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Support the show and let them know Sleepy sent you. Give your skin the scientifically proven gentle care it deserves with OneSkin. I'll have a link for this in the show notes. Thanks. Hey, my name's Otis Gray, and you're listening to Sleepy, a podcast where I read old books to help you get to sleep. And this is a midweek short story for you, a two-parter. Tonight, I'm going to be reading you part one of a two-part series called
A mystery from the one and only Arthur Conan Doyle. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It's a really great Sherlock Holmes story that I think you're really going to like. And before we get to part one of this short story, I just want to profoundly thank all of our patrons on Patreon.com, which is a website where you can pledge a couple bucks for an ad-free version of Sleepy. If you're a patron, thank you so, so, so, so much. I really appreciate it.
You are what makes this show possible, and I really can't do it without you. So, thank you. Truly. And if you're not a patron, and you would like to be, if you'd like to be a part of making this show directly, then you can go to patreon.com slash sleepy radio and donate even $1 a month. It goes a really long way. At $2, again, you get access to the ad-free version of the show. $5 gets you access to the poetry feed.
But even if you donate $1, that means so much to me and I will read your name in the opening credits of our next Sunday show after you do. So any amount is so appreciated. I would love to have you as part of making this show. You can do that by going to patreon.com slash sleepy radio. Thank you. And as always, the music you're hearing is by my good friend James Lepkowski and the cover up for Sleepy is by Gracie Kanin.
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed reading tonight's story, part one of it. So this is a Sherlock Holmes story, and it's called The Adventure of the Devil's Foot. It's long enough where I decided I was going to split this over two parts. So today, this Wednesday, you're going to hear part one, which will be half the story. And then next week on Wednesday, you will hear part two and get to finish it. Hopefully you're not making it through half,
any of the story really and you're falling asleep but uh uh what i do like about sir arthur conan doyle's writing and the reason that i've read so much of his writing on the show is it is very engaging and that can be what really helps you doze off into a deep slumber is just being fixated enough on the story to forget whatever else you have on your mind and then hopefully i
do my job well enough in being super boring and soothing where you get lost in your own engagement and you fall asleep. Either way, they're fantastic stories and it's very late at night back home in Vermont where I'm recording this and I almost fell asleep reading it. So I hope that you can fall asleep listening to it. Without further ado, tonight, part one of The Adventure of the Devil's Foot.
Sherlock Holmes Story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And now is the time for you to fluff up your pillow just how you like it, feel yourself melt into your bed, get real comfortable, close your eyes, and let me read to you. The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, Part 1. In recording, from time to time, some of the curious experiences and interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
I have continually been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity. To his somber and cynical spirit, all popular applause was always abhorrent, and nothing amused him more at the end of a successful case than to hand over the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and to listen with mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced congratulation.
It was indeed this attitude upon the part of my friend, and certainly not any lack of interesting material, which has caused me of late years to lay very few of my records before the public. My participation in some of his adventures was always a privilege which entailed discretion and reticence upon me. It was then, with considerable surprise, that I received a telegram from Holmes last Tuesday. He has never been note to write where a telegram would serve, in the following terms:
Why not tell them of the Cornish horror, strangest case I have handled? I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire that I should recount it. But I hasten, before another cancelling telegram may arrive, to hunt out the notes which give me the exact details of the case, and to lay the narrative before my readers.
It was then, in the spring of the year 1897, that Holmes' iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exciting kind, aggravated perhaps by occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year, Dr. Moore Ager of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may someday recount,
gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. The state of his well was not a matter in which he took himself the faintest interest, for his mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last on the threat of being permanently disqualified from work to give himself a complete change of scene and air.
Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Pau-du-Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish Peninsula. It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the grim humor of my patient. From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death-trap of sailing vessels
with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a northerly breeze, it lies plastered and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed crowd to tack into it for rest and protection. Then come the sudden swirl round of wind, the blistering gale from southwest, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands far out from that evil place,
On the landside, our surroundings were as somber as on the sea. It was a country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-colored, with an occasional church tower to mark the site of some old-world village. In every direction upon these moors, there were traces of some vanished race which had passed utterly away, and left as its sole record strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which contained the burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at prehistoric strife.
