a fuller knowledge of the life of
the man whom I served. The immediate cause of this
was no less than the falling of Master Percy, the
youngest of my pupils, into the mill race, with imminent
danger both to his life and to mine, since I

(05:42):
had to risk myself in order to save him. Dripping
and exhausted, for I was far more spent than the child,
I was making for my room when Sir John, who
had heard the hubbub, opened the door of his little
study and asked me what was the matter. I told
him of the accident, but assured him that his child
would no danger. While he listened with a rugged, immobile face,

(06:04):
which expressed in his intense eyes the tightened lips all
the emotion which he tried to conceal one moment. Step
in here, let me have the details, said he turning
back through the open door. And so I found myself
within that little sanctum, inside which, as I afterwards learned,

(06:25):
no other foot had for three years been set save
that of the old servant who cleaned it out. It
was a round room, conforming to the shape of the
tower in which it was situated, with a low ceiling,
a single narrow, ivy wreathed window, and the simplest of furniture.
An old carpet, a single chair, a deal table, and

(06:46):
a small shelf of books made up the whole contents.
On the table stood a full length photograph of a woman.
I took no particular notice of the features, but I
remember that a certain gracious Gentlemans had the prevailing impression.
Beside it were a large black Japan box and one

(07:06):
or two bundles of letters or papers fastened together with
elastic bands. Our interview was a short one, for Sir
John Bollamore perceived that I was soaked and that I
should change without delay. The incident led, however, to an
instructive talk with Richards, the agent who had never penetrated
into the chamber which chance had opened to me. That

(07:29):
very afternoon. He came to me all curiosity, and walked
up and down the garden path with me, while my
two charges played tennis upon the lawn beside us. You
hardly realize the exception which has been made in your favor,
said he. That room has been kept such a mystery,
and Sir John's visits to it have been so regular
and consistent, that an almost superstitious feeling has arisen about

(07:52):
it in the household. I assure you that if I
were to repeat to you the tales which are flying about,
tales of mysterious visitors there, and of voices overheard by
the servants, you might suspect that Sir John had relapsed
into his old ways. Why do you say relapsed, I asked.
He looked at me in surprise. Is it possible that

(08:15):
Sir John Bolimore's previous history is unknown to you? Absolutely?
You astound me. I thought that every man in England
knew something of his antecedents. I should not mention the
matter if it were not that you are now one
of ourselves, and that the facts might come out to
your ears in some harsher form if I were silent
upon them. I always took it for granted that you

(08:38):
knew you were in the service of devil Boulimore. But
why devil, I asked, Ah, you are young, and the
world moves fast. But twenty years ago the name of
Devil Bolimore was one of the best known in London.
He was the leader of a fastest set, bruiser driver, gambler, drunk,

(09:00):
a survival of the old type, and as bad as
the worst of them. I stared at him in amazement,
that quiet, studious, sad faced man, the greatest rip in
Dibatchie in England, all between ourselves Colmore. But you understand
now what I mean when I say that a woman's

(09:21):
voice in his room might even now give rise to suspicions.
But what can have changed him? So? Little barrel Claire,
when she took the risk of becoming his wife. That
was the turning point. He got so far that his
own fast set had thrown him over. There's a word
of difference, you know, between a man who drinks and

(09:43):
a drunkard. They all drink, but they taboo a drunkard.
He had become a slave to it, hopeless and helpless.
Then she stepped in, saw the possibilities of a fine
man in the wreck, took her chance in marrying him,
though she might have had the pick of a dozen,
and by devoting her life to it, brought him back

(10:04):
to manhood in decency. You have observed that no liquor
is ever kept in the house. There never has been
any since her foot crossed its threshold. A drop of
it would be like blood to a tiger. Even now then,
her influence still holds him, That is the wonder of it.
When she died three years ago, we all expected and

(10:25):
feared that he would fall back into his old ways.
She feared it herself, and the thought gave a terror
to death, for she was like a guardian angel to
that man, and lived only for the one purpose. By
the way, did you see a black Japan box in
his room? Yes? I fancy it contains her letters. If

(10:47):
ever he has occasion to be away, if only for
a single night, he invariably takes his black Japan box
with him. Well, well, colmore, perhaps I have told you
rather more than I should but I shall expect you
to reciprocate if anything of interest should come to your knowledge.
I could see that the worthy man was consumed with curiosity,

(11:09):
and just a little piqued that I, the newcomer, should
have been the first to penetrate into the untrodden chamber.
But the fact raised me in his esteem, and from
that time onwards I found myself upon more confidential terms
with him. And now the silent and majestic figure of
my employer became an object of greater interest to me.

