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[Assistant] It was a sight to see Cecil Barker's expressive face during this exposition of the great detective. Anger, amazement, consternation, and indecision swept over it in turn.


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[Assistant] Finally he took refuge in a somewhat acrid irony. You know such a lot, Mr. Holmes.


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[Assistant] Perhaps you had better tell us some more," he sneered.


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[Assistant] I have no doubt that I could tell you a great deal more, Mr. Barker, but it would come with a better grace from you.


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[Assistant] Oh, you think so, do you? Well, all I can say is that if there's any secret here, it's not my secret, and I am not the man to give it away.


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[Assistant] Well, if you take that line, Mr. Barker, said the inspector quietly, we must just keep you in sight until we have the warrant and can hold you.


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[Assistant] You can do what you damn please about that," said Barker defiantly.


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[Assistant] Proceedings seem to have come to a definite end, so far as he was concerned, for one had only to look at that granite face, to realize that no penfort, or dur, would ever force him to plead against his will.


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[Assistant] The deadlock was broken, however, by a woman's voice. Mrs. Douglas had been standing listening at the half-open door, and now she entered the room. You have done enough for now, Cecil," said she. Whatever comes of it in the future, you have done enough.


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[Assistant] Enough and more than enough, remarked Sherlock Holmes gravely.


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[Assistant] I have every sympathy with you, madam, and should strongly urge you to have some confidence in the common sense of our jurisdiction, and to take the police voluntarily into your complete confidence.


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[Assistant] It may be that I am myself at fault for not following up the hint which you conveyed to me through my friend Dr. Watson, but at that time I had every reason to believe that you were directly concerned in the crime. Now I am assured that this is not so.


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[Assistant] At the same time there is much that is unexplained, and I should strongly recommend that you ask Mr. Douglas to tell us his own story.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Douglas gave a cry of astonishment at Holmes' words.


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[Assistant] The detectives and I must have echoed it when we were aware of a man who seemed to have emerged from the wall.


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[Assistant] Who advanced now from the gloom of the corner in which he had appeared. Mrs. Douglas turned, and in an instant her arms were round him. Barker had seized his outstretched hand. "'It's best this way, Jack,' his wife repeated. "'I'm sure that it is best.'


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[Assistant] Indeed yes, Mr. Douglas, said Sherlock Holmes. I am sure that you will find it best.


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[Assistant] The man stood blinking at us with a dazed look of one who comes from the dark into the light.


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[Assistant] It was a remarkable face, bold grey eyes, a strong short-clipped grizzled mustache, a square projecting chin, and a humorous mouth. He took a good look at us all, and then to my amazement he advanced to me and handed me a bundle of paper


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[Assistant] I've heard of you," said he in a voice which was not quite English and not quite American, but was altogether mellow and pleasing.


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[Assistant] You are the historian of this bunch. Well, Dr. Watson, you've never had such a story as that pass through your hands before, and I'll lay my last dollar on that.


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[Assistant] Tell it your own way, but there are the facts, and you can't miss the public so long as you have those. I've been cooped up two days, and I've spent the daylight hours—as much daylight as I could get in that rat trap—in putting the thing into words. You're welcome to them—you and your public. There's the story of the Valley of Fear.


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[Assistant] That's the past, Mr. Douglas," said Sherlock Holmes quietly. What we desire now is to hear your story of the present.


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[Assistant] You'll have it, sir," said Douglas. May I smoke as I talk? Well, thank you, Mr. Holmes. You're a smoker yourself, if I remember right, and you'll guess what it is to be sitting for two days with tobacco in your pocket and afraid that the smell'll give you away." He leaned against the mantelpiece and sucked at the cigar which Holmes had handed him.


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[Assistant] I've heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I never guessed that I would meet you, but before you're through with that—he nodded at my papers—you will say I have brought you something fresh.


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[Assistant] Inspector MacDonald had been staring at the newcomer with the greatest amazement.


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[Assistant] Then whose death have we been investigating for these two days, and where in the world have you sprung from now? You seem to come out of the floor like a jack-in-a-box.


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[Assistant] Ah, Mr. Mack," said Holmes, shaking a reproving forefinger. You would not read that excellent local compilation which described the concealment of King Charles.


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[Assistant] People did not hide in those days without excellent hiding places, and the hiding place that had once been used may be used again. I had persuaded myself that we should find Mr. Douglas under this roof.


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[Assistant] And how long have you been playing this trick upon us, Mr. Holmes?" said the inspector angrily. How long have you allowed us to waste ourselves upon a search that you knew to be an absurd one? Not one instant, my dear Mr. Mac.


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[Assistant] Only last night did I form my views of the case. As they could not be put to the proof until this evening,


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[Assistant] When I found the suit of clothes in the moat, it at once became apparent to me that the body we had found could not have been the body of Mr John Douglas at all.


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[Assistant] But must be that of the bicyclist from Tunbridge Wells. No other conclusion was possible


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[Assistant] Therefore I had to determine where Mr John Douglas himself could be.


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[Assistant] And the balance of probability was that with the connivance of his wife and his friend he was concealed in a house which had such conveniences for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he could make his final escape.


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[Assistant] And also I saw my chance to throw these hounds once for all off my track.


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[Assistant] Mind you, from first to last I've done nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing that I would not do again, but you'll judge that for yourselves when I tell you my story. Never mind warning me, Inspector. I'm ready to stand pat upon the truth. I'm not going to begin at the beginning, that's all there." He indicated my bundle of papers. And a mighty queer yarn, you'll find it. It all comes down to this.


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[Assistant] That there are some men that have good cause to hate me and would give their last dollar to know that they had got to me. So long as I'm alive and they are alive, there is no safety in this world for me. They hunted me from Chicago to California, then they chased me out of America.


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[Assistant] When I married and settled down in this quiet spot I thought my last years were going to be peaceable. I never explained to my wife how things were. Why should I pull her into it? She would never have a quiet moment again, but would always be imagining trouble. I fancy she knew something, for I may have dropped a word here or a word there, but until yesterday, after you gentlemen had seen her, she never knew the rights of the matter.


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[Assistant] The day before these happenings I was over in Tunbridge Wells, and I got a glimpse of a man in the street. It was only a glimpse.


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[Assistant] But I have a quick eye for these things and I never doubted who it was. It was the worst enemy I had among them all.


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[Assistant] One who has been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these years.


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[Assistant] I knew there was trouble coming, and I came home and made ready for it. I guess I'd fight through it all right on my own.


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[Assistant] My luck was a proverb in the States about 76. I never doubted that it would be with me still.


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[Assistant] I was on my guard all that next day and never went out into the park.


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[Assistant] It's as well, or he'd have had the drop on me with that book-shut gun of his, before ever I could draw on him.


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[Assistant] After the bridge was up—my mind was always more restful when that bridge was up in the evenings—I put the thing clear out of my head.