The glamour and mystery of the place, with its sinister atmosphere of forgotten nations, appealed to the imagination of my friend, and he spent much of his time in long walks and solitary meditations upon the moor. The ancient Cornish village had also arrested its attention, and he had, I remember, conceived the idea that it was akin to Chaldean, and had been largely derived from the Phoenician traders and tin.
he had received a consignment of books upon philology, and was setting down to develop his thesis, when suddenly, to my sorrow, and to his unfeigned delight, we found ourselves even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently interrupted,
and we were precipitated into the midst of a series of events which caused the utmost excitement, not only in Cornwall, but throughout the whole west of England. Many of my readers may retain some recollection of what was called at the time the Cornish Horror, though a most imperfect account of the matter reached the London press. Now, after thirteen years, I will give the true details of this inconceivable affair to the public. I have said that scattered towers marked the villages which dotted this part of Cornwall,
The nearest of these was the hamlet of Tredernick Wallace, where the cottages of a couple hundred inhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-grown church. The vicar of the parish, Mr. Roundhay, was something of an archaeologist, and as such Holmes made his acquaintance. He was a middle-aged man, portly and affable, with a considerable fund of local lore.
At his invitation, we had taken tea at the vicarage and had come to know, also, Mr. Mortimer Treganus, an independent gentleman who increased the clergyman's scanty resources by taking rooms in his large straggling house. The vicar, being a bachelor, was glad to come to such an arrangement, though he had little in common with his lodger, who was a thin, dark, spectacled man, with a stoop which gave an impression of actual physical deformity.
I remember that during our short visit we found the vicar, Geroulis, but his lodger, strangely reticent, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted eyes, brooding apparently upon his own affairs. These were the two men who entered abruptly into our little sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily excursion upon the moors. "'Mr. Holmes,' said the vicar in an agitated voice."
The most extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is the most unheard of business. We can only regard it as a special providence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all England, you are the one man we need. I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes. Holmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an old hound who hears the view. Hello. He waved his hand at the sofa.
and our palpitating visitor, with his agitated companion, sat side by side upon it. Mr. Mortimer Treganus was more self-contained than the clergyman, but the twitching of his thin hands and the brightness of his dark eyes showed that they shared a common emotion. "'Shall I speak, or you?' he asked of the vicar. "'Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be, and the vicar to have it second-hand, perhaps you had better do the speaking,' said Holmes."
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formerly dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes' simple deduction had brought to their faces. "Perhaps I had best say a few words first," said the vicar, "and then you can judge if you will listen to the details from Mr. Treganus, or whether we should not hasten at once to the scene of this mysterious affair. I may explain, then, that our friend here spent the last evening in the company of his two brothers, Owen and George.
and of his sister Brenda, at their house of Trednick-Wartha, which is near the old stone cross upon the moor. He left them shortly after ten o'clock, playing cards round the dining-room table, in excellent health and spirits. This morning, being an early riser, he walked in that direction before breakfast, and was overtaken by the carriage of Dr. Richards, who explained that he had just been sent on a most urgent call to Trednick-Wartha. Mr. Mortimer Treganus naturally went with him,
When he arrived at Trednicwartha, he found an extraordinary state of things. His two brothers and his sister were seated round the table, exactly as he had left them. The cards still spread in front of them, and the candles burned down to their sockets. The sister lay back, stone dead in her chair, while the two brothers sat on each side of her laughing, shouting, and singing, the senses stricken clean out of them.
All three of them, the dead woman and the two demented men, retained upon their faces an expression of the utmost horror, a convulsion of terror which was dreadful to look upon. There was no sign of the presence of anyone in the house except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that she had slept deeply and heard no sound during the night.
Nothing had been stolen or disarranged, and there is absolutely no explanation of what the horror can be which has frightened a woman to death and two strong men out of their senses. There is the situation, Mr. Holmes, in a nutshell, and if you can help us clear it up, you will have done great work. I had hoped in some way that I could coax my companion back into the quiet which had been the object of our journey.