(11:32):
I began to understand that strangely human look in his eyes,
those deep lines upon his care worn face. He was
a man who was fighting a ceaseless battle, holding at
arm's length from morning till night a horrible adversary who
was forever trying to close with him, an adversary which
would destroy him body and soul, could but fix its

(11:53):
claws once more upon him. As I watched the grim,
round backed figure pacing the color or walking in the garden,
this imminent danger seemed to take bodily shape, and I
could almost fancy that I saw this most loathsome and
dangerous of all the fiends, crouching closely in his very shadow,
like a half cowed beast which SLINKs besides its keeper,

(12:16):
ready at any unguarded moment to spring at his throat.
And the dead woman, the woman who had spent her
life in warding off this danger, took shape also in
my imagination, and I saw her as a shadowy but
beautiful presence which intervened forever, with arms uplifted to screen
the man whom she loved. In some subtle way, he

(12:39):
divined the sympathy which I had for him, and he
showed in his own silent fashion that he appreciated it.
He even invited me once to share his afternoon walk,
and although no word passed between us on this occasion,
it was a mark of confidence which he had never
shown to any one before. He asked me also to
index his library. It was one of the best private

(13:01):
libraries in England, and I spent many hours in the
evening in his presence, if not in his society, he
reading at his desk, and I sitting in a recess
by the window, reducing to order the chaos which existed
among his books. In spite of these close relations, I
was never again asked to enter the chamber in the

(13:22):
turret and then came my revulsion of feeling a single
incident changed all my sympathy to loathing, and made me
realize that my employer still remained all that he ever
had been, with the additional vice of hypocrisy. One evening,
Miss Witherton had gone down to Broadway, the neighboring village,

(13:43):
to sing at a concert for some charity, and I,
according to my promise, had walked over to escort her back.
The drive sweeps round under the eastern turret, and I
observed as I passed that the light was lit in
the circular room. It was a summer evening, and the window,
which was a little higher than our heads, was open.

(14:04):
We were, as it happened, engrossed in our own conversation
at the moment when we paused upon the lawn which
skirts the old turret, when suddenly something broke in upon
our talk and turned our thoughts away from our own affairs.
It was a voice, the voice, undoubtedly of a woman.
It was low, so low that it was only in

(14:24):
the still night air that we could have heard it,
But hushed as it was, there was no mistaking its
feminine timber. It spoke hurriedly, gaspingly for a few sentences,
and then was silent, a piteous, breathless, imploring sort of voice.
Miss Witherton and I stood for an instant staring at
each other. Then we walked quickly in the direction of

(14:47):
the hall door. It came through the window. I said,
we must not play the part of eavesdroppers. She answered,
we must forget that we ever heard it. There was
an absence of surprise in her manner that suggested a
new idea to me. I cried, you have heard it before.
I could not help it. My own room is higher

(15:09):
up on the same turret. It has happened frequently. Who
can the woman be? I have no idea. I had
rather not discuss it. Her voice was enough to show
me what she thought. But granting that our employer led
a double and dubious life, who could this she be?
This mysterious woman who kept him company in the old tower?

(15:31):
I knew from my own inspection how bleak and bare
a room it was. She certainly did not live there.
But in that case, where did she come from? It
cannot be any one of the household. They were all
under the vigilant eyes of missus Stevens. The visitor must
come from without? But how and then suddenly I remembered

(15:51):
how ancient this building was, and how probable that some
medieval passage existed in it. There is hardly an old
castle without one. The mysterious room was the basement of
the turret, so that if there were anything of the sort,
it would open through the floor. There were numerous cottages
in the immediate vicinity. The other end of the secret

(16:13):
passage might lie among some tangle of bramble in the
neighboring copse. I had said nothing to anyone, but I
felt that the secret of my employer lay within my power.
And the more convinced I was of this, the more
I marveled at the manner in which he concealed his
true nature. Often, as I watched his austere figure, I
asked myself if it were indeed possible that such a

(16:35):
man should be living this double life. And I tried
to persuade myself that my suspicions might, after all prove
to be ill founded. But there was the female voice.
There was a secret nightly rendezvous in the turret chamber.
How could such facts admit an innocent interpretation? I conceived
a horror of the man I was filled with loathing

(16:57):
and his deep consistent hypocrisy. Only once during all those
months did I ever see him without that sad but
impassive mask which she usually presented towards his fellow man.
For an instant I caught a glimpse of those volcanic
fires which she had damped down so long. The occasion

