Adventure 3 in his last Bow by Sir, Arthur Conan Doyle, this
LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Adventure 3, The Adventure of the red circle part 1.
Well, mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you
have any particular cause for uneasiness nor do I understand
why I, whose time is of, some value should interfere in the
matter. I really have other things to
engage me. So spoke Sherlock, Holmes and
turned back to the great scrapbook in, which she was
arranging and indexing, some of his recent material, but the
landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex, she
held her ground firmly You arranged an affair for a larger
of mine last year. She said Mr. Fairdale hops are
yes, simple matter, but he would never cease talking of it.
Your kindness sir, and the way in which you brought light into
the darkness. I remembered his words.
When I was in doubt and darkness myself, I know you could.
If you only would Holmes was accessible of on the side of
flattery and also to do him Justice upon the side of
kindness. The two forces made him lay
down. His gun brush with a sigh of
resignation and pushed back his chair.
Well, well mrs. Warren, let us hear about it.
Then you don't object to Tobacco.
I take it. Thank you, Watson.
The matches you are uneasy as I understand because your new
lodger remains in his rooms and you cannot see him.
Why bless you mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger,
you often would not see For weeks on end.
No doubt sir but this is different.
It frightens me mr. Holmes, I can't sleep for fright
to hear his quickstep moving here and moving their from early
morning to late at night and yet never to catch so much as a
glimpse of him. It's more than I can stand.
My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is out at his
work all day while I get no rest from it.
What is he hiding for? What has he done?
It for the girl, I'm all alone in the house with him and it's
more than my nerves can stand. Holmes leaned forward and laid
his long thin fingers upon the woman's shoulder.
He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished the
scared look faded from her eyes and her agitated features
smoothed into their usual commonplace, she sat down in the
chair which he had indicated. If I take it out by must
understand every detail said, he take time to consider the
smallest Point. May be the most essential.
You say that the man came ten days ago and paid you for a
fortnight's board. And lodging, he asked, might
answer, I said, fifty Shillings a week, there is a small sitting
room and bedroom and all complete at the top of the
house. Well, he said, I'll pay you five
pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms.
I'm a poor woman sir and mr. Warren earns little and the
money meant much to me. He took out a ten pound note and
he held it out to me then and there you can have the same
every Fortnight for a long time to come.
If you keep the terms, he said if not I'll have no more to do
with you. What were the terms?
Well sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house that
was all right. Lodges often have them also that
he was to be left entirely to himself and never upon any
excuse to be disturbed. Nothing.
Wonderful in that surely not in reason sir.
But this is out of all reason he's been there for ten days and
neither mr. Warren nor I nor the girl has
one set eyes upon him. We can hear that quickstep of
his pacing up and down up and down, night, morning and noon,
but except on that first night he had never once gone out of
the house. Oh, he went out the first night,
did he? Yes sir and returned very late
after we were all in bed, he told me after he had taken the
rooms that he would do, so and asked me not to bother door, I
heard him. Come up, the stair after
midnight. But his meals, it was his
particular direction that we should always when he rang.
Leave his meal upon a chair outside his door.
Then he Rings again when he was finished and we take it down
from the same chair. If he wants anything else, he
prints it on a slip of paper and leaves it prints it.
Yes, sir, Prince it in pencil, just the word.
Nothing more. Here's the one I brought to you.
Show you soap. Here's another match.
This is the one he left the first morning Daily Gazette.
I leave that paper with his breakfast every morning.
Dear me. Watson said, Holmes staring with
great curiosity at the slips of foolscap, which the landlady had
handed to him. This is certainly a little
unusual seclusion I can understand but why print
printing is a clumsy process, why not right?
What would it suggests, what sin does?
He desire to conceal his handwriting but why what can it
matter to him that his landlady should have a word of his right?
Still. It may be as you say then again,
why such laconic messages. I cannot.
Imagine it opens a pleasing field for intelligent
speculation. The words are written with a
broad pointed Violet, tinted pencil of a Not Unusual pattern,
you will observe that the paper is torn away at the side here
after the printing was done. So that the S of soap is partly
gone. Watson.
Is it not of caution. Exactly.
There was evidently some Mark, some thumbprint something, which
might give a clue to the person's identity.
Now, mrs. Warren you say that the man was
of middle-sized dark and bearded.