But one glance at his intense face and contracted eyebrows told me how vain was now the expectation. He sat for some little time in silence, absorbed in the strange drama which had broken in upon our peace. "'I will look into this matter,' he said at last. On the face of it, it would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature. "'Have you been there yourself, Mr. Rounday?' "'No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Treganus brought back the account to the vicarage, and I at once hurried over with him to consult you.'
"How far is it?" The house where the singular tragedy occurred. "About a mile inland." "Then we shall walk over together. But before we start I must ask you a few questions, Mr. Mortimer Treganus." The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that his more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive emotion of the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious gaze fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively together.
His pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful experience which had befallen his family, and his dark eyes seemed to reflect something of the horror of the scene. "'Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes,' said he eagerly. "'It is a bad thing to speak of, but I will answer you the truth. Tell me about last night. Well, Mr. Holmes, I supped there, as the vicar had said, and my elder brother George proposed a game of whist afterwards. We sat down at about nine o'clock. It was a quarter past ten when I moved to go.'
I left them all around the table, as Mary's could be. Who lets you out? Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let myself out. I shut the hall door behind me. The window of the room in which they sat was closed, but the blind was not drawn down. There was no change in the door or window this morning, or any reason to think that any stranger had been to the house. Yet there they sat, driven clean mad with terror, and Brenda lying dead of fright, with her head hanging over the arm of the chair.
I'll never get the sight of that room out of my mind, so long as I live. The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable, said Holmes. I take it that you have no theory yourself, which can in any way account for them. It's devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish, cried Mortimer Treganus. It is not of this world. Something has come into that room, which has dashed the light of reason from their minds. What human contrivance could do that?
I fear, said Holmes, that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations before we fall back upon such a theory as this. As to yourself, Mr. Treganus, I take it you were divided in some way from your family, since they lived together and you had rooms apart. That is so, Mr. Holmes, but the matter is past and done with. We were a family of tin miners at Redruth, but we sold our venture to a company, and so retired with enough to keep us.
I won't deny that there was some feeling about the division of the money, and it stood between us for a time, but it was all forgiven and forgotten, and we were the best friends together. Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does anything stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Treganus, for any clue which can help me. There is nothing at all, sir. Your people were in their usual spirits, never better.
Were they nervous people? Did they ever show any apprehension of coming danger? Nothing of the kind. You have nothing to add then, which could assist me. Mortimer Treganus considered earnestly for a moment. There is one thing that occurs to me, said he at last. As we sat at the table, my back was to the window, and my brother George, he being my partner at cards, was facing it. I saw him once look hard over my shoulder, so I turned round and I looked also. The blind was up and the window shut.
but I could just mink out the bushes and the lawn, and it seemed to me for a moment that I saw something moving among them. I couldn't even say if it was a man or an animal, but I just thought there was something there. When I asked him what he was looking at, he told me that he had the same feeling. That's all I can say. Did you not investigate? No. The matter passed as unimportant. You left them then, without any premonition of evil? Not at all. I'm not clear how you came to hear the news so early this morning.
I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast. This morning had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage overtook me. He told me that Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down with an urgent message. I sprang in beside him and we drove on. When we got there, we looked into that dreadful room. The candles and the fire must have burned out hours before, but they had been sitting there in the dark until dawn had broken. The doctor said Brenda must have been dead at least six hours.
There were no signs of violence. She just lay across the arm of the chair, with that look on her face. George and Owen were singing snatches of songs, and gibbering like two great apes. Oh, it was awful to see. I couldn't stand it, and the doctor was as white as a sheet. Indeed, he fell into the chair in a sort of faint, and we nearly had him on our hands as well. Remarkable, most remarkable, said Holmes, rising and taking his hat.