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[Assistant] I never dreamed of his getting into the house and waiting for me.


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[Assistant] But when I made my round in my dressing gown, as was my habit, I had no sooner entered study than I scented danger.


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[Assistant] I guess when a man has had dangers in his life, and I've had more than most in my time, there is a kind of sixth sense that waves the red flag. I saw the signal clear enough, and yet I couldn't tell you why.


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[Assistant] But there was a good light from the hall lamp through the open door.


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[Assistant] I put down the candle and jumped for a hammer that I had left on the mantle. At the same moment he sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife and lashed at him with the hammer.


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[Assistant] I got him somewhere, for the knife tinkled down on the floor. He dodged round the table as quick as an eel.


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[Assistant] I heard him cock it, but I got hold of it before he could fire. I had it by the barrel, and we wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more. It was death to the man that lost his grip. He never lost his grip, but he got it butt downward for a moment too long.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was I that pulled the trigger. Maybe we just jolted it off between us. Anyhow, he got both barrels in the face. And there I was, staring down at all that was left of Ted Baldwin.


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[Assistant] I'd recognized him in the township and again when he sprang for me, but his own mother wouldn't recognize him as I saw him then. I'm used to rough work, but I fairly turned sick at the sight of him.


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[Assistant] I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came hurrying down. I heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door and stopped her. It was no sight for a woman. I promised I'd come to her soon.


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[Assistant] I said a word or two to Barker, he took it all in at a glance, and we waited for the rest to come along. But there was no sign of them.


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[Assistant] Then we understood that they could hear nothing and that all that had happened was known only to ourselves. It was at that instant that the idea came to me. I was fairly dazzled by the brilliance of it.


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[Assistant] The man's sleeve had slipped up, and there was the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm. See here.


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[Assistant] The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own coat and cuff to show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that which we had seen upon the dead man. It was the sight of that which started me on it. I seemed to see it all clear at a glance.


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[Assistant] There were his height and hair and figure about the same as my own. No one could swear to his face, poor devil.


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[Assistant] I brought down this suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour Barker and I had put my dressing gown on him, and he lay as you found him.


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[Assistant] We tied all things into a bundle, and I weighted them with the only weight I could find, and put them through the window.


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[Assistant] The card he had meant to lay upon my body was lying beside his own. My rings were put on his finger, but when it came to the wedding ring, he held out his muscular hand. You can see for yourselves that I had struck the limit.


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[Assistant] I have not moved it since the day I was married, and it would have taken a file to get it off. I don't know anyhow that I should have cared to part with it, but if I'd wanted to I couldn't.


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[Assistant] So we just had to leave that detail to take care of itself. On the other hand,


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[Assistant] I brought a bit of plaster down and put it where I'm wearing one myself at this instant.


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[Assistant] You slipped up there, Mr. Holmes, clever as you are, for if you had a chance to take off that plaster, you'd have found no cut underneath it. Well, that was the situation.


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[Assistant] If I could lie low for a while and then get away, where I could be joined by my widow.


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[Assistant] We should have a chance at last of living in peace for the rest of our lives.


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[Assistant] These devils would give me no rest so long as I was above ground.


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[Assistant] But if they saw in the papers that Baldwin had got his man, there would be an end of all my troubles.


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[Assistant] I hadn't much time to make it all clear to Barker and to my wife, but they understood enough to be able to help me.


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[Assistant] I knew all about this hiding place, so did Ames, but it never entered his head to connect it with the matter. I retired into it and it was up to Barker to do the rest. I guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did.


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[Assistant] He opened the window and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how the murderer escaped. It was a tall order, that, but as the bridge was up there was no other way.


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[Assistant] Then when everything was fixed, he rang the bell for all he was worth. What happened afterward you know. So, gentlemen, you can do what you please.


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[Assistant] But I've told you the truth and the whole truth, so help me God. What I ask you now is, how do I stand by the English law? There was a silence which was broken by Sherlock Holmes.


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[Assistant] The English law is in the main adjust law. You'll get no worse than your desserts from that, Mr. Douglas.


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[Assistant] But I would ask you, how did this man know that you lived here, or how to get into your house, or where to hide to get you? I know nothing of this. Holmes's face was very white and grave. The story is not over yet, I fear, said he.


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[Assistant] You may find worse dangers than the English law, or even than your enemies from America.


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[Assistant] I see trouble before you Mr. Douglas. You'll take my advice and still be on your guard.


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[Assistant] And now, my long-suffering readers, I will ask you to come away with me for a time.


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[Assistant] Far from the Sussex Manor House of Burlston, and far also from the year of grace in which we made our eventful journey which ended with the strange story of the man who had been known as John Douglas.


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[Assistant] I wish you to journey back some twenty years in time and westward some thousands of miles in space, as I may lay before you a singular and terrible narrative.


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[Assistant] So singular and so terrible that you may find it hard to believe that even as I tell it, even so did it occur.


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[Assistant] Do not think that I intrude one story before another is finished. As you read on you will find that this is not so.


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[Assistant] And when I have detailed those distant events, and you have solved this mystery of the past, we shall meet once more in those rooms on Baker Street, where this, like so many other wonderful happenings, will find its end.


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[Assistant] End of chapter seven and part one of The Valley of Fear.


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[Assistant] Pete, I saw the meteorite. It's under the Harlem subway station, next to the bridge.


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[Assistant] Not yet! But you still owe me a few more minutes! Hang tight!


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[Assistant] Alright guys, in this lesson, we're going to be talking all about the Git Ignore and how you can set rules to prevent committing certain files to your local and remote Git repositories. So first things first, let's bring up Terminal.


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[Assistant] And what we're going to do is we're going to CD into our desktop and we're going to create a new directory here called project. Just say that we have this brand new project. And now if we go into our project and we create a whole bunch of files,


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[Assistant] So let's say we've got something called file1.txt.


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[Assistant] And we've got a whole bunch of other ones, file two, file three, and we've also got something called secrets file.


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[Assistant] So we've now got four files and just to illustrate the use cases of when we might want to have a gitignore file. So say if you have this file that has some secret passwords or API keys, basically stuff that you don't want to be committed.


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[Assistant] There have been horror stories of people having their Amazon AWS, uh, secret keys in their projects and that getting pushed to their remote on GitHub.


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[Assistant] And within seconds, their entire AWS account has been basically used up and wiped clean. So it's really, really important to think about some of these things and to be aware of what you're putting onto this public platform.


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[Assistant] Another type of file that you might want to add into a gitignore or you might want to not upload to GitHub are files that are to do with your local settings or your user preferences. And there's a whole bunch of these types of utility files that you don't really want another person to have to


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[Assistant] Download and copy into their project folder if they're cloning or if they're forking your project.


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[Assistant] So a really common example that people tend to add to their GID ignore files are what are called DS store files. DS store files are basically a settings file that saves certain things like, you know, how you like your icons to be arranged in a particular project folder.


