[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And lo and behold, the partner who's from biology would say, gee, that's very interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can't you do it in six months? No, I can't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Development time is one thing. Opportunistic planning time is another thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they didn't realize until a facilitator kind of helped them understand this that the arguments they were having


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They could then at least agree on what's possible. So if the planner said, look, we need the baby in three months,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, the woman would say, that's all well and good, but I can't do it in less than nine months. They could then say, okay, so we'll figure something out. Either we'll change the opportunity structure, or maybe if the pressure is enough ultimately,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Necessarily saying development time is absolutely the right one and managerial time is the wrong one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's a matter of mutual understanding because I suspect in the biology business there have been


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we've already moved into some whole new technological space. So alright, anyway. So, whom you hire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're conscious of trying to build something that's gonna work,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is figure out, and this is something I think Bill talked about, how your own behavior sends the clearest message about what you care about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a wonderful example that I observed in DEC. Ken Olson really believed deep down that people should be responsible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So one day we were sitting in a group meeting of the top 8 people. This was now in 1965. The company was about 10 years old. And one of the product line managers who had one of the big product lines


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was sitting there when the chief financial officer


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was asked to give his report on how all the different, uhm, product lines were doing and he pointed out that this particular manager's line had developed a very large inventory which was very costly and was going to be a problem. And


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could see that the line, the product line manager was embarrassed by this because these were new data that he had not seen before. And so there was real tension in the room. And Ken Olson blew up as he often did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said the situation is absolutely intolerable. And he started to punish one of those two managers, the CFO or the product line manager. Which one do you think he punished?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come on, use your organizational intuition. Remember I said Ken Olson was obsessed with having people be responsible. So who was at fault here?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The product line manager? How many people agree it should have been the product line manager who got punished?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he punished the product line manager. What he said in effect was, you idiot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How can you put yourself into a position where this clown, this CFO, has data about your business that you don't have? He put it almost that crudely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said if there's someone who knows something about your business that you don't have, you're a problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't ever want to see again a situation


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can expose something about your product line that you don't yourself know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, this wasn't entirely benign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that message also led to enormous buildups.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of ancillary functional departments in every product line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause every product line manager got the message, I want, now I want my own finance guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who will, who will keep me honest and I want my own marketing guy and they at one point ten years later, they discovered it in all the countries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were these huge, uh, administrative departments that had really arisen out of this very central assumption


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that was the best way Ken could get across that he really meant it. He really wanted people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To know everything about their own product line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was not sort of a vague general statement. So do you see how once you're in that CEO entrepreneurial position, you have the power to begin to create what will eventually become shared assumptions? Because that shared assumption later


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Could be seen to be the reason digital failed. Because these empowered managers, who ran their own businesses, when you got into the middle eighties, the market had changed. But these powerful engineering managers, and there were three or four of them,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, we're in a position to discount what Ken Olson said.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they were now in their 50s and 60s, they had a lot of experience, they had been trained to be powerful, and they now said, we know the answer. One of them said, the answer is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The big water-cooled computer called Aquarius. And he wanted all the resources to come to him. Another one said, no, no, no, it's the alpha chip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which Gordon Bell, who was one of their technical gurus,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Said if DEC had really figured that out and evolved it, they might have had the internet. But those three powerful managers ended up fighting with each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by then, Ken Olson no longer had control of them, because he had empowered them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They, if you, they would say to him, yes, yes, yes Ken, we understand. But if I walk down the hall with them, they would say to me, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you had all the resources being squandered across three big projects.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then in the end drives the organization. This is the crucial insight you have to have about how these things happen from an entrepreneurial point of view. Comments, questions?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Example being, I knew of two companies that were, one was very, very, uh, democratically organized. The other one was very autocratic, both very successful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The autocratic one bought the democratic one because they wanted all the technical talent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And within six months, all that technical talent had disappeared because they couldn't work under an autocrat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That would be an extreme example, but I suspect that does happen all the time. Except in today's multicultural environment, I think acquirers are getting smarter about this. So for example, I knew of, uh, two examples. One is a Swedish lock company that was buying up lock companies all over Europe, and they knew that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lock is symbolically very important, you know, it keeps me secure, keeps my possession secure, and that people had associations to the names of the lock companies in the countries in which they were operating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the headquarters decided we're only going to be a financial holding company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're gonna let each of these lock companies totally continue their brand and do things their own way. It's a very conscious decision not to impose the corporate culture in any way on the subsidiaries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In another case, GE with an Italian family oriented company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And its wisdom decided this family-oriented company is a, is a cultural disaster from GE's point of view.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we also know that just imposing ourselves isn't gonna work. So they did one thing, they said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We now own you and so you have to use our accounting system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Italian managers began to get curious about other ways that GE did things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they in effect began to socialize themselves into the GE culture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this one professor I know in the University of Siena has written a paper saying the correct way to do acquisitions is just impose the accounting system. That's legitimate. Nobody can argue with you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I'm now owned by you and we're in the money business, then of course it's legitimate for me to learn your system. But then let the rest of the cultural integration completely take care of itself at its own pace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a family company, it was fairly obsolete, and that GE made this decision just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It sort of sounds good that we're, you know, we're one company, but it might be from an operational point of view, completely the wrong thing to do. Depending on the industry, depending on the differences in the cultures. So, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So maybe failure number one was because the finances didn't work together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Failure number two was because the marketing didn't work together. I might put them both under the culture umbrella.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think just saying it's a culture doesn't help you if you don't specify.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What element of the culture is disjunctive? Now, I do know something about the compact, uh, HP acquisition. First, compact takes over digital, and then HP takes over compact and digital combined. And I happen to know the guy who was originally from DEC, who was the head of the integration team,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From HP's point of view, they decided, which is itself interesting, to pick a deck guy to head the integration team for HP Compact. And he said they had two choices.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To examine all the different structures and see which


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let them decide which was the best and evolve into an integrated system or


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sit down and make some hard decisions about which is the best accounting system, which is the best whatever system, and impose it immediately on the entire structure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in some cases that might mean changing some of the HP ways. In some cases it might mean changing some of the compact ways. And he said one or the other of these


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In their opinion, having looked at lots of these cases is definitely the only way to go. His generalization, not mine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said it's the quick imposition way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you try to evolve an integrated culture, it turns into a huge mess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of people arguing with each other. No, ours is the best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One example of that, I was talking to the head of Novartis that eventually, you know, Seba Geige and Sandos merged and became Novartis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Seabagagi Sandos thing is going fine, but you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Powerful, independent product line managers. And he was frequently told, divisionalize them. Give them manufacturing and give them sales.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for reasons only known to Ken Olson himself ultimately, he said no, that's giving away too much control. I want them to be independent, powerful, engineering product line managers


