Speaker 1: What a magnificent sound.
Speaker 2: That is the sound of tradition and order and stability.
Sit down, Miss Baxter, mister lucis down, splendid. Now does
your mistress know you're here? No, sir, nor her distinguished husband.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I shouldn't be doing things behind their backs like.
Speaker 1: This, quite right? But you are? You answered my invitation.
Speaker 4: I didn't have.
Speaker 3: Much choice, did I? How did you find out? Are
you really gonna tell them?
Speaker 1: Oh? No, Miss Baxter.
Speaker 5: Annie, you mustn't worry.
Speaker 6: Your employers certainly won't learn your unsaving a little secret
from me, assuming, of course, that we can come to
a suitable understanding you and I.
Speaker 3: I haven't got any money.
Speaker 5: Please don't insult my intelligence.
Speaker 7: Well then, what.
Speaker 3: You want me to do something against the Master and mistress?
Speaker 1: No? So you do have some brains, splendid that will
make things so much easier.
Speaker 8: The Second Stain by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, dramatized for
radio by Bert Cools, with Clive Medicine as Sherlock Holmes
and Michael Williams as doctor John Watson, and featuring Jeremy
Clyde as the Foreign Secretary, Sabina Franklin as Lady Hilda
Trelawney Hope and David march As the Prime Minister the
second stain.
Speaker 1: More coffee, Thank you.
Speaker 4: Client.
Speaker 1: This time of the morning.
Speaker 2: Crime doesn't operate to a timetable, Watson. I think how
boring it would be if it did.
Speaker 1: That's so beautifully tidy, old Who do you suppose it is?
Speaker 2: It wasn't really why speculated? In thirty seconds?
Speaker 1: We'll know. Let's have a look.
Speaker 5: Probably some routine little problem.
Speaker 2: H plain enough carriage now, illustrious clients are excite your
readers this time I'm.
Speaker 1: Afraid come in missus Hudson. Here do you have for
us this fine morning?
Speaker 9: The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary?
Speaker 5: Gentleman?
Speaker 4: And now I've told you there's nothing to say.
Speaker 1: Move along there, clear the paper? Clear a way.
Speaker 4: Are morning constable?
Speaker 10: Inspeculus stride?
Speaker 4: So what have you got for me? When I discovered
that the document had been stolen, mister Holmes, which was
at eight o'clock this morning, I had once informed the
Prime Minister.
Speaker 10: It was his suggestion that we've come to you.
Speaker 11: Have you told the police nursa to inform the police must,
in the long run, be to inform the public.
Speaker 4: Which is what we particularly want to avoid.
Speaker 1: Why is that foreign secretary?
Speaker 4: Because the item in question has immense importance. Its theft
might very easily lead to a political crisis affecting the
whole of Europe. Good God, well, yes, sir, come on,
then let's have it.
Speaker 10: Not much to tell you yet, Inspector.
Speaker 7: He was quite a distinguished gent, seemingly wealthy, of course,
something of a musician mid.
Speaker 4: To third All right, Barrett, get to the interesting bit.
Who stuck the dagger in his chest?
Speaker 11: Unless the document can be recovered with the utmost secrecy,
that it may as well not be recovered at.
Speaker 2: All, because even the simple knowledge of its existence could.
Speaker 1: Be damaging, catastrophic.
Speaker 2: Can understand now, mister Trerowney, hope tell me exactly the
circumstances under which this document disappeared.
Speaker 10: That could be done in a very few words, mister Holmes.
Speaker 4: The letter, It's a letter, it is, sir, a letter
of such importance that I never left it in my
office safe overnight, but took it across each evening to
my house, Whitehall Terraces, doctor of number nine Whitehall Terrorists.
Speaker 1: Thank you you kevit.
Speaker 4: It were exactly in my personal dispatch box, locked and
the only key is here on my watch chain.
Speaker 1: And in which room was the box left?
Speaker 4: Our bedroom? The letter was there last night. I am
certain that you actually saw it. I did, doctor, I
opened the box while I was dressing for dinner. It
was there this morning it was gone.
Speaker 1: What time did you die?
Speaker 10: Half past seven?
Speaker 1: How long was it before you went to bed?
Speaker 4: My wife had gone to the theater. I waited up
for her. It was half past eleven before we went
to our room.
Speaker 1: Then for four hours the dispatch box was unguarded.
Speaker 4: Well, no one is permitted to enter that room save
the housemaid in the morning, and my valet and my
wife's maid during the rest of the day. They are
all trusted servants. So did And besides, none of them
could possibly have known there was anything more valuable than.
Speaker 10: Usual in the box?
Speaker 5: Who did know of the letter?
