1 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:17,338 From the case log. July, nineteen ninety-two. Brooklyn. Sunday evening, the twelfth, a week past the fireworks, the heat unbroken and the whole street still smelling of gunpowder. 2 00:00:17,858 --> 00:00:28,961 Our consulting rooms take the parlor floor of a brownstone, a fan in each window. I was quarrelling with my radio; Holmes sat sorting spent firecracker paper from the stoop, by maker. 3 00:00:29,981 --> 00:00:34,135 Can't catch? He's the best-hitting catcher alive, you lunatic! 4 00:00:34,655 --> 00:00:37,639 He can't hear you, Watson. It's a radio. 5 00:00:38,159 --> 00:00:43,190 Some fellow from Orrin Bay wants Cardoza traded. We only just got him! 6 00:00:43,710 --> 00:00:47,217 Is Cardoza the one who throws, or the one who waits? 7 00:00:47,737 --> 00:00:52,054 I can never tell when you're joking. Wait, those are my forceps! 8 00:00:52,574 --> 00:00:57,320 The only clean pair in Brooklyn. Black Cat left, red wrappers right. 9 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:00,640 I use those on patients, Holmes, I— 10 00:00:59,901 --> 00:01:04,061 Then boil them. The red came up from Pennsylvania in somebody's trunk. 11 00:01:04,581 --> 00:01:07,264 Thrilling. Phone it in to Orrin Bay. 12 00:01:08,284 --> 00:01:12,586 That's the bell. Someone is leaning on it, Sunday or no Sunday. 13 00:01:13,106 --> 00:01:13,707 I'll go. 14 00:01:14,727 --> 00:01:18,832 Good evening. My name is Marta. I keep house for Mrs. Thorne. 15 00:01:19,352 --> 00:01:23,735 Come in out of this heat. Holmes, kill the radio, we have a visitor. 16 00:01:24,755 --> 00:01:29,758 Mrs. Thorne isn't in her house on East Seventy-Third Street. The police sent me home. 17 00:01:30,278 --> 00:01:34,093 Yet here you stand in your Sunday hat. What is in the handkerchief? 18 00:01:34,613 --> 00:01:44,431 A tape, Mr. Holmes. From my answering machine. The precinct, they would not— they wouldn't listen. Will you? Somebody must listen tonight. 19 00:01:44,951 --> 00:01:48,059 Wait in the hall, Marta, while the doctor and I quarrel. 20 00:01:48,579 --> 00:01:50,499 Waiting I know how to do. 21 00:01:51,519 --> 00:01:56,559 A grown woman absent from her own house in July is no crime, Watson. 22 00:01:57,079 --> 00:02:00,136 That's your verdict? From behind my forceps? 23 00:02:00,656 --> 00:02:04,597 The precinct is likely right. And a housekeeper can't pay our rent. 24 00:02:05,117 --> 00:02:11,088 Nobody else is paying it either. And the police sent her home, yet she came all the way out to Brooklyn. 25 00:02:11,608 --> 00:02:13,587 Stubbornness isn't evidence. 26 00:02:14,107 --> 00:02:20,528 No letter, no photograph, Holmes. Only the tape from her own answering machine, knotted in a handkerchief. 27 00:02:21,048 --> 00:02:26,447 Nobody ties such a knot around a thing she can afford to lose. Get your bag. 28 00:02:26,967 --> 00:02:29,635 Just like that? And your wrappers? 29 00:02:30,155 --> 00:02:33,736 They'll keep. So will the Mets. Marta! We're coming. 30 00:02:34,256 --> 00:02:40,945 Case log, same evening: no fee, no crime, and my forceps still smelling of gunpowder. 31 00:02:45,965 --> 00:02:50,972 By full dark we stood with Marta in Mrs. Thorne's bedroom on East Seventy-Third Street. 32 00:02:51,492 --> 00:02:56,636 Nothing is moved. The bed as I made it. Her handbag there on the chair... 33 00:02:57,156 --> 00:03:03,818 Keys, wallet, spectacles, all inside. Nobody of eighty-two goes away without her spectacles. 34 00:03:04,338 --> 00:03:13,124 Or these, from the nightstand. Digoxin, the bottle nearly full. That's her heart, Holmes. A few days without it and she's in real trouble. 35 00:03:13,644 --> 00:03:18,668 Then telephone someone with a badge in the morning. Marta, when did you last see her? 36 00:03:19,188 --> 00:03:27,666 Noon, Sunday the fifth. She sat in that chair, cursing the firecrackers. I went to my sister in Greenpoint for my three days. 37 00:03:28,186 --> 00:03:31,683 And came back Wednesday to an empty house and a message. 