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[Assistant] So let's say if we go in here and we just have a look at arrange by, uh, arrange by none, and then I'm going to move my files around.


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[Assistant] And let's say that this is just my preference for how I want my files to be shown inside this project folder.


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[Assistant] Now, the ds-store file is a hidden file, so you won't be able to see it inside your finder. But of course, we as command line experts know that we can simply do a ls-a to see all of the hidden files.


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[Assistant] Getting onto the point of creating and using a gitignore file. The first thing you have to do is to make it, right?


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[Assistant] And to do that, we're just going to create a hidden file. So using the dot in front of the file name, and it's going to be called gitignore. Now the case and the wording matters a huge deal.


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[Assistant] Because we're using git and it's looking for this specific file. So make sure that when you're using it, it looks exactly like this.


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[Assistant] Let's create that file and of course it doesn't appear because it's a hidden file, but we can see it using ls-a and we can also open it inside VS code like this.


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[Assistant] So here is where we add the files that should be ignored when we commit our project to git. Let me first show you what happens when we don't have anything inside our git ignore. And I'm going to go through the normal process of setting up git and committing it. First, if you remember, I have to use git init.


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[Assistant] To initialize an empty Git repository inside my projects directory.


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[Assistant] And then I'm going to use git add dot to add all the files that are currently inside this directory to the git staging area. So hit enter and we can have a look at what's been added by using git status.


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[Assistant] And you can see that all of these files are added into the staging area and they're going to be committed if I go ahead and do git commit. So that's not what we want. And instead I don't want to commit the DS store and I also don't want to commit my secrets.txt file.


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[Assistant] First things first, I'm going to basically undo what I've just done. So I'm going to remove all of these files from my staging area, and then I'm going to add them later on once I've got my Git Ignore set up.


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[Assistant] Basically we're just undoing the last step. To do that, I'm going to write git remove, dash dash cached, and I'm going to use the R flag for recursive.


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[Assistant] And I'm going to use a dot to say that everything inside the current directory should be removed from the staging area.


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[Assistant] So now if I hit enter, you can see that all of these things have been removed from the git staging area. And if I do a git status again,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can see that all of these files are no longer tracked to be committed. So now, this is the point where we're going to use that gitignore file and we're going to add the filenames that we want to be ignored when we're adding and committing to git.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In order to add individual files, you can simply specify the file name on each and every new line. So for example, if we want to ignore the DS store, we can simply write DS store. So exactly the same upper and lower casing as the name of the file.


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[Assistant] And if we wanted to ignore the secrets.txt file,


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[Assistant] Then all we have to do is just to specify it in here on a new line. Now with gitignore, it has certain rules. So for example, you can use the pound sign to comment.


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[Assistant] So for example, you can say, you know, log files, right, to be ignored. Another thing you can do is use wildcards. So if you use the asterix and you say asterix.text, that means that when you commit your project, all of the files that have a text extension will be ignored.


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[Assistant] All right, so I'm going to get rid of that because I do want to commit the file one and file two and file three to Git, but I want it to ignore the DS store and the secrets.txt files.


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[Assistant] Now we're ready to add our files to our staging area. So let's again use git add dot.


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[Assistant] And use git status to see what's been added. So you can see that the only files are added are the gitignore, the file one, two, three, but the dsstore as well as the secrets.txt are ignored as per the specifications in our gitignore file.


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[Assistant] Now, if I go ahead and commit this as my initial commit,


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[Assistant] Then the only files are going to be put onto my local commit are going to be these four. And similarly, if I push this to GitHub, it will also be only these four files.


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[Assistant] Now let's open a new Flask project and let me show you how you would add a gitignore file for your Python projects. So let's just call this test and I'm going to put it inside my desktop. So after I open the project, I'm going to create a new virtual environment.


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[Assistant] And I'm going to install all the modules from the requirements.txt file.


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[Assistant] Then I'm going to open the terminal and create a gitignore file. Then we're going to open our gitignore.


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[Assistant] And in here, I'm going to add some of the files that will be ignored for our Python project.


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[Assistant] If you go to github.com slash github, so this is a repository owned by the GitHub team.


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[Assistant] They have a repository called gitignore and it's basically a pre-made collection of useful gitignore templates. And if you have a search in here, you can find that you've got Python and you can see that this is a pre-built template


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So these have the file extensions for things that are virtual environments or environment settings, and it's basically all pre-made for you. So you can simply just copy all of this.


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[Assistant] And put it into your git ignore file that you created earlier on. So just straight up paste. And if you remember from earlier on, we said that the lines that start off with a pound sign are the comments and these ones are extensions that you would ignore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you might want to add things like dsdoor into here as well. So you can have something like, uh, project wide. So for example, the dsdoor that we mentioned earlier on.


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[Assistant] And if you hit save, now if we go into terminal and we're inside our test fauna, so we're going to do a git init.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now, once you're ready to commit and add all of this to your remote, then it will ignore all of these common user-related files that are not going to be useful to your collaborators or anybody who wants to contribute on GitHub.


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[Assistant] That was just a quick tidbit about using gitignore.


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[Assistant] And I know that some of you guys have been asking about, you know, where should you put your API keys? Where should you put your sensitive data? And you have to make sure that when you're uploading your projects with these secret keys and passwords to make sure that you set up a gitignore file and to include those things in there.


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[Assistant] Alright, so that's all for this lesson. In the next lesson, I want to talk about git clone and how to clone various repositories to your local system. So all of that and more in the next lesson. So I'll see you there.


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[Assistant] Adventure 3 The Adventure of the Red Circle Part 1


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[Assistant] Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engage me.


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[Assistant] So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent material.


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[Assistant] But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex. She held her ground firmly.


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[Assistant] But you would never cease talking of it, your kindness, sir, and the way in which you brought light into the darkness. I remembered his words when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I know you could if you only would.


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[Assistant] Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also to do him justice upon the side of kindliness.


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[Assistant] The two forces made him lay down his gum brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair.


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[Assistant] Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then. You don't object to tobacco, I take it. Thank you, Watson. The matches?


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[Assistant] You are uneasy as I understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms and you cannot see him.


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[Assistant] Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren. If I were your lodger, you often would not see me for weeks on end. No doubt, sir, but this is different.


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[Assistant] It frightens me, Mr. Holmes. I can't sleep for fright, to hear his quick step moving here and moving there from early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him. It's more than I can stand.


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[Assistant] My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is out at his work all day, while I get no rest from it. What is he hiding for? What has he done?


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[Assistant] Except for the girl, I am all alone in the house with him, and it's more than my nerves can stand.


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[Assistant] Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman's shoulder.


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[Assistant] He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothed into their usual common place. She sat down in the chair which he had indicated.


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[Assistant] If I take it up, I must understand every detail," said he. Take time to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential.