What age would he be youngish sir?
Not over 30. Well, can you give me?
No further indications? He spoke good English sir.
And yet, I thought he was a foreigner by his accent and he
was well dressed, very smartly dressed sir, quite the gentleman
dark clothes. Nothing.
You would note. He gave no name no sir and as I
had no letters or callers non, but surely, you are the girl
enter his room of a morning? No, sir.
He looks after himself entirely. Dear me, that is certainly
remarkable. But what about his luggage?
He had one big brown bag with him, nothing else.
Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us.
Do you say nothing has come out of that room.
Absolutely nothing. The landlady, Drew an envelope
from her bag from it. She shook out to Burnt matches
and a cigarette end upon the table.
They were on his Trail. This morning, I brought them
because I had heard that you can read great things out of small
ones, Holmes Shrugged, his shoulders.
There's nothing here. Said he, the matches have, of
course, been used to light cigarettes, that is obvious from
the shortness of the burnt end. Half the match is consumed in
lighting a pipe or cigar, but dear me.
This cigarette stub is certainly remarkable.
The gentleman was bearded and moustached you say, yes, sir.
I don't understand that. I should say that only a
clean-shaven, man could have smoked this.
Why Watson? Even your modest mustache would
have been singed a holder? I suggested, no.
No, the end is matted. I suppose that could not be to
people in your rooms mrs. Warren.
No sir. He eats so little, as I often
wondered can keep life. One.
Well, I think we must wait for a little more material.
After all, you have nothing to complain of.
You have received your rent and he is not a Troublesome lodger.
No, he is certainly an unusual one, he pays you.
Well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no Direct
business of yours. We have no excuse for an
intrusion upon his privacy. Until we have some reason to
think that there is a guilty reason for it.
I've taken up the matter and I won't lose sight of it report to
me. If anything, fresh occurs, and
rely upon my assistants, if it should be needed.
There are certainly some points of interest in this case Watson,
he remarked when the landlady had left us.
It may have caused be trivial individual eccentricity or it
may be very much deeper than appears on the surface.
The first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that
the person. Now, in the rooms may be
entirely different from the one who engaged them.
Why should you think so? Well, apart from this cigarette
end, was it not suggestive? That the only time the lodger
went out was immediately after his taking the rooms?
He came back or someone came back.
When all Witnesses were out of the way, we have no proof that
the person who came back was the person who went out.
Then again, the man who took the room spoke English.
Well, this other however, prints match when it should have been
matches are Imagine that the word was taken out of a
dictionary which would give the noun, but not the plural, the
laconic style, maybe to conceal the absence of knowledge of
English. Yes, Watson.
There are good reasons to suspect.
There has been a substitution of lodges But for what possible
end. Ah, there lies our problem.
There is one rather obvious line of Investigation.
He took down the great book in which day, by day.
He filed. The agony column of the various
London journals. Dear me said he turning over the
pages, water chorus, of groans, cries and bleating 's, what a
ragbag of singular happenings, but surely the most valuable
hunting ground that ever was given to a student of the
unusual. This person is alone and cannot
be approached by letter without a breach of that absolute
secrecy, which is desired. How is any news, or any message
to reach him from without obviously, by advertisement
through a newspaper, there seems no other way.
And fortunately, we need to concern ourselves with one
paper. Only here are the Daily Gazette
extracts of the last Fortnight lady with a black bow at
Prince's Skating Club. That we may pass.
Surely Jimmy will not break his mother's heart.
That appears to be irrelevant if the lady who fainted on Brixton
bus she does not interest me every day my heart longs
bleeped, Watson, unmitigated bleat this is a little more
possible. Listen to this be patient, we'll
find some sure means of communications.
Meanwhile this column That is two days after mrs.
Warrens lodger arrived. It sounds plausible.
Does it not the mysterious one could understand English even if
he could not print it? Let us see if we can pick up the
trace again. Yes, here we are three days
later and making successful Arrangements patience and
prudence the clouds will pass. Gee nothing for a week after
that. Then come something much more
definite. The path is clearing if I find
chance signal message. Remember code.
Agreed. 1 a 2 B and so on you will hear soon.
Gee that was in yesterday's paper and there is nothing in
today's it's all very appropriate to mrs.
Warrens lodger if we wait a little Watson I don't doubt that
the affair will grow more intelligible.
