I'm Hugh Bonneville and welcome to Sherlock Holmes' Short Stories, the series where we delve into the files of fiction's most brilliant detective, following his keen mind and unerring instincts from the first subtle clue to the final dramatic revelation. This time we follow Holmes and Watson from London to the Swiss Alps as they investigate the disappearance of Lady Carfax. When a wealthy single woman mysteriously vanishes while travelling abroad, Holmes sends Watson to look into it. Following a trail of seemingly straightforward clues, the good doctor soon learns that nothing in this case is what it appears. A suspicious stranger stalking the lady's movements, an oddly shaped coffin, a kindly missionary couple with sinister motives, all parts of a deadly game in which Lady Carfax is the prize. From the Noiser podcast network, this is The Disappearance of Lady Carfax, Part 1. But why Turkish? asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedly at my boots. I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment and my protruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention. English, I answered in some surprise, I got them at Latimer's in Oxford Street. Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience. The bath, he said, the bath. Why the relaxing and expensive Turkish rather than the invigorating homemade article? Because for the last few days I had been feeling rheumatic and old. A Turkish bath is what we call an alterative in Megison, a fresh starting point, a cleanser of the system. By the way, Holmes, I added, I have no doubt the connection between my boots and a Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one to a logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you if you would indicate it. The train of reasoning is not very obscure, Watson, said Holmes with a mischievous twinkle. It belongs to the same elementary class of deduction which I should illustrate if I were to ask you who shared your cab in your drive this morning. I don't admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation, said I with some asperity. Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical remonstrance. Let me see what were the points. Take the last one first. The cab. You observe that you have some splashes on the left sleeve and shoulder of your coat. Had you sat in the centre of a handsome you would probably have had no splashes, and if you had they would certainly have been symmetrical. Therefore it is clear that you sat at the side. Therefore it is equally clear that you had a companion. That is very evident. Absurdly commonplace is it not. But the boots and the bath? Equally childish. You are in the habit of doing up your boots in a certain way. I see them on this occasion fastened with an elaborate double bow, which is not your usual method of tying them. You have, therefore, had them off. Who has tied them? A bootmaker or the boy at the bath? It is unlikely that it is the bootmaker, since your boots are nearly new. Well, what remains? The bath. Absurd is it not. But for all that, the Turkish bath has served a purpose. What is that? You say that you have had it because you need a change. Let me suggest that you take one. How would Lausanne do, my dear Watson? First class tickets and all expenses paid on a princely scale? Splendid, but why? Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his pocket. One of the most dangerous classes in the world, said he, is the drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions and boarding houses. She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she is gobbled up, she is hardly missed. I much fear that some evil has come to the Lady Francis Carfax. I was relieved of this sudden descent from the general to the particular. Holmes consulted his notes. Lady Francis, he continued, is the sole survivor of the direct family of the late Earl of Rufton. The estates went, as you may remember, in the mail line. She was left with limited means, but with some very remarkable old Spanish jewellery of silver and curiously cut diamonds, to which she was fondly attached, too attached, for she refused to leave them with her banker and always carried them about with her. A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Francis, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange change, the last derelict of what only 20 years ago was a goodly fleet. Oh, what has happened to her then? Ah, what has happened to the Lady Francis? Is she alive or dead? There is our problem. She is a lady of precise habits, and for four years it has been her invariable custom to write every second week to Miss Dobbany, her old governess, who has long retired and lives in Camberwell. It is this Miss Dobbany who has consulted me. Nearly five weeks have passed without a word. The last letter was from the Hotel National at Lausanne. Lady Francis seems to have left there and given no address. The family are anxious, and as they are exceedingly wealthy, no sum will be spared if we can clear the matter