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I want centralized sales and centralized manufacturing. HP apparently went the divisional route. They created divisions early in their history. And that's a choice you will make as an entrepreneur. How should we deploy power and influence? How much freedom should we give as we begin to be successful? And there are different models.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That probably depend on, on different technologies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and so there, there's no correct answer, but it's a fundamental decision that has to be made. How to organize. So whom you hire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How you run meetings, what you pay attention to, and how you organize is how you create the conditions for a culture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'll let you comment. If there are no questions, make some comments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said it around subordinates, whom you hire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I could equally have said it in terms of who your partners are and maybe it's even more important. Choose your partners with self-knowledge of your own values and make sure that your values


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And your partner's values or your investor's values match to some degree, or you'll have a lot of trouble down the line. My hunch is that one of the reasons why Hewlett-Packard was such a success was because somehow Packard and Hewlett were a perfect match for each other. Packard the businessman, Hewlett the engineer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it did run that way until probably the Carly Fiorina days when they realized


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there's a tough market out there and we can't afford.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So absolutely the partners have to have a tight, tight sense of we know who we each other are and how we get along or it won't work. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It depends on what they mean by quantify. If they're using traditional survey stuff, they're getting espoused values. If they're going in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Infiltrating or in some other ways going in with, with interviews and with this model in mind, then maybe they have a chance of getting at this level. So it would depend on at which level you're working. My worry is that there are a lot of surveys out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That are built at this level that claim to be deep enough to get at assumptions. But I have seen no survey yet where people are asked opinions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People don't know that they've taken this stuff for granted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there's no way that the survey can really get at it. And secondly, there's no guarantee that what people would tell you at this level is in fact what's really going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Aggressive, assertive, academic style electrical engineers as it was a new technology evolving. And I think


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] HP had intellectual or cultural indigestion when they brought computing in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what the engineers wanted in this one meeting was to figure out the HP culture, why


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because we make decisions in these groups, and the decisions don't stick. You know, we decide, we're nice to each other, but two weeks down the road it's not happening. So what's going on here?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they went through an analysis of the kind I describe in my books of first looking at the artifacts and then the HP way and then what they discovered


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was that the real system at the assumptions level had come to be individualistic competitive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's all well and good to sit around in the meeting and agree. But the way you get things done, the assumption was you fight hard for your point of view, you go outside the meeting and you make deals with all the people on whom you're dependent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if you don't make all those separate political deals, things aren't gonna get done for you. So they, they realized they had a kind of a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, a paradoxical mixed message within the company. We're supposed to work this way, but the real work gets done in a different way, but we don't talk about it. It's not allowed. So, long before Carly arrives,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've got a whole bunch of people who don't fit the culture. And you're getting more and more into computing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you have to be very efficient and these engineers are maybe better at this than some of the guys. So the first thing you see is the split of the company into Agilent and HP and I've never understood


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why the names went that way, it should have probably been the other way around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More heavily into computers, commodities and so on. And my hypothesis is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They decide the way to purify the situation is to bring in a tough turnaround manager who will really make this a commodity business and the hell with some of the old HP, uh, goody goody ways. So along comes Carly Furina.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you read the history of what happened there, she really upset all the old timers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the old timers were the old HP way and what the hell is happening to the company that we grew up with? But I suspect apart from her personal style, which may be a whole other issue, but I suspect her job was to destroy


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that they could become a properly organized, efficient commodity organization.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's producing turnkey products and tons of ink and be a player in the modern world. And not be an innovator anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who are innovative and say, why don't you go work for HP? They say, are you kidding? Boring. Nothing going on there. They're just a commodity company. So you could say that's what Carly did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She helped turn that ship around a few degrees so that today it could be what the market demands of it. A very successful producer of what


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Laptops and ink. Isn't that their primary business now? Laptops and ink.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, that's very different from the HP that was competing with DEC in the 60s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me give you an interesting culture point. I know that Accenture has a man whom I knew very well by the name of Bob Thomas, who has written a number of books of which the most important is what machines can't do. He is a very good sociologist who really understands this stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Dex's case, they decided the culture was more important than the business.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Dex culture survived while the company died. But maybe in HP's case, the culture was less important than the business. And so if Carly


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put in the final touches of killing the culture. I'm not sure she would have put it that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think she would have described herself that way, but when you look at it objectively, is that what really happened?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Remember, IBM was a marketing company, never an engineering company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That seemed to me to work because there was a cultural match. HP was in a very different scenario. They were an engineering company built by a certain kind of engineer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a different technology around instrumentation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Facing major technological changes and with a culture that may or may not have been adaptive to the new situation. So it's quite, you know, everyone could be right that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Carly Fiorina did some stuff that loosened the culture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mark Hurd cleaned it up and made them successful, but when you look at it as a bigger picture, the HP culture had the change, or they would not have survived.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The HD way was built around consensus. We love our people and being nice to each other. Right? Now, you say that's the same as Google. However,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My point is if you look at the shared underneath assumptions, you would find that the HP of then when even was at its height and the Google of today had very different assumptions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Based on their technology and the reality of their business.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you could say, yeah, there are lots of companies that say we love our people and we want consensus and then say that's their culture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But no, no, no, that's just their espoused values. Their cultures can be wildly different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's the whole point of having this shared tacit assumptions line here. That I don't accept what people claim as their culture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To necessarily tell you what's actually going on in terms of deeper assumptions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The kind of conflict-ridden culture that DEC had, where everything has to be argued out, was in fact suitable to the young computer industry, because nobody knew the answers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I said, probably the dissolution of the HP way already started when they decided to go into computing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that required a different style and being nice to each other and having consensus meetings as my work with these engineers showed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you could also argue that by the time Carly came in...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The culture was already dysfunctional to some degree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And maybe she was way too tough or whatever. I won't dispute that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the bigger cultural picture I'm saying, she was just a step in the series. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To remember the process, if you espouse something, you're the entrepreneur now, you're the CEO. If you espouse something and behave differently,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People will learn what your behavior says.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not what you espouse. Therefore, you should be as consistent with your behavior as possible. That's why self-inside is important. If, if I'm a cruel boss, and then go around preaching that I love my people, nobody's gonna believe that. Because my behavior belies it. So there's no point


