The Problem of Thor Bridge, Part 1

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0:59[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's time to relax. [SPEAKER_00]: Let your body fall into a comfortable position in your bed and drift gently into a state of total relaxation with tonight's story. [SPEAKER_00]: The problem of Thor Bridge [SPEAKER_00]: part one. [SPEAKER_00]: Somewhere in the vaults of the Bank of Cox and Co at Charing Cross, there is a travel worn and battered tin dispatch box with my name, John H. Watson MD, late Indian Army painted upon the lid.

1:37[SPEAKER_00]: It is crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the curious [SPEAKER_00]: Some, and not the least interesting, were complete failures, and as such, will hardly bear narrating, since no final explanation is forthcoming. [SPEAKER_00]: A problem without a solution may interest the student but can hardly fail to annoy the casual reader. [SPEAKER_00]: Among these unfinished tales is that of Mr. James Fillymor, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world.

2:20[SPEAKER_00]: No less remarkable is that of the cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and heard crew. [SPEAKER_00]: A third case worthy of note is that of Isadora persona, the well-known journalist and dualist who was found stark staring mad with the matchbox in front of him, which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science.

2:48[SPEAKER_00]: Apart from these unfathomed cases, there are some which involve the secrets of private families, to an extent which would mean consternation in many exalted quarters if it were thought possible that they might find their way into print. [SPEAKER_00]: I need not say that such a breach of confidence is unthinkable, and that these records will be separated and destroyed now that my friend has time to turn his energies to the matter. [SPEAKER_00]: their remain a considerable residue of cases of greater or less interest, which I might have edited before had I not feared to give the public a surf it which might react upon the reputation of the man whom above all others I revere.

3:31[SPEAKER_00]: In some I was myself concerned and can speak as an eyewitness, while in others I was either not present or played so small apart that they could only be told as by a third person. [SPEAKER_00]: the following narrative is drawn from my own experience. [SPEAKER_00]: It was a wild morning in October, and I observed as I was dressing how the last remaining leaves were being world from the solitary plain tree which graces the yard behind our house.

4:02[SPEAKER_00]: I descended to breakfast prepared to find my companion in depressed spirits for like all great artists. [SPEAKER_00]: He was easily impressed by his surroundings. [SPEAKER_00]: On the contrary, I found that he had nearly finished his meal, and that his mood was particularly bright and joyous with that somewhat sinister cheerfulness which was characteristic of his lighter moments. [SPEAKER_00]: You have a case, Holmes, I remarked. [SPEAKER_00]: The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious Watson.

4:35[SPEAKER_00]: He answered, it has enabled you to probe my secret. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I have a case. [SPEAKER_00]: After a month of trivialities and stagnation, the wheels move once more. [SPEAKER_00]: Might I share it? [SPEAKER_00]: There is little to share, but we may discuss it when you have consumed the two hard boiled eggs with which our new cook has favoured us. [SPEAKER_00]: Their condition may not be unconnected with the copy of the family herald, which I observed yesterday upon the whole table.

5:07[SPEAKER_00]: even so trivial a matter is cooking an egg demands an attention which is conscious of the passage of time and incompatible with the love romance in that excellent periodical. [SPEAKER_00]: A quarter of an hour later the table had been cleared and we were faced to face. [SPEAKER_00]: He had drawn a letter from his pocket. [SPEAKER_00]: You have heard of Neil Gibson, the gold king. [SPEAKER_00]: He said, [SPEAKER_00]: You mean the American senator?

5:42[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he was once senator for some western state, but his better known as the greatest gold mining magnet in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I know of him. [SPEAKER_00]: He has surely lived in England for some time. [SPEAKER_00]: His name is very familiar. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he bought a considerable estate in Hampshire some five years ago, possibly you have already heard of the tragic end of his wife. [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I remember it now.

6:14[SPEAKER_00]: That is why the name is familiar, but I really know nothing of the details. [SPEAKER_00]: Homes waved his hand towards some papers on a chair. [SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea that the case was coming my way, or I should have had my extracts ready," said he. [SPEAKER_00]: The fact is that the problem, though exceedingly sensational, appeared to present no difficulty. [SPEAKER_00]: The interesting personality of the accused is not obscure the clearness of the evidence.

