All Episodes

August 9, 2025 • 23 mins
Solve crimes with the great detective in "Sherlock Holmes Short Stories." Featuring classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, this podcast brings you the brilliant deductions and thrilling adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the world of Holmes, these timeless mysteries will keep you captivated.
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, where Sir John Gielgot and
Sherlock Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as our story teller,
Doctor James Watson.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of
November eighteen ninety four. Hose and I sat together in
silence all the evening outside. The wind howled down Baker Street,
but the rain beat fiercely against the windows. On such
a night, we were not at all pleased to hear

(00:30):
keb draw up at our door and a ring at
the bell.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Oh, come in, Hopkins. I hope you no professional designs
upon us on a night like this. Throw up a chair,
worn't you a warmer toes? Thank you, Miss Holmes. I
suppose it must be something important to bring you here
at this hour and in such a gale. It is indeed,
mister Holmes, I have had a bustling afternoon, I promise
you on the Yochsley case, I caught the last train
back to town and came straight on my cap from

(00:56):
Chane Cross. Yet, dear, that means I suppose that you're
not quite curb case. I make neither head nor tail
of it. There's no motive, mister 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 Korham. He's a semi invalid, keeps
to his dead half the time. An elderly housekeeper and

(01:16):
a maid look after him, are both of excellent character.
The professor's writing a book on Coptic manuscripts and keeps
a secretary to help him. The last mister Willoughby Smith,
was the third. He's had a young man straight from
the university, quiet, hard working fellow. 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 eleven and twelve this morning, Susan Tarton. The maid

(01:40):
was hanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom. Professor
Korum was still in bed. He celemnizes before midday. The
housekeeper was busy at the back of the house. 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
studies at the room below him. A minute or later

(02:00):
there was a dreadful cry from that room. A wild
horse screamed. At the same instant there was a heavy
sud ritual whole house, then silence. The maid stood petrified
for a moment, then, recovering her courage, she ran downstairs.
So the study door was shut and she opened it.

(02:21):
Inside mister Willoughbysmith was stretched on the floor and blood
was pouring from a wound in his neck. On the
floor nearby was a bloodstained 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.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Oh, oh, sad, what happened?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Oh kill me? Tell me the professor h it was she?
M h. Those were his last words. He tried desperately
to say something else, then he fell back deare. The
housekeeper arrived just after he had died, leaving Susan with
the body. She had into the Professor's room. He was

(03:06):
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, mister Holmes, but ah,
I'm so battled. I come to you as a friend. Well, well, well,
we must see what we can do. Can you give

(03:26):
me some idea as to the disposition of the rooms?
You say the study door was closed? Was that the
only door to that room?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
There were three doors to the study, the one by
which the maid and willoughb Smith had entered, and two
other doors at the opposite ends of the room. Of these,
one led by way of a corridor till the professor's room,
the other led by a cinelar corridor to the back
door of the house, which was unlocked. There could be
little doubt but that the murderer had entered this way,

(03:56):
and there was no other way about 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.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
The path to the back door was saturated with rain
and would certainly have shown any footmarks. My examination showed
me that I was dealing with a cautious and expert criminal,
For 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.

(04:31):
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 hurrican ever since. They'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

(04:52):
wound on the body. The stamp was on the right
side of the neck and from behind, so that it's
almost impossible it could have been self in fleet unless
he fell on the knife exactly. The idea crossed my mind.
But the knife was some feet away, and that other
man's dying words. But most important of all, the dead
man had a small object tightly grasped in his right hand.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
Well, Watson, what do you make of thee The object
was a pair of gold rimmed spectacles, or more properly
a golden pasney, a type of glass which clip onto

(05:39):
the bridge of the nose.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
From them hung two broken ends of black silk cord.
Holmes examined the glasses with the greatest attention.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
He held them on.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
His nose, he tried to read through them, he looked
out of the window, and then he handed them back to.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Hopkins with a chapel. Well, my dear Hopkins wanted a
woman of good address, a tide like a lady. She
has a remarkably thick nose, with eyes that are set
close upon either side of it, a packet forehead, appearing expression,
and probably runded shoulders. As she has been to an
optician at least twice during the last few months, it

(06:15):
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 deduced 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

(06:37):
glasses are of unusual strength. A lady whose vision is
so contractedly sure to have the physical characteristics of such
vision the forehead of the eyelids and shoulders. But how
do you arrive at the double visit to the optician?
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

(06:58):
tell me, I suggest we all turn in for the night.
It will be quite comfortable on this sofa, I believe,
and in the morning we can make an early start.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
The gale 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 sunthern reaches of the river.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Well, at last we reached the end of our journey.
This is the garden path of which I told you,
mister Holmes, and which side. Were the marks on the
glass verge this side. M. You can't see them, I'm afraid,
but they were clear enough yesterday. Yes, he says, I
can see someone who's walked along as the lady must
have picked her way very carefully, mustn't she not very wide?
And you say she must have come back the same
way she must have done. There was no other way