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That it's crucial to know your values because your behavior is going to display who you really are no matter what you say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why I gave the case of Ken Olson yelling and screaming at his product line manager. That message got around the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he might have said, I value my CFO and I think it's great that we have checks and balances and all this. And if you interviewed an individual manager, you say that's baloney. You know, if you, if you got a job, you better be totally on top of it. That's what Ken Olsen really cares about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Couple more questions and then, then we gotta stop. But I think the essential message is know yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Know your career anchors, know your behavior, know your values, because they're gonna get across.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't delude yourself that you can say one thing and do something differently. People are too smart. They'll figure you out right away what you really are and what you really care about. Any further thoughts?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, my strength has been to look at cases intensively and really extract principles and variables out of them. Now, the generalizations are great except they may no longer apply.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I put up these, these four words here and very quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think information technology is changing all of the organizational forms we know of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Social responsibility and the environmental stuff is rapidly becoming a business issue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And more and more businesses like this classroom are now multicultural.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As long as they're here, it's like a part of my mom is too. I've got a couple stations measuring air pollution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because, ehm, in the long run, uh, you're gonna benefit from that. It's like, you can, uh, win, uh, doing EVO, like right now. Yeah. But, uh, this is not sustainable. Right. And you have to make sure, like, everybody's on the same page.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I read the most fascinating article. Outlines possible next steps for the neural interface. I'll take a look. Thanks doc.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Doc, I'm sorry, my aunt just texted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nope, I'm actually on my way now. Have you heard from Miles?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you can't just go swinging at someone twice your size. I mean, don't get me wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First thing, don't let the adrenaline get to you. Breathe slow, breathe deep, relax. Hips square to your opponent, let them make the first move. Now use your feet, and when they go off balance, look for an opening. Boom. Like that? Yeaah, yeaah, that's it, okay. Not only this time, just let me have it. Right on the jaw, okay? I can take it. Sorry. No, no. It's all good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, no, no, I'm just glad you're here. Alright, so uhm, what can I do to help? Why don't you start just by, uh, getting comfortable with the place. Uh, meet a few people. You know what? Everybody loves coffee. Coffee?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'll be back in a little while to check on you, is that cool? Yeaah. Oh, don't worry about Mr. Hodges. He doesn't bite. Much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey May, I gotta take off, but, uh, brought some help for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm heading to the Bowery to make sure Michael gets to his new safe house. You know, safely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, fine. I'll be in the neighborhood, but not too close. Just in case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. How worried should I be? Very.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was working at a large bank, and when we were looking to buy software from startups, we would ask them for everything, right? And ask them for an unlimited set of requirements. As a startup, are they supposed to push back on us? I mean, we have all the cloud, they have no customers yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where do they say no, or how do they say no in a way that, you know, keeps alignment within their organization? Because we would just ask for everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like all the other passerby, I stood outside the chain link fence on Chambers and Greenwich, and all I could see was the smoke and a little bit of rubble. And I raised my camera to take a peek, just to see if there was something to see, and some cop, a lady cop,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when I asked her why no pictures, she said it's a crime scene. No photographs allowed. And I asked her what would happen if I was a member of the press. And she told me...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, but back there, and back a block was the press corps tied up in a little penned-in area. And I said, well, when did they go in? And she said, probably never.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as I walked away from that, I had this crystallization, probably from the blow, because it was an insult in a way, I thought, oh, there's no pictures, then there'll be no record. We need a record.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know, ugly, I mean powerful and tragic and horrific and everything, but it was also


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As in nature, an enormous event that was transformed after the fact into this residue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like many other runes, you go to the runes of the Colosseum or the runes of a cathedral some place, and they take on a new meaning when you watch the weather.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The inherent beauty of nature and the fact that nature as time is erasing this wound.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Time is unstoppable and it transforms the event. It gets further and further away from the day and light and seasons temper it in some way. And, and it's, it's not that I'm a romantic. I mean, I'm really a realist. The reality is there's the Woolworth building in a veil of smoke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fact is, I'm there, it looks like that, you have to take a picture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Honesty. That's what got me and Ben through the rough patches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys had rough patches? Oh sure, especially when we were your age. So, are you honest with her? Does she know the real you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Peter, I've been trying to reach you all day. Are you okay? The prison break turned the city upside down overnight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no, don't you do that. Feast is the safest place in the city right now. Our sister location's uptown.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or, it all gets easier with time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Next time you get in my way, I will not be so gentle. Go. We'll talk later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Works for me. He's out of control.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw. Also noticed a rooftop in Times Square exploded. Wouldn't happen to be related, would it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something tells me they won't be as easy. They're only half our problem though. Devil's Breath cases are getting worse, and Ozcorp is being coy about an anti-serum. I'm worried they're seeing dollar signs in a seller's market.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Adventure 3 The Adventure of the Dancing Men


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes had been seated for some hours in silence, with his long, thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a particularly malodorous product.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His head was sunk upon his breast, and he looked from my point of view like a strange lank bird with dull grey plumage and a black top-knot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Watson," said he suddenly, you do not propose to invest in South African securities? I gave a start of astonishment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Accustomed as I was to Holmes's curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable. How on earth do you know that? I asked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wheeled round upon his stool with a steaming test tube in his hand and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly simple. I am sure that I shall say nothing of the kind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see, my dear Watson," he propped his test-tube in the rack, and began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor, and each simple in itself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If after doing so one simply knocks out all the central inferences, and presents one's audience with the starting point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious effect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did not propose to invest your small capital in the gold fields. I see no connection. Very likely not. But I can quickly show you a close connection. Here are the missing links of the very simple chain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One, you had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. Two, you put chalk there when you play billiards to steady the queue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You never play billiards except with Thurston.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Four. You told me, four weeks ago, that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month, and which he desired you to share with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Five, your cheque-book is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. Six, you do not propose to invest your money in this manner. How absurdly simple! I cried.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Quite so, said he, a little nettled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you. Here is an unexplained one. See what you can make of that, friend Watson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He tossed a sheet of paper upon the table and turned once more to his chemical analysis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked with amazement at the absurd hieroglyphics upon the paper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is what Mr Hilton Cubitt of Ridingthorpe Manor, Norfolk, is very anxious to know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This little conundrum came by the first post, and he was to follow by the next train.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a ring at the bell, Watson. I should not be very much surprised if this were he.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and an instant later there entered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and florid cheeks told of a life fled far from the fogs of Baker Street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having shaken hands with each of us, he was about to sit down, when his eye rested upon the paper with the curious markings which I had just examined and left upon the table.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Mr. Holmes, what do you make of these?" he cried. They told me that you were fond of queer mysteries, and I don't think you can find a queerer one than that. I sent the paper on ahead so that you might have time to study it before I came.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is certainly rather a curious production, said Holmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At first sight it would appear to be some childish prank


