Speaker 1: From London, we present The Blanche Sojoa, a play for
radio by Michael Hardwick, based.
Speaker 2: On the short story by Sir Arthur Kernand Doyle, The
Blanche Sojoa.
Speaker 3: For a long time, my friend Watson has wanted me
to write down an experience of my own. I have
often had occasion to point out to him how superficial
are his own accounts, and to accuse him of pandering
to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts
and figures. Try it yourself, Harms, He's retorted, And yes,
I'm compelled to admit I do begin to realize that
the matter must be presented.
Speaker 2: In an interesting way.
Speaker 3: I find from my notebook that it was just at
that time, January nineteen three, soon after the conclusion of
the Boer War, that I had a visit from a
certain mister James and dog.
Speaker 4: It is my headache to sit with my back to
the window and to place my visitors in the opposite
chair where the light falls full upon them.
Speaker 3: Mister James and Dodd seems somewhat at a loss how
to begin the interview, so I gave him some of
my conclusions from South Africa.
Speaker 2: Sir I perceive.
Speaker 3: Why, yes, sir, Imperial Yeomanry, I fancy exactly the Middlesex
No doubt, mister Holmes not a wizard.
Speaker 2: When a gentleman of virile appear and senters my room with.
Speaker 3: Such a tan upon his face as an English son
could never give, and with his handkerchief in his sleeve
instead of in his pocket, it is not difficult to
place him. You wear a short beard, which shows that
you were not a regular. You have the cut of
a riding man. As to Middlesex, your card has already
shown me that you are a stockbroker from frog Marton Street.
What other regiment could you joined? You see everything I
see no more than you, But I have trained myself
to notice what I see either, Mister Dard, It was
not to discuss the science of observation that you called
upon me this morning? What has been happening at Tuxbury
Old Part, mister Holmes? A how, my dear sir, There
is no mystery. Your letter came with their heady. As
you fixed this appointment in very pressing terms, it was
clear that something sudden and important had occurred during your
visit there.
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed, but a good deal has happened since that
letter was written. If Colonel Elmsworth hadn't.
Speaker 2: Kicked me out, i'd kicked you out. Perhaps, mister Dudd,
you will exclaim.
Speaker 4: What I have talk you, sir, I'd got into the
way of supposing that you knew everything.
Speaker 2: Without being told.
Speaker 4: But I will give you the facts, and I hope
you will be able to tell me what they mean.
Speaker 2: Then pray proceed.
Speaker 4: Colonel Elmsworth was the crimean v C you now, oh, yes, yes, Well,
when I joined up in nineteen hundred and one, young
Godfrey has only done joined the same squadron. Well, we
formed the kind of friendship you can only make when
you both live the same life, share the same joys
and sorrows. We took the rough and the smooth together
for a year of fighting. Then outside Pretoria, he was
wounded in the shoulder. I got one letter from the hospital.
Speaker 2: To Cape Town and one from Southampton. Since then, not a.
Speaker 4: Word, not one word, mister Holmes for six months or more,
and she was my closest pal. And but then when
the war was over we all got back. I wrote
to his father and asked where Godfrey was.
Speaker 2: No answer.
Speaker 4: I wasted bit and wrote again this time I had
a reply, short and gruff. Godfrey had gone on a
voyage round the world and it wasn't likely that he'd
be back for a year. Though, mister Holmes, I wasn't satisfied.
The whole things seemed so damned unnatural. I wasn't like
him to drop a pal in such a manner.
Speaker 2: What did you do? Well?
Speaker 4: My own affairs took quite a time to straighten out,
so I haven't been able to do anything about it
till this week. My first move was to go down
to his home, Tuckxbury, o Park. I had to walk
five miles from the station, and it was nearly dark
when I got there, but at iter rate. When I
told the old butt of my business, he went away
and then came back and showed me straight into Colonel
Demsworth's study.
Speaker 2: Those, sirs, I.
Speaker 5: Should be interested to know the reasons for this visit,
I explained to you in my letters.
