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Choice Classic Radio Detectives | Old Time Radio
Sherlock Holmes: The Boscombe Valley Mystery (Hobbs & Shelley)
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Narrator
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Lestrade
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Narrator
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Lestrade
Capital my dear Watson, let us return to our humble abode. 221 B Baker. From London we present the Boscombe Valley Mystery, a play for radio by Michael Hardwick, based on the short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Boscombe Valley Mystery in less than half an hour of receiving a summons from Sherlock Holmes to meet him at Paddington Station, I found myself in the 11:15 train to Ross on Wye in Herefordshire. We had a carriage to ourselves, save for an immense litter of newspapers which Holmes had brought with him. Clearly one of these simple cases, Watson, which are so extremely difficult, but sounds a bit paradoxical, Holmes. They've managed to build up a very strong case against the murdered man's son. Oh, it's a murder then. Why haven't you read about it? It's in all the papers. No, not a word. I haven't read a newspaper for days. Very well, I'll explain the state of things to you. As far as I've been able to understand it. Boscombe Valley is a country district not far from Ross in Herefordshire. The largest landowner about there is a Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia. One of his farms was let to a Mr. Charles McCarthy who'd known him in Australia and came to the old country to settle near him. You follow me? Perfectly. Home. Both were widowers. Turner had A daughter of 18, McCarthy, a son of the same age. Now we come to June 3rd and last Monday. Yes, when McCarthy left his house at about three in the afternoon to keep some appointment at the Boscombe Pool, which is a little lake a quarter of a mile from his farm. He never came back alive. Really? What happened to him? His head was battered in by a person or persons unknown. By no means. You see, as McCarthy walked that quarter of a misery's rendezvous he was seen by two people. One of them a gamekeeper, says that a few minutes later he also saw McCarthy's son Jane follow his father with a gun under his arm. Surely, Holmes. Now wait a moment. What? The Boscombe Pool it appears is thickly fringed with grass and reeds and then by trees. Now in these trees that afternoon we have a 14 year old flower picker by name Patience Moran, whose father is a lodge keeper on the estate. And we have her evidence that the McCarthy's father and son had a violent quarrel beside the lady. She was so frightened by the older man's brutal language that she ran away, but not before she'd seen the son raise his arm as if to strike his father. The child must have been scared stiff enough to run all the way home. But she'd hardly got the tail out to her father when young McCarthy came dashing out of the woods all disheveled and with blood on his right hand and sleeve to say that he'd found his father lying dead on following him. They found McCarthy lying beside the pool with his head beaten in. As I told you, his son's gun lay beside him with blood all over its butter. No, no, white dwarf, that is the suggestion. Under the circumstances. You'll hardly be surprised to hear that young James McCarthy was arrested forthwith. He's been remanded to the next decisive. And yet there are enough people locally who believe he's innocent to have pressed a Scotland Yard to go over the ground. Yard, eh? Who? Our old friend Lestrade, a well wisher of the accused, has asked for my help. Well, I don't see you all astray getting any credit for this case. The local police have got the man and that's that. Not necessary. Oh well, we lunch at Swindon. And in the meantime might I suggest that while I immerse myself in my pocket, Petrarch, you post yourself up on the events of the coroner's talk. There you are, it's all in these papers. You see, I've been away in Bristol for three days. I'd only just returned home when I heard my father's Trap drive into the yard. I saw him get out and walk rapidly out of the yard again. I didn't know which direction he was taking. What did you do? I took my gun and strolled off towards Boscombe Pool. There's a rabbit warren on the other side. And on my way, I saw William Crowder. The gamekeeper. Yes, we've heard. It's evident that he saw you following your father. That isn't so. I had no idea he was in front of me. When I was about a hundred yards from the pool, I heard a cry of cooey. Cooee? Yes, was a usual sign between my father and myself. I then hurried forward and found him standing by the pool. He seemed very surprised to see me and asked me rather roughly what I was doing there. The conversation we then had led to high words and almost to blows. My father was a man of very violent temper. And you are not? No, sir. When I saw that his rage was becoming ungovernable, I walked away. I can't have gone more than 150 yards, though, before I heard a hideous outcry behind me. I ran back again and found my father was on the ground fine. His head was terribly injured. I dropped my gun and held him in my arms. But he died almost instantly. Did he say anything to you before he died? He mumbled a few words. I could only catch some reference to a rat. A rat? Yes, sir. Fermi, would you say your father had enemies? I think so, sir. That his reference to a rat did not strike you as meaning a particular person, for instance? I thought he was delirious. Very well. Now, what was the point upon which you and your father had this final quarrel? I prefer not to answer that. So be it. Now, as to this cry of cooee, were you not surprised that he uttered it before he saw you? At a time when he did not even know that you returned from Bristol? I can't remember. It's been so confusing. Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions when you returned on hearing the cry and found your father fatally injured? Nothing definite. What do you mean? It's only a vague impression. I think there was something lying on the ground a few yards from where my father was lying. Something. Something grey. It might have been a coat of some sort. A coat? No doubt you're going to tell us it was not his coat. I don't know. It's all so vague. But I know it wasn't there when I got up again to go for help. You in Sirlin. That while you were engaged with your Dying father? Some person stole out and removed his coat without your knowledge? That could be it. You may sit down, sir. Oh, oh, you finished the papers. Well, what do you think? All that stuff about a coat, obviously a last attempt to inject a mystery into an open and shut case against. Both you and the coroner, Watson have been at pains to single out the very points which are strongest in that young man's favor. Strongest? Don't you see? No, I don't. One moment. You give him credit for too little imagination and then for too much. When asked what he and his father quarrelled about he couldn't even impress, which might have won him the jury's sympathy. And yet a few moments later he evolved something so utre as a dying reference to a rat and the incident of a vanishing coat. No, my dear fellow, I shall approach this case from the hypothesis that what he says is truth. We shall see where that believes. I can see Dr. Watson agrees with me, Mr. Holmes, as plain as a pikester. And yet, Lestrade, you're happy to deprive Scotland Yard of your inestimable services to come all this way and do again what the local police have done already? Well, anything for a day or two away from the desk, Mr. Holmes. Besides, one or two folk down here were very pressing. Come in. Here's one of them. Mr. Sherlock Holmes? Yes. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I'm so glad you've come. I've driven down to tell you so. James didn't do it, Mr. Holmes? I'm already working on that assumption, Ms. Turner. Oh, how did you know my name? Do forgive me for rushing in here without an introduction. None was necessary. Your age and that hint of the Antipodes in your accent. Tell me that you are Ms. Alice Turner, the daughter of the late Charles McCarthy's neighbor and landlord. And if you will forgive me that you are not a little in love with his unfortunate son. What? Well, I can't deny that, Mr. Holmes. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that we should marry, but, well, I don't think James was. He's quite roguish. Ah. Could it have been a cause of some friction between them? I'm afraid so. Is your own father in favor of such a union? Far from it. In fact no one except old Mr. McCarthy seemed to want it. No one, this Turner. Well, forgive me. May I see your father if I call tomorrow? I'm afraid the doctor won't. Alive, Mr. Holmes? Oh, this business has broken him down completely. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive who had known dad in their old days in Victoria. Victoria, where your father made his money? That's right, in the gold field. Ms. Turner, you've been of material assistance to me. I'm so glad Mr. Holmes, you do believe me? James is innocent. You may rely upon my doing all I can, Ms. Turner. And now you must return to your father who I'm sure must need you. Yes. Goodbye Mr. Holmes and gentlemen. Thank you. Good day, ma'am. I thought it was downright cruel of you Mr. Holmes, letting her go on with hopes that bound to be disappointed in the end. That's your tenderness of heart, the strayed. I'm sure you'll be the first to rejoice if I don't disappoint her, huh? Now have you an order to see young McCarthy in prison? Yes, he's in Hereford. I'm looking forward to seeing a chap for myself. I'm sorry doctor, but there's any permission for Mr. Holmes or myself to go in any case, Mr. Holmes, wouldn't you sooner take a look at the theme of the crime first? No, let's trade. I shall go to Hereford jail instead. As for you, my dear Watson, that sofa looks a good deal superior to the usual country hotel abomination. I dare say you can while away a couple of hours upon it without undue discomfort. I'm sorry to have been so long, my dear fellow. Well then, what did you learn from young McCarthy? Nothing, nothing. He could throw no light at all. I was inclined to think for a time that he knew who had done it and was screening him or her. Her? Holmes, you couldn't suspect that lovely face. Oh no, no, no. But it will please your sense of the romantic to know that he is madly, insanely in love with her. Something the matter with him if he isn't. Only what, some two years ago when he was little more than a lad, what did the idiot do but get into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol? Too close, sir. They were married in the registrar. No. Yes. No one knows a word of this. Imagine Watson, how maddening it must have been for him being upbraided constantly by his father for not engaging himself to Ms. Turner. The thing he'd given his very eyes to do. Poor devil. You know you're getting me on his side now, Holmes. Then you'll be gratified to hear that good has come out of all this evil. How finding from the newspapers that he's to be tried for murder and perhaps hanged, his barmaid has written to him admitting that she already has a husband in the Bermuda dockyard so that there's no tie between them. What a bizarre tale, Holmes. But I don't see what good even that's going to do him. He doesn't throw any light on the murder, does it? Quite true. But I call your attention to two other points which do. Yes. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with somebody at the pool and that it could not have been his son who was away. Oh yes. The second is that the murdered man was heard to call cooing before he knew his son had returned. Depend on this, Watson. Those are the things on which this case hangs. That's all very well, but not another word. Tomorrow we visit the Boscombe pool. Meanwhile, let us relax our minds by discussing George Meredith and leave minor matters until then.