Speaker 10: And no one in the house. Surely your wife knew
loose Until this morning.
Speaker 4: I haven't breathed one word to my wife about this matter.
Speaker 5: Could she have guessed?
Speaker 11: No, mister Holmes, she could not have guessed. And to
answer your question, besides the members of the cabinet, there
are two, possibly three departmental officials who know of the
letter no one else in England abroad. We believe that
no one has seen it save the man who wrote it.
Speaker 2: Well, I must ask you more, particularly what this singular
document is.
Speaker 11: The envelope is a long, thin one of pale blue color.
There is a seal of red wax stamped with a
crouching lion.
Speaker 1: It is a dress, Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: Interesting as these details are, my inquiries must go more
to the root of things.
Speaker 1: What was the letter that.
Speaker 11: Is a state secret of the utmost importance. I cannot
tell you, nor do I see that it is necessary.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, gentlemen, I can't help you. Any continuation of
this interview would be a waste of time.
Speaker 5: Good morning, I'm sorry, Inspector.
Speaker 10: That's all right, missus Springle. I understand.
Speaker 1: You been housekeeper here at.
Speaker 9: Nine years sir. He was such a good man. Who
would want to do such a terrible thing.
Speaker 10: That's what I want to find out.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: What time did you go to bed last night?
Speaker 9: At half past nine?
Speaker 1: Sir?
Speaker 10: Were there any callers after that?
Speaker 9: I didn't hear anyone, sir, No one at all.
Speaker 11: Mister Holmes, I am not accustomed to being treated in
this manner. We must accept your terms.
Speaker 10: You are right.
Speaker 11: It is unreasonable to expect you to act unless we
give you our entire confidence.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, sir, I rely on your honor
and that of your colleague. You may safely trust us.
Speaker 11: Prime Minister, I appeal to your patriotism too. I could
not imagine a greater misfortune for the country than that
this affair should come at. The letter is from a
certain foreign potentate who has been ruffled by some of
our recent colonial developments. It was written hurriedly and on
his own responsibility.
Speaker 1: It is so.
Speaker 11: Provocative that its publication would lead to such a ferment gentlemen,
within a week, this country would be at war.
Speaker 7: I've been his valet for three years. This is a
hell of a thing. Get on, well did you what
are you saying?
Speaker 10: Nothing? Answer the question?
Speaker 7: Yeah, we've got one very well. He trusted me. He
used to leave me in charge of the house when
he went abroad.
Speaker 4: Did that happen often?
Speaker 5: He used to go to France affair bit Paris, you.
Speaker 4: Know, and you had the run of this place while
he was gone. Where were you last night?
Speaker 7: A miss Smith visiting some people?
Speaker 4: What time did you leave?
Speaker 7: About half past ten?
Speaker 4: And you didn't get here until gone midnight.
Speaker 7: It was a fine evening I walked.
Speaker 4: When you saw that the police were here, you hesitated
at the end of the street.
Speaker 7: Why because I, as it says it, it's it's only natural,
isn't it?
Speaker 4: Is it now?
Speaker 11: So this letter may well mean the expenditure of one
thousand million pounds and the lives of hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 10: Of men, and I have lost it.
Speaker 11: No one can blame you, my dear.
Speaker 1: Fellow Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: If this letter would have been published, would.
Speaker 11: Gain mister Holmes. The whole of Europe is an armed camp.
There is a double league which makes a fair balance
of military power.
Speaker 1: Great Britain holds the scales.
Speaker 11: If we were driven into war against one can federacy,
it would assure the supremacy of the other.
Speaker 10: And whether they joined in the war or now, then.
Speaker 1: It's in the interests of the enemies of this potentate.
They want to publish the letter to make a breach
between his country and us.
Speaker 2: Exactly so, Doctor, And if it did fall into the
hands of an enemy, where would this document be sent to.
Speaker 1: Any of the great chancellors of Europe?
Speaker 4: It's probably speeding there now as fast as steam can
take it.
Speaker 11: Now, mister Holmes, you are in full possession of the facts.
What course do you recommend?
Speaker 2: This letter was taken yesterday evening between seven thirty and
eleven thirty, probably near the former How can you say
that if heef obviously knew it was there and would
naturally want as a curate as soon as possible, and
after the theft, no one has any reason to retain it,
As you say, Foreign Secretary, It's surely been passed rapidly
from hand to hand on to those who can make
use of it. What chance have we now to overtake
it or even to trace it?
Speaker 11: Your reasoning is perfectly logical, mister Holmes, but there must
be something we can do.
Speaker 2: You think that unless this document has recovered there.
Speaker 1: Will be war?
Speaker 4: I think it is very probable, then, sir, prepare for
war all right now?