Speaker 2: Sir, I knew God for in Africa.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I know that. Of course we've only your
word for it. Or I have his letters to me
in my pocket. Kindly let me see them. We were
the closest of friends, sir. Is it not natural that
I should wonder at his sudden silence and wish to
know what has become of him. I have some recollection, sir,
that I had already explained that in replying to your letters.
Speaker 2: He's gone upon a voyage around the world.
Speaker 4: His health was in a poor way after his African experiences,
and I was of the opinion that complete rest and
change when he did. Kindly passed that explanation on to
any other friends who may be interested in the matter. Certainly,
but perhaps you would have the goodness to let me
have the name of the steamer and the shipping line.
Speaker 2: I have no doubt I should be able to get
a letter through to him.
Speaker 3: Many people, Missed DoD, would take offense at your infernal persinacity.
They would consider this insistence to a beach the point
of damnibulence.
Speaker 2: And you must put it down to my real love
for your son.
Speaker 4: Mister Dodd. I have already made every allowance upon that score.
I must ask you, however, to drop these inquiries.
Speaker 2: But why, sir.
Speaker 4: Every family has its own inner knowledge and its own motives.
It can't always be made clear to outsiders, however well intentioned.
Speaker 2: I would ask you to let the present and the
future alone. And now say you have gone a long
way and you are.
Speaker 4: Welcome to stay the night here. My butler Ralph will
see to your needs.
Speaker 2: We dine at eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: You've been partner, sir.
Speaker 3: I just brought you some more coals britter cold. It is, sir,
Iger Ralph.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, now, sir, will there be anything more tonight?
Pello Ralph? That's all? Thanks?
Speaker 4: Oh before you, Oh, is this one thing, sir? You've
been in service here for a long time? I suppose Oh, yes, sir,
me and the missus both, and you've known Master Godfrey
for many years. Nor unless you said my missus nursed him,
you could say, in a manner of speaking, i'm his
foster father. Well, I can tell you you've both been
very proud to see him in South Africa.
Speaker 2: He bought himself well, said I am this sent no
braver man in the regiment. He pulled me at once
from one of the boy's rifles. Or maybe I shouldn't
be here now, Yes, yes, that's Master Godfrey Curry, sir.
Why there's not a tree in this park. He hadn't climbed,
Nothing would stop him. He was a fine boy all right,
and he was a fine.
Speaker 4: Man, sir, was you say he was? Look here, what
is all this mystery about to it? What has become
of Godfrey Hamsworth?
Speaker 2: I don't know what you mean, Sir.
Speaker 3: Ask the Master about Master Godfrey.
Speaker 2: It's not for me to interfere. Let go leave.
Speaker 4: How listen to me, rough, You're going to answer one
question before you will leave this room.
Speaker 2: If I have to hold you all night. He is
Godfrey Elmsworth dead? I wish he was, Sir, I wish
to god he was well. After that, I seemed to
be only one interpretation, mister Holmes.
Speaker 4: My poor friend had evidently become involved in something criminal,
or at least something disreputable, that had touched the family honor.
His stern old father has sent me away for fear
of some scandal coming to light. Well, that was what
I thought. Just then.
Speaker 3: Your problem presents them very unusual features, mister Dudd.
Speaker 2: Pray continue for after.
Speaker 4: The butler had gone, I must have stood there pondering all.
Speaker 2: This for some time.
Speaker 4: Then something made me look up and there was Godfrey
Elmsworth in the room. No, he was outside the window.
It was a ground floor room. I'd let the curtains open,
and there he was looking at me through the glass.
He was deadly pale. I've never seen a man so white.
I reckon ghosts may look like that. His eyes met mine,
and they were the eyes of a living man. Did
he give any sign when he saw me looking at him?
And he sprang back into the darkness. Mister Holmes, there
was something shocking about that man. It wasn't just that
ghastly face. It was something, something slinking and furtive, something guilty.
Speaker 2: He left a feeling of horror in my mind.
Speaker 3: I assume, however, that when a man has been soldiering
a year or two with brother boas his claimate, he
keeps his nerve on nets quickly exactly, I.