I think, perhaps, we had better go down to Trednick Wharf, though, without further delay. I confess that I have seldom known a case which at first sight presented a more singular problem. Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the investigation. It was marked, however, at the outset by an incident which left the most sinister impression upon my mind. The approach to the spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a narrow, winding country lane. While we made our way along it,
We heard the rattle of the carriage coming towards us and stood aside to let it pass. As it drove by us, I caught a glimpse through the closed window of a horribly contorted grinning face glaring out at us. Those staring eyes and gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision. "'My brothers,' cried Mortimer Treganus, white to his lips, "'they are taking them to Helston.' We looked with horror after the black carriage lumbering upon its way. Then we turned our step towards the ill-omened house
in which they had met their strange fate. It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage, with a considerable garden which was already, in that cornish air, well filled with spring flowers. Towards this garden, the window of the sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to Mortimer Treganus, must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer horror in a single instant blasted their minds. Holmes walked slowly and thoughtfully among the flower plots, and along the path before we entered the porch.
So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he stumbled over the watering pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet in the garden path. Inside the house we were met by the elderly Cornish housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who with the aid of a young girl looked after the wants of the family. She readily answered all Holmes' questions. She had heard nothing in the night. Her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately, and she had never known them more cheerful and prosperous.
She had fainted with horror upon entering the room in the morning and seeing that the dreadful company round the table. She had, when she recovered, thrown open the window and let the morning air in and run down to the lane when she sent a farm lad for the doctor. The lady was on her bed upstairs, if we cared to see her. It took four strong men to get the brothers into the asylum carriage. She would not herself stay in the house another day and was starting that very afternoon to rejoin her family at St. Ives.
We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda Treganus had been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. Her dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in death, but there still lingered upon it something of that convulsion of horror which had been her last human emotion. From her bedroom, we descended to the sitting room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred. The charred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate,
On the table were the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards scattered over its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the walls, but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes paced with light, swift steps about the room. He sat in various chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He tested how much of the garden was visible. He examined the floor, the ceiling, and the fireplace.
but never once did I see that sudden brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips, which would have told me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter darkness. Why a fire? he asked once. Had they always a fire in this small room on a spring evening? Mortimer Treganus explained that night was cold and damp. For that reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. What are you going to do now, Mr. Holmes? he asked. My friend smiled and laid down his hand upon my arm.
I think, Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco poisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned, said he. With your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will turn the facts over in my mind, Mr. Treganus, and should anything occur to me, I will certainly communicate with you and the vicar. In the meantime, I wish you both good morning.
It was not until long after we were back in Paulde Cottage that Holmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally he lay down his pipe and sprang to his feet. "'It won't do, Watson,' said he with a laugh. "'Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows.'
We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience. Watson. All else will come. Now let us calmly define our position, Watson. He continued as we skirted the cliffs together. Let us get a firm grip of the very little which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise, we may be ready to fit them into their places.
I take it in the first place that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into the affairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that entirely out of our minds. Very good. There remain three persons who have been grievously stricken by some conscious or unconscious human agency. That is firm ground. Now, when did this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative to be true, it was immediately after Mr. Mortimer Treganus had left the room.
That is a very important point. The presumption is that it was within a few minutes afterwards. The cards still lay upon the table. It was already past their usual hour for bed. Yet they had not changed their position or pushed back their chairs. I repeat then that the occurrence was immediately after his departure, and not later than eleven o'clock last night. Our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the movements of Mortimer Treganus after he left the room. In this there is no difficulty.
and they seemed to be above suspicion. Knowing my methods as you do, you were, of course, conscious of the somewhat clumsy water-pot, expedient by which I obtained a clear impress of his foot, that might otherwise have been possible. The wet, sandy path took it admirably. Last night was also wet, you will remember, and it was not difficult, having obtained a simple print, to pick out his track among the others and to follow his movements. He appears to have walked away swiftly in the direction of the vicarage.'