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It consists of a number of absurd little figures dancing across the paper upon which they are drawn. Why should you attribute any importance to so grotesque an object?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I never should, Mr. Holmes, but my wife does. It is frightening her to death. She says nothing, but I can see terror in her eyes. That's why I want to sift the matter to the bottom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes held up the paper so that the sunlight shone full upon it. It was a page torn from a notebook. The markings were done in pencil, and ran in a particular way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes examined it for some time and then folded it carefully up. He placed it in his pocketbook.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This promises to be a most interesting and unusual case, said he.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gave me a few particulars in your letter, Mr. Hilton Cubitt, but I should be very much obliged if you would kindly go over it all again for the benefit of my dear friend Dr. Watson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not much of a storyteller," said our visitor, nervously clasping and unclasping his great strong hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll just ask me anything that I don't make clear. I'll begin at the time of my marriage. Last year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I want to say first of all, that though I'm not a rich man, my people have been at Ridingthorpe for a matter of five centuries, and there is no better known family in the county of Norfolk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Last year I came up to London for the Jubilee, and I stopped at a boarding-house in Russell Square, because Parker, the vicar of our parish, was staying in it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was an American young lady there. Patrick was the name. Elsie Patrick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In some way we became friends until before my month was up. I was as much in love as man could be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were quietly married at a registry office, and we returned to Norfolk, a wedded couple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll think it very mad, Mr. Holmes, that a man of good old family should marry a wife in this fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you saw her and knew her, it would help you to understand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was very straight about it, was Elsie. I can't say that she did not give me every chance of getting out of it if I wished to do so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've had some very disagreeable associations in my life," said she.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wish to forget all about them. I'd rather never allude to the past, for it is very painful to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you take me, Hilton, you'll take a woman who has nothing that she need be personally ashamed of, but you'll have to be content with my word for it, and to allow me to be silent as to all that passed up to the time when I became yours.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If these conditions are too hard, then go back to Norfolk, and leave me to the lonely life in which you found me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was only the day before our wedding that she said those very words to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I told her that I was content to take her on her own terms, and I have been as good as my word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we've been married now for a year, and very happy we've been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But about a month ago, at the end of June, I saw for the first time signs of trouble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day my wife received a letter from America. I saw the American stamp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She turned deadly white, read the letter and threw it into the fire. She made no allusion to it afterwards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I made none, for a promise is a promise. But she has never known an easy hour from that moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's always a look of fear upon her face. A look as if she were waiting and expecting. She would do better to trust me. She would find that I was her best friend. But until she speaks, I can say nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mind you, she is a truthful woman, Mr. Holmes, and whatever trouble there may have been in her past life, it has been no fault of hers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am only a simple Norfolk squire, but there is not a man in England who ranks his family honour more highly than I do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She knows it well, and she knew it well before she married me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She would never bring any stain upon it, that I am sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well now, I come to the queer part of my story. About a week ago, it was the Tuesday of last week, I found on one of the windowsills a number of absurd little dancing figures, like these upon the paper. They were scrawled with chalk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I thought it was the stable-boy who had drawn them, but the lad swore he knew nothing about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyhow, they had come there during the night. I had them washed out, and I only mentioned the matter to my wife afterwards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To my surprise she took it very seriously, and begged me if any more came to let her see them. None did come for a week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then yesterday morning I found this paper lying on the sundial in the garden. I showed it to Elsie, and down she dropped in a dead faint.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Since then she'd looked like a woman in a dream, half dazed and with terror always lurking in her eyes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was then that I wrote and sent the paper to you, Mr Holmes. It was not a thing that I could take to the police, for they would have laughed at me. But you will tell me what to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not a rich man, but if there is any danger threatening my little woman I would spend my last copper to shield her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a fine creature, this man of the old English soil, simple, straight, and gentle with his great earnest blue eyes and broad comely face. His love for his wife and his trust in her shone in his features.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes had listened to his story with the utmost attention, and now he sat for some time in silent thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't you think, Mr. Cubitt," said he at last, that your best plan would be to make a direct appeal to your wife, and to ask her to share her secret with you. Hilton Cubitt shook his massive head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A promise is a promise, Mr Holmes. If Elsie wished to tell me, she would. If not, it is not for me to force her confidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I am justified in taking my own line, and I will. Then I'll help you with all my heart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I presume that it is a very quiet place. Any fresh face would cause comment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the immediate neighbourhood, yes, but we have several small watering places not very far away, and the farmers take in lodgers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These hieroglyphics have evidently a meaning. If it is a purely arbitrary one, it may be impossible for us to solve it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If, on the other hand, it is systematic, I have no doubt that we shall get to the bottom of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This particular sample is so short that I can do nothing, and the facts which you have brought me are so indefinite that we have no basis for an investigation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would suggest that you return to Norfolk, that you keep a keen look-out, and that you take an exact copy of any fresh dancing men which may appear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is a thousand pities that we have not a reproduction of those which were done in chalk upon the windowsill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make a discreet inquiry also as to any strangers in the neighbourhood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you have collected some fresh evidence, come to me again. That is the best advice which I can give you, Mr. Hilton Cubitt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there are any pressing fresh developments, I shall be always ready to run down and see you in your Norfolk home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The interview left Sherlock Holmes very thoughtful, and several times in the next few days I saw him take his slip of paper from his note-book and look long and earnestly at the curious figures inscribed upon it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He made no allusion to the affair, however, until one afternoon a fortnight or so later. I was going out when he called me back. You had better stay here, Watson. Why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I had a wire from Hilton Qubit this morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You remember Hilton Cubitt, of the Dancing Men? He was to reach Liverpool Street at 1.20. He may be here at any moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I gather from his wire that there have been some new incidents of importance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had not long to wait, for our Norfolk squire came straight from the station as fast as a handsome could bring him. He was looking worried and depressed, with tired eyes and a lined forehead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's getting on my nerves, this business, Mr. Holmes," said he as he sank like a wearied man into an armchair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's bad enough to feel that you are surrounded by unseen, unknown folk who have some kind of design upon you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when in addition to that you know that it is just killing your wife by inches,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then it becomes as much as flesh and blood can endure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet there have been times when the poor girl has wanted to speak, and yet could not quite bring herself to take the plunge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have tried to help her, but I dare say I did it clumsily and scared her from it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She has spoken about my old family, and our reputation in the county, and our pride in our unsullied honour, and I always felt it was leading to the point, but somehow it turned off before we got there. But you have found out something for yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, good deal, Mr. Holmes. I have several fresh dancing-men pictures for you to examine, and what is more important, I have seen the fellow. What, the man who draws them? Yes, I saw him at his work, but I will tell you everything in order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I got back after my first visit to you, the very first thing I saw next morning was a fresh crop of dancing men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have been drawn in chalk upon the black wooden door of the tool-house, which stands beside the lawn in full view of the front windows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I took an exact copy, and here it is. He unfolded a paper and laid it upon the table. Here is a copy of the hieroglyphics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Excellent, said Holmes. Excellent. Pray, continue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I had taken the copy, I rubbed out the marks, but two mornings later a fresh inscription had appeared, I have a copy of it here. Holmes rubbed his hands and chuckled with delight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our material is rapidly accumulating, said he.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three days later a message was left scrawled upon paper and placed under a pebble on the sundial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here it is. The characters are, as you see, exactly the same as the last one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After that I determined to lie in wait, so I got out my revolver, and I sat up in my study, which overlooks the lawn and garden.