Speaker 5: Everyone together, the US.
Speaker 1: Good?
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 4: That blood's made a pretty mess of the carpet. Get
yourself home, Barrett, you sure, sir, Yes, go on, I'll
hold the fort here till the next shift comes on.
Speaker 10: I want to have a look around anyway.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 5: Why do you think he was killed?
Speaker 1: Inspector? Well, not for money.
Speaker 10: Some of these weapons are worth a mint.
Speaker 1: Funny so hobby collecting knives.
Speaker 4: The ways of the idol rich we'll never fathom, M Barrett.
They're a different race.
Speaker 1: I don't think they expected you to be quite that pessimistic, oher.
Speaker 2: The second editions situation is desperate, yes, indeed, yes, but
not hopeless. No, no, no, I may have been over hasty.
I think about the chain.
Speaker 1: Yes, the thief.
Speaker 2: Now, let's presume for the moment that the thief is
one of the Foreign Secretary's household, all trusted servants.
Speaker 5: The thief, the butler, say.
Speaker 1: Has the letter? Where would he take it?
Speaker 2: Any one of the great chancelleries of your Oh yes, yes,
but our butler could hardly deliver it himself. What then,
where he'd go? Or he'd be instructed to go to
an agent? What sort of agent? An international agent, the
sort that specializes in precisely this type of affair, a
spy exactly. If someone like that has it, it's just
possible that he hasn't passed it on yet. Even so,
what could you do if we're not allowed to involve
the police, international agents? This is all a question of
money with those men, listens, I have the British Treasury
behind me. You'll buy it, even if it means another
penny on the income tax.
Speaker 1: Small enough price to avoid a war.
Speaker 2: Indeed, yes, there are only three agents in London capable
of playing so bold a game. I'll go around and
check on each of them. Oberstein and a Rosier and
Eduardo Lucas.
Speaker 1: Is that EDWARDO. Lucas of Godolphin Street, Westminster? Yeah, you
won't see him. Why not? He was murdered last night,
stabbed through the heart with an Indian dagger.
Speaker 3: H I'm all right, yes, yes, mister Benton.
Speaker 4: Ladyship will be back any minute.
Speaker 1: What in the world is the matter with you? The
wrong was in a state of wild disorder, and that
you're being all swept to one side, and one chair
lying on its back in the center. Beside this chair
and still grasping one of its legs lay the unfortunate
tenant of the house.
Speaker 2: What do you make of it? It's an amazing coincidence incident.
The events are connected. They must be connected. It remains
for us to find the connection. But by now the
police must know everything. They know all they've seen at
Cadolphin Street. They know nothing of Whitehall, terrors, of course,
not unless they've actually found the letter at Luca's house.
Speaker 12: Missus Hudson another visitor, gentlemen, her card.
Speaker 1: Thank you m Holmes, Lady Hilda for Dawney Hope.
Speaker 2: Missus Hudson, please ask her ladyship if she'll be kind
enough to step up, Yes, sir, modest little apartment, certainly
being honored to day. What do you know of her?
Only what old incol knows. The youngest daughter of the
Duke of Bellminster married Hope some five years ago, big
society wedding naturally, naturally and the loveliest woman in London.
Speaker 1: So they say, well, he has your chance to verify
the rumors.
Speaker 9: Lady Hilda Trelawney.
Speaker 5: Hope, gentlemen, good morning, madam.
Speaker 2: I am Sherlock Holmes, my colleague, Doctor John Watson, Your ladyship, gentlemen.
Speaker 9: Has my husband been here?
Speaker 5: Yes, Madam, he has. Won't you will sit down and
tell us what you want?
Speaker 1: Oh? Allow me? Thank you no, as you prefer.
Speaker 9: Mister Holmes. Dr Watson. I will speak frankly to you
in the hope that you will speak frankly in return.
There is complete confidence between my husband and me on
all matters save one. That one is politics. Indeed, now
I am aware that there was a most deplorable occurrence
in our house last night. I know that a paper
has disappeared. My husband has told me that much, but
he refuses to take me into his complete confidence. I
beg you to tell me everything.
Speaker 5: Your ladyship asks the impossible.
Speaker 9: You must tell me what has happened and what it
will lead to? What was this paper that was stolen?
Speaker 2: If your husband sees fit to keep you in the dark,
is it for us to tell you? We have only
learned the truth and of the pledge of professional secrecy.
Speaker 9: Mister Holmes, I assure you that your client's interests would
best be served by taking me into his complete confidence,
if only.
Speaker 1: He would see that.
Speaker 9: Gentlemen, you must.
Speaker 1: Tell me, madam. It is your husband you must ask.
Speaker 9: I have asked him. I come to you only as
a last resource.