(17:18):
was an unworthy one, for the object of his wrath
was none other than the aged Charwoman, whom I have
already mentioned as being one person who was allowed within
his mysterious chamber. I was passing the corridor which led
to the turret for my own room, lay in that
direction when I heard a sudden, startled scream and merged
in it the husky, growling note of a man who

(17:40):
was inarticulate with passion. It was the snarl of a
furious wild beast. Then I heard his voice, thrilling with anger.
You would dare, he cried, You would dare to disobey
my directions. An instant later, the Charwoman passed me, flying
down the passage, white faced and tremulin, while the terrible

(18:01):
voice thundered behind her. Go to missus Stevens, for your
money never set foot in Thorpe Place. Again. Consumed with curiosity,
I could not help following the woman and found her
round the corner, leaning against a wall and palpitating like
a frightened rabbit. What is the matter, Missus Brown, I asked,

(18:22):
it's master. She gasped, Oh, how he frightened me. If
you had seen his eyes, mister Colmore, sir, I thought
he would have been the death of me. But what
had you done done, sir, nothing, at least nothing to
make so much of Just laid my hand on that
black box of his, hadn't even opened it when any came,

(18:43):
and you heard the way he went on. I've lost
my place, and I'm glad of it, for I would
never trust myself within reach of him again. So it
was the Japan Box which was the cause of this outburst,
the box from which she would never permit himself to
be separated. What was the connection or was there any
connection between this and the secret visits of the lady

(19:06):
whose voice I overheard? Sir John Bulmore's wrath was enduring
as well as fiery, for from that day Missus Brown,
the chairwoman vanished from our Ken and Thorpe Place, knew
her no more, And now I wish to tell you
the singular chance which solved all these strange questions and
put my employer's secret in my possession. The story may

(19:30):
leave you with some lingering doubts as to whether my
curiosity did not get the better of my honor, and
whether I did not condescend to play the spy. If
you choose to think so, I can not help it.
But I can only assure you that, improbable as it
may appear, the matter came about exactly as I describe it.
The first stage in this damnuemis was that the small

(19:52):
room in the turret became uninhabitable. This occurred through the
fall the worm eaten oaken beam which supported the ceiling
rotten with age. It snapped in the middle one morning,
and it brought down a quantity of plaster with it.
Fortunately Sir John was not in the room at the time.
His precious box was rescued from amongst the debris and

(20:13):
brought into the library, where henceforward it was locked within
his bureau. Sir John took no steps to repair the damage,
and I never had an opportunity of searching for that
secret passage. The existence of which I had surmised as
to the lady. I had thought that this would have
brought her visits to an end, had I not one

(20:33):
evening heard mister Richards asking Missus Stevens who the woman
was whom he had overheard talking to Sir John in
the library. I could not catch her reply, but I
saw from her manner that it was not the first
time that she had had to answer or avoid the
same question. You've heard the voice, Colmore, said the agent.

(20:54):
I confess that I had, And what do you think
of it? I shrugged my shoulders and remarked that it
was no business of mine. Come, come, you are just
as curious as any of us. Is it a woman
or not? It is certainly a woman. Which room did
you hear it from? From the turret room before the

(21:14):
ceiling fell? But I heard it from the library only
last night. I passed the doors as I was going
to bed, and I heard something wailing and praying, just
as plainly as I hear you. It may be a woman.
Why what else could it be? He looked at me hard.
There are more things in heaven and earth. If it

(21:34):
is a woman, how does she get in there? I
don't know. No, nor I but if it is the
other thing, but there, for a practical business man at
the end of the nineteenth century, this is rather a
ridiculous line of conversation. He turned away, but I saw
that he felt even more than he had said. To

(21:56):
all the old ghost stories of Thorpe Place, a new
one was being before our very eyes. It may by
this time have taken its permanent place. For though an
explanation came to me, it never reached the others. And
my explanation came in this way. I had suffered a
sleepless night from neuralgia, and about midday I had taken

(22:18):
a heavy dose of chlorodyne to alleviate the pain. At
that time I was finishing the indexing of Sir John
Bollamore's library, and it was my custom to work there
from five until seven. On this particular day, I struggled
against the double effect of my bad night and the
narcotic I have already mentioned that there was a recess

(22:39):
in the library, and in this it was my habit
to work. I settled down steadily to my task, but
my weariness overcame me, and falling back upon the settee,
I dropped into a heavy sleep. How long I slept
I do not know, but it was quite dark when
I awoke. Confused by the chlorodyne which I had taken,

(23:01):
I lay motionless in a semi conscious state. The great room,
with its high walls covered with books, loomed darkly all
around me. A dim radiance from the moonlight came through
the farther window, and against this lighter background, I saw
that Sir John Bolimar was sitting at his study table.
His well set head and clearly cut profile were sharply

(23:23):
outlined against the glimmering square behind him. He bent as
I watched him, and I heard the sharp turning of
a key, in the rasping of metal upon metal, as
if in a dream. I was vaguely conscious that this
was the japan box which stood in front of him,
and that he had drawn something out of it, something
squat and uncouth, which now lay before him upon the table.

