Hello there, and welcome to this episode of Down to Sleep, where I'm reading Sherlock Holmes

to help you sleep. This is a complete reading of The Man with the Twisted Lip, with relaxing

rain sounds in the background. And this is Down to Sleep, my podcast of bedtime stories and

audiobooks to help you get a good night's rest. I'm Mad Moth, and if you enjoy this podcast, please do like and leave a good review on whatever app you're listening on to get more like this.

You can find all of the links that you need in the description for this episode, including the Patreon where you can unlock 560 readings.

You get two new book readings every single week and you get exclusive books

that I can't share anywhere else. But now let's tuck you in. Take a nice deep breath

for me and let's get down to sleep. Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Issa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., principal of the Theological College of

St. George's, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some

foolish freak when he was at college.

For having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco

with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more have done,

that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of,

and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his

friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow pasty face, drooping lids and pinpoint pupils, all huddled in a chair,

the wreck and ruin of a noble man. One night, it was June 89, there came a ring to my bell,

about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock.

I sat up in my chair and my wife laid her needlework down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment.

A patient, said she, you'll have to go out.

I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.

We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum.

...