Speaker 1: We cannot help you.
Speaker 9: Very well, but without telling me anything definite. Mister Holmes,
would you enlighten me on one point?
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 9: Is my husband's political career likely to suffer through this incident.
Speaker 2: Unless it's set right, it may certainly have a very
unfortunate effect.
Speaker 9: In the first shock at this disaster. My husband did
let one thing slip? Am I correct in thinking that
there will also be terrible public consequences.
Speaker 1: If he said so, I certainly cannot deny it.
Speaker 9: Then I will take out no more of your time.
Do nothing badly of me. All I wish is to
share my husband's anxieties.
Speaker 1: Your ladyshiit.
Speaker 9: I beg you say nothing to my husband of this visit?
Speaker 5: What the fair sex is your department? What did you
really want? Look?
Speaker 1: Inspector?
Speaker 7: How much longer are you going to keep us hanging
around in here? I've got things to be seen too,
and so have I. There's so much to do people,
to inform arrangements, to make you know.
Speaker 1: How it is.
Speaker 4: Oh, I know how it is written. I know exactly
how it is. What do you mean?
Speaker 10: This is what I mean?
Speaker 1: You've been going through my stuff. You've no right, I've
every right.
Speaker 4: Nice piece of workmanship, this inlaid mahogany silver class, elegant
spot of lining and a very handsome razor bit out
of your class, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Listen?
Speaker 4: I can explain, Uh, perhaps you can also explain the
monarch inside the lid? E. L. Eduardo Lucas, your late employer.
Speaker 9: Then spitting of making a mistake.
Speaker 4: Please, missus Pringle, I'm sure he can answer for himself.
Will Mitton Not quite so? Cockshawn?
Speaker 10: How are we?
Speaker 4: He gave it to me?
Speaker 7: It was a present.
Speaker 4: This isn't the only thing we found, cup links, typings,
quite a nice little haul. They was all presents, every
one of them presents. You help yourself too when your
master's back was turned handy were they? There's drift to Paris?
Until he caught you at it?
Speaker 5: No, what you talking about?
Speaker 4: You want me to spell it out to you. Mister
Lucas found out just how light fingered you were, and
he had it out with you last night in his
study with all those knives so conveniently to hand.
Speaker 1: This is insane.
Speaker 4: There was a row, It turned into a fight, and.
Speaker 10: That was that.
Speaker 1: She wants to share her husband's worry. It's naturally enough,
surely it's the beneath the.
Speaker 2: Surface, excitement, restlessness barely suppressed.
Speaker 1: She was certainly much moved. I don't think I go
further than that.
Speaker 2: I remember she comes of a cast who didn't likely
show emotional Come on, under the circumstance.
Speaker 1: You're deserved.
Speaker 5: Of course, she deliberately stood with her back to the light.
Speaker 1: Well, she didn't want me to see her expressions. You
could be right now. The motives of women are so inscrutable.
Speaker 2: Their most trivial action can mean volumes, and their most
extraordinary conduct depend on a hairpin or a pair of
curling tongs.
Speaker 1: Now we build on such a quicksand sh here we
are good Dolphin Street.
Speaker 4: In aspect illustrade, mister Holmes. Doctor, good afternoon, I inspector.
Busy doctor, if you don't mind me saying so hardly
in your line this one, mister Holmes, Oh, perfectly straightforward,
the whole being solved.
Speaker 1: You have the murderer.
Speaker 4: The official force don't always need assistance in these matters.
You know, we're perfectly capable of managing on our own.
Speaker 1: Of course you are an inspector, thank you. Doctor.
Speaker 4: Yes, mister Holmes, I've got my man. No doubt you'll
be able to read all about it in the papers this.
Speaker 1: Evening, no doubt.
Speaker 4: Now, gentlemen, I must be about my business and this
house must be secured. So unless you've got some particular
reason to be interested, just curiosity. Eh, Things a bit
slack at present, are they well, No doubt they'll pick
up before too long. If anything out of the common
does come my way, I'll let you tell me just one.
Speaker 1: Thing, if you would.
Speaker 4: What's that?
Speaker 2: Have you had time to go through the dead man's papers?
Speaker 4: I've made time, standard procedure.
Speaker 1: Did you find anything interesting?
Speaker 10: Not a thing.
Speaker 4: It's all as dull as ditchwater.
Speaker 1: Oh look, I know things are looking bad, but you
really please don't tell me to relax. I was about
to say eat something.
Speaker 13: No, no, not yet.
Speaker 1: You haven't touched the thing for a day and a half.
Making yourself ill isn't going to help, and neither is that?
Not that they breaks you're getting through them?
Speaker 7: Hm?