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About two in the morning I was seated by the window, all being dark save for the moonlight outside, when I heard steps behind me, and there was my wife in her dressing gown. She implored me to come to bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I told her frankly that I wished to see who it was who played such absurd tricks upon us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She answered that it was some senseless practical joke, and that I should not take any notice of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it really annoys you, Hilton, we might go and travel, you and I, and so avoid this nuisance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What? Be driven out of our own house by a practical joker? said I.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why, we should have the whole county laughing at us. Well, come to bed, said she, and we can discuss it in the morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Suddenly as she spoke I saw her white face grow whiter yet in the moonlight, and her hand tightened upon my shoulder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something was moving in the shadow of the tool-house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw a dark, creeping figure which crawled around the corner and squatted in front of the door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seizing my pistol, I was rushing out when my wife threw her arms around me and held me with convulsive strength.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I tried to throw her off, but she clung to me most desperately. At last I got clear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But by the time I had opened the door and reached the house, the creature was gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had left a trace of his presence, however, for there on the door was the very same arrangement of dancing men which had already twice appeared, and which I had copied on that paper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was no other sign of the fellow anywhere, though I ran all over the grounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet the amazing thing is that he must have been there all the time, for when I examined the door again in the morning he had scrawled some more of his pictures under the line which I had already seen. Have you that fresh drawing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, it is very short, but I made a copy of it, and here it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again he produced a paper. The new dance was in a different form.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tell me, said Holmes, and I could see by his eyes that he was much excited.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was this a mere addition to the first, or did it appear to be entirely separate? It was on a different panel of the door. Excellent!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is far the most important of all for our purpose. It fills me with hopes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Mr Hilton-Cubitt, please continue your most interesting statement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have nothing more to say, Mr. Holmes, except that I was angry with my wife that night for having held me back when I might have caught the skulking rascal. She said that she feared that I might come to harm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For an instant it had crossed my mind that perhaps what she really feared was that he might come to harm, for I could not doubt that she knew who this man was, and what he meant by these strange signals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there is a tone in my wife's voice, Mr. Holmes, and a look in her eyes which forbid doubt, and I am sure that it was indeed my own safety that was in her mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's the whole case, and now I want your advice as to what I ought to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My own inclination is to put half a dozen of my farm lads in the shrubbery, and when this fellow comes again to give him such a hiding that he will leave us in peace for the future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I must go back to day. I would not leave my wife alone all night for anything. She is very nervous, and begged me to come back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dare say you are right, but if you could have stopped I might possibly have been able to return with you in a day or two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meanwhile, you will leave me these papers, and I think that it is very likely that I shall be able to pay you a visit shortly and to throw some light upon your case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sherlock Holmes preserved his calm, professional manner until our visitor had left us, although it was easy for me, who knew him so well, to see that he was profoundly excited.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The moment that Hilton Cubitt's roared back had disappeared through the door, my comrade rushed to the table, laid out all the slips of paper containing dancing men in front of him, and threw himself into an intricate and elaborate calculation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For two hours I watched him as he covered sheet after sheet of paper with figures and letters, so completely absorbed in his task that he had evidently forgotten my presence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes he was making progress and whistled and sang at his work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes he was puzzled and would sit for long spells with a furrowed brow and a vacant eye.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finally he sprang from his chair with a cry of satisfaction and walked up and down the room rubbing his hands together, and he wrote a long telegram upon a cable form.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If my answer to this is as I hope, you will have a very pretty case to add to your collection, Watson," said he.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I expect that we shall be able to go down to Norfolk tomorrow, and to take our friend some very definite news as to the secret of his annoyance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I confess that I was filled with curiosity, but I was aware that Holmes liked to make his disclosures at his own time and in his own way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I waited until it should suit him to take me into his confidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two days of impatience followed, during which Holmes pricked up his ears at every ring of the bell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the evening of the 2nd there came a letter from Hilton Cubitt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All was quiet with him, save that a long inscription had appeared that morning upon the pedestal of the sundial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes bent over this grotesque frieze for some minutes and then suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and dismay. His face was haggard with anxiety.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I turned up the timetable. The last had just gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the morning," said Holmes. Our presence is most urgently needed. Ah, here is our expected cablegram. One moment, Mrs. Hudson, there may be an answer. No, that is quite as I expected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This message makes it even more essential that we should not lose an hour in letting Hilton Cubitt know how matters stand, for it is a singular and a dangerous web in which our simple Norfolk Squire is entangled. So indeed it proved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as I come to the dark conclusion of a story which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre, I experience once again the dismay and horror with which I was filled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would that I had some brighter ending to communicate to my readers. But these are the chronicles of fact, and I must follow to their dark crisis the strange chain of events, which for some days made riding-thought manner a household word through the length and breadth of England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned the name of our destination, when the stationmaster hurried towards us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I suppose that you're the detectives from London," said he. A look of annoyance passed over Holmes's face. What makes you think such a thing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But maybe you're the surgeons. She's not dead or wasn't by last accounts. You may be in time to save her yet, though it be for the gallows." Holmes's brow was dark with anxiety.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're going to Riding-Thorpe Manor, said he, but we have heard nothing of what has passed there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a terrible business," said the stationmaster. They are shot, both Mr. Elton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and then herself, so the servants say. He's dead and her life is despaired of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dear dear, one of the oldest families in the county of Norfolk, and one of the most honoured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long seven miles drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have I seen him so utterly despondent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had been uneasy during all our journey from town, and I had observed that he had turned over the morning papers with anxious attention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But now this sudden realization of his worst fears left him in a blank melancholy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He leaned back in his seat, lost in gloomy speculation. Yet there was much around to interest us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For we were passing through as singular a countryside as any in England, where a few scattered cottages represented the population of to-day, while on every hand enormous square-towered churches bristled up from the flat green landscape, and told of the glory and prosperity of old East Anglia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At last the violent rim of the German Ocean appeared over the green edge of the Norfolk coast, and the driver pointed with his whip to two old brick-and-timber gables which projected from a grove of trees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As we drove up to the porticoed front door, I observed in front of it, beside the tennis-lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestal sundial with which we had such strange associations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A dapper little man with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache had just descended from a high dog-cart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He introduced himself as Inspector Martin of the Norfolk Constabulary, and he was considerably astonished when he heard the name of my companion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot as soon as I? I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you must have important evidence of which we are ignorant, for they were said to be a most united couple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have only the evidence of the dancing men," said Holmes. I will explain the matter to you later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meanwhile, since it is too late to prevent this tragedy I am very anxious that I should use the knowledge which I possess in order to ensure that justice be done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Will you associate me in your investigation, or will you prefer that I should act independently?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should be proud to feel that we were acting together, Mr. Holmes," said the inspector earnestly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In that case I should be glad to hear the evidence and to examine the premises without an instant of unnecessary delay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Inspector Martin had the good sense to allow my friend to do things in his own fashion, and contented himself with carefully noting the results.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The local surgeon, an old white-haired man, had just come down from Mrs. Hilton-Cubitt's room, and he reported that her injuries were serious, but not necessarily fatal. The bullet had passed through the front of her brain