up. Is Miss Dobbany the only source of information? Surely she had other correspondence. There is one correspondent who is a sure draw, Watson, that is, the bank. Single ladies must live, and their passbooks are compressed diaries. She banks at Sylvester's. I have glanced over her account. The last cheque but one paid her bill at Lausanne, but it was a large one and probably left her with cash in hand. Only one cheque has been drawn since. To whom and where? To Miss Marie Devine. There is nothing to show where the cheque was drawn. It was cashed at the credit Lyonnais at Montpellier less than three weeks ago. The sum was 50 pounds. And who is Miss Marie Devine? That also I have been able to discover. Miss Marie Devine was the maid of Lady Francis Carfax. Why she should have paid her this cheque we have not yet determined. I have no doubt, however, that your researches will soon clear the matter up. My researches? Hence the health-giving expedition to Lausanne. You know that I cannot possibly leave London while old Abraham's is in such mortal terror of his life. Besides, on general principles, it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. Go then, my dear Watson, and if my humble counsel can ever be valued at so extravagant a rate as tuppence a word, it waits your disposal night and day at the end of the continental wire. Two days later found me at the Hotel National at Lausanne, where I received every courtesy at the hands of Monsieur Moser, the well-known manager. Lady Francis, as he informed me, had stayed there for several weeks. She had been much light by all who met her. Her age was not more than 40. She was still handsome and bore every sign of having in her youth been a very lovely woman. Monsieur Moser knew nothing of any valuable jewellery, but it had been remarked by the servants that the heavy trunk in the lady's bedroom was always scrupulously locked. Marie-Divine, the maid, was as popular as her mistress. She was actually engaged to one of the head-waiters in the hotel, and there was no difficulty in getting it was 11 Rue de Trajan Montpellier. All this I jotted down and felt that Holmes himself could not have been more adroit in collecting his facts. Only one corner still remained in the shadow. No light which I possessed could clear up the cause for the lady's sudden departure. She was very happy at Lausanne. There was every reason to believe that she intended to remain for the season in her luxurious rooms overlooking the lake. And yet she had left at a single day's notice, which involved her in the useless payment of a week's rent. Only Jules Vibard, the lover of the maid, had any suggestion to offer. He connected the sudden departure with the visit to the hotel a day or two before of a tall, dark, bearded man. Un sauvage, un véritable sauvage, cried Jules Vibard. The man had room somewhere in the town. He had been seen talking earnestly to Madame on the promenade by the lake. Then he had called. She had refused to see him. He was English, but of his name there was no record. Madame had left the place immediately afterwards. Jules Vibard, and what was of more importance, Jules Vibard's sweetheart, thought that this call and the departure were cause and effect. Only one thing Jules would not discuss. That was the reason why Marie had left her mistress. Of that, he could or would say nothing. If I wish to know, I must go to Montpellier and ask her. Idle money lies in your current account, picking crumbs out of its belly button wondering, should I eat them? But when you start investing with Monzo, your money's always busy. It turns on regular investments, invests your spare change and tops up your stocks and shares, Icer. It even helps you make sense of risk and return. Monzo, the bank that gets your money moving. You could get back less than you invest. Monzo current account required UK residents 18 plus T's and C's apply. So ended the first chapter of my inquiry. The second was devoted to the place which Lady Frances Carfax had sought when she left Lausanne. Concerning this, there had been some secrecy which confirmed the idea that she had gone with the intention of throwing someone off her track. Otherwise, why should not her luggage have been openly labelled for Barden? Both she and it reached the renish spar by some secuiter's route. This much I gathered from the manager of Cook's local office. So to Barden I went, after dispatching to homes an account of all my proceedings and receiving in reply a telegram of half humorous commendation. At Barden, the track was not difficult to follow. Lady Frances had stayed at the English Ahoff for a fortnight. While there, she had made the acquaintance of a Dr. Schlesinger and his wife, a missionary from South America. Like most lonely ladies, Lady Frances found her comfort and occupation in religion. Dr. Schlesinger's remarkable personality, his whole hearted devotion and the fact that he was recovering from a disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic duties affected her