Speaker 1: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. We present the original stories
of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, dramatized anew with
Sir John Gilgood as Sherlock Holmes, Sir Ralph Richardson as
Doctor Watson, and today Orson Wells as Professor Moriarty.
Speaker 2: It is with a heavy heart that I come before
you with the last adventure of my friend Sherlock Holmes.
That I shall be able to relate. I have tried,
in my humble way to chronicle some of our exploits
together to demonstrate the singular gifts of that most remarkable
of men. It lies with me now to tell you
what occurred between Holmes and his arch enemy, Professor Moriarty,
when at last they came face to face.
Speaker 3: Mister Sherlock Holmes, your efforts on the side of law
and order have seriously inconvenienced me. The situation between us
is becoming an impossible one, mister Holmes. It simply cannot
go on. One or the other of us must die,
must die, mister Holmes.
Speaker 2: It was in the spring of eighteen nine one. You
will remember, perhaps that, after my marriage and return to
private practice, Holmes and I had drifted apart a little.
I followed the newspaper reports of his cases, of course,
and called on him quite often at the old rooms
in Baker Street. Even so, however, many weeks would sometimes
e left between our meetings, And so it was with
some surprise one April evening that I looked up and
saw him standing before me in my study. Good evening, Watson, Ah,
good evening, Holmes. Have you a cigarette for me?
Speaker 4: Homes?
Speaker 5: It?
Speaker 4: Great? Heavens man? How ill you look? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes, I've been using myself up rather too freely of late,
old friend. You'n objection if I close your window shutters? No,
of course, Now, yeah, you're not afraid of anything, are you?
Speaker 4: At truth? I am rather for it's not like you, Holmes.
What is it? Yeah? Guns? Air guns? What on earth
do you mean?
Speaker 2: There's a new and deadly type of air gun, Watson,
which has been especially designed by an old acquaintance of ours.
Speaker 4: What, professor Moriarty? We could only be he from your
tone the same A match? Give me a match with you,
my dear fellow. Yes, of course, well, thank you. Is
missus Watson at home? Oh no, she's on a visit
to an arm uite alone. Good.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: That makes it easier for me to propose that you
should come away with me for a few days delighted.
But where, oh the continent, somewhere abroad, abroad is that
whiskey in the decanta? Now look here, Pols, what's all
this about? There's something more serious in your man now than.
Speaker 6: You never did quite believe in the iniquities of Moriarty,
did you, Watson?
Speaker 4: You've said some more than once I told you exaggerated
a bit.
Speaker 2: After all, Professor Moriarty is a respectable figure in public,
just so, And that's the very genius of the man.
Even you, Watson, knowing me as you do, can't quite
believe me when I tell you that he corrupts all London.
Speaker 4: With his evil influence. I can't quite believe that.
Speaker 2: Oh, of course, to the world he's still the professor,
a great mathematician.
Speaker 4: He's respectable.
Speaker 2: But what real proof have you that he's anything else? None, well,
at least not until this last month, And even now
the chain isn't quite complete. But three days more and
I shall have him, Watson, three days more, if I
live to see them. You can't seriously suppose that your
life's in danger homes. No, huh, you always love to
be melodramatic.
Speaker 4: Melodramatic. Listen Watson.
Speaker 2: This morning, this very morning, in those old rooms of
ours in Baker Street, I saw him, face to face.
I spoke to him, why aren't you, your distinguished professor?
Speaker 4: Within him a criminal strain of the musta bolical.
Speaker 2: Kind, that great white dome of a forehead, those hooded eyes,
and the white face pushed forward, oscillating from sight to
side like a snake.
Speaker 4: Of course, if you believe the old heresy of physiognomy,
and only that, of course not.
Speaker 2: I've worked for years to follow a thousand different threads,
and every one of them has led to Moriarty.
Speaker 4: He's a napoleon of crime.
Speaker 2: Watson, the secret organizer of almost everything evil that goes undetected.
Speaker 4: In this great city of ours.
Speaker 2: There he sits, motionless, like a spider in the center
of its web, a web with a thousand strands, and
he controls them everyone, But slowly, very slowly. My own
secret plans to expose him have borne fruit.
Speaker 4: Every day.
Speaker 2: My neit is joining tighter, and he knows it, Watson,
he knows the danger he's in, and that was why
today he came to see me. I was playing my violin,
as you know I often do when I want to think,
and suddenly there he was, standing in the doorway with
his white face swaying.