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it would probably be some time before she could regain consciousness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the question of whether she had been shot, or had shot herself, he would not venture to express any decided opinion. Certainly the bullet had been discharged at very close quarters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was only the one pistol found in the room, two barrels of which had been emptied. Mr. Hilton Cubitt had been shot through the heart


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was equally conceivable that he had shot her and then himself, or that she had been the criminal, for the revolver lay upon the floor midway between them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have moved nothing except the lady. We could not leave her lying wounded upon the floor. How long have you been here, Doctor? Since four o'clock. Anyone else? Yes, the constable here. And you have touched nothing? Nothing. You have acted with great discretion. Who sent you? The housemaid, Saunders. Was it she who gave the alarm? She and Mrs King, the cook.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where are they now? In the kitchen, I believe. Then I think we'd better hear their story at once.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The old hall, oak-panelled and high-windowed, had been turned into a court of investigation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes sat in a great old-fashioned chair, his inexorable eyes gleaming out of his haggard face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I could read in them a set purpose to devote his life to this quest, until the client whom he had failed to save should at last be avenged.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The trim Inspector Martin, the old grey-headed country doctor, myself, and a stolid village policeman, made up the rest of that strange company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The two women told their story clearly enough. They had been aroused from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had been followed a minute later by a second one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The door of the study was open and a candle was burning upon the table.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their master lay upon his face in the centre of the room. He was quite dead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Near the window his wife was crouching, her head leaning against the wall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was horribly wounded and the side of her face was red with blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She breathed heavily, but was incapable of saying anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The passage as well as the room was full of smoke and the smell of powder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The window was certainly shut and fastened upon the inside. Both women were positive