(07:43):
open to her. M. Not 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.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
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 patanah examination of
the walls, floor, and furniture.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Before the bureau, he paused, Hello, scratch on the lock
of this bureau A pray ring for the maid? Will you,
my dear Watson, Why didn't you tell me about this? Hopkins?
You'll always find sketches around a key? Sure, yes, yes, yes,
but this is quite a recent one. Ah, yes, did
you ring, sir? Yes, I did. When was this room

(08:34):
dusted last yesterday morning? Sir? I did it myself. Did
you notice this scratch? No, sir, I didn't. I'm sure
you didn't. A duster I would have threwn 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

(08:55):
seem to be making a little progress. A lady enters
the room, advances to the burea, and either opens it
or tries to do so. While she's thus engaged, Willeby
Smith enters the room. In her hurry to withdraw the key,
she makes this scratch near the lock. He seizes the intruder,
and she is snatching up the nearest object, which happens
to be the stiletto, strikes him in the neck to

(09:16):
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 away? Through that door over there
at the time you heard the cry.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Oh no, sir, it's impossible.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Have you seen him 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, and nobody could have
hidden in the corridor without being found by the huskeeper

(09:55):
when she ran to tell the Professor what had happened. Well,
let us go and make the professor the quaintance. Oh,
this corridor also is lined with coconut matting. I see.
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 am anxious

(10:16):
to meet the professor.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
We passed down the passage, which was the same length
as that which led to the garden. As Hopkins knocked
at the door, I mean.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Good ning. Professor now presents mister Sherlock, Holmes and doctor Watson.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
It was a large room, and books that had overflowed
from their shelves lay in piles on the floor and
around the bed were stacked in the heaps at the
side of a huge bookcase. The bed was in the
center of the room, and on it, popped up with pillows,
was the owner of the house. The cigarette glowed amid
the tangle of his white beard. The air of the

(10:58):
room was stale tobacco smoke. As he held out his
hand to Holmes, I perceived that it also was stained
yellow with nicotine.

Speaker 5 (11:06):
Well, well, mister Charlock Holmes, this is a surprise a smoker.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Mister Holmes, pray take a cigarette and you.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
Sir, No nothing I can recommend them, for I have
them specially prepared by Ionidas 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.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Though Holmes was much addicted to his briar pipe, i'd
never learn 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. For batro in my work,
but now only to macco alas.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
What a fatal interruption to my book Who could have
foreseen such a terrible tragedy so estimably young man, I
assure you that after a few months training he was
an admirable assistant. What do you think of the matter, mister.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Holmes, I'm afraid I've not yet made up my mind. Professor.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can
throw light where all is dark to us for a
poor bookworm and invalid like myself, such a blow he
is paralyzing.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Well, I will do everything in my power to clear
it up. By the way I find these figure, that's
unusually good and might I but of course please help yourself.
Thank you, thank you, most delightful to the palace, and
quite a refreshing change for me.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Watson and spoking with a rapidity I've never seen before,
Charrock Holmes began to pace up and down the bedroom.
Holmes continued to pace up and down the room, still
smoking feverishly as he listened for the sonorous flow of speech.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
That pile of papers on the table.

Speaker 5 (12:39):
There is my magnum opus, some work which will cut
deep into the very foundations of revealed religion.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
And I won't trouble you with any lengths across 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 meant by his last words? The professor?

Speaker 5 (12:58):
It was she susan easy country girl, mister Holmes, and
you know the incredible stupidity of the class.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
I fancy the.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
Poor fellow murmured some cohering, delirious words, and she twisted
them into this meaningless message. I see you had no
explanation in yourself of the tragedy, possibly an accident, possibly
is suishie.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
We must apologize for having disturbed you so long, Professor Cohen.
I promise we shan't include on you again until after luncheon.
I'll have another look round the garden, if I may,
and at two o'clock report to you anything that may
have emerged in the meanwhile, we.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Withdrew from the bedroom and made our way out into
the garden. Holmes was curiously display and we walked up
and down for some time in silence. At last, I'd
broke in on his thoughts by asking him whether he'd
found any clue.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
It all depends on these cigarettes. I smoked. It's possible.
I'm quite mistaken, of course, But those cigarettes will show me.
My dear Holmes, how on ear will you see for yourself?
If not, there's no harm done. Ah, there's a housekeeper.
I should like a word with her.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yes, mister Holmes, is as you say, Sir. He does
smoke something terrible all day and sometimes all night. Sir,
Sniff's health, Well, I don't know whether it's better or
worse for smoking.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Ah, But smoking as much as that kills the epithet,
doesn't it. Well, I don't know about that, Sir. I
mean I suppose the Professor eats hardly anything at all.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Well, he's dariable, I'll say.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
That for him. I wait here. He took no breakfast
this morning and weren't facing a lunch after all those
cigarettes I saw him get through the willy are out there, Sirs.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
It happens for THEETA remarkably big breakfast this morning, and
I'm surprised myself. So since I came into that room
yesterday and saw young mister Smith lying there on the floor,
I couldn't bear to look at food. Oh well, it
takes all sorts to make a world, do you say?