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Narrator
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Lestrade
I've been over the whole place thoroughly, Mr. Holmes. So I see, Lestrade. And so the local force, a herd of buffalo, couldn't have made more mess. Why thank heaven you didn't manage to obliterate everything though. Ah, here are young McCarthy's prints. You see, twice he was walking and once he ran swiftly here, where the soles are deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. Now that'll bear out his story. Then Holmes, he ran for help and then presumably walked back with the others. Here are his father's prints as he takes up and down, up and down. And this, how, what have we here? Tiptoes. Tiptoes. And quite unusual square toed boots. They come, they go, they come again. Of course, that was when someone sneaked out to gather up that coat. Oh, spares that coat, Mr. Holmes. Now where did they come from? Ah, yes, over here. Monster tree. Ah, hello. What's he found now is the word tree branch. No, it's a stone. What Is it Holmes, the weapon with which McCarthy Senior was murdered? Hey, let's see. Oh, I've seen those stones. There are none. Well how do you know them? The grass was growing beneath the stone. It had only been there a few days. Oh, you'll admit it could have caused the injuries and been washed clean in the pool. And perhaps you'll admit that it was young McCarthy who used it. The murderer is a tall man, left handed, limps for the right leg and wears thick sole shooting boots. He also wears a great cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses a cigar holder and carries a blunt penknife in his pocket. Is that young McCarthy? Theories are all very well but you try putting theories to a hard headed British jury. We shall see. You work your own method and I shall work mine. Watson, we return to London by the evening train. Leave your case unfinished Colonel? No, finished. But the mystery it's solved. Who's the criminal then? The gentleman I described. Yes, but who is he? Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to find out. This isn't such a populous neighborhood. I'm a practical man. I really can't go about the country looking for a left handed chap with a game leg. I'd be the laughingstock of the Yard. Well I've given you your chance. Lestrade. Gather your lodging. I shall drop you a line before I leave. And now Watson, to round off an excellent luncheon, light your cigar and let me preach to you a little. I ask you to consider the only two utterances by the victim which have been precisely reported to us. His cry of cooey and his dying reference to a rat. Now cooey was obviously meant to attract someone's attention. As yet the distinctly Australian cry. There's a strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected to meet at Boston Pool was someone who had been in Australia. That's logical. What about the rat? What else you got there? It's a map of the colony of Victoria. I wired to Bristol for it last night. Oh. May I have a space? Yes, I'll move them. There we are. Now then, if I place my hand over this word. So what do you read? A R, A T Harrod? A rat. And the full word is Ballarat. What's Ballarat got to do with anything? McCarthy was naming his murderer so and so of Ballarat. So now we've come out of near vagueness to the definite conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a grey coat. Ever there was a gray coat. Assuming there was. Now we come to our expedition of today. That description you gave to Lestrade, how did you work it out, Holmes? I mean, I know you could judge his height from the length of his stride, but his lameness, the impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his left. He put less weight on it because he limped. Oh, but he. He's left handed. Now you read the evidence of the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from immediately behind and on the left side. Now how can that be unless a left handed man struck it? Yes, I see. I was able to trace the footprint for this left handed Australian with a limp to the spot where he had stood behind a tree a short distance from the pool and listened to the quarrel between the two McCarthy. While there he had smoked. I found the ash of a cigar. Having found this ash, I looked round until I found the discarded butt and a cigar. Hold on. I could see that the butt had not been in his mouth, therefore he used a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten, but the cut was not a keen one, therefore I deduced a blunt pen knife. I always start by disbelieving you and before long I'm convinced you can't be right. But I always finish up by asking how you did it. Oh, come in, Mr. Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Come in, Mr. Turner. Turner. Pray take the sofa where you can rest yourself after this effort. Thank you. Mr. Holmes, this is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson. How do you do? Watson, this is Mr. John Turner, with whose charming daughter you are already acquainted. How do you do? Dr. Watson, is it then? Sure you can see how I do, sir. I'm a dying man, that's all. I'm allowed out for an hour or two. When I received Mr. Holmes message. Message? Holmes, you said that you wished to see me here rather than at the. What does that mean, Mr. Holmes? It means that people might begin to talk if Sherlock Holmes were seen visiting you. And I wished to spare you that, Mr. Turner. I know all about the car. I see. Had I give you my word, I wouldn't have let that young man come to harm. My one wish has been to live until the assizes, so that I could speak out if the case went against him. I'm glad to hear you say so. I'd have spoken before if it hadn't been for my dear girl. It would break her heart. It will break her heart. It may not come to that. What? I'm no official agent. It was your daughter who sought my presence here, so I'm acting in her interest. But what I must have Is your confession in front of Watson here? In case I have to produce it at the last extremity in order to save young MacArthur. Mr. Holmes, you shall have it. Oh, you didn't know his father, Charles McCarthy? No, he was a devil incarnate. I'd been in his grip for 20 years and heaven keep either of you out of the clutches of a man like that. How did it begin? Oh, it was in the early 60s of the diggings. Black Jack of Ballarat they called me. Then young Reckless, ready to turn my hand to anything. I got into bad company and found myself a bushranger. One day a GO convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne. There were six of us. We sprang out and attacked it. I put my pistol to the head of the wagon driver. I wish to heaven I had pulled the trigger. McCarthy, the very man. His wicked little eyes must have taken in every feature of my face. Well, we got away with the gold. I parted company with the gang and came back to England determined to settle to a respectable life. I got married and then my wife died young. He left me with my dear Alice. Then one day when I'd gone up to town about an Investment, I met McCarthy again. Knew you? Once. He touched me on the arm and he said, how are you, Jack? There's two of us, me and my son. We'll be as good as a family to you. Or I'll hail the nearest policeman. Well, they live rent free in my best land. Ever since, there's been no rest for me, no peace. Turn where I would. There, with his grinning face at my shoulder, whispering reminders of his threat. Do we take it that McCarthy's demands on you included the marriage of your daughter to his son? Yes. That he was bleeding. All he could take in my lifetime now. He wanted to make sure he got his hands on all that were tied up with my girl's inheritance. You refused. There has to come a point, hasn't there? I. I told him to do his worst. He demanded that I meet him at the pool halfway between our houses to talk it over. Ah, now note this carefully. Certainly. And I. I heard him call out, cooee. That's an old Australian bushcrater. Let me know where to find him. But when I got near there, I saw he had his son with him and they seemed to be arguing. So you waited behind a tree and watched? Yes, that's right. I listened to him urging his son to marry my daughter with as little regard for what. For what she might think. As if she'd been a slut of the streets I was already a dying man and a desperate one. As soon as his son had gone, I picked up a stone and went out and struck that fiend down with no more compunsion than if he died. Been some bit of a. He cried out. And his son came back.
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Narrator
Yes.
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Lestrade
I gained the COVID of the trees by then, but I saw that I dropped my coat. I had to sneak out quickly and retrieve it all. The boy knelt down with his back to me. Just as you assumed, Holmes. Yes, well, it's not for me to judge you, Mr. Turner. Well, what do you mean to do? Nothing. Nothing. You know well enough that you will soon have to answer for what you've done at a higher court than their side, Mr. Prone. Then I will thank you and go. Gentlemen. May neither of you ever be exposed to such provocation as I had to meet. I pray not and depend upon it, unless young McCarthy is condemned and I have to use it to save him. Your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall remain safe with us. Thank you, Star Rogue. Thank you gentlemen. Good day. Why does fate play such tricks with poor helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words and say to myself, there but for the grace of God. Those Sherlock Holmes. That was the Boscombe Valley mystery by Michael Hardwick based on the short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes was played by Carlton Hobbs and Dr. Watson by Norman Shelley. Production for the BBC was by Martin C. Webster.
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Narrator
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