Speaker 1: You have not heard any news at all? No, nothing.
The Lucas case still in all the papers.
Speaker 5: Died two days ago and they've gotten pones.
Speaker 1: Do you want to hear or I've seen it.
Speaker 2: I've seen it astraight as let the ballots go. Lack
of evidence, So surely you weren't surprised.
Speaker 1: No, no, not at all. Do you see that they've
gone through all of Lucas effects, Yes, and found nothing
out of the ordinary. Yes, I've seen it all. There
is something new this morning, information that came out of
the inquest. Huh, they've not uncovered as true occupation.
Speaker 2: No, I thought, not too well concealed, buried away like
a glittering surface, And glittering is right.
Speaker 1: The deceased was a keen student of international politics, a
remarkable linguist, a traveler, and one of the finest amateur
tenors in the country. His habits were regular, his personality charming,
his conduct inoffensive. His relations with women, that's what his
relations with women appear to have been. Promiscuous but superficial.
Mister Lucas was known as an indefatigable gossip, a tray
that must have contributed greatly to his appeal for the
fair sex. Indefatigable gossip is that relevant? Perhaps? Perhaps? Annie?
Speaker 9: Where are my gloves here?
Speaker 3: My lady?
Speaker 12: What do you mean by keeping me waiting?
Speaker 9: Are stupid?
Speaker 1: Girl?
Speaker 9: Not theeze? The plain white? What's the matter with you lately?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I've not been well, that's all. I'm sorry.
Speaker 9: For pity's sake. Stop apologizing every five minutes, ladyship.
Speaker 3: Shall I get the other gloves?
Speaker 12: No?
Speaker 9: No, these will have to do. And in a hurry.
Now listen carefully tell Clinton that if my husband returns
from the house before I'm back, he's to say I'll
be in before nine. You understand before nine. Yes, your ladyship,
with the love of Heaven, try to put yourself together. Girl,
whatever's the matter with you? Do something about it.
Speaker 2: Now you realize this that by rights I shouldn't be
doing this, but I can't see that it'll do any harm.
Speaker 1: Now this is the room where it happened. You've no
need to pray. He's not here anymore, but everything else
is just the way it was ready. Well, then you
look at this. I it's quite a sight, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Who would have thought the poor soul had so much
blood in him?
Speaker 1: Oh? My god, miss.
Speaker 5: Miss Oh my good god.
Speaker 1: M hm. Sensational development in the Lucas case. What is it?
Killer identified?
Speaker 5: Who was it?
Speaker 1: Anyone? Rather than no, I'm afraid not. Was his wife
his wife?
Speaker 5: I thought it was unmarried.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did his host of lady friends. He was
married in Paris under the name of Angri fournee on
double life. He remember he was all from abroad for
months at a stretch. It seems that Madam Furney has
just been diagnosed as insane. Wait, yes, mania of a
dangerous and perm and in form attacks of Frenzy. The
French police discovered that she just returned from a visit
to London, and apparently she was actually seen outside the
house here there see, h doesn't help verse much. Not
surely it's final. As regards the man's death, A man's death.
Speaker 2: Is a mere incident, the trivial episode poems. No man's
death is trivial or in comparison with our real task
to tlice this document and prevent a catastrophe. Only one
important thing has happened in the last three days, and
that is that nothing has happened. I get reports hourly
from my craft. There's no sign of trouble anywhere in Europe.
Speaker 1: So at least we know that the letter can't be loose.
But if it isn't loose, then where can it be?
Who has it? Why is it held back? And that's
the question that beats in my brain like a hammer.
So do you think it was a coincidence? After all
that Lucas was killed on the night of the theft?
Speaker 2: And did the letter reach him? If it did, why
isn't it amongst his papers? Did this mad wife of
his carried off with her. Is it in a house
in Paris?
Speaker 1: And perhaps where's you go to Paris?
Speaker 5: How could I search for it?
Speaker 2: With that arousing the suspicions of the French police, this
is a case for the law is as dangerous to
us as the criminals are.
Speaker 1: It does seem as if every man's hand is against us.
Speaker 2: But the interests at stake are colossal, Watson. If I
bring this to a successful conclusion, it will certainly be
the crowning glory of my career.
Speaker 4: Yes, missus Hudson.
Speaker 9: Another telegram, mister Holmes.
Speaker 1: H well, there's news from the front homees. That's an
extremely bad taste. I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: It's from the strade, he says, he's found something that
will interest us.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a trifle, really, but the sort of thing
you take an interest in, queer, you know.
Speaker 1: Freakish even.
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 1: Inspector?