6:45[SPEAKER_00]: That was the view taken by the coroner's jury and also in the police court proceedings. [SPEAKER_00]: It is now referred to the assises at Winchester. [SPEAKER_00]: I can discover facts Watson, but I cannot change them, unless I'm entirely new and unexpected ones come to light, I do not see what my client can hope for. [SPEAKER_00]: You're client. [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, I forgot I had not told you. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting into your involved habit Watson of telling a story backwards.

7:20[SPEAKER_00]: You had best read this first. [SPEAKER_00]: The letter which he handed to me, written in the bold, masterful hand, ran as follows. [SPEAKER_00]: Clarages hotel October 3. [SPEAKER_00]: Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I can't see the best woman God ever made go to her death without doing all that is possible to save her. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't explain things. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't even try to explain them. [SPEAKER_00]: But I know beyond all doubt that Miss Dunbar is innocent, you know the facts, who doesn't.

7:56[SPEAKER_00]: It has been the gossip of the country, a never-a-voiced race for her. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the damned injustice of it all that makes me crazy. [SPEAKER_00]: That woman has a heart that wouldn't let her kill a fly. [SPEAKER_00]: Well I'll come at 11 tomorrow and see if you can get some ray of light in the dark. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I have a clue and don't know it. [SPEAKER_00]: anyhow, all I know, and all I have and all I am are for your use, if only you can save her.

8:23[SPEAKER_00]: If ever in your life you showed your powers put them now into this case. [SPEAKER_00]: Yours faithfully. [SPEAKER_00]: Jay Neil Gibson There you have it, said Sherlock Holmes, knocking out the ashes of his after breakfast [SPEAKER_00]: That is the gentleman I await. [SPEAKER_00]: As to the story, you have hardly time to master all these papers, so I must give it to you in a nutshell if you are to take an intelligent interest in the proceedings.

8:57[SPEAKER_00]: This man is the greatest financial power in the world, and a man as I understand of most violent and formidable character. [SPEAKER_00]: He married a wife, the victim of this tragedy of whom I know nothing saved that she was past her prime. [SPEAKER_00]: which was the more unfortunate as a very attractive governor's super-intended the education of two young children. [SPEAKER_00]: These are the three people concerned and the scene is a grand old manor house, the center of an historical English estate, then as to the tragedy.

9:27[SPEAKER_00]: The wife was found in the grounds nearly half a mile from the house late at night, clad in her dinner dress with a shawl over her shoulders and a revolver bullet through her brain. [SPEAKER_00]: No weapon was found near her. [SPEAKER_00]: and there was no local clue as to the murder. [SPEAKER_00]: No weapon near her Watson, mark that. [SPEAKER_00]: The crime seems to have been committed late in the evening and the body was found by a gamekeeper about 11 o'clock when it was examined by the police and by a doctor before being carried up to the house.

9:57[SPEAKER_00]: Is this too condensed or can you follow it clearly? [SPEAKER_00]: It is all very clear, but why suspect the governor? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, in the first place, there is some very direct evidence. [SPEAKER_00]: A revolver with one discharge chamber and a caliber which corresponded with the bullet was found on the floor of her wardrobe. [SPEAKER_00]: His eyes fixed and he repeated in broken words, on the floor of her wardrobe. [SPEAKER_00]: Then he sank into silence.

10:32[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw that some train of thought had been set moving, [SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly with her start, he emerged into brisk life once more. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Watson, it was found, pretty damning A, so the two juries thought, then the dead woman had a note upon her making an appointment at that very place and signed by the governor. [SPEAKER_00]: How's that? [SPEAKER_00]: Finally, there is the motive. [SPEAKER_00]: Senator Gibson is an attractive person.

