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You're built to win it. Welcome to Snewscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Bristling Mustaches. Tonight, we'll read the second half to the adventure of the empty house written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as part of 1903's The Return of Sherlock Holmes. The first half aired last week. Doyle ranked the adventure of the empty house, sixth in his list of 12 favorite home stories out of 56 total stories. In the first half, the year is 1894, and it is three years after the apparent death of Sherlock Holmes. An apparently unsolvable locked-room murder takes place in London. Ronald Adair was in his sitting room at the time. The motive does not appear to be robbery as nothing has been stolen, and it seems that Adair had not an enemy in the world. It seems odd that a dare's door was locked from the inside.

Dr. Watson, having retained an interest in crime, post-homes, visits the scene.

He runs into an elderly book collector, knocking several of his books to the ground.

The encounter ends with the man snarling an anger and going away. However, that is not the last that Watson sees of him. For a short time later, the man comes to Watson's study to apologize. Once in, he transforms himself into Sherlock Holmes, astonishing Watson so much that he

to the ground.

Let's get cosy.

Close your eyes. Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. It was indeed like old times when, at that late hour, I found myself seated beside Sherlock Holmes in a handsome, my revolver in my pocket, and the thrill of adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and silent, as the gleam of this street-lamps flashed upon his austere features. I saw that his brows were drawn down and thought, and his thin lips compressed. I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured from the bearing of this master Huntsman that the adventure was a a most grave one. While the sardonic smile which occasionally broke through his gloom, voted little good for the object of our quest. I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but homes stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as he stepped out, he gave the most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not followed. Our root was certainly a singular one. Holmes' knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary. And on this occasion, he passed rapidly and within a shared step through a network of of mues and staples, the very existence of which I had never known. We emerged at last into a small road lined with old gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street and so to plan for its street. Here, he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a house. We entered together, and he closed it behind us.

The place was pitch dark, but it was evident to me that it was an empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in ribbons.

Holmes' cold thin fingers closed round my wrist and let me forward down a long haul, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door. Here, homes turned suddenly to the right, and we found ourselves in a large square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the center from the lights of the street beyond. There was no lamp near, and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only just discern each other's figures within. My companion put his hand upon my shoulder, and his lips closed my ear. Do you know where we are? He whispered. Surely that is Baker Street, I answered, staring through the dim window. Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old quarters. But why are we here? Because it commands so excellent of you of that picturesque pile. Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution, not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms,

the starting point of so many of your little fairy tales, we will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you. I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. So, as my eyes fill upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down, and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard plaque outline upon the luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features. The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes, which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a perfect reproduction of homes. So amazed was I that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me. He was quivering with silent laughter. Well, said he, good heavens, I cried, it is marvelous. I trusted that age, death not wither nor customs, stale my infinite variety, said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride which the artist takes in his own creation. It really is rather like me, is it not? I should be prepared to swear that it was you. The credit of the execution is due to messier Oscar, Manny of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the molding. It is a bust in wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon. But why? Because my tear wats in, I had the strongest possible reason for wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really elsewhere. And you thought the rooms were watched. I knew that they were watched. By whom? By my old enemy, Swanson, by the charming society whose leader lies in the waterfall. You must remember that they knew and only they knew that I was still alive. Sooner later they believed that I should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously and this morning they saw me arrive. How do you know? Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my window. He's a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a Gerarder by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the mouth harp. I cared nothing for him, but I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the man who is after me tonight Watson. And that is the man who is quite unaware that we are after him. My friends' plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched, and the trackers tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and we were the hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the hurrying figures who passed and repast in front of us. Holmes was silent and emotionless, but I could tell that he was keenly alert and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passersby. It was a bleak and boisterous night and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street.

Many people were moving too and fro, most of them muffled in their coats and crivots. Once or twice, it seemed to me that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house some distance up the street. I tried to draw my companions attention to them, but he was impatient and continued to stare into the street. More than once, he fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy and that his plans were not working out all together as he had hoped. At last, as midnight approached, and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to him when I raised my eyes to the lighted window and again experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched Holmes' arm and pointed upward. The shadow has moved. I said, it was indeed no longer the profile, but the back which was turned towards us. Three years later, had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own. Of course it has moved, said he, Am I such a farcical bongler Watson that I should erect an obvious dummy and expect that some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We have been in this room for two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it from the front, so that her shadow may never be seen. Huh, he drew in his breath with a shrill excited intake. In the dim light, I saw his head thrown forward. His whole attitude ridged with attention. Outside the street was absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them. Home was still and dark. dark. Save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its center. Again, in the utter silence, I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement. An instant later, he pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt his warning hand upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were quivering. Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched lonely and motionless before us. But suddenly, I was aware of that which his keener senses had already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later, steps crept down the passage, steps which were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes crouched back against the wall, and I did the same, my hand closing upon the handle of my revolver.

Peering through the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man. He stood in the blackness of the open door, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing into the room.

He was within three yards of us, this figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring. Before I realized that he had no idea of our presence, he passed close behind us, stole over to the window and a very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to the level of this opening, a light of this street, no longer dimmed by the dusty glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside himself with excitement. His two eyes shown like stars and his features were working conclusively. He was an elderly man with a thin projecting nose, a high bald forehead, and a huge, result mustache, an opera hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress shirt front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gonged, scored with deep, savage lines, and his hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor, it gave him a talent clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat, he drew a bulky object, and he busied himself in some task, which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward, and through all weight and strength, upon some lever, with the result that there came a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending one smore in a powerful click. He straightened himself in, and I saw what he held in his hand, was sort of gun with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the breach, put something in and snapped at the breach lock. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long mustache droop over the stock, and his eye gleamed as it peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder and saw him at amazing target, the man on the yellow ground standing clear at the end of his foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant, Holmes sprang like a tiger onto the marksman's back and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment. And with strength, he seized homes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him, my comrade blue are shrill call upon a whistle. There was a clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one plain clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the room. Is that you Lestrod? Said Holmes. Yes, Mr. Holmes, and I took the job myself. It's good to see you back in London, sir. I think you want a little unofficial help. 3 undetected crimes in one year won't do. Lestrade, we had all risen to our feet. Our prison are breathing hard, with a stall-ward constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. La Stradd had produced two candles, and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns.

I was able at last have a good look at her prisoner. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of essentialist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce nose and the deep-lined brow without reading nature's plainest signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes' face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended. You fiend. He kept on muttering. You clever, clever fiend.

Ah, Colonel, said Holmes, arranging his rumbled collar. Journeys and in lovers' meetings, as the old play says, I don't think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favored me with those attentions as I lay on the edge above the fall. The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. You cunning, cunning fiend was all that he could say. I have not introduced you yet, said Holmes. This gentleman is Colonel Sebastian Moran. Once of her majesty's Indian army, and the best heavy game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced, I believe I am correct, Colonel, and saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivaled. The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion. With his alert eyes and bristling mustache, he was wonderfully like a tiger himself.

I wonder that my very simple strategy could deceive so old the Shikari said Holmes. It must be very familiar to you. Now I confess that you had one small surprise for me, said Holmes.

I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you as operating from the street where my friend Lestrade and his merry-men were awaiting you. With that exception, all has gone as I expected. The Colonel turned to the official detective. You may or may not have just caused for arresting me," said he, but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the jibes of this person.

If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal way.

Well, that's reasonable enough, Siddlestrod.

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