Speaker 4: Now you know after a murder, we're always careful to
keep things in their exact position. Nothing's been moved a
constable here day and night, standard proceedures. Yes, well know
that our French friends have solved it for us. The
whole matters close. So we thought we could tie the
up a bit and when we lifted up this carpet.
Do you know what we found?
Speaker 1: What did you find?
Speaker 4: You'll never guess in a hundred years.
Speaker 1: Tell us, inspector.
Speaker 4: I'll show you doctor. Look at the blood stain on
the carpet there.
Speaker 5: What about it?
Speaker 1: Well, a good deal of blood must have soaked through,
mustn't it? Eh?
Speaker 4: Of course, and you'll be surprised to see this. There's
no corresponding stain on the parquet underneath.
Speaker 1: No stain at the bottom of the carpet is marked
as the top. There's got to be a stay. Now,
I'll show you the explanational stain on the woodwork.
Speaker 4: Look, there is a second stain, but it's over here
under this corner. What do you make of that first?
Speaker 1: Simple enough, the two stains did correspond. But the carpet's
been turned round through ninety degrees exactly. But what I
want to know is this, Who shifted the carpet and why.
Speaker 2: Mister Holmes astrated the constable outside?
Speaker 5: Has he been on Deucy there all the time?
Speaker 4: Him and one other in shifts.
Speaker 2: This is an excellent chance to talk to him, interrogate him.
Speaker 1: Do you think he moved the carpet?
Speaker 2: I think he knows who did tell him. You know
that someone's been in here. Say that a full confession
is his only chance of forgiveness by George.
Speaker 4: If he does know him. Thank you, mister Holmes.
Speaker 1: Now watch her now the carpet.
Speaker 5: What are you looking for?
Speaker 1: This had and a look inside? No?
Speaker 9: No, but is it there?
Speaker 1: Watson, of course not. Quick spet it back again.
Speaker 4: Chiefs get in here on, Matt person, These gentlemen hear
about your inexcusable conduct.
Speaker 1: I meant no harm, sir.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the young woman came to the door last evening,
missed the house.
Speaker 1: She did, and then.
Speaker 5: We got talking talking.
Speaker 1: Indeed, it's lonesome when you're on duty here all day, lonesome,
Good God, about what happened? Then, cunstorble.
Speaker 2: She wanted to see where the crime was done. She'd
read about it in the paper, She said, I saw
no harm in letting her have a peep.
Speaker 1: Who was she? Do you know? I don't know the name, sir.
Speaker 2: She was answering an advertisement about typewriting and came to
the wrong number.
Speaker 1: What was she like?
Speaker 2: She was very respectable, well spoken young woman, soirn not
a lady, not from her dress or her speech.
Speaker 1: So no a servant. Perhaps if she was, she'd.
Speaker 2: Be from an uncommon fine house and in a good position. Ay, sir,
that would be my thought. What happened when you shirt
her in here? Well, sir, when she saw that bloodstain
on the carpet down, she dropped and lee as.
Speaker 1: If she were dead.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you, no doubt ran round the corner to
the public house the ivy plant, I, sir, m for
some medicinal brandy.
Speaker 1: It seemed the only thing to do so at the time.
Speaker 5: Only by the.
Speaker 2: Time I brought it back, the young woman had recovered
and was off ashamed of herself.
Speaker 1: I dare say, didn't want to feace me.
Speaker 2: Now, Concoral Macphurston, did you move the carpet? I straightened
it out a touch, yes, sir, you see it had
got a bit rumpled.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course it had, Thank you, constable, sir.
Speaker 4: Let this be a lesson to you that you can't
deceive me. Macpherson, no doubt you thought that your breach
of duty would never be discovered. But a mere glance
at that carpet told me that someone had been let
into this room.
Speaker 5: A mere glance, Thank you, lestrade.
Speaker 1: You were quite right. It was most interesting. Yes, indeed,
my pleasure, gentlemen, and that's for you McPhy.
Speaker 4: It's lucky that nothing was taken, or you'll find yourself
in queer straight to spectr. No one else gets through
this door without my permission. Exact, clear, perfectly clear, sir.
Speaker 2: Good well, if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, nurse of course,
good day, Lustrator, Constable McPherson, Sir, a private word, if
you please, Well, my friend, you'll be relieved to hear
that there will.
Speaker 5: Be no war, my dear homes.
Speaker 1: What's more, with a.
Speaker 2: Little tax and management on our past, nobody will be
a penny the worse. But what might have been a
very ugly incident, you've solved it.
Speaker 9: Yes I have, mister Holmes.
Speaker 1: Dr Watson, Lady Hilda.
Speaker 9: Mister Holmes, this is most ungenerous of you. I explained
that I wanted to keep my connection with you a secret,
and yet you openly come and visit me.