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Missus Marka. It takes all sorts to make a world.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
We lightered the rest of the morning away in the garden.
Susan Will awaited the Bollus at lunch volunteer the information
that mister Smith had been out for a walk the
previous morning and had only returned some half an hour
before the tragedy occurred.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Two o'clock. Gentlemen, you can now go up and have
it out with our friend, the professor Will.

Speaker 5 (15:15):
Mister Holmes, have you solved this mystery? Yet another figure?
Right after your lunch?

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Thank you? I don't go, dear, I careless of me
and let me pick them up. Yes, it's wonderful. How
far they role, isn't it?

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Ah?

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, I think that's the lost. No harm done, that's
the mystery. Yes, I've solved it. You have indeed out
in the garden. No, no, no, in here. Very well,
mister Holmes, I shall be very interested. Yesterday lady entered
your study. She came with the intention of possessing herself
of certain documents which were in your bureau. She had

(15:52):
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 was scratch made 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 relocking the bureau,

(16:13):
and stabbed him with a knife in order to escape.
I fancied the stabbing was an unhappy accident, but 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 scuffle, and as she was extremely short sighted,
she was really helpless without them. She ran down a corridor,

(16:36):
as she thought the one by which she had entered
the study, and only when it was too late that
she realized that she'd taken the wrong door and the
wrong passage, and that her a treat 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.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
Already find, mister Holmes. But there's one little flaw in
your splendid theory. I was myself in this room, and
I never left it during.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
The whole day. As I'm quite aware of that professor calling.

Speaker 5 (17:10):
You mean to say I could lie in bed and
not be aware that a woman had entered my room.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
I never said so. You were aware of it. You
spoke to her, you recognized her. You aided her to escape.
Ha ha ha ha. You're your mad you're talking, insaney.
I helped her to escape. Where is she now?

Speaker 2 (17:25):
There?

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Even as Holmes spoke, a woman stepped out from behind
the big bookcase.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
I saw at once that she had the exact physical
characteristics that Holmes had divined. What at her short sight
and the sudden bright light that blinded her. She stood
as one dazed, blinking about her to see who we were.

Speaker 6 (17:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
I am this man's wife.

Speaker 6 (18:10):
He is a Russian, but his name I will not tell.
God bless you, and why should you cling so hard
to that wretched life of your Circius. It has done
harm to many and good to none, not even to yourself.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
However, it is not for me to give you a way.
I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed
the threshold of this cursor.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
The story she told us was almost incredible in its
characters and setting Russia, Siberian prison camps, and Nihilists. Both
the professor and she his wife, had been engaged in
revolutionary activities many years before, along with their comrades. There
have been a rad in order to save his own life.
Her husband had betrayed not only his friends, but her

(19:06):
as well. She and the others had been sent to Siberia.
The professor had been set free, that had come to
England under an assumed name. What content with that little
piece of dilanay? He had let an innocent man suffer
along with the guilty.

Speaker 6 (19:21):
He was noble, unselfish, loving all that my husband was not.
He hated violence and wrote forever dissuading me from such
a course. Those letters of his would have saved him,
so would my dairy in which I had written about
him and our secret love. My husband found and kept
both the dary and the letters. He hid them and

(19:43):
he tried to swear away the young man's life. In
this he failed, but Alexis was sent to Siberia, where
he's still working in the salt mine. When my sentence
had been served, I followed my husband to England, and
after months of searching I i discovered where he was living.
My one aim was to get my hands upon those

(20:04):
letters and the Daddy and give them to the Russian
government to make them release my innocent friend. Yesterday I
took the papers.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
The rest is as you said. Two points are much
yet quite clear to me, madam. How did you come
to have a duplicate key to the bureau.

Speaker 6 (20:20):
I had employed a private inquiry agent to take a
position as my husband's secretary. It was your last secretary
soldiers who left. So suddenly he told me where the
papers must be kept, and he gave me a wax
impression of the key.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
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.

Speaker 6 (20:42):
It was it was the young man I killed.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
I asked him to wait to the Professor's house. He
did not be a mind to him. 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 outwards. 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

(21:08):
stop up. At last we were too late to save her.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
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 dary should be given to the Russian
embassy in London, which in due course they were. And
as we traveled back to Baker Street that night, Holmes

(21:36):
at last condescended to explain how the mystery had been solved.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
A simple case here, in some ways an instructed one.
It hinged from the outset on the passaree. It had
clayed 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 and on a narrow glass verge to the gate,
and there was no other way that she could have his.
It occurred to me that perhaps she hadn't escaped at all.
When I saw that both corridors were covered with coconut netting,

(22:06):
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 thuddly. 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

(22:28):
the premises, so I spilled a lot of cigarette airs
just in front of the bookcase to 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 sh I'd been right. It was
trodden down by someone who had stepped from behind the
bookcase while we were at our luck. In fact, I
was not a tall surprise to find how hearted the

(22:50):
Professor had been eating since the tragedy, for he had
needed to order enough for two l
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.

The Joe Rogan Experience

The Joe Rogan Experience

The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.