Speaker 2: Got very hardly banished. Before I was out of that window.
I ran down the garden path and the way I
thought he might have gone. It seemed to me that
something was moving ahead of me. I called his name.
It was no use.
Speaker 4: When I got to the end of the path, there
were several others branching in different directions to some outhouses.
But as I stood there, hesitating, I distinctly heard the
sound of a closing door.
Speaker 2: It wasn't behind me. In the house.
Speaker 4: It was somewhere ahead in the darkness. I knew then,
mister Holmes, but what I had.
Speaker 2: Seen was no vision.
Speaker 3: Well, then, mister darg what else did you do? Nothing
more I could do.
Speaker 2: I I spent none.
Speaker 4: Easy night trying to find some theory to cover the fact.
For next I found the colonel rather more conciliatory.
Speaker 2: His wife remarked, there were some places of interest in
the neighborhood, and I saw an hoping to ask that
I might stay there one more night.
Speaker 4: Somewhat grudgingly he agreed, which gave you a clear day
in which to make your observation. Yes, I felt I
must explore the garden to see what I could find.
There were several small outhouses, but at the end of
the garden there was a detached building of some size.
It was heavily curtained. I wondered if this could have
been the place the sound of that shutting door had
come from. I approached in a careless fashion, strolling aimlessly,
and as I did so, a small bearded man in
a black coat and a bowler hat came out of
the door.
Speaker 2: He locked it after him. Then he looked at me
with some surprise Good day sir. Gooday are you? Are
you a visitor here? Yes, I am. My name is Dodd,
James M. DoD. I see I.
Speaker 4: Am an old army time of mister Godfrey Emsworth's. I
came hoping to see him. What took pity that he
should be away on his travels.
Speaker 3: He would have been pleased to see you, No doubt,
mister Dodd dis troubled exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, Good day, jusam. No doubt you will resume your
visit at some more grapitious time. Good day, sir. He
passed on. When I turned, I observed that he.
Speaker 4: Was standing watching me, half concealed by some laurels, at
the far end of the garden.
Speaker 2: So I strolled back to the house and waited for night.
Speaker 4: As soon as every one had retired and everything was
dark and quiet, I slipped out in my window and
made my way as silently as possible to the mysterious lodge.
Speaker 2: The curtains were still drawn, but now there were shutters
up as well.
Speaker 4: Even so, there was some light coming from one place
I found I could see inside the room. I saw
the little man I'd seen that morning. He was smoking
a pipe and reading a paper. I tried to see
more of the room. I just then, so you've become
a spy.
Speaker 3: Have your kindly follow me back to the house, Sir.
Speaker 2: There is a train to London at eight thirty in
the morning. Sir, if I may only matter will not
bear discussion.
Speaker 4: You've made a most damnable intrusion into the privacy of
our family.
Speaker 2: You were here as a guest, and you become a spy.
Speaker 4: I'd nothing more to say, sir, save that I have
no wish ever to see you again. Very well, come, Emsworth,
I have seen your son, and I am convinced that,
for some reason of your own, you are concealing him
from the world.
Speaker 2: I've no idea what your motives are in cutting off
in this fashion, but I am sure he is no
longer a free agent, and I warn e Colonel.
Speaker 4: But until I am assured of the safety of the
well being of my friend, I shall never desist in
my effice to get.
Speaker 2: The bottom of this mystery.
Speaker 4: However, he didn't attack me, mister Elmes, but there was
nothing for it but to take the appointed train, after
writing first to ask you to see me, mister Dodd.
Speaker 2: The servants, now, how many were there in the house.
Speaker 4: But the best of my belief, there were only the
old butler and his wife. The family seemed to live
in the simplest passion. There was no servant then in
the detached house. None unless the little man with a
beard acted as such.
Speaker 2: He seemed to be quite a superior person.
Speaker 3: You mentioned seeing him sitting by the fire reading of paper.
Speaker 2: What paper was it? Well? Can that matter? It could
be most essential?