Speaker 12: In my own house.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Madam, I had no possible alternative. Indeed, indeed, I've
been commissioned to recover this immensely important paper. I must
therefore ask you to be kind enough to place it
in my hands.
Speaker 9: You insult me, mister Holmes.
Speaker 5: Come come, madam, it's useless.
Speaker 1: Give up the letter.
Speaker 9: The butler shall show you up.
Speaker 5: Do not ring, Lady Hilda.
Speaker 2: If you'll do, then all my efforts to avoid a
scandal will be frustrated. Give up the letter and all
will be set right. If you don't, you must inevitably
be exposed.
Speaker 9: You're trying to frighten me. It's not a very manly
thing to come here and browbeat a woman.
Speaker 1: Lady Hild, won't you sit down?
Speaker 5: Excellent advice, Madam.
Speaker 2: I will not speak until you do sit down. I
will give you five minutes.
Speaker 1: One is enough.
Speaker 2: I know that you removed the document from your husband's
despatch box and gave it to Eduardo Lucas, just as
I also know that, secure in the knowledge of his death,
you returned to his room last night and dropped the
letter back again from the hiding place under the car.
Your your plan for getting back into the house was ingenious.
Congratulations on your performance.
Speaker 9: I tell you I haven't the remotest idea.
Speaker 1: Loveliest woman in London.
Speaker 2: Mister Holmes, your picture is in all the society journals,
most convenient, constable Macpherson recognized you at once.
Speaker 1: Lady Hilda, We've no desire to bring trouble to you.
Please be frank with us, get your only chance.
Speaker 9: I tell you again, you're under some absurd delusion.
Speaker 2: Oh then I'm sorry for you, Lady Hilda. I've done
my bess, but it was in vain. Is your husband
at home?
Speaker 9: No, I expect him at one with the Prime Minister.
Speaker 5: Ten minutes.
Speaker 1: We shall wait.
Speaker 9: Yes, yes, you're right. You're right in every detail. Now,
how in the world you found out? You can't know
the relief to admit it at last. You may believe
this or not, gentlemen, as you choose. But it was
for my husband.
Speaker 1: I did it.
Speaker 12: I'd cut off my right hand before I gave him
a moment.
Speaker 9: Of sorrow for Iven's sake. Don't tell him it would
break his heart.
Speaker 1: Where is the letter.
Speaker 9: Would to Heaven? I've never seen it here it is.
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Where's the dispatch box? Does your husband have.
Speaker 5: It with him? No?
Speaker 9: Not this morning. It's still in our bedroom.
Speaker 1: Take us there.
Speaker 5: Quickly.
Speaker 1: Give me the key, mister, you break up key, the
one you used before.
Speaker 9: I threw it away.
Speaker 12: I couldn't better have it in my.
Speaker 13: Possession, madam, What's I don't know if I can do this,
be so good as to give a check all the time.
Speaker 7: For me.
Speaker 1: Just gone seven minutes to one.
Speaker 5: Very well.
Speaker 2: Lay hill, mister Holmes. Some details of this affair still
not clear to me. I presume that Lucas was blackmailing you.
Speaker 9: Yes, that was the exact case. He had a letter
of mine, a very foolish letter written before my marriage
to a friend. I meant no harm, but my husband
would have thought it criminal. Six minute times when Lucas
contacted me, I thought he wanted money.
Speaker 1: I was wrong.
Speaker 12: It was to be in exchange. If I gave him.
Speaker 9: Arthur's letter, he would return mine. I should dearly love
to know how that man laid his hands on it.
Speaker 2: In cases of this sort, I'm afraid it usually threw
someone on the household staff.
Speaker 9: I would have sworn to their loyalty.
Speaker 2: It's possible that Lucas had some hold over one of them.
Any servants shown signs of unusual behavior recently.
Speaker 12: My God, Annie, my maid, I've had to speak to
her more than once.
Speaker 2: If it was her, she might well have thought that
the murder inquiry would uncover her connection with Lucas.
Speaker 1: She's probably been terrified.
Speaker 9: How dare she do this to me?
Speaker 5: Listen, as I said, to protect some secret of her own.
Speaker 2: Yes, the fell of scandal has as powerful for a
maid as it is for a mistress, perhaps more so, hardly, sir,
A serving girl dismissed without a character will never get
another place until monk shall be on the streets, and
inside twelve shall probably be dead. And miss Annie stole
your letter to buy her own safety, just as you
stole your husband.
Speaker 9: I tell you I didn't do it for myself. I
did it for Arthur. If Lucas had sent him my letter,
he would have allowed himself only one course of action,
whatever the public consequences, our marriage would have been at
an end, and with it his honor, perhaps even his career.