38 00:03:32,203 --> 00:03:42,180 Wednesday, yes. I told the precinct— I told them the message says she has gone away. That's all I told them. The sergeant closed his book. 39 00:03:42,700 --> 00:03:43,398 He would. 40 00:03:43,918 --> 00:03:49,259 You gave him the short of it and kept the rest in a handkerchief. You don't trust that message. 41 00:03:49,779 --> 00:03:55,239 He didn't ask for the rest. And that little tape plays only on my machine, in Astoria. 42 00:03:55,759 --> 00:03:59,223 Tomorrow, then. It's a tape, Marta, it'll keep. 43 00:03:59,743 --> 00:04:02,832 It's past eleven. Go home and sleep. 44 00:04:03,852 --> 00:04:08,799 I lay her tray at night, for the morning. Twenty-six years, Doctor. 45 00:04:09,319 --> 00:04:10,844 There's no one to— 46 00:04:10,516 --> 00:04:13,185 One egg. She takes one egg. 47 00:04:18,205 --> 00:04:24,314 The next morning's stairs brought us to the lodger's floor, and a typewriter going behind a half-shut door. 48 00:04:25,334 --> 00:04:33,334 Mr. Lyle? Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson. Those picture crates on your landing still have their shipping nails in. 49 00:04:33,854 --> 00:04:38,638 Lyle, yes. Consignment pictures, insured to the door. You've got one minute. 50 00:04:39,158 --> 00:04:41,572 A dealer who never opens his stock. 51 00:04:42,092 --> 00:04:44,657 Or one who doesn't hang it for the neighbors. 52 00:04:45,177 --> 00:04:54,501 Honestly, let the man breathe. I'm Della, his secretary. Doctor, you look like you slept in a chair. Coffee. No arguments. 53 00:04:55,021 --> 00:04:58,763 Thank you, Della. Black. Do you know Mrs. Thorne well? 54 00:04:59,283 --> 00:05:08,980 She's the kindest soul in New York. Had me down to tea my first week. I keep listening for her on the stairs, eighty-two and light as a girl, and I— 55 00:05:08,590 --> 00:05:10,255 Della. They're leaving. 56 00:05:10,775 --> 00:05:13,849 Not with your collar like that. Hold still. 57 00:05:14,369 --> 00:05:19,169 A secretary who straightens a collar unasked. Long service. 58 00:05:19,689 --> 00:05:22,349 Long enough to know he won't do it himself. 59 00:05:22,869 --> 00:05:25,407 That's your minute. Della, the letters. 60 00:05:26,427 --> 00:05:28,849 Pleasant woman. Wasted on him. 61 00:05:29,369 --> 00:05:30,123 Mm. 62 00:05:35,143 --> 00:05:42,411 Noon found the front hall crowded: Captain Arroyo of Homicide with a folder, and the lodger and his secretary on their way out to lunch. 63 00:05:42,931 --> 00:05:48,088 Doctor, you pulled a homicide captain off his sandwich for one bottle of— 64 00:05:47,754 --> 00:05:52,831 Digoxin, Captain, left behind by a woman with a bad heart. Would you leave yours? 65 00:05:53,351 --> 00:06:05,677 So I called the City Register. Deed dated June, filed last week. She signed this whole townhouse over to a paper company. House is worth nine point two million dollars. 66 00:06:06,197 --> 00:06:07,185 Did she, now. 67 00:06:07,705 --> 00:06:08,784 Signed it to whom? 68 00:06:09,304 --> 00:06:17,410 Front of the filing's a hired agent and a box on Madison Avenue. Way I read it, the lady's selling up, calling in her debts, gone off somewhere— 69 00:06:16,989 --> 00:06:19,803 With the money coming and no handbag to put it in. 70 00:06:20,323 --> 00:06:27,448 Debts fits, Captain. She was— she grumbled to me last month about a friend's loan. Years old, never paid back. 71 00:06:27,968 --> 00:06:29,229 This friend got a name? 72 00:06:29,749 --> 00:06:35,978 Not to me. But that's where I'd look, not up my stairs. Nobody walks through those pictures without paper. 73 00:06:36,498 --> 00:06:38,418 Who said anything about your stairs? 74 00:06:38,938 --> 00:06:41,040 Saving you the climb. 75 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:42,299 Uh-huh. 76 00:06:42,819 --> 00:06:47,229 He's like this before lunch, Captain. Come on, you. Let the man work. 77 00:06:47,749 --> 00:06:55,394 Who owns those shares, Albany will take days. Meantime the sergeant's note says a message: gone away. 78 00:06:55,914 --> 00:07:01,255 A sergeant's note. I want to hear that message, Captain, from Marta's own machine. 