Speaker 4: In an evil way, peering at me with his hooded eyes.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Professor Moriarty, Good morning do you, mister Sherla comsily?
Speaker 4: How very charming do you play? How kind of you
to say so? Won't you be seated?
Speaker 2: Professor Moriarty, I can spare.
Speaker 4: You just five minutes. It's singularly good of you. Thank you.
We'll sit down. May I say something personal? Misters, certainly.
Speaker 3: Surprised to discover that you are rather less cranial development
one might have expected.
Speaker 4: Well as you.
Speaker 2: On the contrary, I have rather more than I had imagined. Professor,
you will recollect. I'm sure how that Beethoven's I did
as both.
Speaker 4: How about our personal.
Speaker 2: Characteristics are highly relevant to the present situation.
Speaker 4: What have you rarely got to say to me? Well,
perhaps I only suggested it was.
Speaker 3: Perhaps it is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms
in the pocket of one's.
Speaker 4: Dressing guns homes.
Speaker 2: Evidently you share that dangerous habit, Professor, I see that
you keep your hand in the pocket of your morning coat.
Supposing we lay our pistols and our cards on the table.
Speaker 4: By all means, I was about to suggest it myself.
Speaker 3: I see you favored the mauser attacked, mister Holmes, and
without a silence, serve I must permit me to presentially
sometimes with one of these small devices of my own design,
quite convenient in avoiding unpleasant noise.
Speaker 2: You know, how very kind of your professor, You must
ask the hangman to deliver it to me at your
last request.
Speaker 4: You evidently don't know me, mister. On the contrary, I
think I know you better than you know yourself.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't take up your gun again, Professor, I've already.
Speaker 3: Got you covered with mine, so I perceived, But I
assure you it was only to give a harmless demonstration
of the silencer of my own small accomplishments as a marksman.
Mister Holmes, I've read in those accounts of doctor Watson
that somewhat no doubt anyable friend of yours on the
wall there nat from your indoor revolver practice.
Speaker 2: Quite so the initials there we are Victoria, Regina, God save.
Speaker 3: My majesty, now that I see them it's impressed. They're
not quite as symmetrical as they might say.
Speaker 4: One side of the the is a little short, I think,
submit me to correct the slip.
Speaker 2: Admirable Professor Mariaty, you are perfectly right, of course, that
little mistake has now been rectified.
Speaker 4: I'd like, howe if I may to improve upon it.
Speaker 2: Your bullet mark is perhaps a shade smaller than my own.
Speaker 4: Permit me, Admirable mister.
Speaker 2: Holmes, Yeah, precisely above your own marked, Professor, the exact spot,
I think.
Speaker 4: No, no play, don't look alarm.
Speaker 2: My good landlady is quite a discustomed to that noise.
We shall not be disturbed. I'm very glad of it,
for I have to say is not without importance. Mister Holmes.
Shall we stop off fencing it by all means?
Speaker 6: If you will permit me first to correct one statement
that you made just now with reference to my friend Dr.
Speaker 4: Watson, I am afraid I can go. They permit the adjective.
Speaker 2: Though thine, in his accounts of my humble exploits, he's
been good enough to exaggerate my own achievements, and has
always been unduly modest about his own. He is a
most upright and honorable gentleman, Professor, I'm very close to
my heart. You may say what you will about me,
but I can allow no derogatory words about him who.
Speaker 3: As I apologize, we who are about to die, salute
him pleased.
Speaker 4: You do.
Speaker 2: You are very certain, aren't you, Professor Moriarty, that it
is I who am going to die?
Speaker 3: If it is not, of course, unless you listen to reason,
the situation between us, mister Frans is becoming an impossible one.
Speaker 4: It simply cannot go on it won't, I assure you.
Speaker 2: For these past few months, I've been working to put
an end to it, all of the earliest possible.
Speaker 3: Moment, and you have very nearly undone the careful endeavor
of a lifetime, Sir, for at least have seriously threatened it. No,
don't moved your pistol again. I'm only taking out my
memorandum book.
Speaker 4: I beg your pardon. I find it recorded here.
Speaker 3: And she crossed my path on the fourth of januine
homes from the twenty third you incnluded me. At the
middle of February. I was seriously inconvenienced for you. The
end of March I was absolutely hampered, and.
Speaker 4: Not the close of April.
Speaker 3: I find us a place in such a position through
your continual persecution, that I am in positive danger of
losing my liberty.