Speaker 3: Rarely took no notice, if possibly you observed whether it
was a broad leaf paper or of that smaller type
which one associates with weeklies.
Speaker 2: Since you mention it, it wasn't very low very well.
Speaker 3: Now had you any indication that food was conveyed from
the one house to the other.
Speaker 4: Well, I did see old Ralph carrying a basket down
the garden walk and going in the direction of his house.
Speaker 2: Did you make any local inquiries? Yes, I did. I
spoke to the station master and the innkeeper.
Speaker 4: I simply asked to send you anything of my old comrade,
Godfrey Eemsworth. Both of them assure me that he gone
for a voyage round the world. You said nothing of
your suspicions.
Speaker 2: Nothing. Yet you say that you had seen your friend's
face quite clearly at the window, so clearly that you
are sure of his identity. I have no doubt about it.
Whatever the lamp light shone full upon him. It couldn't
have been someone resembling. No, no, no, it was he.
But you say he was changed only in color.
Speaker 4: His face was how shall I describe as it was
of a fish belly whiteness, It was bleached in patches. Well,
it was his brow that I saw, so cleared it
was pressed against the window.
Speaker 2: Very well, mister Dadd.
Speaker 3: The matter should certainly be inquired into.
Speaker 2: I will go back with you to a tuxpray Old
park to day.
Speaker 3: Oh, as it happens, I am carrying up another matter
at the moment, let us say the beginning.
Speaker 2: Of next week. I shall be ready whenever you are,
mister Helmes.
Speaker 3: Oh, I shall also ask an old friend of mine
to accompany us. It is possible that his presence may
be entirely unnecessary. On the other hand, it ess the
narratives of my friend Watson have shown no doubt that
I do not waste words or disclose my thoughts while
the case is under consideration. In fact, my case was
practically complete when we arrived at the strange old Ramding house.
I asked the elderly friend who had accompanied us to
remain in the carriage unless we should summon him. I
had not introduced him to Dodd, who seemed surprised but
asked no questions. The old butler, Ralph opened.
Speaker 2: The door to us. He wore the conventional costume of
black coat and pepper and salt trousers, with only one
curious variant. He had on brown leather gloves.
Speaker 3: He shuffled them off at the sight of us, laying
them down on the hall table. I have, as Watson
may sometimes have remarked, an abnormally acute set of senses,
and a faint but incisive smell was the parent. I
contrived to drop my hat to the floor, and in
picking it up, brought my nose within a foot of
the gloves. A curious cardy odor was oozing from them.
My case was complete at last, big answer mister Dodd
and mister Sherlock Holmes to see you, sir?
Speaker 2: Who the don't hold you to him? What is the
meaning of this? You, sir?
Speaker 4: Have I not told you you in fellel Busyboddy, never
s dare show your damned face here?
Speaker 3: Again, if you choose to endry here without my leave,
I shall be within my rights if I use violence.
As to you, mister Holmes, I extend the same warning
to you. I am familiar with your ignoble profession.
Speaker 4: Ralph telephone at once to the County Police, asked the
inspector to send up two constables.
Speaker 2: Tell him, tell him that there are burglars in the hotel. Well, moment,
you must be aware, mister Dodd, the Colonel Msworth is
within his right.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, he should recognize that your action
is prompted entirely by solicitude for his son. I venture
to hope that if I were allowed to have five
minutes conversation with Colonel Msworth, I could certainly alter his
view of the matter.
Speaker 2: What the devil are you waiting for? Ralph?
Speaker 3: Bring the police, I say, going, sir, nothing of the
thought any police in appearance. But bring about the very
capacity of dreads. Hand away from that door, sir, Colonel Msrath.
On this page of my notebook, I am writing just
one word.
Speaker 2: Here you are, sir, pray.
Speaker 3: Read it and you will know what has brought us here. Well,
how did you know this? It is my business to
know things. That is my traid.
Speaker 2: Then you forced my hand. If you wish to see Godfrey,
you shall, but this is your doing, not mine.
Speaker 5: As terms, What does this mean you shall soon see
mister Dard Ralph, Sir, go down to the garden house
and tell mister Godfrey and mister Kent that in five
minutes we shall be with them.