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[Assistant] You say that the man came ten days ago and paid you for a fortnight's board and lodging. He asked my term, sir. I said fifty shillings a week.


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[Assistant] There is a small sitting room and bedroom and all complete at the top of the house.


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[Assistant] He said, I'll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms.


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[Assistant] I'm a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the money meant much to me.


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[Assistant] He took out a ten pound note, and he held it out to me then and there.


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[Assistant] You can have the same every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the terms," he said. If not I'll have no more to do with you. What were the terms?


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[Assistant] Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house. That was all right. Lodgers often have them.


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[Assistant] Also that he was to be left entirely to himself and never upon any excuse to be disturbed. Nothing wonderful in that, surely? Not in reason, sir, but this is out of all reason.


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[Assistant] He's been there for ten days and neither Mr. Warren nor I, nor the girl, has once set eyes upon him.


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[Assistant] We can hear that quick step of his pacing up and down, up and down, night, morning and noon, but except on that first night he had never once gone out of the house. Oh, he went out the first night, did he?


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[Assistant] Yes, sir, and returned very late, after we were all in bed.


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[Assistant] He told me after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not to bar the door. I heard him come up the stair after midnight. But his meals?


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[Assistant] It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang, leave his meal upon a chair outside his door. Then he rings again when he was finished, and we take it down from the same chair.


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[Assistant] If he wants anything else, he prints it on a slip of paper and leaves it. Prints it.


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[Assistant] Yes, sir, prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more. Here's the one I brought to show you. Soap. Here's another. Match. This is the one he left the first morning. Daily Gazette. I leave that paper with his breakfast every morning.


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[Assistant] Dear me, Watson," said Holmes, staring with great curiosity at the slips of fool's cap which the landlady had handed to him. This is certainly a little unusual. Seclusion, I can understand. But why print


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[Assistant] Printing is a clumsy process. Why not write? What would it suggest, Watson? That he desired to conceal his handwriting. But why?


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[Assistant] What can it matter to him that his landlady should have a word of his writing? Still, it may be as you say.


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[Assistant] Then again, why such laconic messages? I cannot imagine.


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[Assistant] It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation.


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[Assistant] The words are written with a broad-pointed violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pattern.


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[Assistant] You will observe that the paper is torn away at the side, here after the printing was done, so that the S of soap is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not? Of caution?


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[Assistant] Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint, something which might give a clue to the person's identity.


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[Assistant] Now, Mrs. Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, dark, and bearded. What age would he be? Youngish, sir, not over thirty. Well, can you give me no further indications?


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[Assistant] He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner by his accent. And he was well dressed.


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[Assistant] Very smartly dressed, sir. Quite the gentleman. Dark clothes. Nothing you would note. He gave no name. No, sir. And has had no letters or callers. None.


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[Assistant] But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning.


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[Assistant] No sir, he looks after himself entirely.


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[Assistant] Dear me, that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage?


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[Assistant] He had one big brown bag with him, nothing else.


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[Assistant] Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us.


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[Assistant] Do you say nothing has come out of that room? Absolutely nothing.


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[Assistant] The landlady drew an envelope from her bag. From it she shook out two burnt matches and a cigarette end upon the table. They were on his tray this morning.


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[Assistant] I brought them because I had heard that you can read great things out of small ones. Home shrugged his shoulders.


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[Assistant] There's nothing here," said he. The matches have, of course, been used to light cigarettes. That is obvious from the shortness of the burnt end.


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[Assistant] Half the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar, but dear me, this cigarette-stub is certainly remarkable. The gentleman was bearded and mustached, you say? Yes, sir. I don't understand that.


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[Assistant] I should say that only a clean-shaven man could have smoked this.


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[Assistant] Why, Watson, even your modest moustache would have been singed. A holder, I suggested.


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[Assistant] No, no, the end is mattered. I suppose there could not be two people in your rooms, Mrs. Warren.


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[Assistant] No, sir, he eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life in one.


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[Assistant] Well I think we must wait for a little more material.


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[Assistant] And if he chooses to lie concealed, it is no direct business of yours.


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[Assistant] We have no excuse for intrusion upon his privacy.


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[Assistant] Until we have some reason to think there is a guilty reason for it.


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[Assistant] I have taken up the matter, and I won't lose sight of it. Report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistance if it should be needed.


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[Assistant] There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson," he remarked, when the landlady had left us. It may, of course, be trivial, individual eccentricity, or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface.


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[Assistant] The first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them. Why should you think so?


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[Assistant] Well, apart from this cigarette end, was it not suggestive that the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms?


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[Assistant] He came back, or someone came back, when all witnesses were out of the way.


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[Assistant] We have no proof that the person who came back was the person who went out.


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[Assistant] Then again the man who took the room spoke English well. This other, however, prints match, when it should have been matches.


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[Assistant] I can imagine that the word was taken out of a dictionary which would give the noun, but not the plural.


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[Assistant] The laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English.


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[Assistant] Yes, Watson, there are good reasons to suspect there has been a substitution of lodgers. But for what possible end? Ah, there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of investigation.


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[Assistant] He took down the great book in which day by day he filed the agony column of the various London journals. Dear me! said he, turning over the pages. What a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag bag of singular happenings!


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[Assistant] But surely the most valuable hunting ground that ever was given to a student of the unusual.


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[Assistant] This person is alone and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is desired.


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[Assistant] How is any news or any message to reach him from without?


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[Assistant] Here are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight.


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[Assistant] Lady with a black boa at Prince's skating club. That, we may pass. Surely Jimmy will not break his mother's heart. That appears to be irrelevant.


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[Assistant] If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus, she does not interest me. Every day my heart longs. Bleat, Watson, unmitigated bleat. Ah, this is a little more possible. Listen to this.


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[Assistant] Be patient, we'll find some sure means of communications. Meanwhile, this column, G.


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[Assistant] That is two days after Mrs Warren's lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it not?


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[Assistant] The mysterious one could understand English even if he could not print it. Let us see


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[Assistant] Yes, here we are. Three days later. I'm making successful arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds will pass. Gee. Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something much more definite.


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[Assistant] The path is clearing, if I find chance signal message remember code agreed, 1A, 2B, and so on. You will hear soon, G.


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[Assistant] That was in yesterday's paper, and there is nothing in today's. It's all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren's lodger. If we wait a little, Watson, I don't doubt that the affair will grow more intelligible.


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[Assistant] So it proved, for in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearth rug with his back to the fire, and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face.


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[Assistant] How's this, Watson?" he cried, picking up the paper from the table. High red house with white stone facings. Third floor, second window left. After dusk, G.


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[Assistant] That is definite enough. I think after breakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren's neighborhood.


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[Assistant] Ah, Mrs. Warren, what news do you bring us this morning?


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[Assistant] Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy which told of some new and momentous development.