Speaker 7: That was certainly the end I had in view. Then
you must drop it, mister Holmes, You really must.
Speaker 4: You not till after Monday, Professor. You know as well
as I do that you've made a slip, one single
tiny slip. For years, I've been aware.
Speaker 2: Of you, Mariatti, at the center of your organization. Forgeries,
murder cases, robberies. A thousand crimes were planned by you.
A hundred agents carried them out. Your subordinates were caught sometimes.
Speaker 7: But you never were. And yet you know you made
that slip, that single time you slip, and you.
Speaker 4: Know as well as I do that it will destroy you.
Speaker 2: In three more days, my evidence will be complete. I
shall have you expose, brought to trial, condemned and hanged,
and you can do nothing whatever to prevent it. My
will is inflexible, and so is mine. Three days, do
you say, And before that out the end will come.
One or the other of us must die, sir. Quite so,
the five minutes is up, Professor, and I must rarely
ask you to excuse me in the pleasure of our conversation.
Speaker 4: I'm afraid that I've.
Speaker 6: Neglected business of importance elsewhere. Very well, then seems a
pity done what I could. I admit that it's been
an intellectual pleasure. Need to see the way in which
you grapple to this affair.
Speaker 3: But I tell you solemnly, shore our Holmes, that if
you are clever enough to bring destruction on me, you
may rest assured that.
Speaker 4: I shall do as much to you. You have paid
me several compliments during this indigue, Professor. Let me pay
you one in return. When I say that, if I were.
Speaker 2: Assured of the former eventuality, I would most cheerfully accept
the latter.
Speaker 4: I can promise you the one, but not the other.
Good day, mister Holmes. Oh your pistol, professor, you may
need it before Monday.
Speaker 3: Thank you, good day, Professor. I think good bye is
the word, mister Sherlock Holmes. Good bye.
Speaker 4: And so it was you, see Watson, that singular interview
with the greatest criminal of all time and his with
the greatest detective. Oh thank you, my dear fellow. But
but what are you going to do? Holmes? I told
you where we leave.
Speaker 2: For the continent Mariot is not the man to let
the grass grow under his feet. Already one or two
accidents have nearly befallen me to day upon myself.
Speaker 4: The police are gathering all my evidence against him. Everything
will be complete in three short days. Meanwhile, I can
only lie low. Are you able to leave your practice
to come with me? I've an accommodating neighbor. Ah, Dear Watson,
I knew I could count on you. All right. Then,
Now these are your instructions. Listen most carefully. Instruction at homes.
I assure you they are most necessary.
Speaker 2: To morrow morning, at eight forty five, you will take
a handsome cab.
Speaker 4: I'll arrange for one to call.
Speaker 2: No, No, you really mustter baby to the letter Watson,
you will leave the house alone to morrow morning and
take neither the first nor the second cab, which presents
itself at the rank very well Holmes, and the address
to the cabman written on a slip of paper, and
tell him not to throw it away, and I'll drive I.
Speaker 4: Take it to Victoria Station.
Speaker 2: On the contrary, you drive to the strand end of
the Lauda arcade I see, and then have your fare
ready and the instant your cab stops, pay him, and
dash through the arcade, timing yourself to reach the other
side at exactly a quarter past nine.
Speaker 4: Yes, but my dear, no man, listen carefully. It's vital.
Our lives depend upon it.
Speaker 2: When you get there, you'll find a broom standing close
to the curb, driven by a fellow with a black
cloak tipped with red. Say nothing, simply jump in and
he'll drive you to Victoria in time for the Continental Express.
Speaker 4: And where shall I meet you, Holmes, The.
Speaker 2: Second coach from the front of the train of first
class carriage reserved for us. Good night, Watson, and as
you value our lives, don't forget a single word.
Speaker 4: Of my instructions. No, no, no, of course, not home
until we meet tomorrow. Then until we meet.
Speaker 2: I was infected myself with something of his own inner
excitement and sense of menace. I took the hansom and
then the broom with its massive hooded driver. I said
nothing to him, as I was instructed, and he never
spoke to me. A moment later, we were rattling to
the station. There he left me and drove off without
a further glance, his face still hidden. There was no
sign of homes, and my heart sank miserably.
Speaker 4: I found our reserved carriage.
Speaker 2: But through some confusion, a decrepit old Italian priest was
sitting there. The moments came for departure, still I waited
by the window, in a chill of fear.