11:06[SPEAKER_00]: If his wife dies, who more likely to succeed her than the young lady who had already by all accounts, received pressing attentions from her employer, love, fortune, power all depending upon one middle aged life, ugly Watson, very ugly, yes indeed homes. [SPEAKER_00]: Nor could she prove an alibi. [SPEAKER_00]: On the contrary, she had to admit that she was down near Thor Bridge, that was the scene of the tragedy, about that hour. [SPEAKER_00]: She couldn't deny it, for some passing villager had seen her there.

11:47[SPEAKER_00]: That really seems final. [SPEAKER_00]: and yet Watson, and yet. [SPEAKER_00]: This bridge. [SPEAKER_00]: A single broad span of stone with ballastrated sides carries the drive over the narrowest part of a long, deep, read-gurt sheet of water. [SPEAKER_00]: Thor mere it is called. [SPEAKER_00]: In the mouth of the bridge laid the dead woman, such are the main facts. [SPEAKER_00]: But here, if I mistake not, is our client considerably before his time.

12:20[SPEAKER_00]: Billy had opened the door, but the name which he announced was an unexpected one. [SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Marlow Bates was a stranger to both of us. [SPEAKER_00]: He was a thin, nervous, whisp of a man with frightened eyes and a twitching, hesitating manner, a man whom my own professional eye would judge to be on the brink of an absolute nervous breakdown. [SPEAKER_00]: I fear I can only give you a short time for I have an appointment at 11.

12:56[SPEAKER_00]: I know you have. [SPEAKER_00]: Our visitor gasped, shooting out short sentences like a man who is out of breath. [SPEAKER_00]: Mr Gibson is coming. [SPEAKER_00]: Mr Gibson is my employer. [SPEAKER_00]: I am manager of his estate. [SPEAKER_00]: Mr Holmes, he is a villain. [SPEAKER_00]: An infernal villain. [SPEAKER_00]: I have to be emphatic, Mr. Holmes, for the time is so limited, I would not have him find me here for the world. [SPEAKER_00]: He is almost due now, but I was so situated that I could not come earlier.

13:33[SPEAKER_00]: His secretary, Mr. Ferguson, only told me this morning of his appointment with you. [SPEAKER_00]: And you are his manager. [SPEAKER_00]: I have given him notice. [SPEAKER_00]: In a couple of weeks, I shall have shaken off his accursed slavery. [SPEAKER_00]: A hard man, Mr. Holmes, hard to all about him. [SPEAKER_00]: Those public charities are a screen to cover his private iniquities, but his wife was his chief victim he was brutal to her, yes her brutal.

14:05[SPEAKER_00]: How she came by her death I do not know, but I am sure that he had made her life a misery to her. [SPEAKER_00]: She was a creature of the tropics, a Brazilian by birth as no doubt you know. [SPEAKER_00]: Tropical by birth and tropical by nature, a child of the sun and of passion. [SPEAKER_00]: She had loved him as such women can love, but when her own physical charms had faded, I am told that they once were great. [SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing to hold him.

14:39[SPEAKER_00]: We all liked her and felt for her and hated him for the way that he treated her. [SPEAKER_00]: But he is plausible and cunning. [SPEAKER_00]: That is all I have to say to you. [SPEAKER_00]: Don't take him at his face value. [SPEAKER_00]: There is more behind. [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, don't detain me, he is almost you. [SPEAKER_00]: With a frightened look at the clock, our strange visitor literally ran to the door and disappeared. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, said Holmes after an interval of silence.

15:12[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Gibson seems to have a nice loyal household, but the warning is a useful one, and now we can only wait till the man himself appears. [SPEAKER_00]: sharp at the hour we heard a heavy step upon the stairs and the famous millionaire was shown into the room. [SPEAKER_00]: As I looked upon him, I understood not only the fears and dislike of his manager, but also the execrations which so many business rivals have heaped upon his head.

15:42[SPEAKER_00]: If I were a sculptor and desire to idealise the successful man of affairs, iron of nerve and leathery of conscience, I should choose Mr. Neil Gibson as my model. [SPEAKER_00]: His tall, gaunt-craggy figure had a suggestion of hunger and repassity. [SPEAKER_00]: A Abraham Lincoln keyed to base uses instead of high ones would give some idea of the man. [SPEAKER_00]: His face might have been chiseled in granite, hard-set, craggy, remorseless with deep lines upon it.