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had it one cent for the doctor and for the constable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then with the aid of the groom and the stable-boy they had conveyed their injured mistress to her room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both she and her husband had occupied the bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing had been moved in the study. So far as they knew, there had never been any quarrel between husband and wife. They had always looked upon them as a very united couple. These were the main points of the servant's evidence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In answer to Inspector Martin, they were clear that every door was fastened upon the inside, and that no one could have escaped from the house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In answer to Holmes, they both remembered that they were conscious of the smell of powder from the moment that they ran out of their rooms upon the top floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I commend that fact very carefully to your attention," said Holmes to his professional colleague. And now I think that we are in a position to undertake a thorough examination of the room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three sides with books and with a writing table facing an ordinary window, which looked out upon the garden.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our first attention was given to the body of the unfortunate squire, whose huge frame lay stretched across the room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His disordered dress showed that he had been hastily aroused from sleep. The bullet had been fired at him from the front and had remained in his body after penetrating the heart. His death had certainly been instantaneous and painless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was no powder marking either upon his dressing gown or on his hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to the country surgeon, the lady had stains upon her face, but none upon her hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may mean everything, said Holmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unless the powder from a badly fitting cartridge happens to spurt backward, one may fire many shots without leaving a sign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would suggest that Mr Qubit's body may now be removed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I suppose, Doctor, you have not recovered the bullet which wounded the lady.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A serious operation will be necessary before that can be done, but there are still four cartridges in the revolver. Two have been fired and two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be accounted for. So it would seem, said Holmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Perhaps you can account also for the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the window.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had turned suddenly, and his long thin finger was pointing to a hole which had been drilled right through the lower window-sash, about an inch above the bottom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By George, cried the inspector. However, did you see that? Because I looked for it. Wonderful, said the country doctor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are certainly right, sir. Then a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third person must have been present.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But who could that have been? And how could he have got away?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is the problem which we are now about to solve, said Sherlock Holmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You remember, Inspector Martin, when the servants said that on leaving their room they were at once conscious of a smell of powder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remarked that the point was an extremely important one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes sir, but I confess I did not quite follow you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It suggested that at the time of the firing the window as well as the door of the room had been open, otherwise the fumes of powder could not have been blown so rapidly through the house. A draught in the room was necessary for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both door and window were only open for a very short time, however. How could you prove that? Because the candle was not guttered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Capital! Cried the inspector. Capital!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of the tragedy,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I conceived that there might have been a third person in the affair, who stood outside this opening and fired through it. Any shot directed at this person might hit the sash. I looked, and there, sure enough, was the bullet-mark. But how came the window to be shut and fastened?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The woman's first instinct would be to shut and fasten the window.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a lady's handbag which stood upon the study table, a trim little handbag of crocodile skin and silver. Holmes opened it and turned the contents out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were twenty-five pound notes of the Bank of England held together by an India rubber band, nothing else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This must be preserved, for it will figure in the trial," said Holmes as he handed the bag with its contents to the inspector.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is now necessary that we should try to throw some light upon this third bullet, which has clearly from the splintering of the wood been fired from inside the room. I should like to see Mrs. King the cook again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You said, Mrs King, that you were awakened by a loud explosion. When you said that, did you mean that it seemed to you to be louder than the second one?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, sir, it wakened me from my sleep, so it is hard to judge, but it did seem very loud.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't think that it might have been two shots fired almost at the same instant? Ah, sure, I couldn't say, sir. I believe that it was undoubtedly so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I rather think, Inspector Martin, that we have now exhausted all that this room can teach us. If you will kindly step round with me, we shall see what fresh evidence the garden has to offer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A flowerbed extended up to the study window, and we all broke into an exclamation as we approached it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The flowers were trampled down, and the soft soil was imprinted all over with footmarks. Large, masculine feet they were, with peculiarly long, sharp toes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Homes hunted about among the grass and leaves like a retriever after a wounded bird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The revolver had an ejector, and here is the third cartridge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I really think Inspector Martin, that our case is almost complete.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The country inspector's face had shown his intense amazement at the rapid and masterful progress of Holmes's investigation. At first he had shown some disposition to assert his own position, but now he was overcome with admiration, and ready to follow without question wherever Holmes led. "'Whom do you suspect?' he asked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll go into that later. There are several points in this problem which I have not been able to explain to you yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now that I have got so far, I had best proceed on my own lines, and then clear the whole matter up once and for all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just as you wish Mr. Holmes. So long as we get our man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible at the moment of action to enter into long and complex explanations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have the threads of this affair all in my hand. Even if this lady should never recover consciousness, we can still reconstruct the events of last night and ensure that justice be done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, I wish to know whether there is any inn in this neighbourhood known as Elridge's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The servants were cross questioned, but none of them had heard of such a place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The stable-boy threw a light upon the matter by remembering that a farmer of that name lived some miles off in the direction of East Ruston. Is it a lonely farm? Very lonely, sir.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Perhaps they have not heard yet of all that happened here during the night. Maybe not, sir.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes thought for a little, and then a curious smile played over his face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Saddle a horse, my lad," said he. I shall wish you to take a note to Elridge's farm. He took from his pocket the various slips of the dancing men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With these in front of him, he worked for some time at the study table.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finally he handed a note to the boy with directions to put it into the hands of the person to whom it was addressed, and especially to answer no questions of any sort which might be put to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw the outside of the note, addressed in straggling, irregular characters, very unlike Holmes's usual precise hand. It was consigned to Mr. Abe Slaney, Elridge's farm, East Ruston, Norfolk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think, Inspector," Holmes remarked, that you would do well to telegraph for an escort, as if my calculations proved to be correct, you may have a particularly dangerous prisoner to convey to the county jail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The boy who takes this note could no doubt forward your telegram. If there is an afternoon train to town, Watson, I think we should do well to take it, as I have a chemical analysis of some interest to finish, and this investigation draws rapidly to a close.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the youth had been dispatched with the note, Sherlock Holmes gave his instructions to the servants.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If any visitor were to call asking for Mrs. Hilton Cubitt, no information should be given as to her condition, but he was to be shown at once into the drawing-room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He impressed these points upon them with the utmost earnestness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finally, he led the way into the drawing-room, with the remark that the business was now out of our hands, and that we must while away the time as best we might until we could see what was in store for us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The doctor had departed to his patients, and only the inspector and myself remained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that I can help you to pass an hour in an interesting and profitable manner," said Holmes, drawing his chair up to the table, and spreading out in front of him the various papers upon which were recorded the antics of the dancing men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I owe you every atonement for having allowed your natural curiosity to remain so long unsatisfied.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To you, Inspector, the whole incident may appeal as a remarkable professional study.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I must tell you, first of all, the interesting circumstances connected with the previous consultations


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which Mr Hilton Cubitt had with me in Baker Street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He then shortly recapitulated the facts which have already been recorded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have here in front of me these singular productions at which one might smile, had they not proved themselves to be the forerunners of so terrible a tragedy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writings, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyse 160 separate ciphers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I confess that this is entirely new


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The object of those who invented the system has apparently been to conceal that these characters convey a message, and to give the idea that they are the mere random sketches of children.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having once recognized, however, that the symbols stood for letters, and having applied the rules which guide us in all forms of secret writings, the solution was easy enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first message submitted to me was so short that it was impossible for me to do more than to say, with some confidence, that the symbol XXX stood for E.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As you are aware, E is the most common letter in the English alphabet, and it predominates to so marked an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect to find it most often.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out of fifteen symbols in the first message, four were the same, so it was reasonable to set this down as E.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is true that in some cases the figure was bearing a flag, and in some cases not, but it was probable from the way in which the flags were distributed that they were used to break the sentence up into words.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I accepted this as a hypothesis, and noted that E was represented by XXX. But now came the real difficulty of the inquiry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The order of the English letters after E is by no means well marked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And any preponderance which may be shown in an average of a printed sheet may be reversed in a single short sentence. Speaking roughly, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D and L are the numerical order in which letters occur.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But T, A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each other, and it would be an endless task to try each combination until a meaning was arrived at. I therefore waited for fresh material