Speaker 4: Schools a signor pray girls. I'm sorry partly I don't
speak Italian nor th I was up him. Oh for stones.
Speaker 2: Man, this is no laughing matter, not yet anywhere death
you see.
Speaker 4: Stop the tray. It's Moriarty himself, the tall man. He'll
never do it. Stop the train, I said, you pull jewel.
Speaker 2: Even the great Moriarty himself is helpless against the British Railway.
Sister Watson, well, well it gives us an hour's respite
at least.
Speaker 4: But how how did he know where we were? By
watching you?
Speaker 2: I expect, but I did that thing you told me.
Wait Holmes, the driver of the brone.
Speaker 4: But what about him? He was muffled.
Speaker 2: I didn't see his face. It must have been one
of Moriarty's men. My dear Watson, it is nothing of
the sort. It is my brother Micraft, shaken for once
out of his arm chair at the Diogenes Club, gore.
Speaker 4: Heavens the thing is serious then, of course, but at least.
Speaker 2: We have an hour and I can use it to
take off this disguise and think things over. But we've
escaped him altogether, surely since the train connects with the boat.
Speaker 4: My dear fellow, you evidently don't realize even.
Speaker 2: Now that Moriarty is an opponent on practically the same
intellectual plane as myself.
Speaker 4: Do you really imagine if I were the pursuer, I.
Speaker 2: Will permit myself to be baffled by so slight an
obstacle as an express training What'll he do?
Speaker 4: Then? What I should do? Engage a special But.
Speaker 2: It'd be too late even then by no means we
stop at Canterbury, don't forget, And there was always a
delay of a quarter of an hour when the train.
Speaker 4: Gets to Dover.
Speaker 2: Oh, I so you'd almost think we were the criminals
to be chased like this. You mean that he'll catch
us after all them?
Speaker 4: I hope not. We shan't be there, Watson. Look look here, Holmes.
Speaker 2: I hate to grumble after all this time, but well there,
I do think you ought to tell me what you mean.
Heaven bless you for a start, and faithful friend, Watson,
I'm sorry, it's only a well, well, I don't want
to expose you to danger too, That's why I'm being
so mysterious.
Speaker 4: It's very simple, really.
Speaker 2: We shall just get out at Canterbury, indeed, and not
go on the continents after all, I suppose, yes, we.
Speaker 4: Must do there.
Speaker 2: We've no choice but to hide away until after Monday,
when the evidence will have been completed.
Speaker 4: You've not seen the papers this morning, I spoke.
Speaker 2: Oh really, Holmes, what time do you think I've had
for the one must try to make time for everything, Watson.
Speaker 4: You really should have read about Baker Street. What Baker Street?
Speaker 2: If they set fire to our rooms loud night, missus
Hudson was away from home, fortunately, and no one was
hurt iled there to say they thought I was there,
of course, so the thing's intolerable. Yes, only till Monday, Watson.
And by then we will be in Switzerland. We'll make
a cross country journey from Canterbury and take the other
boat from New headon to Dieppe. Unless, of course, right
our friend the Professor deduces what I would deduce and
gets off at Canterbury himself.
Speaker 4: Ah, that would truly be a Koude.
Speaker 2: Met he surely never would well, I rather doubted there
are limits even to his intelligence. No, no, I think
we are safe enough, old friend, And now there's time
for a pipe.
Speaker 4: I fancy won't you join me? Watson?
Speaker 2: And thus it befell. As we hid behind the pile
of luggage at Canton, we saw the single carriage of
the Special Gulf thundering past us, And so we made
our way across country and at last reached Switzerland. It
seemed we had luded him. To fill in every detail
of the final scene is hardly possible, since there was
no witness to it.
Speaker 4: Yet from a certain.
Speaker 2: Source that I cannot yet divouge, I do know something
of that last encounter.
Speaker 4: We wondered at.
Speaker 2: Our will through the lovely valley of the Rhone, and
made our way by way of Interlaken to the little
township of Milligan among the Alps.
Speaker 4: The fatal Monday.
Speaker 2: Came and went, and yet I was still aware of
a strange feebi of excitement in my companion.
Speaker 4: He was at.
Speaker 2: Times feverishly on the alert, then sinking into reverie, and
would smile strangely to himself. I went with him on
that last day of all on a visit to the
Falls of Reichenbach, for ever hallowed and yet cursed in
my memory, it's a fearful place, indeed, with a torrent
plunging far below into a tremendous abyss, a chasm lined
by cold, black, glistening rock high above.