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[Assistant] It's a police matter, Mr. Holmes," she cried. I'll have no more of it. He shall pack out of there with his baggage.


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[Assistant] I would have gone straight up and told him so, only I thought it was but fair to you to take your opinion first.


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[Assistant] But I'm at the very end of my patience, and when it comes to knocking my old man about— Knocking Mr. Warren about? Using him roughly anyway. But who used him roughly? Ah, that's what we want to know. It was this morning, sir.


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[Assistant] Mr Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylights in Tottenham Court Road. He has to be out of the house before seven.


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[Assistant] Well, this morning he had not gone ten paces down the road when two men came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled him into a cab that was beside the curb.


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[Assistant] They drove him an hour and then opened the door and shot him out. He lay in the roadway so shaken in his wits that he never saw what became of the cab. When he picked himself up, he found he was on Hampstead Heath, so he took a bus home


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[Assistant] And there he lies now on his sofa, while I came straight round to tell you what had happened.


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[Assistant] Most interesting," said Holmes. Did he observe the appearance of these men? Did he hear them talk? No, he is clean-dazed.


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[Assistant] He just knows that he was lifted up as if by magic and dropped as if by magic. Two at least were in it and maybe three. And you connect this attack with your lodger?


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[Assistant] We've lived there fifteen years and no such happenings ever came before. I've had enough of him


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[Assistant] Money's not everything. I'll have him out of my house before the day is done.


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[Assistant] Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that this affair may be very much more important than appeared at first sight.


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[Assistant] It is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger. It is equally clear that his enemies, lying in wait for him near your door, mistook your husband for him in the foggy morning light


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[Assistant] On discovering their mistake they released him.


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[Assistant] What they would have done had it not been a mistake, we can only conjecture.


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[Assistant] I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.


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[Assistant] I don't see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door. I always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the tray. He has to take the tray in.


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[Assistant] I could arrange a looking glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door— Excellent! said Holmes. When does he lunch? About one, sir.


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[Assistant] Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present, Mrs. Warren, goodbye.


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[Assistant] At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren's house, a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the British Museum.


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[Assistant] Standing as it does near the corner of the street, it commands a view down House Street with its more pretentious houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these a row of residential flats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye. "'See, Watson,' said he, "'high red house with stone facings.'


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[Assistant] There is the signal station, alright. We know the place and we know the code.


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[Assistant] So surely our task should be simple. There's a to-let card in that window. It is evidently an empty flat to which the confederate has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now? I have it all ready for you.


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[Assistant] If you will both come up and leave your boots below on a landing, I'll put you there now.


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[Assistant] It was an excellent hiding place which she had arranged. The mirror was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door opposite.


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[Assistant] We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us when a distant tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung.


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[Assistant] Presently the landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door, and then treading heavily departed.


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[Assistant] Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror.


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[Assistant] Suddenly, as the landlady's footsteps died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray from the chair.


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[Assistant] An instant later it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the boxroom.


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[Assistant] Then the door crashed too, the key turned once more, and all was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we stole down the stair.


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[Assistant] I will call again in the evening," said he to the expectant landlady.


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[Assistant] I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters.


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[Assistant] My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct," said he, speaking from the depths of his easy chair.


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[Assistant] What I did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson. She saw us.


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[Assistant] Well, she saw something to alarm her, that is certain. The general sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not?


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[Assistant] A couple seek refuge in London from a very terrible and instant danger. The measure of that danger is the rigor of their precautions.


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[Assistant] The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to leave the woman in absolute safety while he does it.


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[Assistant] But he solved it in an original fashion and so, effectively, that her presence was not even known to the landlady who supplies her with food.


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[Assistant] The printed messages as is now evident were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing.


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[Assistant] The man cannot come near the woman or he will guide their enemies to her.


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[Assistant] Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far all is clear. But what is at the root of it?


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[Assistant] Ah, yes, Watson. Severely practical as usual. What is at the root of it all?


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[Assistant] Mrs. Warren's whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and assumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. This much we can say


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[Assistant] That it is no ordinary love escapade. You saw the woman's face at the sign of danger.


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[Assistant] We have heard, too, of the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the lodger.


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[Assistant] These alarms and the desperate need for secrecy argue that the matter is one of life or death.


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[Assistant] The attack upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy, whoever they are, are themselves not aware of the substitution of the female lodger for the male. It is very curious and complex, Watson. Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it? What indeed


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[Assistant] It is art for art's sake, Watson. I suppose when you doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee? For my education, Holmes.


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[Assistant] Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.


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[Assistant] This is an instructive case. There is neither money nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy it up.


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[Assistant] The gloom of a London winter evening had thickened into one grey curtain, a dead monotone of colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred halos of the gas lamps.


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[Assistant] as we peered from the darkened sitting room of the lodging house


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[Assistant] One more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity. Someone is moving in that room.


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[Assistant] Said Holmes in a whisper. His gaunt and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. Yes, I can see his shadow. There he is again. He has a candle in his hand. Now he is peering across. He wants to be sure that she is on the look-out. Now he begins to flash.


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[Assistant] Take the message also, Watson, that we may check each other. A single flash, that is A, surely. Now then, how many did you make it? Twenty? So did I. That should mean T. A-T. That's intelligible enough. Another T?


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[Assistant] Surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now then, tenter. Dead stop. That can't be all, Watson. A tenter.


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[Assistant] A-t-t-e-n-t-a, a-ten-ta, three times. How often will he repeat it? No, that seems to be the finish. He is withdrawn from the window. What do you make of it, Watson? A cipher message, Holmes." My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension.


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[Assistant] And not a very obscure cipher, Watson," said he. Why, of course. It is Italian. The A means that it is addressed to a woman. Beware, beware, beware. How's that, Watson? I believe you've hit it.


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[Assistant] No doubt of it. It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated, to make it more so. But beware of what? Wait a bit. He is coming to the window once more.


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[Assistant] Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of the small flame across the window as the signals were renewed.


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[Assistant] Danger, isn't it? Yes, by Jove, it's a danger signal. Here he goes again, Perry. Hello, what on earth? The light had suddenly gone out.


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[Assistant] The glimmering square of window had disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty building, with its tiers of shining casements.


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[Assistant] That last warning cry had been suddenly cut short. How, and by whom? The same thought occurred on the instant to us both. Holmes sprang up from where he crouched by the window,


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[Assistant] This is serious, Watson," he cried. There is some devilry going forward. Why should such a message stop in such a way?


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[Assistant] I should put Scotland Yard in touch with this business, and yet it is too pressing for us to leave. Shall I go for the police? We must define the situation a little more clearly. It may bear some more innocent interpretation.


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[Assistant] Come, Watson, let us go across ourselves and see what we can make of it.


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[Assistant] End of The Adventure of the Red Circle Part 1


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[Assistant] As we walked rapidly down House Street, I glanced back at the building which we'd left.