deeply. She had helped Mrs. Schlesinger in the nursing of the convalescent saint. He spent his day, as the manager described it to me, upon a lounge chair on the veranda with an attendant lady upon either side of him. He was preparing a map of the Holy Land with special reference to the Kingdom of the Midianites upon which he was writing a monograph. Finally, having improved much in health, he and his wife had returned to London and Lady Frances had started Vither in their company. This was just three weeks before and the manager had heard nothing since. As to the maid, Marie, she had gone off some days beforehand in floods of tears after informing the other mage that she was leaving service forever. Dr. Schlesinger had paid the bill of the whole party before his departure. By the way, said the landlord in conclusion, you are not the only friend of Lady Frances Kerfax who is inquiring after her just now. Only a week or so ago we had a man here upon the same errant. Did he give a name, I asked. None, but he was an Englishman, though of an unusual type. A savage, said I, linking my facts after the fashion of my illustrious friend. Exactly. That describes him very well. He is a bulky, bearded, sunburned fellow who looks as if he would be more at home in a farmer's inn than in a fashionable hotel. A hard, fierce man, I should think, and one whom I should be sorry to offend. Already the mystery began to define itself as figures grow clearer with the lifting of a fog. Here was this good and pious lady pursued from place to place by a sinister and unrelenting figure. She feared him, or she would not have fled from Lausanne. He had still followed. Sooner or later he would overtake her. Had he already overtaken her, was that the secret of her continued silence? Could the good people who were her companions not screen her from his violence or his blackmail? What horrible purpose, what deep design lay behind this long pursuit? There was the problem which I had to solve. To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had got down to the roots of the matter. In reply I had a telegram asking for a description of Dr. Schlesinger's left ear. Holmes's ideas of humour are strange and occasionally offensive, so I took no notice of his ill-timed jest. Indeed, I had already reached Montpellier in my pursuit of the maid Marie before his message came. I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all that she could tell me. She was a devoted creature who had only left her mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands and because her own approaching marriage made a separation inevitable in any case. Her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, shown some irritability of temper towards her during their stay in Barden and had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions of her honesty, and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise have been. Lady Francis had given her fifty pounds as a wedding present. Like me, Marie viewed with deep distrust the stranger who had driven her mistress from Lausanne. With her own eyes she had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the public promenade by the lake. He was a fierce and terrible man. She believed that it was out of dread of him that Lady Francis had accepted the escort of the Schlesingers to London. She had never spoken to Marie about it, but many little signs had convinced the maid that her mistress lived in a state of continual nervous apprehension. So far she had gotten her narrative when suddenly she sprang from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and fear. See, she cried, the miscreant follows still. There is the very man of whom I speak. Through the open sitting room window I saw a huge swarmy man with a bristling black beard walking slowly down the centre of the street and staring eagerly at the numbers of the houses. It was clear that like myself he was on the track of the maid. Acting upon the impulse of the moment, I rushed out and accosted him. You are an Englishman, I said. What if I am? he asked with the most villainous scowl. May I ask what your name is? No, you may not, said he with decision. The situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often the best. Where is the Lady France's car fax? I asked. He stared at me with amazement. What have you done with her? Why have you pursued her? I insist upon an answer, said I. The fellow gave a bellow of anger and sprang upon me like a tiger. I have held my own in many a struggle, but the man had a grip of iron and the fury of a fiend. His hand was on my throat and my senses were nearly gone before an unshaven French ouvrier in a blue blouse darted out from a cabaret opposite with a cudgel in his hand and struck my assailant a sharp crack over the forearm which made him leave go his hold. He stood for an instant fuming with rage and uncertain whether he should not renew his attack. Then with a snarl of anger he left me and entered the cottage from which I had just come. I turned to thank