Speaker 4: A pathway has been cut in the cliff face.
Speaker 2: To afford a better view, but it ends abruptly in
mid air, and the traveler has to return as he came.
We stood there gizsily, marveling at the great spectacle, and
on the instant came a message for me by a
village lad to say that an English lady back at
the hotel was seriously ill and.
Speaker 4: Needed my immediate attention. I turned to go.
Speaker 2: I looked back, and I saw Holmes leaning against a
rock with his arms folded, gazing down at the rush
of the waters.
Speaker 4: It was the last I saw.
Speaker 5: Is that you Watson back already, Moriarty well sherlack Cobs.
Speaker 3: You see, I found you after all, and alone alone,
as indeed you must be two.
Speaker 4: How if your.
Speaker 2: Confederates are all under lock and key I've heard from
Scotland yard skipped.
Speaker 4: I was too clever for them, Holmes.
Speaker 2: I don't doubt it, but I'm afraid your occupation's gone, Professor,
with your organization destroyed, unless you care to return to
your mathematics.
Speaker 4: It was not my intention. I have another, more immediate intention,
Sherlock Holmes. Are you prepared? But before we discuss that,
perhaps you extend me one small courtesy, Professor, most certainly,
what is it? My friend Watson? Professor, no doubt he
will be somewhat concerned. May I just take a moment
to scribble a note to him?
Speaker 3: Certainly we can fix the paper beneath my help and
stuff there, since it does not blow away, if they
take as long as you wish.
Speaker 4: That's very good of you.
Speaker 2: Please don't stop talking, Professor. I mastered long ago the
art of writing and conversing at the same time.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: You know, of course, that's the message to write a
doctor Watson as a false one.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, of course I knew it at once, and
that it could only come from one source.
Speaker 4: And yet you let him go.
Speaker 2: Yes, Professor, I let him go. I am not without
some affection for him.
Speaker 4: I do not wish to put his life in danger too.
Speaker 2: Besides, I have looked forward for a long time to
this final duel between us.
Speaker 3: I believe at Holmes, you are a very remarkable man
in many ways.
Speaker 4: In many ways, Sir, I'm proud to have known you.
Oh and I you Professor.
Speaker 2: There my letters done, then perhaps you will become I
don't have to place it as you suggested.
Speaker 4: Now, how shall it be? Mariati? I did not bring
a piscopal homes.
Speaker 2: Thank you your participlets meet to shame.
Speaker 4: Professor. There is my pistol. It goes into the falls,
hand to hand. Yes, goodbye, Professor Mariotti. Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes,
m M.
Speaker 2: The end, the end. When I returned to that broken pathway,
it was only too clear what had happened. It needed
no great application of Holmes's own methods of deduction.
Speaker 4: Two sets of footsteps to the.
Speaker 2: Verge, and none returning, locked in each other's arms as
they fought.
Speaker 4: They had gone down to the abyss.
Speaker 2: Only the letter the last greeting from my friends and comrade,
my dear dear Watson, he wrote, My dear dear Watson,
I scribble this through the courtesy of Professor Moriarty, who
awaits my convenience for the final discussion of those eternal
questions which lie before us.
Speaker 4: There can be but.
Speaker 2: One outcome, although I fear that it is as to cost,
which will give pain to my friends, and especially my
dear Watson. To you, I think, however, that I may
go so far as to sa say that I have
not lived entirely in vain. Pray tell Inspector Patterson of
the papers which he needs for a full conviction.
Speaker 4: Of the Moriarty gang are in Pigeonhole. M Before leaving England.
Speaker 2: I made every disposition of my property and handed it
over to my brother Mycroft. Pray give my affectionate greetings
to missus Watson, and remember me as I used to
be in our old days at Baker Street, pacing to
and fro with my violin and driving you to a
point of sad distraction. With that theme, you still were
good enough to say you loved believe me to be
my very dear good fellow.
Speaker 8: Yours most sincerely, Sherlock Holmes, Yours most sincerely, Sherlock Holmes,
and so he perished, whom I shall ever regard as
the best and wisest man that I have ever known.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, based on the original stories
of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dramatized ANEW by
John Kerr Cross stars Sir John Gilgood as Sherlock Holmes,
Sir Ralph Richardson as Doctor Watson, and today Orson Wells
as Professor Moriarty. Produced by Harry Allen Towers, I beg
Speaker 6: My son and I know