If, then, Mortimer Treganus disappeared from the scene, and yet some outside person affected the card players, how can we reconstruct that person, and how was such an impression of horror conveyed? Mrs. Porter may be eliminated. She is evidently harmless. Is there any evidence that someone crept to the garden window, in some manner produced so terrific an effect that he drove those who saw it out of their senses? The only suggestion in this direction comes from Mortimer Treganus himself.
who says that his brother spoke about some movement in the garden. That is certainly remarkable, as the night was rainy, cloudy, and dark. Anyone who had the design to alarm these people would be compelled to place his very face against the glass before he could be seen. There's a three-foot flower border outside this window, but no indication of a footmark. It is possible to imagine, then, how an outsider could have made so terrible an impression upon the company
nor have we found any possible motive for so strange and elaborate an attempt you perceive our difficulties watson they are only too clear i answered with conviction and yet with a little more material we may prove that they are not insurmountable said holmes i fancy that among your extensive archives watson you may find some which were nearly as obscure meanwhile we shall put the case aside until more accurate data are available
and devote the rest of our morning to the pursuit of Neolithic man. I may have commented upon my friend's power of mental detachment, but never have I wondered at it more than upon that spring morning in Cornwall, when for two hours he discoursed upon Celts, Arrowheads, and Shards, as lightly as if no sinister mystery were waiting for his solution. It was not until we had returned in the afternoon to our cottage that we found a visitor awaiting us, who soon brought our minds back to the matter in hand.
Neither of us needed to be told who that visitor was. The huge body, the craggy and deeply seamed face with the fierce eyes and hawk-like nose, the grizzled hair which nearly brushed our cottage ceiling, the beard, golden at the fringes and white near the lips, save for the nicotine stain from his perpetual cigar. All these were as well known in London as in Africa and could only be associated with the tremendous personality of Dr. Leon Sterndale, the great lion hunter and explorer.
We had heard of his presence in the district, and had once or twice caught sight of his tall figure upon the moorland paths. He made no advances to us, however, nor would we have dreamed of doing so to him, as it was well known that it was his love of seclusion which caused him to spend the greater part of the intervals between his journeys in a small bungalow buried in the lonely wood of Beauchamp Arians. Here, amid his books and his maps, he lived an absolutely lonely life,
attending to his own simple wants, and paying little apparent heed to the affairs of his neighbors. It was a surprise to me, therefore, to hear him asking Holmes in an eager voice whether he had made any advance in his reconstruction of this mysterious episode. The county police are utterly at fault, said he, but perhaps your wider experience has suggested some conceivable explanation. My only claim to being taken into your confidence
"'is that during my many residences here, "'I have come to know this family of dragonists very well. "'Indeed, upon my Cornish mother's side, "'I could call them cousins, "'and their strange fate has naturally been a great shock to me. "'I may tell you that I had got as far as Plymouth "'upon my way to Africa, "'but the news reached me this morning, "'and I came straight back again to help in the inquiry.' "'Holmes raised his eyebrows. "'Did you lose your boat through it? "'I will take the next. "'Dear me, that is friendship indeed.'
"'I told you, they were relatives. "'Coy, so, cousins of your mother. "'Was your baggage aboard the ship?' "'Some of it, but the main part at the hotel. "'I see. "'But surely this event could not have found its way "'into the Plymouth morning papers.' "'No, sir. I had a telegram.' "'Muddy asked from whom?' "'A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer. "'You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes.' "'It is my business.' "'With an effort, Dr. Sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.'
"'I have no objection to telling you,' he said. "'It was Mr. Roundhay, the vicar, "'who sent me the telegram which recalled me. "'Thank you,' said Holmes. "'I may say in answer to your original question "'that I have not cleared my mind entirely "'on the subject of this case, "'but that I have every hope of reaching some conclusion. "'It would be premature to say more. "'Perhaps you would not mind telling me "'if your suspicions point in any particular direction. "'No, I can hardly answer that. "'Then I have wasted my time "'and need not prolong my visit.'
The famous doctor strode out of our cottage in considerable ill humor, and within five minutes Holmes had followed him. I saw him no more until the evening, when he returned with a slow step and haggard face which assured me that he had made no great progress with his investigation. He glanced at a telegram which awaited him and threw it into the grate. Thank you for listening to Sleepy. Good night.