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[Assistant] There, dimly outlined at the top window, I could see the shadow of a head, a woman's head, gazing tensely, rigidly out into the night, waiting with breathless suspense for the renewal of that interrupted message.


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[Assistant] At the doorway of the House Street flats a man, muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing.


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[Assistant] He started as the hall light fell upon our faces. Homes! he cried.


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[Assistant] Why, Gregson," said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland Yard detective.


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[Assistant] Journeys end with lovers' meetings. What brings you here?


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[Assistant] The same reasons that brings you, I expect," said Gregson. How you got on to it I can't imagine.


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[Assistant] Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle. I've been taking the signals. Signals? Yes, from that window. They broke off in the middle. We came over to see the reason. But since it is safe in your hands, I see no object in continuing this business.


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[Assistant] Wait a bit," cried Gregson eagerly. I'll do you this justice, Mr. Holmes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn't feel stronger for having you on my side. There's only the one exit to these flats, so we have him safe. Who is he?"


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[Assistant] Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes. You must give us best this time.


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[Assistant] He struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on which a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered over from a four-wheeler which stood on the far side of the street.


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[Assistant] May I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said to the cabman. This is Mr. Leverton of Pinkerton's American Agency.


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[Assistant] The Hero of the Long Island Cave Mystery, said Holmes. Sir, I am pleased to meet you.


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[Assistant] The American, a quiet, businesslike young man with a clean-shaven, hatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation. "'I am on the trail of my life now, Mr. Holmes,' said he. "'If I can get Giorgiano—' "'What? Giorgiano of the Red Circle?'


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[Assistant] Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we've learned all about him in America. We know he's at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet we've nothing positive we can take on him. I tracked him over from New York, and I've been close to him for a week in London.


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[Assistant] Waiting for some excuse to get my hand on his collar.


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[Assistant] Mr. Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big tenement house, and there's only one door, so he can't slip us.


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[Assistant] There's three folk come out since he went in, but I'll swear he wasn't one of them.


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[Assistant] Mr Holmes talks of signals," said Gregson. I expect, as usual, he knows a good deal that we don't.


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[Assistant] In a few clear words, Holmes explained the situation as it had appeared to us. The American struck his hands together with vexation.


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[Assistant] Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is sending out messages to an accomplice. There are several of his gang in London.


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[Assistant] Then suddenly, just as by your own account he was telling them that there was danger, he broke short off. What could it mean except that from the window he had suddenly either caught sight of us in the street, or in some way come to understand how close the danger was, and he must act right away if he was to avoid it? What do you suggest, Mr. Holmes?" That we go up at once and see for ourselves. But we have no warrant for his arrest.


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[Assistant] He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances," said Gregson. That is good enough for the moment.


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[Assistant] When we have him by the eels we can see if New York can't help us to keep him. I'll take the responsibility of arresting him now.


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[Assistant] Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in that of courage.


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[Assistant] Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer, with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard.


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[Assistant] The Pinkerton man had tried to push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back.


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[Assistant] London dangers were the privilege of the London Force.


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[Assistant] The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing ajar. Gregson pushed it open.


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[Assistant] Within all was absolute silence and darkness. I struck a match and lit the detective's lantern. As I did so, and as the flicker steadied into a flame, we all gave a gasp of surprise.


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[Assistant] On the deal boards of the carpetless floor there was outlined a fresh track of blood.


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[Assistant] The red steps pointed towards us and led away from an inner room, the door of which was closed.


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[Assistant] Gregson flung it open and held his light full blaze in front of him, while we all peered eagerly over his shoulders.


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[Assistant] In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled a figure of an enormous man.


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[Assistant] His clean shaven, swarthy face, grotesquely horrible in its contortion, and his head encircled by a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon the white woodwork.


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[Assistant] His knees were drawn up, his hands thrown out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat there projected the white hath of a knife driven blade deep into his body.


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[Assistant] Giant as he was, the man must have gone down like a poleaxed ox before that terrific blow.


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[Assistant] Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled two-edged dagger lay upon the floor, and near it a black kid glove.


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[Assistant] By George. It's black Georgiano himself, cried the American detective. Someone has got ahead of us this time.


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[Assistant] Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes," said Gregson.


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[Assistant] Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it backward and forward across the window panes.


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[Assistant] Then he peered into the darkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the floor.


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[Assistant] I rather think that will be helpful, said he.


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[Assistant] He came over and stood in deep thought while the two professionals were examining the body.


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[Assistant] You say that three people came out from the flat while you were waiting downstairs," said he at last. Did you observe them closely? Yes, I did.


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[Assistant] Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle size? Yes, he was the last to pass me.


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[Assistant] That is your man, I fancy. I can give you his description, and we have a very excellent outline of his foot-mark. That should be enough for you. Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London. Perhaps not.


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[Assistant] That is why I thought it best to summon this lady to your aid. We all turned around at the words.


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[Assistant] There, framed in the doorway, was a tall and beautiful woman, the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury.


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[Assistant] Then I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she sprang into the air with a cry of joy.


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[Assistant] Round and round the room she danced, her hands clapping, her dark eyes gleaming with delighted wonder, and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations pouring from her lips.


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[Assistant] It was terrible and amazing to see such a woman, so convulsed with joy at such a sight.


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[Assistant] Suddenly she stopped and gazed at us all with a questioning stare.


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[Assistant] But you, you are police, are you not? You have killed Giuseppe Giorgiano, is it not so?" We are police, madam." She looked round into the shadows of the room. But where, then, is Gennaro?


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[Assistant] She asked, He is my husband, Gennaro Luca. I am Amelia Luca, and we are both from New York. Where is Gennaro? He called me this moment from this window, and I ran with all my speed. It was I who called, said Holmes. You? How could you call?


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[Assistant] Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was desirable. I knew that I only to flash Vieni, and you would surely come. The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.


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[Assistant] She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up with pride and delight.


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[Assistant] My Gennaro, my splendid, beautiful Gennaro, who has guarded me safe from all harm. He did it! With his stone-strong hand he killed the monster. Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are! What a woman could ever be worthy of such a man!


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[Assistant] Well, Mrs. Luca," said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon the lady's sleeve, with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill hooligan.


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[Assistant] I'm not very clear yet who you are or what you are, but you've said enough to make it very clear that we shall want you at the yard.


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[Assistant] One moment, Gregson," said Holmes. I rather fancy that this lady may be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get it.


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[Assistant] You understand, madam, that your husband will be arrested and tried for the death of the man who lies before us? What you say may be used in evidence, but if you think that he has acted from motives which are not criminal and which he would wish to have known, then you cannot serve him better than by telling us the whole story.


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[Assistant] Now that Georgiano is dead, we fear nothing," said the lady. He was a devil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would punish my husband for having killed him.


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[Assistant] In that case," said Holmes, my suggestion is that we lock this door, leave things as we found them, go with this lady to her room, and form our opinion after we have heard what it is that she has to say to us.