Speaker 1: What was I to do? Take him into your confidence?
I couldn't you get that? You look at key.
Speaker 9: I took an impression of my husband's. Lucas told me
what to do. He had the key maid, He arranged everything.
He knew exactly when the letter would be there and
what it.
Speaker 12: Would look like.
Speaker 1: Yes, he had an agent to the Foreign Office.
Speaker 9: And he boasted of it, called the government fools that
they could be so easily deceived. But he assured me
that no harm would come to my husband.
Speaker 1: And I took the letter.
Speaker 9: It was simple.
Speaker 1: When you returned with it to Lucas.
Speaker 12: We made the exchange.
Speaker 9: It was all very formal. Then as I opened the
door to leave, it was like some fearful dream. A
woman screaming in French. I turned away from her, and
I saw Lucas just closing the secret compartment under the carpet.
Speaker 12: That's how I knew where it was.
Speaker 9: Then the woman pushed past me into the room and
I ran. I was happy I had my letter, if
I'd known what the future would bring.
Speaker 1: Clearly, your happiness didn't last long.
Speaker 9: The next morning, I realized that all I'd done was
exchange one trouble for another.
Speaker 1: When your husband confided in you about the theft of the.
Speaker 9: Letter, yes, his reaction was so terrible. I knew that
Lucas had lied to me. The little you told me
confirmed it. My husband's entire future, perhaps even the safety
of the realm, was at stake, and I was the cause.
All I could think of was getting the letter back.
I was terrified that Lucas would pause it on or
sell it or do whatever he planned to do, and.
Speaker 1: Then presumably you read of his death.
Speaker 12: God help me, I rejoiced at it.
Speaker 9: I knew that the letter must still be where he'd
hidden it.
Speaker 12: All I had to do was get into that room.
Speaker 5: Huh all you succeeded brilliantly.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 9: I got the letter. Then I realized the truth.
Speaker 1: What use was it?
Speaker 9: I couldn't return it, I couldn't confess, I couldn't do anything.
The whole thing had been in vain.
Speaker 1: No, Lady Hilda, if you hadn't gone back there, if
you hadn't replaced the carpet so carelessly and your rush,
Holmes never would have seen the truth. So now, God willing,
we can sell everything right time time, two minutes to one.
Mister Holmes, fear not, your ladyship.
Speaker 11: Ah, mister Holmes, sir, what you are saying is preposter
I think not, Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: I am convinced that the letter has never left this house.
Speaker 1: Preposterous. If it had, surely it would have been made
public by now.
Speaker 4: But why should anyone take it in order to keep
it here?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 10: Thank you fat here you please.
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that anyone did.
Speaker 5: Take it, then how could it leave the dispatch box.
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that it did its homes.
Speaker 10: This joking is very ill.
Speaker 1: Time have you examined the box since the.
Speaker 2: Theft, Well, it hasn't been necessary. You may conceivably have
over looked impossible. I've known such things happen. I presume
there are other papers in.
Speaker 10: There, but you're saying it could have got mixed in
with them. This is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Well it's easily checked.
Speaker 5: Hope, Prime Minister.
Speaker 4: Now, letter from Lord Morrow, report was Charles Hardy.
Speaker 14: Memorandum from Belgrade, note on the Russo German gram taxes,
letter from Madrid from Lord Flowers, Prime Minister.
Speaker 1: I'm mister, this is.
Speaker 5: It and the letter is intact.
Speaker 1: Hope. I congratulate your.
Speaker 10: Mister Moss. You're a wizard, a sorcerer. How did you
know it was there?
Speaker 1: Because I knew it was nowhere else? Hilda.
Speaker 4: Gentlemen, you must excuse me, Hilda, Hilda.
Speaker 6: Hil my dear.
Speaker 11: Mister Holmes, Sir, there is more in this than meets
the eye.
Speaker 5: How did the letter get back in the box?
Speaker 1: Where did you find it? Prime Minister? We also have
our diplomatic secrets.
Speaker 8: In the second stain Sherlock Holmes was played by Clive
Medicine and Doctor Watson by My Williams, with David March
as the Prime Minister, Jeremy Clyde as the Foreign Secretary,
and Sabina Franklin as Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope. Missus Hudson
was played by Joan Matheson, Inspector Lestrade by Donald g
Eduardo Lucas by Keith Drinkle, his Valet Mitten by James Telfer,
Annie Baxter by Melanie Hudson, Missus Springle by Jill Graham,
Constable Barrett by Matthew Morgan, and Fenton the Butler by
John Fleming. Other parts were played by members of the cast.
The violinist was Leonard Friedman. The second Stain was dramatized
for radio by Bert Cools and directed by Enid Williams.