So it proved four in the morning.
I found my friends standing on the hearthrug with his back to
the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face.
How's this Watson? He cried picking up the paper
from the table. Hi, red house with white stone
facings, third floor, second window left after dusk G.
That is definite enough. I think after breakfast, we must
make a little reconnaissance of mrs.
Warrens neighborhood. Mrs. Warren, what news do you
bring us this morning? Our client had suddenly burst
into the room with an explosive energy, which told us some new
and momentous development hits, a police matter mr.
Holmes, she cried, I'll have no more of it.
He shall pack out of there with his baggage.
I would have gone straight up and told him.
So only I thought it was but fair to you to take your opinion
first, but I'm at the very end of my patience and when it comes
to knocking my old man, About knocking mr.
Warren about using him roughly anyway, but who used him
roughly. Oh, that's what we want to know.
It was this morning, sir, mr. Warren is a timekeeper at Morton
and way lights in Tottenham Court Road.
He has to be out of the house before seven.
Well, this morning he had not gone ten Paces down the road.
When two men came up behind him through a coat over his head,
and bundled him into a cab. Was beside the curb, they drove
him an hour, and then opened the door and shut him out.
He lay in the roadway. So shaken in his wits that he
never saw what became of the cab when he picked himself up.
He found he was on Hampstead Heath.
So he took a bus home and there he lies.
Now on his sofa. While I came straight round to
tell you what had happened. Most interesting said Holmes and
did he observe the appearance of these men?
Did he hear them talk? No he is.
Clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted
up as if by Magic and dropped as if by Magic to at least were in
it and maybe three and you connect this attack with your
lodger Well, we've lived there 15 years and no such happenings
ever came before. I've had enough of him.
Money's not everything. I'll have him out of my house
before the day is done. Wait a bit mrs.
Warren do nothing rash. I begin to think that this
affair may be very much more important than appeared at first
sight. It is clear.
Now that some dangerous threatening your lodger, it is
equally clear. That is enemies.
Lying in wait for him near your door, mistook your husband for
him. In the foggy morning, light on
discovering their mistake. They released him.
What they would have done, had it not been a mistake, we can
only conjecture. Well, what am I to do?
Mr. Holmes, I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours.
Mrs. Warren. I don't see how that is to be
managed unless you break in the door.
I always hear him unlock it, as I go down the stair.
After I leave the tray. He has to take the tray in
surely, we could conceal ourselves and see him do it.
The landlady thought for a moment, well, sir there's the
Box room opposite, I could arrange a Looking Glass, maybe.
And if you're behind the door, excellent said.
Holmes, when does he lunch about one sir then?
Dr. Watson and I will come around in time for the present.
Mrs. Warren goodbye. At 12:30, we found ourselves
upon the steps of mrs. Warren's house, a high thin,
Yellow Brick, edifice in Great, Ormond, Street, and narrow
thoroughfare at the Northeast side of the British museum
standing as it does near the corner of the street.
The commands of you down, how street with its more pretentious
houses, Holmes pointed with a chuckle, to one of these are row
of residential Flats which projected so that they could not
fail to catch the eye. See, Watson said he, hi, red
house with stone facings. There is the signal station.
All right, we know the place and we know the code.
So surely our task should be simple.
There's a to let card in that window.
It is evidently an empty flat to which the Confederate has
access. Well mrs.
Warren what. Now, I have it all ready for you
if you will both come up and leave your boots Below on the
landing. I'll put you that now.
It was an excellent hiding place which she had arranged.
The mirror was so placed that seated in the dark, we could
very plainly. See the door opposite.
We had hardly settled down in it and mrs.
Warren left us when a distant tinkle announce that our
mysterious neighbor had rung. Presently the landlady appeared
with the tray laid, it down upon a chair, beside the closed door,
and then treading heavily departed.
Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our eyes
fixed upon the mirror suddenly as the landlady's, footsteps
died away. There was the Creak of a turning
key the handle revolved and too thin hands.
Darted out and lifted the tray from the chair.
An instant later it was hurriedly replaced and I caught
a glimpse of a dark beautiful horrified face glaring at the
narrow opening of the Box room, then the door crash to the key
turned. Once more and all was silence
homes, twist my sleeve and together, we stole down the
stair. I will call again in the
evening, said he to the expectant landlady.