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[Assistant] Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small sitting-room of Signora Luca, listening to her remarkable narrative of those sinister events, the ending of which we had chance to witness.


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[Assistant] She spoke in rapid and fluent but very unconventional English, which for the sake of clearness I will make grammatical.


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[Assistant] I was born in Posilipo near Naples," said she, and was the daughter of Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the deputy of that part.


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[Assistant] Gennaro was in my father's employment and I came to love him as any woman must.


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[Assistant] He had neither money nor position, nothing, but his beauty and strength and energy, so my father forbade much.


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[Assistant] We fled together, were married at Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to America.


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[Assistant] This was four years ago, and we have been in New York ever since. Fortune was very good to us at first.


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[Assistant] Gennaro was able to do a service to an Italian gentleman.


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[Assistant] He saved him from some ruffians in the place called the Bowery, and so made a powerful friend.


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[Assistant] His name was Tito Castellotti, and he was the senior partner of the great firm of Castellotti and Zamba, who are the chief fruit importers of New York.


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[Assistant] Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new friend Castolotti has all power within the firm, which employs more than three hundred men. He took my husband into his employment.


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[Assistant] Signor Castellotti was a bachelor, and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his son, and both my husband and I loved him as if he were our father.


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[Assistant] We had taken and furnished a little house in Brooklyn and our whole future seemed assured


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[Assistant] When that black cloud appeared, which was soon to overspread our sky.


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[Assistant] One night when Gennaro returned from his work,


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[Assistant] He brought a fellow countryman back with him.


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[Assistant] His name was Giorgiano, and he had come also from Possilippo.


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[Assistant] He was a huge man, as you can testify, for you have looked upon his corpse.


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[Assistant] Not only was his body that of a giant, but everything about him was grotesque, gigantic, and terrifying. His voice was like thunder in our little house.


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[Assistant] There was scarce room for the well of his great arms as he talked.


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[Assistant] His thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated and monstrous.


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[Assistant] He talked or rather roared with such energy that others could but sit and listen, cowed with the mighty stream of words. His eyes blazed at you and held you at his mercy. He was a terrible and wonderful man. I thank God that he is dead. He came again and again.


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[Assistant] Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more happy than I was in his presence.


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[Assistant] My poor husband would sit pale and listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon social questions which make up our visitors' conversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well,


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[Assistant] And then gradually I understood that it was more than dislike. It was fear. A deep, secret, shrinking fear.


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[Assistant] That night, the night that I read his terror,


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[Assistant] I put my arms around him, and I implored him by his love for me and by all that he held dear, to hold nothing from me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.


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[Assistant] He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened.


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[Assistant] My poor Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed against him, and his mind was driven half mad by the injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society, the Red Circle, which was allied to the old Carbonari.


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[Assistant] The oaths and secrets of this brotherhood were frightful.


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[Assistant] But once within its rule, no escape was possible.


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[Assistant] When we had fled to America, Gennaro thought that he had cast it all off forever.


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[Assistant] What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very man who had initiated him in Naples, the giant Giorgiano, a man who had earned the name of Death in the south of Italy, for he was read to the elbow in murder.


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[Assistant] He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he had already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home.


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[Assistant] All this Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which he had received that very day.


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[Assistant] A red circle drawn upon the head of it, telling him that a lodge would be held upon a certain date, and that his presence at it was required and ordered. That was bad enough, but worse was to come.


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[Assistant] I had noticed for some time that when Giordano came to us, as he constantly did in the evening, he spoke much to me.


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[Assistant] And even when his words were to my husband, those terrible, glaring wild beast eyes of his were always turned upon me. One night his secret came out.


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[Assistant] I had awakened what he called love within him, the love of a brute, a savage.


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[Assistant] Gennaro had not yet returned when he came. He pushed his way in, seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear's embrace, covered me with kisses, and implored me to come away with him.


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[Assistant] I was struggling and screaming when Gennaro entered and attacked him.


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[Assistant] He struck Gennaro senseless and fled from the house, which he has never more to enter.


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[Assistant] It was a deadly enemy that we made that night. A few days later came the meeting


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[Assistant] Gennaro returned from it, with a face which told me that something dreadful had occurred.


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[Assistant] It was worse than we could have imagined possible. The funds of the society were raised by blackmailing rich Italians and threatening them with violence should they refuse the money.


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[Assistant] It seems that Castolote, our dear friend and benefactor, had been approached. He had refused to yield to threats, and he had handed the notices to the police.


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[Assistant] It was resolved now that such an example should be made of them as would prevent any other victim from rebelling.


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[Assistant] At the meeting it was arranged that he and his house should be blown up with dynamite.


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[Assistant] There was a drawing of lots as to who should carry out the deed.


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[Assistant] Gennaro saw our enemy's cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag.


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[Assistant] No doubt it had been prearranged in some fashion, for it was the fatal disc, with the red circle upon it, the mandate for murder which lay upon his palm. He was to kill his best friend.


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[Assistant] Or he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades.


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[Assistant] It was part of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own persons, but those whom they loved.


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[Assistant] And it was the knowledge of this which hung as a terror over my poor Genaro's head, and drove him nearly crazy with apprehension. All that night we sat together


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[Assistant] Our arms round each other, each strengthening each for the troubles that lay before us.


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[Assistant] But not before he had given our benefactor full warning of this danger, and had also left such information for the police as would safeguard his life for the future.


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[Assistant] The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves.


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[Assistant] We were sure that our enemies would be behind us like our own shadows.


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[Assistant] Giorgiano had his private reasons for vengeance.


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[Assistant] But in any case we knew how ruthless, cunning and untiring he could be.


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[Assistant] Both Italy and America are full of stories of his dreadful powers.


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[Assistant] If ever they were exerted, it would be now.


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[Assistant] My darling made us the few clear days which our start had given us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a fashion that no possible danger could reach me. For his own part,


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[Assistant] He wished to be free, that he might communicate both with the American and with the Italian police.


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[Assistant] I do not myself know where he lived or how.


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[Assistant] All that I learned was through the columns of a newspaper.


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[Assistant] But once, as I looked through my window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and I understood that in some way Giordano had found our retreat. Finally, Gennaro told me through the paper that he would signal to me from a certain window, but when the signals came


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[Assistant] There were nothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted.


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[Assistant] It is very clear to me now that he knew Giordano to be close upon him.


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[Assistant] And thank God, he was ready for him when he came. And now, gentlemen.


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[Assistant] I would ask you whether we have anything to fear from the law.


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[Assistant] But I guess that in New York this lady's husband will receive a pretty general vote of thanks.


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[Assistant] She will have to come with me and see the chief," Gregson answered.


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[Assistant] If what she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband has much to fear.


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[Assistant] But what I can't make out a tale of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth you got yourself mixed up in the matter.


