Transcript
Hugh Bonneville (0:00)
McDonald's meets the Minecraft universe with one of six collectibles and your choice of a Big Mac or 10 piece McNuggets with spicy nether Flame sauce. Now available with a Minecraft movie meal at participating McDonald's for a limited time. A Minecraft movie only in theaters. Welcome to Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. I'm Hugh Bonneville and from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is A Scandal in Bohemia, Part 2. Last time, Dr. Watson paid a visit to 221B Baker street after a long absence and found Sherlock in the midst of yet another thrilling case. The great detective had received a mysterious note heralding the arrival of a masked stranger in need of his services. Holmes quickly deduced that this masked man was none other than Wilhelm Gottsreich, Sigismund von Olmstein, the King of Bohemia. The king confessed that he was being blackmailed by his former lover, Irene Adler. Extraordinary, beautiful and intelligent, Adler possessed a photo of the two of them that would compromise his impending marriage to a Scandinavian princess. She'd threatened to release the photo in three days time, when his engagement to the princess was set to be made public. Multiple attempts had been made to retrieve the photograph, but Adler outwitted the king's men at every turn. With the clock ticking, Sherlock promised the king he'd track down the picture before the cunning young woman could cause an international scandal. Watson went home for the night, but promised to return to Baker street the following day at 3:00 to help his old friend crack the case. At 3 o'clock precisely I was at Baker street, but Holmes had not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the house shortly after 8 o'clock in the morning. I sat down beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he might be. I was already deeply interested in his inquiry, for though it was surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were associated with the two crimes which I have already recorded, still the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a situation and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his invariable success, that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my head. It was close upon four before the door opened. And a drunken looking groom, ill kempt and side whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers and the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he. With a nod, he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes, tweed suited and respectable as of old. Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes. Really, he cried. And then he choked and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless in the chair. What is it? It's quite too funny. I'm sure. You could never guess how I employed my morning, or what I ended by doing. I can't imagine. I suppose, that you have been watching the habits and perhaps the house of Miss Irene Adler? Quite so. But the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, however. I left the house a little after 8 o'clock this morning in the character of a groom out of work. There is a wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of them and you will know all that there is to know. I soon found Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa with a garden at the back, but built out in front, right up to the road, two stories, chubb lock to the door, large sitting room on the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open behind. There was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be reached from the top of the coach house. I walked round it and examined it closely from every point of view, but without noting anything else of interest. I then lounged down the street and found, as I expected, that there was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden. I lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses and received in exchange twopence a glass of half and half, two fills of shag tobacco, and as much information as I could desire about Miss Adler, to say nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighbourhood in whom I was not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was compelled to listen to. And what of Irene Adler? I asked. Oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the serpentine muse to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives out at 5 every day and returns at 7 sharp for dinner. Seldom goes out at other times, except when she sings. Has only one male visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark, handsome and dashing. Never calls less than once a day, and often twice. He. He is a Mr. Godfrey Norton of the Inner Temple. See the advantages of a cabman as a confidant. They had driven him home a dozen times from Serpentine Mews and knew all about him. When I had listened to all they had to tell, I began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once more and to think over my plan of campaign. This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the matter. He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous. What was the relation between them and what the object of his repeated visits? Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress? If the former, she had probably transferred the photograph to his keeping. If the latter, it was less likely. On the issue of this question depended whether I should continue my work at Briony Lodge or turn my attention to the Gentlemen's Chambers in the Temple. It was a delicate point, and it widened the field of my inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties if you are to understand the situation. I am following you closely, I answered. I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove up to Briony Lodge and a gentleman sprang out. He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline and moustached. Evidently the man of whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a great hurry. Shouted to the cabman to wait and brushed past the maid who opened the door with the air of a man who was thoroughly at home. He was in the house about half an hour and I could catch glimpses of him in the windows of the sitting room, pacing up and down, talking excitedly and waving his arms. Of her I could see nothing. Presently he emerged, looking even more flooded than before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from his pocket and looked at it earnestly. Drive like the devil. He shouted. First to Gross and Hankey's in Regent street, and then to the Church of St. Monica in the Edgware Road. Half a guinea if you do it in 20 minutes. Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do well to follow them, when up the lane came a neat little carriage, the coachman with his coat only half buttoned and his tie under his ear, while all the tags of his harness were sticking out of the buckles. It hadn't pulled up before she shot out of the hall door and into it. I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but she was a lovely woman with a face that a man might die for. The Church of St. Monica, John. She cried. And half a sovereign if you reach it in 20 minutes. This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I was just balancing whether I should run for it or whether I should perch behind her carriage when a cab came through the street. The driver looked twice at such a shabby fare, but I jumped in before he could object. The Church of St. Monica, said I, and half a sovereign if you reach it in 20 minutes. It was 25 minutes to 12, and of course it was clear enough what was in the wind. My cabby drove fast. I don't think I ever drove faster, but the others were there before us. The cab and the landau with their steaming horses were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid the man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there save the two whom I had followed and a surpliced clergyman who seemed to be expostulating with them. They were all three standing in a knot in front of the altar. I lounged up the side aisle like any other idler who has dropped into a church. Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at the altar faced round to me and Godfrey Norton came running as hard as he could towards me. Thank God, he cried. You'll do. Come, come. What then? I asked. Come, man, come. Only three minutes or it won't be legal. I was half dragged up to the altar and before I knew where I was I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, Bachelor. It was all done in an instant and there was the gentleman thanking me on the one side and the lady on the other, while the clergyman beamed on me in front. It was the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the thought of it that started me laughing just now. It seems that there had been some informality about their license, that the clergyman absolutely refused to marry them without a witness of some sort, and that my lucky appearance saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the streets in search of a best man. The bride gave me a sovereign and I mean to wear it on my watch chain in memory of the occasion.