79 00:07:06,275 --> 00:07:13,773 After dark we sat in Marta's kitchen in Astoria, under the elevated line, her answering machine on a lace doily. 80 00:07:14,793 --> 00:07:17,814 Forty times I've played this. Now you. 81 00:07:18,834 --> 00:07:27,707 Marta, it's Mrs. Thorne. I've gone up to Mrs. Bo-shomp on Riverside Drive for a rest. I'll be home the twentieth. Don't fuss over the house. 82 00:07:28,727 --> 00:07:43,287 So Madam is up on Riverside Drive for a rest, the machine tells me, with no handbag and no pills. That friend, she owes Madam— she owes Madam dearly, Mr. Holmes. Years, and not a dollar back. 83 00:07:43,807 --> 00:07:46,261 So that's the friend Lyle was grumbling about. 84 00:07:46,781 --> 00:07:56,179 The twentieth. She forgets her heart and remembers to name a date. Either she's in a hurry, or somebody's hurrying her. Marta, who has had that date from you? 85 00:07:56,699 --> 00:08:04,845 No one. The sergeant never asked. Upstairs never asked, and I don't carry Madam's calendar to lodgers. Not even to my sister. 86 00:08:05,365 --> 00:08:13,653 Keep it so. The tape goes to Captain Arroyo tonight, machine and all, under his key. That day stays among the four of us. 87 00:08:14,173 --> 00:08:18,120 Forty plays, Marta. Nobody does that with good news. 88 00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:21,001 What do you hear? The voice? The words? 89 00:08:21,521 --> 00:08:28,911 I don't know. I know that voice better than my own mother's. I play it only to hear her, every night I— 90 00:08:28,576 --> 00:08:29,394 Take your time. 91 00:08:29,914 --> 00:08:34,815 It sounds like her, Mr. Holmes... and something in it's wrong. 92 00:08:39,835 --> 00:08:48,267 Tuesday took us up to Riverside Drive, five flights, to rooms that answered every footstep, and the old friend the tape had named. 93 00:08:49,287 --> 00:08:52,499 Thank you for seeing us, ma'am. It's about Vivian Thorne. 94 00:08:53,019 --> 00:08:59,727 Vivian's not here, Doctor. Look around, there's nowhere to hide her. One chair, and it's mine. 95 00:09:00,247 --> 00:09:02,016 A message says she came to you. 96 00:09:02,536 --> 00:09:07,734 Then the message is lying. She never came. Not this month, not last. 97 00:09:08,254 --> 00:09:09,364 Ah. 98 00:09:09,884 --> 00:09:16,976 Pale squares on the wallpaper. Fresh gouges where a sideboard left by the door. You're selling up, ma'am, a piece at a time. 99 00:09:17,496 --> 00:09:20,692 I'm decorating. Empty's all the rage. 100 00:09:21,212 --> 00:09:27,459 Yet you kept one poster. Rosie Lerner, at the Regal. Your own name, before the husband's. 101 00:09:27,979 --> 00:09:34,113 Delancey Street's finest. Nobody'd give me a nickel for her, that's why she's still up. 102 00:09:34,633 --> 00:09:36,553 And the loan from Mrs. Thorne, ma'am? 103 00:09:37,073 --> 00:09:42,113 Who's been talking, the housekeeper? You're letting in the heat, gentlemen. Mind the stairs. 104 00:09:43,133 --> 00:09:52,261 No furniture, no answer on the money, and she swears the woman never came. Holmes, did Mrs. Thorne reach that door and never leave? 105 00:09:57,281 --> 00:10:06,427 Back on Seventy-Third Street that afternoon, the study smelled of cedar and old programs. Marta had the desk open; Captain Arroyo kept his hat on. 106 00:10:07,447 --> 00:10:13,317 I heard your tape, and it's locked away. My key, my log. So why are we in a drawer? 107 00:10:13,837 --> 00:10:22,778 Because the lady swears Mrs. Thorne never came. I want to know if they were even on terms. Has Mrs. Thorne asked her to anything lately, Marta? 108 00:10:23,298 --> 00:10:31,058 The party in June. Here, her invitation, the Riverside one. The post office brought it back, short a stamp. 109 00:10:31,578 --> 00:10:41,480 So she was asked. The card has Mrs. Thorne's own shaking signature. The envelope has a brisk round hand, nothing like it. Who wrote these? 