I think Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own
quarters. My surmise, as you saw proved to
be correct. Said he speaking from the depths
of his easy chair, there has been a substitution of lodges.
What I did not foresee, is that we should find a woman and no
ordinary woman Watson. She saw us.
Well, she saw something to alarm her.
That is certain the general sequence of events is pretty
clear. Is it not a couple seek refuge
in London from a very terrible and Danger.
The measure of that danger is the rigor of their precautions.
The man who has some work, which he must do desires to leave the
woman in absolute safety while he does.
It, it is not an easy problem, but he solved it in an original
fashion and so effectively that her presence was not even known
to the landlady who supplies her with food, the printed messages
as is now evident were to prevent her sex being discovered
by her writing. The man cannot come near the
woman or he will guide their enemies to her.
Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse to
the agony column of a paper. So far all is clear but what is
at the root of it? Ah, yes, Watson, severely
practical as usual. What is at the root of it?
All mrs. Warrens Whimsical problem, in
largest somewhat and assumes a more Sinister aspect as Proceed
this much, we can say that it is.
No Ordinary Love, Escapade. You saw the woman's face at the
sign of danger. We have heard two of the attack
upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the
lodger. These alarms and the desperate
need for secrecy argue that. The matter is one of life or
death, the attack upon mr. Warren further shows that the
enemy whoever they are are themselves not aware of the
Substitution of the female lodger for the mail.
It is very curious and complex Watson.
Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?
What indeed? It is Art For Art's Sake Watson.
I suppose, when you doctored you found yourself studying cases
without thought of a fee, for my education, homes education,
never ends Watson. It is a series of lessons with
the greatest for the last, this is an instructive case.
There is neither money nor Credit in it and yet one would
wish to tidy it up. When dust comes, we should find
ourselves one stage advanced in our investigation.
When we return to mrs. Warrens rooms.
The Gloom of a London. Winter evening had sickened into
one grey curtain, a dead monotone of color broken, only
by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the Blurred
Halos of the gas lamps as we peered from the darkened,
sitting room of the lodging house, one more dim light,
glimmered. High up through the obscurity.
Someone is moving in that room said Holmes in a whisper his
gaunt and eager face. Thrust forward to the
windowpane. Yes, I can see his shadow.
There he is, again, he has a candle in his hand.
Now he is peering across. He wants to be sure that she is
on the lookout. Now he begins to flash take the
message. Also Watson that we may check
each other. A single flash.
That is a surely. Now, then, how many did you make
it 20? So, did I that That should mean
t-80 that's intelligible enough. Another tea surely this is the
beginning of a second word. Now then tenter dead, stop.
That can't be all Watson at enter gives no sense.
Nor is it any better as three words at 10 tar unless ta are a
person's initials. There it goes again.
What's that? Tte, why it is a same message
over again. Curious Watson.
Very curious. Now he's off once more 80.
Why he is repeating it for the third time?
ATT ENT, a at enter three times. How often will you repeat it?
No, that seems to be the Finish. He's withdrawn from the window.
What do you make of it? Watson, a cipher message homes?
My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension and not
a very obscure Cipher Watson said he why?
Of course it is Italian. The a means that it is addressed
to a woman, beware beware, beware, how's that Watson?
I believe you've hit it. No doubt of it.
It is a very urgent message, Thrice, repeated to make it
more. So, But beware of what?
Wait? A bit.
He's coming to the window once more.
Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the Whisk
of the small flame across the window as the signals were
renewed, they came more rapidly than before.
So rapid that it was hard to follow them.
Perico low Petty collaroy. What's that Watson danger?
Isn't it? Yes, by jove it's a danger
signal. Here he goes again a pear, tree.
Hello what on Earth the light had, suddenly gone out the
glimmering square of window and disappeared.
In the third floor, formed a dark band around the lofty.
Building with its tears of shining casements.
That last warning cry had been suddenly cut short, how and by
whom the same thought occurred on the instant to us both Holmes
sprang up from where he crouched by the window.
This is serious Watson. He cried there is some devilry
going forward. Why should such a message stop
in such a way? I should put Scotland Yard in
touch with this business and yet it is too pressing for us to
leave. Shall I go for the police?
We must Define the situation a little more clearly it may bear
some more innocent interpretation come Watson.
Let us go across ourselves and see what we can make of it.
And the adventure of the red circle, part 1.