In the race to scale with AI, you need data infrastructure that can match your pace. EverPierre's data storage platform brings all your data into one hub. No silos, no scrambling, just instant access to tame your data chaos. And with EverPierre's storage as a service subscription, your storage and security upgrade automatically with zero downtime, your infrastructure stays current so your business never slows down. Visit Visit EverPeerData.com to learn more today.

With EverPeer, you're not just in the race.

You're built to win it. Welcome to Snooze Cast, the podcast design to help you fall asleep. If you enjoy our show, please write a review on the podcast's app, also share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by the clacking sound of a typewriter. Tonight, we'll read the full snoozecast-adapted version of A Case of Identity, a story from the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, written by Arthur Conan Doyle and first published in 1892. In this story, a wealthy woman's fiancée disappears and she hires the detective to help find him. This tale stands out among the home stories for the quiet, almost domestic nature of its mystery. Rather than a murder or theft, the puzzlet hand is one of manipulation and emotional deceit. Holmes must unravel a curious vanishing act that seems, at first glance, to mundane for criminal interest, but which conceals twisted motive, rooted in control and inheritance. Though not as famous as some of Holmes's more sensational cases, this one is a compact study in character and motive. A defined example of how Doyle could draw a drama from even the most seemingly ordinary circumstances. Let's get cozy. I your eyes. Relax your body and it's the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. A case of identity. My dear fellow said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodging that set Baker Street. Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, cover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planings, the cross purposes, the wonderful chains of events working through generations and leading to the most startling results. It would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable. And yet, I am not convinced of it. I answered, the cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, invulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits. And yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.

A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect. Remarked Holmes, this is wanting in the police report where more stress is laid, perhaps upon the platitudes of the Magistrate, than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it. There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace. I smile and shook my head. I can quite understand your thinking, so," I said. Of course, in your position of unofficial advisor and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout these continents, you are brought in contact with all that is strange bizarre bizarre. But here, I picked up the morning paper from the ground, let us put it to a practical test. Here is the first heading upon which I come. A husband's cruelty to his wife. There is half a column of print, but I know without reading it, that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is, of course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the sympathetic sister or land lady, the crudest of writers could invent nothing more crude. Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument, said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down at it. This is the Dundas separation case, and as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The husband was a T-toteler. There was no other woman, and the conduct complained of what was had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them, which you will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average storyteller. Take a pinch of snuff doctor and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example. He held out his snuff box of old gold with a great amethyst

in the center of the lid. Its splendor was in such contrast to his homely ways and simple life that I could not help commenting upon it." Ah, said he.

I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks.

It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers. And the ring, I asked, glancing at a remarkable brillian which sparkled upon his finger. It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my little problems. And have you any on hand just now?" I asked with interest. Some ten or twelve. But none which present any feature of interest, they are important, you understand. Without being interesting, indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler. For the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. In these cases, say for one rather intricate matter which has been referred to me from Marseille, there is nothing which presents any features of interest. It is possible, however, that I may have something better before very many minutes are over. For this is one of my clients. Or, I am much mistaken. He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted blinds gazing down into the dull, neutral tinted London street. Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite, there stood a large woman with a heavy fur bow around her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad brimmed hat, which was tilted in a coquettish duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under this great panoply, she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, the plunge as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp claim of the bell. I have seen those symptoms before, said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. Ocelation upon the pavement always means an affair. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet, even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man, she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bellwire. Here, we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed or grieved, but here she comes in person to resolve our doubts. As he spoke, there was a tap at the door, and the boy and buttons entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland. While the lady herself loomed behind his small figure like a full-sailed merchant man behind a tiny pilot boat, Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and, having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion, which was peculiar to him.

Do you not find, he said, that with your short sight it is a little trying to do so much typewriting? I did at first, she answered, but now I know where the letters are without looking.

Then suddenly realizing the full purport of his words, she gave a violent start and looked up with fear and astonishment upon her broad, good-humored face. You've heard about me, Mr. Holmes. She cried.

Else, how could you know all that? Never mind, said Holmes, laughing. It is my business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If not, why would you come to consult me? I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Atherich, whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone hadn't given up. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I'm not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel. Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry, asked Sherlock Holmes, with his fingertips together, and his eyes to the ceiling. Again, a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary Sutherland. Yes, I did bang out of the house, she said. made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windabank, that is my father, took it all. He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you. And so at last, as he would do nothing, and kept on saying that there was no harm done. It made me mad.

And I just, on with my things and came right away to you,

your father said Holmes, your stepfather, surely,

since the name is different.

Yes, my stepfather, I call him father,

though it sounds funny.

He's only five years and two months older than myself. And your mother is alive? Oh, yes. Mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr. Holmes, when she married again so soon after father's death, and a man who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind him, which Mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman. But when Mr. Windbink came, he had made herself a business, for he was very superior being a traveler in lines. They got 4,700 pounds for the goodwill and interest, which wasn't near as much as father could have got if he had been alive. I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and inconsequential narrative, but on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest concentration of attention. Your own little income, he asked. Does it come out of the business? Oh no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle Ned in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4.5% £2,500 was the amount, but I can only touch the interest. You interest me extremely, said Holmes, and since you draw so large a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in every way. I believe that a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of about 60 pounds. I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand that as long as I live at home, I don't wish to be a bird into them, and so they have the use of the money just while I am staying with them. Of course, that is only just for the time. Mr. Windabake draws my interest every quarter and pays it over to my mother. And I find that I can do pretty well with what I earn at typewriting. It brings me two pens of sheet, and I can often do from 15 to 20 sheets in a day. You have made your position very clear to me," said Holmes. This is my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Kindly tell us all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel. A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked nervously at the fringe of her jacket. I met him first at the gas-fitter's ball. She said. They used to send father's tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us and sent them to mother. Mr. Windabink did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere. He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday school treat. But this time, I was set on going, and I would go, for what right had he to prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all fathers friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing fit to wear. When I had my purple plush, that I never so much is taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to France upon the business of

the firm. But we went, mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel. I suppose, said Holmes, that when Mr. Winterbank came back from France, he was very annoyed at you having gone to the ball. Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed. I remember and shrugged his shoulders and said there was no use denying anything to a woman for she would have her way. I see. Then at the gas fitter's ball, you met, as I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Angel. Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we had got home all safe. And after that we met him. That is the same Mr. Holmes. I met him twice for walks. But after that father came back again, and Mr. Angel could not come to the house anymore. No? Well, you know, father didn't like anything of the sort. He wouldn't have any visitors if he could help it. And he used to say that a woman should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with. And I had not got mine yet. But how about Mr. Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you? Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and he wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone. We could write in the mean time, and he used to write every day. I took the letters in the morning, so there was no need for father to know. Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time? Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged. After the first walk that we took, Mr. Angel was a cashier in an office in Lettenhall Street and what office? That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes. I don't know. Where did he live then? He slept on the premises. And you don't know his address? No, except that it was Letan Hall Street. Where did you address your letters then? To the Letan Hall Street post office to be left till called for. He said that if they were sent to the office, he would be chaffed by all the other clerks about having letters from a lady

So I offered to type right them like he did his

But he wouldn't have that

Free said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me

But when they were type written

He always felt that the machine had come between us

...