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[Assistant] Still seeking knowledge at the old university? Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic and grotesque to add to your collection.


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[Assistant] By the way, it is not eight o'clock and a Wagner night at Covent Garden.


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[Assistant] If we hurry, we might be in time for the second act.


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[Assistant] End of part two of the adventure of the red circle.


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[Assistant] In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured as far as possible to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism while offering a fair field for his talents.


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[Assistant] It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal.


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[Assistant] And a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem,


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[Assistant] Or he must use matter which chance and not choice has provided him with.


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[Assistant] With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.


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[Assistant] It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter.


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[Assistant] Our blinds were half drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and rereading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting.


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[Assistant] Parliament had risen, everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the new forest or the shingles of South Sea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him.


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[Assistant] He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime.


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[Assistant] Appreciation of nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evildoer of the town to track down his brother of the country.


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[Assistant] Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study.


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[Assistant] Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.


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[Assistant] You are right, Watson," said he. It does seem a most preposterous way of settling a dispute.


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[Assistant] Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly, realising how he had echoed at my inmost thoughts, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement. What's this, Holmes?" I cried. This is beyond anything which I could have imagined. He laughed heartily at my perplexity. You remember, said he,


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[Assistant] Some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion,


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[Assistant] You were inclined to treat the matter as a mere tour de force of the author.


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[Assistant] On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing, you expressed incredulity. Oh, no! Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows.


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[Assistant] So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with you. But I was still far from satisfied. In the example which you read to me," said I,


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[Assistant] The reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the man whom he observed.


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[Assistant] If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on, but I have been seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?


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[Assistant] You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants.


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[Assistant] Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my features?


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[Assistant] Your features and especially your eyes.


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[Assistant] Perhaps you cannot yourself recall how your reverie commenced. No, I cannot. Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper,


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[Assistant] Which was the action which drew my attention to you?


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[Assistant] You sat for half a minute with a vacant expression.


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[Assistant] Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of thought had been started.


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[Assistant] But it did not lead very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher, which stands upon the top of your books. Then you glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious.


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[Assistant] You were thinking that if the portrait was framed it would just cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon's picture there. You followed me wonderfully, I exclaimed.


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[Assistant] So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful.


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[Assistant] You were recalling the incidents of Beacher's career.


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[Assistant] I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War.


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[Assistant] For I remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was received by the most more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about it.


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[Assistant] That I knew you could not think of Beacher without thinking of that also.


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[Assistant] When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War.


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[Assistant] And when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled and your hands clenched.


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[Assistant] I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle.


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[Assistant] You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life.


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[Assistant] Stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of settling international questions had forced itself upon your mind


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[Assistant] At this point I agreed with you that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that all my deductions had been correct.


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[Assistant] And now that you have explained it, I confess that I am as amazed as before.


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[Assistant] It was very superficial, my dear Watson.


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[Assistant] I assure you I should not have intruded upon your attention, had you not shown some incredulity the other day.


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[Assistant] But I have in my hands here a little problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading.


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[Assistant] Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing of Cross Street Croydon? No, I saw nothing.


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[Assistant] Ah, then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to read it aloud.


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[Assistant] I picked up the paper which she had thrown back to me, and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed A Gruesome Packet.


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[Assistant] Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke, unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident.


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[Assistant] At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small packet wrapped in brown paper was handed in by the postman. A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt.


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[Assistant] On emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to find two human ears apparently quite freshly severed. The box had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the morning before.


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[Assistant] There's no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life and has so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post.


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[Assistant] Some years ago, however, when she retired at Penge, she let apartments in her house to three young medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid of on account of their noisy and irregular habits.


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[Assistant] Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact that one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of Miss Cushing's belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.


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[Assistant] So much for the Daily Chronicle," said Holmes, as I finished reading. Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning, in which he says—


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[Assistant] I think this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon.


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[Assistant] We have, of course, wired to the Belfast post office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of remembering the sender.


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[Assistant] The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way.


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[Assistant] The medical student theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a few hours to spare, I should be very happy to see you out there. I should be either at the house or in the police station all day.


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[Assistant] What say you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat and run down to Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals? I was longing for something to do. You shall have it, then.


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[Assistant] Ring for our boots and tell them to order a cab.


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[Assistant] I'll be back in a moment when I have changed my dressing gown and filled my cigar case.


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[Assistant] A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far less oppressive in Croydon than in town.


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[Assistant] Holmes had sent on a wire so that the Strad, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss Cushing resided.


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[Assistant] It was a very long street of two-storey brick houses, neat and prim with whitened stone steps and the little groups of aproned women gossiping at the doors. Halfway down the strad stopped and tapped at a door which was opened by a small servant-girl.


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[Assistant] Miss Cushing was sitting at the front room, into which we were ushered.


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[Assistant] She was a placid-faced woman with large, gentle eyes and grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side.


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[Assistant] A worked antimacassar lay upon her lap, and a basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool beside her.


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[Assistant] So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend Mr. Holmes should have seen them in your presence. Why in my presence, sir? In case he wished to ask any questions. What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing whatever about it?


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[Assistant] Quite so, madam," said Holmes in his soothing way. I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.


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[Assistant] Indeed I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life.


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[Assistant] It is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the police in my house. I won't have those things in here, Mr. Lestrade. If you wish to see them, you must go to the outhouse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box with a piece of brown paper and some string.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was a bench at the end of the path, and we all sat down while Holmes examined one by one the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This string is exceedingly interesting," he remarked, holding it up to the light and sniffing at it. What do you make of this string, La Strade? It has been tarred.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no doubt, remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with scissors, as can be seen by the double fray on each side. This is of importance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I cannot see the importance," said Lestrade. The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character. It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note to that effect," said Lestrade complacently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So much for the string, then," said Holmes, smiling. Now for the box wrapper. Brown paper with a distinct smell of coffee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, did you not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of it. Address printed in rather straggling characters, Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink, the word Croydon has been originally spelled with an I, which has been changed to Y.


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[Assistant] The parcel was directed, then, by a man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon. So far, so good. The box is yellow—half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive—save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is filled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes, and embedded in it are these very singular enclosures.


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[Assistant] He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying aboard across his knee, he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward on each side of him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics, and at the thoughtful, eager face of our companion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finally he returned them to the box once more and sat for a while in deep meditation.


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[Assistant] Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke of some students from the dissecting rooms, it would be as easy for them to send two odd ears as a pair. Precisely. But this is not a practical joke. You are sure of it? The presumption is strongly against it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bodies in the dissecting rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this.


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[Assistant] They've been cut off with a blunt instrument which would hardly happen if a student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no practical joke here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that we are investigating a serious crime.


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[Assistant] A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion's words, and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror in the background. Lestrade, however, shook his head like a man who was only half convinced.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt," said he, but there are much stronger reasons against the other.