110 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:51,703 Madam's fingers are bad now. Miss Della came down three evenings, sat here with Madam's address book, and addressed every one for Madam, after Madam signed. 111 00:10:52,223 --> 00:10:56,763 That sounds like her. She'd carry your groceries and scold you for buying them. 112 00:10:57,283 --> 00:11:03,944 Penmanship, Holmes. I got one real lead, and it's on Riverside Drive. I'll have a man across the street by tonight, and— 113 00:11:03,527 --> 00:11:05,726 On the strength of a debt and a denial? 114 00:11:06,246 --> 00:11:11,126 It's enough for a parked car. Mr. Lyle and his stairs can keep. 115 00:11:12,146 --> 00:11:16,350 This comes with me. She owes, she denies. Watch her door. 116 00:11:16,870 --> 00:11:17,789 As you like. 117 00:11:22,809 --> 00:11:31,565 A furniture van blocked the curb on Riverside Drive that Wednesday morning, Captain Arroyo at its fender, our lady from the top floor counting a dealer's money. 118 00:11:32,585 --> 00:11:35,103 Nice table, ma'am. That the last of it? 119 00:11:35,623 --> 00:11:41,314 The chair goes Friday. Your boy in the parked car can have first refusal, Captain. 120 00:11:41,834 --> 00:11:44,317 Sunday the fifth, ma'am. Where were you? 121 00:11:44,837 --> 00:11:52,378 I was home all that Sunday, and nobody came. Vivian hasn't— she hasn't climbed my stairs in six years, not with that heart. 122 00:11:52,898 --> 00:11:55,396 Neighbor see you? The super? Anybody— 123 00:11:55,009 --> 00:11:59,685 At my age, Captain, nobody sees you. That's the whole trouble... 124 00:12:00,205 --> 00:12:05,327 You joked about the furniture, ma'am. At the word Sunday you counted that money again. 125 00:12:05,847 --> 00:12:09,607 It's short. Dealers. Mind the ramp, gentlemen. 126 00:12:10,627 --> 00:12:16,334 Sold to the walls, no witness, no answer. That lady looks ready to run. 127 00:12:16,854 --> 00:12:17,561 Does she. 128 00:12:22,581 --> 00:12:29,440 The Captain was wearing a path in the study rug by two o'clock, with Marta at her mistress's files and Holmes at the window. 129 00:12:30,460 --> 00:12:39,561 Lyle called my desk this morning. Monday he had no name for that friend. Today he's got Riverside Drive and her furniture. 130 00:12:40,081 --> 00:12:40,986 Funny timing. 131 00:12:41,506 --> 00:12:45,106 Someone who hands you an address wants you standing at it. 132 00:12:45,626 --> 00:12:52,454 So what's he keeping me from? Nailed crates, right over a missing woman's head. I'm thinking warrant. 133 00:12:52,974 --> 00:12:55,762 You like paper, Captain? Here's his. 134 00:12:56,282 --> 00:13:04,182 The lease. Upstairs rooms, one year from April, in his name alone. Not a word about a secretary. 135 00:13:04,702 --> 00:13:05,040 Huh. 136 00:13:05,560 --> 00:13:10,200 She came with the typewriter, Madam said. And he's slow to answer to it. 137 00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:11,618 Answer to what? 138 00:13:12,138 --> 00:13:19,738 His name. I call up the stairs, Mr. Lyle, Mr. Lyle. Three times, then he jumps. 139 00:13:20,258 --> 00:13:20,833 Really? 140 00:13:21,353 --> 00:13:26,216 Slow to his own name: deaf, rude or new to it. He isn't deaf. 141 00:13:26,736 --> 00:13:29,603 New to it. There's my warrant, right— 142 00:13:29,189 --> 00:13:36,031 There's a fraud on a landlady. A slow ear and a nailed crate, Captain; no judge signs that. Riverside first. 143 00:13:36,551 --> 00:13:38,353 He sleeps over her bed. 144 00:13:38,873 --> 00:13:41,485 The stairs will keep. The friend has a van. 145 00:13:42,005 --> 00:13:47,143 No warrant, then. The stairs stay shut, on your word. 146 00:13:52,163 --> 00:14:00,120 That night in Brooklyn I dealt my notes across the table, one card to a fact, with Holmes flat on the sofa, eyes shut. 147 00:14:01,140 --> 00:14:02,082 Read them again. 148 00:14:02,602 --> 00:14:09,882 The tape puts her on Riverside Drive. The friend swears she never left her rooms that day, and no caller. 