Speaker 2: Very good, sir, very good. But this is very sudden.
Colonel m'sworth will disarange all our plan. I currently help it. Kent.
Speaker 4: Our hands have been forced. Can mister godface us now?
Speaker 2: Yes, he's waiting inside. Follow me, gentlemen, god fail man,
don't touch me. You men don't come here? Yes, you
may well stare. I don't quite look smart enough of
bee squadron, now do I What happened?
Speaker 3: Those white patches are mus kind. That's why I don't
court visitors. But you seem to have you at a disadvantage.
Speaker 6: I came down to see if all was well with
you that night. You looked into my window. Old Ralph
told me you went there. I couldn't resist taking a
peep after you ran away.
Speaker 4: I couldn't let the matter rest, I asked mister Sherlock
Holmes here to help. Oh, mister Sherlock Holmes, eh well.
Speaker 2: Was the home. You may as well.
Speaker 3: I'll hear my story too, if you please, mister Ens, don't.
Speaker 2: Take long to tell you remember Jimmy that morning fight
outside Pretoria on the Eastern railway line. You heard I
was hit, Yes, I heard about it. I never got particular.
Three of us got separated from the rest, all the Simpson,
Henderson and I.
Speaker 7: The other two were killed. I got a bullet from
my shoulder. I stuck on my horse though, and he
galloped several miles with me before I must have rode
off in a fain.
Speaker 2: When I came to it was night. It was deadly cold,
you remember that, that kind of numb cold, just come
at evening, and oh deadly. It was a building nearby.
I knew my only hope was to reach it, and
a memory of staggering there, and there was a large
room with many beds in it. I just fell onto
one of them and passed out. That of you, ha
was it? When I woke in the morning, it was
as though I had passed from a world of sanity
into a nightmare. Standing in front of me was a
dwarf like man with a huge, bulbous head. He was
jabbering in Dutch and waving his hands. They were like
horrible brown sponges. O.
Speaker 4: God, there are others behind him watching me, and as
I looked at them, I realized that not one of
them was a normous human being.
Speaker 2: Everyone was twisted or swollen or disfigured in some way
and were laughing at me. God, I can hear them now.
Speaker 8: Well that then that that little beast laid his horrible,
deformed hands on me and began pulling me off the bit.
My wound was bleeding, but he went on. It was
a swung of bull I don't know what he was
going to do. But an elderly man suddenly came in
and shouted an order and Dutch, and the little monster
moved away. This is fantastic, It is a little true.
Speaker 7: Well, the elderly man spoke to me in English.
Speaker 2: I'm a doctor, he said. That shoulder of yours once
fixing up quickly, but man alive. Do you know where
you are?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: A hospital?
Speaker 3: I said, yes, He said, the leper hospital.
Speaker 2: You're lying in a leopard's spad.
Speaker 9: My god, now you'll have the truth, mister Dodd. Thanks
to the British advance. I was in the General Hospital
of Pretoria within a week. Apart from my shoulder, seem
to be all right. It wasn't until they got me home.
Speaker 2: When I came here, but these terrible science began to
appear on my face, and you then that I hadn't escaped.
Speaker 4: What was I to do, mister Dodd. We had two
servants we could trust completely. There was this house where
he could live. Mister Kent here, he's a surgeon, was
prepared to stay and care for.
Speaker 2: Him in secrets. But why surely a hospital, don't you see?
Speaker 4: It would have meant segregation for the rest of his life,
to live forever amongst strangers, without any hope.
Speaker 2: Of release, even in these quiet parts. If one word
had got out, he would have been dragged away to
that even you had to be kept on at Doug Jimmy.
But what I don't understand, father, is why you relent enough.
Speaker 4: It was mister Sherlock Holmes who forced my hand with
this scrap of paper.
Speaker 2: He wrote one word on it, leprosy.
Speaker 4: After that I realized that if he knew so much,
it was safer that he should know it all.
Speaker 2: So it was, and.