my preserver who stood beside me in the roadway. Well, Watson, said he, a very pretty hash you have made of it. I rather think you had better come back with me to London by the night express. At EDF we don't just encourage you to use less electricity, we actually reward you for it. That's why when you use less during peak times on weekdays we give you free electricity on Sundays. How you use it is up to you. EDF change is in our power. An hour afterwards Sherlock Holmes in his usual garb and style was seated in my private room at the hotel. His explanation of his sudden and opportune appearance was simplicity itself for finding that he could get away from London he determined to head me off at the next obvious point of my travels. In the disguise of a working man he had sat in the cabaret waiting for my appearance. And a singularly consistent investigation you have made my dear Watson, said he. I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted. The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing. Perhaps you would have done no better I answered bitterly. There is no perhaps about it. I have done better. Ah here is the honorable Philip Green who is a fellow lodger with you in this hotel and we may find him the starting point for a more successful investigation. A card had come up on a salver and it was followed by the same bearded Ruffian who had attacked me in the street. He started when he saw me. What is this Mr. Holmes? He asked. I had your note and I have come but what has this man to do with the matter? This is my old friend and associate Dr. Watson who is helping us in this affair. The stranger held out a huge sunburned hand with a few words of apology. I hope I didn't harm you. When you accused me of hurting her I lost my grip of myself. Indeed I'm not responsible in these days. My nerves are like live wires but this situation is beyond me. What I wanted to know in the first place Mr. Holmes is how in the world you came to hear of my existence at all. I am in touch with Miss Dobney, Lady Francis' governess. Old Susan Dobney with the mob cap. I remember her well. And she remembers you. It was in the days before you found it better to go to South Africa. Ah, I see you know my whole story. I need to hide nothing from you. I swear to you Mr. Holmes that there never was in this world a man who loved a woman with a more wholehearted love than I had for Francis. I was a wild youngster I know, not worse than others of my class. But her mind was pure as snow. She could not bear a shadow of coarseness. So when she came to hear of things that I had done she would have no more to say to me. And yet she loved me. That is the wonder of it. Loved me well enough to remain single all her sainted days just for my sake alone. When the years had passed and I had made my money at Barbaton, I thought perhaps I could seek her out and soften her. I had heard that she was still unmarried. I found her at Lausanne and tried all I knew. She weakened I think but her will was strong. And when next I called she had left the town. I traced her to Barden and then after a time heard that her maid was here. I'm a rough fellow fresh from a rough life. And when Dr. Watson spoke to me as he did I lost hold of myself for a moment. But for God's sake tell me what has become of the Lady Francis. That is for us to find out. Said Sherlock Holmes with peculiar gravity. What is your London address Mr. Green? The Langham Hotel will find me. Then may I recommend that you return there and be on hand in case I should want you. I have no desire to encourage false hopes but you may rest assured that all that can be done will be done for the safety of Lady Francis. I can say no more for the instant. I will leave you this card so that you may be able to keep in touch with us. Now Watson if you will pack your bag I will cable to Mrs. Hudson to make one of her best efforts for two hungry travelers at 730 tomorrow. A telegram was awaiting us when we reached our Baker Street rooms which Holmes read with an exclamation of interest and threw across to me. Jagged or torn was the message and the place of origin pardon. What is this I asked. It is everything Holmes answered. You may remember my seemingly irrelevant question as to this clerical gentleman's left ear. You did not answer it. I had left pardon and could not inquire. Exactly. For this reason I sent a duplicate to the manager of the English Rehoff whose answer lies here. What does it show? It shows my dear Watson that we are dealing with an exceptionally astute and dangerous man. Next time on Sherlock Holmes Short Stories Dr. Schlesinger's true identity is revealed. A piece of Spanish jewelry brings Holmes and Watson closer to finding the criminals and a curiously shaped coffin leads to a race against the clock. That's next time. Can't wait a week until the next episode? Well listen to it right away by subscribing to Noisier Plus. Head to www.noisier.com slash subscriptions for more information or click the link in the episode description.