(23:46):
I never realized, it never occurred to my bemuddled and
torpid brain that I was intruding upon his privacy, and
that he imagined himself to be alone in the room.
And then, just as it rushed upon my horrified perceptions,
and I had half risen to announce my presence. I
heard a strange, crisp, metallic clicking, and then the voice. Yes,

(24:08):
it was a woman's voice. There could be not a
doubt of it, but a voice so charged with entreaty
and with yearning love that it will ring for ever
in my ears. It came with a curious, far away tinkle,
but every word was clear, though faint, very faint, for
they were the last words of a dying woman. I

(24:30):
am not really gone, John, said the thin, gasping voice.
I am here at your very elbow, and shall be
until we meet once more. I die happy to think
that morning and night you will hear my voice. Oh John,
be strong, be strong, until we meet again. I say

(24:51):
that I had risen in order to announce my presence,
but could not do so. While the voice was sounding.
I could only remain half lying, half sitting, paralyzed, astounded,
listening to those yearning, distant musical words. And he he
was so absorbed that even if I had spoken, he
might not have heard me. But with the silence of

(25:13):
the voice came my half articulated apologies and explanations. He
sprang across the room, switched on the electric light, and
in its white glare, I saw him, his eyes gleaming
with anger, his face twisted with passion, as the hapless
chairwoman may have seen weeks before. Mister Colmore, he cried,

(25:34):
you here, what is the meaning of this, sir? With
halting words, I explained it all, my neuralgia, the narcotic,
my luckless sleep, and singular awakening. As he listened, the
glow of anger faded from his face, and the sad
impassive mask closed once more over his features. My secret

(25:55):
is yours, mister Colmore, he said, I have only myself
to blame for relaxing my precautions. Half confidences are worse
than no confidences, and so you may well know all.
Since you know so much. The story may go where
you will when I have passed away. But until then
I rely upon your sense of honor that no human

(26:15):
soul shall hear of it from your lips. I am
proud still, God help me, or at least I am
proud enough to resent that pity which this story would
draw upon me. I have smiled at envy and disregarded hatred,
but pity is more than I can tolerate. You have
heard the source from which the voice comes, that voice

(26:38):
which has, as I understand, excited so much curiosity in
my household. I am aware of the rumors to which
it has given rise. These speculations, whether scandalous or superstitious,
are such as I can disregard and forgive. What I
should never forgive, would be a disloyal spying and eavesdropping
in order to satisfy an illicit curiosity. But of that,

(27:01):
mister Colmore, I acquit you. When I was a young man, sir,
many years younger than you are now. I was launched
upon town without a friend or an adviser, and with
a purse which brought only too many false friends and
false advisers to my side. I drank deeply of the
wine of life. If there is a man living who

(27:22):
has drunk more deeply, he is not a man whom
I envy. My purse suffered, my character suffered, my constitution suffered.
Stimulants became a necessity to me. I was a creature
for whom my memory recoils. And it was at that time,
the time of my blackest degradation, that God sent into
my life the gentlest, sweetest spirit that ever descended as

(27:45):
a ministering angel from above. She loved me broken as
I was loved me, and spent her life in making
a man once more of that which had degraded itself
into the level of the beasts. But a fell disease
struck her, and she withered away before my eyes in

(28:05):
the hour of her agony. It was never of herself,
of her own sufferings and her own death, that she thought.
It was all of me. The one pang which her
fate brought to her was the fear, when her influence
was removed, I should revert to that which I had been.
It was in vain that I made oath to her,
and that no drop of wine would ever cross my lips.

(28:28):
She knew only too well to hold that the devil
had upon me, she who had striven so to loosen it.
And it haunted her night and day, the thought that
my soul might again be within his grip. It was
from some friend's gossip of the sick room that she
heard of this invention, this phonograph, and with the quick

(28:48):
insight of a loving woman, she saw how she might
use it for her ends. She sent me to London
to procure the best which money could buy. With her
dying breath, she gasped into it the words which have
held me straight ever since. Lonely and broken. What else
have I in all the world to uphold me? But
it is enough. Please God, I shall face her without

(29:12):
shame when he is pleased to reunite us. That is
my secret, mister Colmore, and whilst I live, I leave
it in your keeping. The Japan Box by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle