Sherlock Holmes - The Noble Bachelor

0:00So, two to one B. Baker Street, did you get it? The BBC presents the Noble Bachelor by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted for radio by Michael Hardwick, with Carlton Holmes as Sherlock Holmes and Norman Shelley as Dr. Watson. It was a few weeks before my marriage. In 1887, during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Sherlock Holmes in Baker Street, I had remained indoors all day for the weather had taken a sudden turn to rain with high or tumble winds. The Jaseal Bullitt, which I had brought back in one of the limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign, throbbed with dull persistency. With my body in one easy chair and my legs upon another, I'd surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers. And when it was last I'd sexuallyed myself with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and lay listless, speculating lazily upon the huge, crispened monogram on the envelope

1:04upon the table, which awaited my friends' return. Well, Holmes has a very fashionable epistle. Oh, this looks like one of those social summons which call upon the man either to be bored or to lie, to come and prove to be something interest after all. Not social, it's distinctly professional and from a noble client. One of the highest in England. I doubt it, I can read your book. I assure you Watson without expectation that the status of my client is a matter of this moment to be the interest of his case. Of course, of course. It's just possible, however, that that also may not be one thing in this new investigation. You've been reading the papers diligently, have you not? Looks like it. I've had nothing else to do. Well, it's fortunate. You will perhaps be able to post me up. I read now the acceptable news on the agony column.

2:06The letter is always instructive. But if you follow recent events so closely, you must have read about law and some Simon on his wedding. Oh, yes, the deepest interest. Now, the letter which I hold in my hand is from law and some Simon. This is what he says. An idea Mr. Sherlock films. Though backwater tells me that I may place in physical lines upon your judgments and discretion, I have determined therefore to call upon you and to consult you in reference to the very painful event which has occurred in connection with my wedding. Mr. LeSplade of Scotland Yard is acting already in the matter, but he assures me that he sees no objection to your cooperation and that he even thinks that it might be of some assistance. I will call at four o'clock in the afternoon. And should you have any other engagement at that time? I hope you will postpone it. As this is a matter of paramount importance, your faith, LeSplade, etc. I'm updated from Groven dimensions and written with a quill pen.

3:09Ah, the noble Lord has had the misfortune to get a sneer to link upon the outer side of his right little finger. So four o'clock. Then I have just time with your assistance to get clear upon the subject. I turn over those papers and arrange the extracts in their order of time. Have the goodest posthumousness as well? Oh, here you are. And I will take a note that to who are scientists, the only one is the one who is the most intelligent. Yes, here he is. Robert Walsingham, De Villiers and Simon, second son of the Duke of El Marl, born in him 46, that makes him 41 years of age. Much of a marriage. There was undersecretary for the colonies and the late administration.

4:14They inherited Pantetched in blood by direct descent and queued on the distraught side. There was nothing very instructive in all this. I am a stand to you Watson for something more solid. I have had very little to explain what you want. Thanks quite recently. There was a paragraph in one of the study papers, I had it. There will soon be a call for protection in the marriage market for the present freed trade principle affairs to tell heavily against our home product. One by one the management of the noble houses of Brick Britain has passed into the hands of our fellow cousins who were cross the Atlantic. Watson, Simon, who has shown himself for over 20 years proof against the little god Zeros, has now definitely announced his approaching marriage with Miss Etty Doron, the fascinating daughter of the Californian billionaire. Miss Etty Doron is an eminence child and is currently deported to her dowry, will run to considerably over six figures. Indeed. As it is in open secrets that Duke of El Marl has been compelled to sell his pictures

5:18within the last few years and as Lord Sonsam was no providence, as the smallest leader Blitmore, it is obvious that the Californian RS is not the only gainer by the Alliance. Oh, he wore. Oh, yes. And then. Yes, there is a note here to say the marriage would be necessary to quite run as some Jordan's kind of a square and that the party would turn to the furnished house of Langstead Gate, which has been taken by the Sallow E.S. Doron. Two days later, Westminster was it? That's Wednesday last October the 17th. There is a curtain announcement that the wedding had taken place. Well, those were all the notices that appeared before the disappearance of the bride. The follow-up was in the vanishing of the lady down. When did she vanish then? At the wedding breakfast. Indeed. Well, this is more interesting than it promised to be, quite dramatic in fact. Yes, his struck me as being a little out of the common. They often vanish before the ceremony and occasionally during the honeymoon, but I cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt as this.

6:21Ah, the desert ring at the bell. And as the clock makes it a few minutes after four, I had no doubt that this will prove to be our noble cloud. No, don't dream of going, Watson. I very much prefer having a witness if only as a check to my own memory. I wonder if this case will work. Lord Robertson Simon. Good day, Lord, and Simon. Good day, and so. Oh, pray take the basket, sir. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson. I draw up a little bit of a fire and we sort of talk this matter of this. I must painful matter to me, as you can most readily imagine as to homes. I have been cut to the quick. I understand you have already managed several delicate cases of this sort, so I presume that they were hardly from the same class of society. No, I am descending. I beg of you, my last plan to besort was a king. Oh, really? I have no idea. And which king? The king is Scandinavia.

7:22Well, as he lost his wife. You can understand that I extend to the affairs of my other plans, the same seat for the same, which I promise to you in yours. Of course. But it writes. It writes. I draw a deco-pond. But as to my own case, I am ready to give you any information which may assist you informing an opinion. Take, your. I have already learned something of it from the public prince. Nothing more. I think I may arrive at my text most directly by questioning you. Pray do so. Now when did you first meet Miss Hattie Doran? In San Francisco. A year ago. Did you become engaged then? No. But you were on a friendly footy. I was abused by her society and she could see that I was abused. Her father is very rich. He was said to be the richest man on the six slope. And how did he make his money? In mining. He had nothing a few years ago. His truck gold invested it and came up by leaps and bounds.

8:25My wife was 20 before her father became a rich man. During that time she ran free in a mining camp. So her education has come from nature rather than from the schoolmaster. She is what you call him England. I believe for Tom Boy. Quite. She is impetus. Volcanic. I was about to say. On the other hand, I would not have given her the name, which I have been honored to bear. And I not thought her to be at bottom a noble wooden. The young lady came to London then and you renewed your existence. Yes. Her father brought her over for this last season. I met her several times. We became engaged. I have now married her. She brought her to understand the considerable dore. No more than usual in my family. And this of course remains to you since the marriage is the theta-comp. I really have made no inquiries on the subject. Very naturally not. On the morning of the wedding, was she in good spirits?

9:26Never better. She was as bright as possible until after the ceremony. And did you observe any change in that then? No. The devil's roof. I saw then the first signs that her temper was a little sharp. The incident was too trivial to relate. You had no possible bearing on the case. Say let us have it for all that guts, typhoon. She dropped her bouquet as we went towards the best-rare. She was passing the front pure at the time and it fell over into the pure. There was a moment delay, but the gentleman of the pure handed it up to her again. It didn't appear to be the worst for the fall. Yet when I spoke to her about it, she answered me abruptly. In the carriage on our way home, she seemed absurdly agitated over so that I could not see her. Indeed. You say there was a gentleman in the pure, some of the general public were present then. Oh yes, it's impossible to exclude them from the church at open. This gentleman was one of your wife's friends? No. No. I called him a gentleman by Kersim. He was quite a common-looking person.

10:27I hardly noticed his appearance. Really? I think we're wondering rather far from the point. I'd reiterate, ladies and gentlemen, return from the wedding in a less cheerful frame of mind than she had gone to it. And what did she do on reentry her father's house? I saw her in close conversation with her maid, Alice. A confidential servant? A little too much so. She was an American. She came from California with her. It seemed to me that her mistress allowed her to take great liberties. But still, of course, in America, they look upon these things in a different way. You did not over share what they said. But maybe as Simon said something about jumping a plane. She was accustomed to using slang of that kind. I know I dealt with it. American slang is that he expressed it sometimes. And what did your wife do next? She went into the breakfast room. On your arm? No. Alone. She was very independent in little matters like that. Then after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose, hurriedly, martyred some words of apology and left the room. She never came back.

11:27Her maid says she went to her room, covered her bride's dress with a long alseur, put on a bonnet, and it's went out. One of the footmen remembers seeing a lady leave, but he refused to pray that it could have been his mistress. Inactually, the lady was inside. Quite so. Afterwards, my wife is at her being seen walking into Hyde Park with a woman who would cause the disturbance earlier on. The disturbance? Yes. After we had returned from the church, this woman apparently tried to follow us into the house. She had to be objective by the butter and footmen. It's that why should she want to force her way? Well, as the homes she came that she and I owe her. To tell her true name is Flora Miller, which used to be a dance third of the Allegro. I have not treated her ungenerous here, and she's no just cause for complaining against every moment women are mishomes, to rid big, glibful letters which she heard I was to be married. In fact, the reason I heard the marriage celebrated so quietly was because I feared there might be a scandal at the church.

12:27Did your wife hear this disturbance? No, thank goodness she didn't. And yet she was seen walking with this very woman after her. Yes. And Mr. Lestrade of Scotton Dard looks upon it as very serious. It is called the ploy to decoy my wife out and made some terrible crap for her. I understand that she's now in custody. Well, it's a possible separation. Do you think so too? No. I don't think Flora would have had a ploy. I didn't say a probable one. Still, jealousy is a strange plunge for the earth character. Play those lords in Simon, what is your own theory as to what to place? Oh, really? I came to seek a fairer, not a profound one. Since you asked me, it hasn't occurred to me that the excitement be consciousness that she had made so immense as social stride may have caused something nervous disturbance to my wife. In short, that she had become suddenly deranged when I consider that she has turned her back, I will also help on me. But upon so much that many have aspired to without reason, I can hardly explain it in any other effort.

13:29Well, that is certainly a conceivable hypothesis. And now, lords, in Simon, I think I have nearly all my data. Oh, may I ask whether you and your wife are seated at the breakfast table so that you could see out of the window, we could see the other side of the road and the park. Quite so. Then I do not think I need to take you any longer. I will communicate with you. Should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem? Oh, I have solved it. What was that? I say I have solved it. Well, then it's my wife. That is the detail which I shall speakly supply. I am afraid it will take wiser heads than yours and mine. Good day to you, sir. Good day, sir. It is a good lord's assignment to honour my head by putting you on the level of the reserve. Well, I think I shall have a whiskey and soda and a cigar through that cross-paste arrangement. I have fallen to my conclusion, sir, because before our clouds was nearly done by geophones.

14:34I have notes of several similar cases, though as I remarked before. None of them were quite as prompt. My whole examination has turned my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial evidence is occasionally really convincing. This time I have heard all you've heard without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases which serves me so well. It was a parallel instance in Everdeen some years back. Ever was something on very much the same line as the Unique. The after the Franko-Preson War is one of these cases. Oh, but hello here is in the strange. You will find an extra tongue by the side, but I don't know if the guys in the box are strange. Thank you. Evening Dr. Watton, here in Switzerland. Well, what's up then? You looked as if it's been. I feel dissatisfied. Since the infernal sense of marriage case, I can't make head and all tail of the business. Really? You surprised me. Oh, do sit down. Whoever heard of the mixture fair, every clue seems to slip through my fingers.

15:37I've been at work on it all day. Yes, it seems to have made you. I've been dragging the serpentine. It's a little bit more for. Looking for the body of ladies and simons. Have you dragged the basin of the Topaga Square funded? What do you mean? Because if justice could have changed the lady there as in the serpentine. I suppose you know all about it. Well, I've really just the facts that my mind has made up. Indeed. Then you think that the serpentine plays no part in a matter? I think it's very unlikely. Perhaps your kindly explain how it is if we found these needed. I hadn't heard of my bag. Yes, there's a little nut for you to crack my arms. Oh, indeed. See what's in it? A wedding dress, white second shoes, and the bride's wreath and veil. And a wedding ring? You'd drag these from the serpentine. No, they were found near the bank by a parking lot. They would identify as they're close. It seemed to me that if they're close with their, the body wouldn't be far off. By the same brilliant reasoning every man's body is to be found in the neighborhood of this wardrobe.

16:40And pray, what did you hope to arrive at through this? Some evidence implicating Flora Miller and the disappearance. The fate you'll find is difficult. Well, you and me now. An animal frame is the herms. As you're not very practical with all deductions in your inference. This place does implicate Miss Flora Miller. And how? In the dress is a pocket. In the pockets is a car in case. In the car in case of the note. You will see me when all is ready. Come at once. F-H-M. Now my theory all along has been that the latest ensignment was deployed away by Flora Miller. No doubt was convinced. The initials were honest note. It was no doubt slipped into the bride's hand of the door and ignored her into their reach. Very good, Le Strait. You know, you really are very fine indeed. Let me see. This is indeed important. I don't know. You find it so? Extremely. I congratulate you warmly. Well then. We are looking on the wrong side. On the contrary. This is the right side.

17:41The right side? Don't mad. The note is written in pencil on the back. And over here is what appears to be a fragment of a hotel bill. It interests me deeply. All was nothing. I looked deep before. I was seeing nothing in there. Very likely not. It's most important all the same. As to the note, it's important also, or at least the initials are. So I congratulate you again. Oh, I wasted time enough. I believe in hard work. I'm sitting by the far-spinning series. We shall see who gets to the bottom of this first. Go down into the home. Or just one. We can't see you in the state. I will tell you the true solution of this matter. Ladies and gentlemen, is a myth. There is not, and there has never been any such person. You're mad. Mad. But there is something about the fellow says about outdoor work. I think what's in it. I must leave you to your papers for a little while.

18:41I'll be back. I've laid the supper in my absence, I see. I didn't know what it was all about. A confectioner of men came and said it all out. Who would cut? Isn't it a paragraph? I... You are not studying looking bottles. Said they'd been paid for an order to this address. Chapter two. These days were five. Who seemed to expect it. I don't know. I didn't know what it would all about. A confectioner of men came and said it all out. Who would cut? Isn't it a paragraph? I... You are not studying looking bottles. Said they'd been paid for an order to this address. Do you seem to expect a company? Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in. I'm surprised, Lord. The family's not already arrived. Ah, I fancy I can step on the stairs now. Oh, so my message reached you, Lord. Yes, and I must confess, the contents pass will be on me. Have you got a holiday? What should I say? The best possible. What will the Duke say? What he to think. But he hears that one of the family has been subjected to some humiliation.

19:42It's the theorist accident. You look on these things in a very different way. I can hardly see how the lady could have acted otherwise. Her abrupt method of doing was undoubtedly to be regretted. But having no mother, she had no one to advise her. Such a crisis. It was a slight serve. A public slight. You must make allowance for this work. Placed in so unprecedented. I will make no allowance. I am very angry indeed. I have been simply used. Ah, there's the bell. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient view, Lord Sinc I have brought an advocate here who may be more successful. I come in, please, do. Lord Sinc Lord Sinc I'm an allowing you to introduce you to Mr. Amis's Francis in Milton. The lady, I think you have already met. Good Lord, are you? You're angry, Robert. Oh, well, I guess you've every caused to be. You've never told me. Oh, yeah, I know I treated you real bad. I should have spoken to you before I went, but I was kind of rattled.

20:43From the time I saw Frank here, I guess I just didn't know why I was doing or saying I only wanted to fall down into a pain right there before the old man. If he's not, perhaps you would like my friend to need to leave the room while you explain this matter. If I may give an opinion, we've had just a little too much secrecy over this matter already. Over the... I'd like all Europe and America to hear the right story. Then I'll tell our story right away. Frank and I met in 81 in Maclire's camp near the Rockies where Paul was working to claim we were engaged. Frank and I was one day past Dr. Rich pocket and made a pile while Paul Frank here had to claim that came to nothing. In the richer Paul, I grew the poor Frank gosh. So last Paul wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer and he took me away to Fristville. Frank wouldn't throw in his hand though. You bet. Frank followed me and he saw me without Paul knowing. He said he'd go back and he'd make his pile too and he wouldn't come to claim me till he had as much as Paul. So I...

21:43From his... I'd wait for him till the end of time and not to marry anyone else as long as he lived. So I said why shouldn't we be married straight away then? Then I'll feel sure of you. But I won't claim to be your husband until I come back. Well, we talked it over. See? And we just went for clergymen and did it right there. Good Lord. Well, the next day I heard of Frank he was in Montana, men in New Mexico. And then there was a newspaper story about how a miner's camp had been attacked by Apache Indians. And there was Frank's name among the killed. I was six per month. But there was never another word of Frank after that. Are you see? I was home. Hold on, dear. Well, I felt all the time that no man on his earth could ever take Frank's place in my heart. But I meant to make Robert just as good a wife as it was in me to be. Oh, was you imagine what I felt first as I came to the old rail? There was Frank standing. Looking at me out of the first pure.

22:48I thought it was his ghost at first. I looked again and there he was still. Oh, was it kind of a question in his eyes? Oh, I didn't know if to stop the service and make a scene in the church. What the clergyman was saying was just like a bee buzzing in my ears. I scribble her nose. Yeah, and I'm the way out again. I saw the piece of paper in his hand and I knew it was for me. So I passed the pew and I dropped by bouquet over and he slipped the note into my hands when he gave it back. You never doubted for a moment that your first duty now was to hit. Oh, of course. Well, I told my maid to say nothing, get a few things packed. I made in my mind to run away and explain afterwards. I hadn't been at the table ten minutes when I saw Frank out in the road. I slipped out and I followed him into the park. Some woman came up talking something about Lord Saint Simon. But I managed to get away from her. I called off the Frank and we took a cab to his place in Gordon Square and... Well, and that was my true wedding after all those years.

23:49You see, I'd been a prisoner with those patches all the time. When I got back to Fisco, I saw in a paper about his other wedding. I just got to England in time. Frank was all for being open and telling what had happened. Yeah, yeah. But I was so ashamed thinking of all those lords and ladies waiting at that table for me to come back. So Frank took my wedding things and he dropped them anywhere in the park. He thought they wouldn't be found. We were off to Paris France tomorrow. Only this gentleman Mr. Holmes came around. Yes. Well, Robert, you've heard it all. I'm very sorry if I've given you any pain. I hope you don't think very meanly of me. Excuse me, but it isn't my custom to discuss my most intimate personal affairs in this public manner. Then you won't forgive me. You won't shake hands before I go. Go. Certainly. I'll give you any pleasure. I had hoped that you would have joined us in a friendly supper.

24:51I think that you asked a little too much. I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments. I can hardly be expected to make many of them. I think that with your permission, I will now wish you all a very good night. And I trust that you, at least, will honor us for your company and his service is most important. It is always a joy to be to meet an American, Mr. Holmes. Well, that's nice of you, Mr. Holmes. Well, Watson, the case has been an interesting one. It shows how simple the explanation may be of an affair which seems almost inexplicable on first sight. You had no doubt them. From the first two facts put obvious to me. One was that the lady was quite willing to undergo the marriage ceremony. The other was that she had repented of it within a few minutes of returning home. But she could not have spoken to anyone when she was out for she'd been in the company of the bridegroom. Had she seen someone else, if she had, it must have been someone from America.

25:53Then who could this American be? He might be a lover, he might be a husband. For instance, Simon told us of a man in the pew and the change in our manner and that transparent device of dropping her book here, or it all became absolutely clear. Especially in view of that illusion of hers to claim jumping, which in mine as talk means taking possession of that which another person has a prior claim to. It was clear to me that she'd gone off for the man, and the chances were in favor of his being a husband. And how in the world did you find them? Friendless trade, held information in his hands and didn't have the value of it. The initials on the note were the highest importance, of course, but it was more valuable still to know that within a week the man had settled his bill as one of the most select London hotels. How did you deduce the select? How the select prices? Eight shillings for a bed and eight for a class of sheree pointed to one of the most expensive hotels. Well, there are not many in London which charge of preparation. In the second one I just did in Northumberland Avenue, I learned by an inspection of the book that Francis,

26:58H. Moson and American gentlemen had left her in the day before. On looking over the entries against him, I came upon the very items I'd seen in the duplicate bill. His letters were to be four-village to 226 Gordon Square, so that I traveled. For loving couple were fortunate to be at home, and I eventually gave them some paternal advice. I invited them to meet Lord Sonsheim and here, and to make that position a little clearer. There were no very good results. He's connocted, he's suddenly not being gracious. Oh, my dear Watson. Perhaps you would not be very gracious either, if after all the trouble of wooing and waiting, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and fortune. I think we made Judge Lord Sonsheim and very mercifully, and thank our stars that Vennett are likely to find ourselves in the same position. Now draw up your chair, Owen. Have you invited back, Owen?

27:58In the noble bachelor by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the part of Sherlock Holmes was played by Carton Hobbes, Dr. Watson by Norman Shelley, Lord Sonsheim by William Edo, and the Strayed by Frederick Threeves. The story was adapted for radio by Michael Hardwick, and produced in London by Frederick Brahmam.