16:13[SPEAKER_00]: The scars of many a crisis. [SPEAKER_00]: He bowed in perfunctory fashion as homes mentioned my name, and then with a masterful heir of possession he drew a chair up to my companion and seated himself with his bone in knees almost touching him. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me say right here, Mr. Homes. [SPEAKER_00]: He began, that money is nothing to me in this case. [SPEAKER_00]: You can burn it if it's any use in lighting you to the truth. [SPEAKER_00]: This woman is innocent, and this [SPEAKER_00]: My professional charges are upon a fixed scales at homes, coldly.

17:02[SPEAKER_00]: I do not vary them, save when I remit them all together. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if dollars make no difference to you think of the reputation. [SPEAKER_00]: If you pull this off every paper in England and America will be booming you, you'll be the talk of two continents. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you Mr. Gibson, I do not think that I am in need of booming. [SPEAKER_00]: It may surprise you to know that I prefer to work anonymously, and that it is the problem itself which attracts me, but we are wasting time let us get down to the facts.

17:40[SPEAKER_00]: I think that you will find all the main ones in the press reports. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that I can add anything which will help you, but if there is anything you [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there is just one point. [SPEAKER_00]: What is it? [SPEAKER_00]: What were the exact relations between you and Miss Dunbar? [SPEAKER_00]: The gold king gave a violent start and half rose from his chair. [SPEAKER_00]: Then his massive calm came back to him.

18:22[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose you are within your rights, and maybe doing your duty in asking such a question Mr. Holmes. [SPEAKER_00]: We will agree to suppose so, he said Holmes. [SPEAKER_00]: Then I can assure you that our relations were entirely and always those of an employer towards a young lady whom he never conversed with, or ever saw, saved when she was in the company of his children. [SPEAKER_00]: Holmes rose from his chair. [SPEAKER_00]: I am a rather busy man, Mr. Gibson, said he, and I have no time or taste for aimless conversations.

19:02[SPEAKER_00]: I wish you good morning. [SPEAKER_00]: Our visitor had risen also and his great-lose figure towered above Holmes. [SPEAKER_00]: There was an angry gleam from under those bristling brows and a tinge of color in the salot cheeks. [SPEAKER_00]: What the devil do you mean by this Mr. Holmes? [SPEAKER_00]: Do you dismiss my case? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Mr. Gibson, at least I dismiss you, I should have thought my words were plain. [SPEAKER_00]: Plain enough, but what's at the back of it raising the price on me or afraid to tackle it or what?

19:41[SPEAKER_00]: I've arrived to a plain answer. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, perhaps you have, said Holmes. [SPEAKER_00]: This case is quite sufficiently complicated to start with, without the further difficulty of false information. [SPEAKER_00]: Meaning that I lie. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I was trying to express it as delicately as I could, but if you insist upon the word, I will not contradict you. [SPEAKER_00]: I sprang to my feet for the expression upon the millionaire's face was fiendish in its intensity.

20:21[SPEAKER_00]: and he had raised his great not-adfist. [SPEAKER_00]: Homesmild, languidly, and reached his hand out for his pipe. [SPEAKER_00]: Don't be noisy, Mr. Gibson, I find that after breakfast even the smallest argument is unsettling. [SPEAKER_00]: I suggest that a stroll in the morning air in a little quiet thought will be greatly to your advantage. [SPEAKER_00]: With an effort the gold king mastered his fury. [SPEAKER_00]: I could not but admire him, for by a supreme self-command he had turned in a minute from a hot flame of anger to a frigid and contemptuous indifference.

21:14[SPEAKER_00]: for I have broken stronger men than you. [SPEAKER_00]: No man ever crossed me and was the better for it. [SPEAKER_00]: So many have said so and yet here I am, said Holmes smiling. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning Mr. Gibson. [SPEAKER_00]: You have a good deal yet to learn. [UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much. [UNKNOWN]: Thank you. [UNKNOWN]: you [UNKNOWN]: Thank you.