Speaker 3: Who knows what good may come of it. How I
understand that only you, mister Kent, have attended the patient there.
Speaker 2: I asked, sir, if.
Speaker 3: You are an authority on such tropical or semi tropical complaints,
I have the ordinary knowledge they ducated medical man.
Speaker 2: I have no doubt, sir, that you are fully competent.
Speaker 3: But I am sure you will agree that in such
a case a second opinion is valuable. It would have
meant pressure being put on us to segregate him. I
foresaw this situation, and I brought with us a friend
whose discretion may be absolutely trusted. I was able once
to do him a professional service, and he is ready
to advise as a friend rather than as a specialist.
His name is Sir James Saunders. Sir James, he is
a present of the carriage outside the door, and I
should be proud, mister Holmes good.
Speaker 2: I will ask him to step this way.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Colonel Msworth, we may perhaps assemble in your study.
My invariable process starts upon the supposition that when you
have eliminated all that which is impossible, then whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth. As this case was
first presented to me. There were three possible explanations of
the seclusion or incarceration of this gentleman in an outhouse
of his father's mansion. There was the possibility that he
was in hiding for a crime, or that he was
mad and they wished to avoid an asylum, or that
he had some disease which caused his segregation. I could
think of no other adequate explanations. The criminal solution would
not bear inspection. No unsolved crime had been reported from
this district. If it were some crime not yet discovered,
then clearly it would be to the family's interest to
send the delinquent abroad rather than keep it concealed at home.
Insanity was more close en What's that the presence of
the second person in the outhouse suggested the keeper. The
fact that he locked the door when he came out
strengthened to supposition. On the other hand, this constraint could
not be severe, or the young man could not have
got loose to have a look at his friend.
Speaker 2: You will remember, mister Dobb, that I had felt round for.
Speaker 4: Points and such as asking me about the paganist academy.
Speaker 2: Reading you were being optimistic there astones. Had it been
a medical paper. It would have helped me.
Speaker 3: It is not illegal to keep a lunatic upon private predises,
so long as there is a qualified person in attendance
and the authorities have been notified. Then why all this
district desire for secrecy? So you had no theory to
hit the facts again? There remained a third possibility, rare
and unlikely as it was. Everything seemed to fit into it.
Leprosy is not uncommon in South Africa. Bleaching of the
skin is a common result of the disease. By some
extraordinary chance, this youth might have contracted it. His people
would be placed in a very dreadful position, since they
would desire to save him from segregation. Great secrecy would
be needed, but he could be allowed some freedom after dark.
A diverted medical man, if sufficiently paid, would easily be
found to take.
Speaker 2: Care of him.
Speaker 4: You thought this case was the strongest of the three,
in fact, so strong that I determined to act as
if it were actually it proved. When I arrived here
noticed that the gloves worn by Ralph, who carried the meals,
were strongly impregnated but disinfectant. My last dads were removed.
A single word showed you sir that your secret was discovered. Yes, yes,
I see it now. But tell me, sir, why did
you write it down instead of saying it?
Speaker 3: That was to prove to you that my discretion was
to be trusted, I thought as much.
Speaker 2: Ah, here is the is well, sir, Let us know
the west. It is often my lot to bring ill tidings,
and seldom good.
Speaker 10: This occasion is the more welcome, Colonel Emsworth. It is
not leprosy, not a well not case of pseudo leprosy ethosis.
It's a scale like affection of the skin and slightly
not but possibly curable and certainly non infective.
Speaker 2: Then heaven be thanked.
Speaker 4: But surely if he got it from contact with those
leper fellows, no, not from them.
Speaker 3: A coincidence, remarkable, but a coincidence. Coincidence, My dear Sir James.
Are we assured that the apprehension from which this young
man has suffered since his terrible experience may not have
produced a physical effect simulating temperature fears. May there not
be subtle forces at work of which we know very
very little.
Speaker 2: That was The Blanche Soldier by Michael Hardwick, based on.
Speaker 1: The short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes
was plade by Carlton Hobbs, and production for the BBC
was by Frederick Bradner.