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my second interview with Mr. Hilton Cubitt he was able to give me two other short sentences and one message, which appeared, since there was no flag, to be a single word. Here are the symbols.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, in the single word I've already got the two E's coming second and fourth in a word of five letters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There can be no question that the latter as a reply to an appeal is far the most probable, and the circumstances pointed to its being a reply written by the lady.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Accepting it as correct, we are now able to say that the symbols stand respectively for N, V, and R. Even now I was in considerable difficulty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a happy thought put me in possession of several other letters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It occurred to me that if these appeals came as I expected from someone who had been intimate with the lady in her early life,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A combination which contained two E's with three letters between might very well stand for the name Elsie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On examination I found that such a combination formed the termination of the message, which was three times repeated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was certainly some appeal to Elsie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this way I had got my L, S and I. But what appeal could it be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were only four letters in the word which preceded Elsie, and it ended in E.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Surely the word must be come. I tried all other four letters ending in E, but could find none to fit the case. So now I was in possession of C, O, and M, and I was in a position to attack the first message once more, dividing it into words and putting dots for each symbol which was still unknown. So treated, it worked out in this fashion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or filling in the obvious vacancies in the name. Am here Abe Slaney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had so many letters now that I could proceed with considerable confidence to the second message, which worked out in this fashion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here I could only make sense by putting T and G for the missing letters, and supposing that the name was that of some house or inn at which the writer was staying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Inspector Martin and I had listened with the utmost interest to the full and clear account of how my friend had produced results which had led to so complete a command over our difficulties.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had every reason to suppose that this Abe Slaney was an American, since Abe is an American contraction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And since a letter from America had been the starting point of all the trouble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had also every cause to think that there was some criminal secret in the matter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lady's allusions to her past, and her refusal to take her husband into her confidence, both pointed in that direction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I therefore cabled to my friend Wilson Hargreave of the New York Police Bureau, who has more than once made his use of my knowledge of London crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The addition of a P and a D completed a message which showed me that the rascal was proceeding from persuasion to threats, and my knowledge of the crooks of Chicago prepared me to find that he might very rapidly put his words into action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I at once came to Norfolk with my friend and colleague, Dr Watson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But unhappily, only in time to find that the worst had already occurred.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is a privilege to be associated with you in the handling of a case, said the inspector warmly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You will excuse me, however, if I speak frankly to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are only answerable to yourself, but I have to answer to my superiors. If this Abe Slaney, living at Elridge's, is indeed the murderer, and if he has made his escape while I am seated here, I should certainly get into serious trouble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You need not be uneasy. He will not try to escape. How do you know? To fly would be a confession of guilt. Then let us go arrest him. I expect him here every instant. But why should he come? Because I have written and asked him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this is incredible, Mr Holmes. Why should he come because you have asked him? Would not such a request rather rouse his suspicions and cause him to fly?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I have known how to frame the letter," said Sherlock Holmes. In fact, if I am not very much mistaken, here is the gentleman himself coming up the drive. A man was striding up the path which led to the door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a tall, handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of grey flannel with a Panama hat, a bristling black beard, and a great aggressive hooked nose, and flourishing a cane as he walked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He swaggered up a path as if the place belonged to him, and we heard his loud, confident peal at the bell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think, gentlemen," said Holmes quietly, that we had best take up our position behind the door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every precaution is necessary when dealing with such a fellow. You will need your handcuffs, Inspector. You can leave the talking to me." We waited in silence for a minute—one of those minutes which one can never forget. Then the door opened, and the man stepped in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In an instant Holmes clapped a pistol to his head and Martin slipped the handcuffs over his wrists.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was all done so swiftly and deftly that the fellow was helpless before he knew that he was attacked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He glared from one to the other of us with a pair of blazing black eyes, and he burst into a bitter laugh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, gentlemen, you have the drop on me this time. I seem to have knocked up against something hard, but I came here in answer to a letter from Mrs. Hilton-Cubitt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't tell me that she is in this. Don't tell me that she helped to set a trap for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mrs Hilton-Cubitt was seriously injured and is at death's door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was he that was hurt, not she. Who would have hurt little Elsie? I may have threatened her, God forgive me, but I would not have touched a hair of her hair pretty head. Take it back, you. Say that she's not hurt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was found badly wounded by the side of her dead husband.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He sank with a deep groan on the setee and buried his face in his manacled hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For five minutes he was silent. Then he raised his face once more, and spoke with a cold composure of despair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen," said he. If I shot the man, he had to shut up me, and there's no murder in that. But if you think I could have hurt that woman, then you don't know either me or her. I tell you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was never a man in this world loved a woman more than I loved her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a right to her. She was pledged to me years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who was this Englishman that he should come between us?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I tell you that I had the first right to her, and that I was only claiming my own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She broke away from your influence when she found the man that you are," said Holmes sternly. She fled from America to avoid you, and she married an honourable gentleman in England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You dogged her and followed her, and made her life a misery to her, in order to induce her to abandon the husband whom she loved and respected in order to fly with you, whom she feared and hated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have ended by bringing about the death of a noble man and driving his wife to suicide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is your record in this business, Mr Abe Slaney, and you will answer for it to the law.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If Elsie dies I care nothing what becomes of me," said the American.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He opened one of his hands and looked at a note crumpled up in his palm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] "'See here, mister,' he cried with a gleam of suspicion in his eyes, "'you're not trying to scare me over this, are you? If the lady has heard as bad as you say, who was it that wrote this note?' He tossed it forward onto the table. "'I wrote it, to bring you here.' You wrote it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was no one on earth outside the joint who knew the secret of the dancing men. How came you to write it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What one man can invent another can discover, said Holmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is a cab coming to convey you to Norwich, Mr Slaney, but meanwhile you have time to make some small reparation for the injury you have wrought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are you aware that Mrs Hilton Cubitt has herself lain under grave suspicion of the murder of her husband?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that it was only my presence here, and the knowledge which I happened to possess, which has saved her from the accusation


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess the very best case I can make for myself is the absolute naked truth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you," cried the inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law. Slaney shrugged his shoulders. Our chance that, said he.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, I want you gentlemen to understand that I have known this lady since she was a child. There were seven of us in a gang in Chicago, and Elsie's father was the boss of the joint.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a clever man. Was old Patrick. Was he who'd invented that writing, which would pass as a child's scrawl unless she just happened to have the key to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Elsie learned some of our ways, but she couldn't stand the business, and she had a bit of honest money of her own, so she gave us all the slip and got away to London.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She'd been engaged to me, and she would have married me, I believe, if I'd taken over another profession.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But she would have nothing to do with anything on the cross.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was only after a marriage to this Englishman that I was able to find out where she was. I wrote to her, but got no answer. After that I came over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as letters were no use I put my messages where she could read them. Well, I've been here a month now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I lived in that farm where I had a room down below. Could get in and out every night, and no one the wiser. I tried all I could to coax Elsie away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew that she read the messages. For once she wrote an answer under one of them. Then my temper got the better of me, and I began to threaten her. She sent me a letter then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Imploring me to go away and saying that it could break her heart if any scandal should come upon her husband.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She said that she would come down when her husband was asleep at three in the morning, and speak with me through the end window, if I would go away afterwards and leave her in peace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She came down and brought money with her trying to bribe me to go. This made me mad, and I caught her arm and tried to pull her through the window.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At that moment, Ian rushed the husband with his revolver in his hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Elsie had sunk down upon the floor, and we were face to face. I was healed also, and I held up my gun to scare him off and let me get away. He fired and missed me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pulled off almost at the same instant and down he dropped.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I made my way across the garden, and as I went out I heard the window shoot behind me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's God's truth, gentlemen. Every word of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I heard no more about it until that lad came ridin' up with a note which made me walk in here like a J and give myself into your hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A cab had drawn up whilst the American had been talking. Two uniformed policemen sat inside. Inspector Martin Rose had touched his prisoner on the shoulder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, she is not conscious. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I only hope that if ever again I have an important case, I shall have the good fortune to have you by my side." We stood at the window and watched the cab drive away. As I turned back,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My eye caught the pellet of paper which the prisoner had tossed upon the table. It was the note with which Holmes had decoyed him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See if you can read it, Watson, said he with a smile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It contained no word, but a little line of dancing men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you use the code which I have explained, said Holmes, you will find that it simply means, come here at once.