149 00:14:10,402 --> 00:14:11,059 Next. 150 00:14:11,579 --> 00:14:16,794 The friend owes her, years of it. And the house signed away, nobody knows to whom. 151 00:14:17,314 --> 00:14:21,044 You put that last card down harder than the others. Out with it. 152 00:14:21,564 --> 00:14:27,189 Five flights, Holmes, on digoxin, with the bottle on her nightstand. I wouldn't let her climb them with— 153 00:14:26,784 --> 00:14:30,304 Anger climbs. So does a summons. Deal them again. 154 00:14:30,824 --> 00:14:37,306 I can deal them till morning. She went there, or she never came. It can't be both... 155 00:14:42,326 --> 00:14:51,446 Thursday I took my log to Mrs. Thorne's long dining table, where Marta rubbed down candlesticks nobody would light and Holmes prowled the sideboard. 156 00:14:52,466 --> 00:14:54,437 You pack for her when she travels, Marta? 157 00:14:54,957 --> 00:15:01,993 Always. The small blue case, top of her closet. It is still there. I looked, before I took off my coat. 158 00:15:02,513 --> 00:15:12,801 Then she went as she stood. No case, no bag, no pills. That's a summons, Watson. Nobody takes a holiday like that. I'll go and be rude to Albany by telephone. 159 00:15:13,821 --> 00:15:19,063 Marta, help me with the log. That friend: I have her as Bo-shomp, B-O. 160 00:15:19,583 --> 00:15:28,800 No. Here, Madam's book. B, E, A, U, C, H, A, M, P. It looks French, yes? 161 00:15:29,320 --> 00:15:30,760 Very. 162 00:15:31,280 --> 00:15:37,592 But Madam always says Beecham, every Christmas at this table. Nobody gets that from the page. 163 00:15:38,112 --> 00:15:43,826 Beecham. Well, I just write what comes down the line, Marta, and a telephone chews up every— 164 00:15:43,413 --> 00:15:46,921 Twenty-six years, Doctor. I know what she said. 165 00:15:51,941 --> 00:16:00,205 Captain Arroyo reached the townhouse that afternoon with a charge sheet under his arm. Della met us in the hall with the coffee pot; Lyle held the bottom stair. 166 00:16:01,225 --> 00:16:06,105 Last loose end, then I go uptown. Either of you hear Mrs. Thorne mention plans? 167 00:16:06,625 --> 00:16:14,465 You should be uptown now, Captain. That woman owes the old lady and she's hocking her tables. Charge her, and quit looking at my landing, and— 168 00:16:14,081 --> 00:16:24,657 Drink this and hush. Plans? Why, yes, Captain. She told me herself that Sunday, when I took her down some cake. Off to Mrs. Bo-shomp for a rest, back on the twentieth. 169 00:16:25,177 --> 00:16:27,556 The day she named. You're certain of it? 170 00:16:28,076 --> 00:16:31,594 I'm a secretary, Mr. Holmes. Dates are what I'm for. 171 00:16:32,114 --> 00:16:33,871 Nobody thought to mention this? 172 00:16:34,391 --> 00:16:37,028 Nobody asked. I've been pouring coffee. 173 00:16:37,548 --> 00:16:40,344 Write it as you said it, miss. Sign at the bottom. 174 00:16:40,864 --> 00:16:41,615 Happy to. 175 00:16:42,635 --> 00:16:45,035 There you are. Upstairs, you. Letters. 176 00:16:46,055 --> 00:16:51,935 They're up? That's the tape confirmed, Holmes. Same friend, same rest, same day. 177 00:16:52,455 --> 00:17:00,135 From someone who never heard it. That date never left the four of us, so she has it from Mrs. Thorne. First honest witness in this case. 178 00:17:00,655 --> 00:17:02,861 So she did go up there. 179 00:17:03,381 --> 00:17:09,674 She did. She went, and the friend lies. One of your cards just fell, Watson, so now— 180 00:17:09,270 --> 00:17:12,233 Only me, for the cups. Yours has gone cold. 181 00:17:12,753 --> 00:17:15,731 Then I have been rude. Thank you for the coffee. 182 00:17:20,751 --> 00:17:28,774 We climbed the five flights again toward evening, the sworn charge in the Captain's coat. She sat in her one chair under the poster. 183 00:17:29,794 --> 00:17:41,070 You owed Vivian Thorne for years, ma'am, and had nothing left to sell. She told a witness she was coming here. She climbed your stairs that Sunday to collect, and she never came down. 184 00:17:41,590 --> 00:17:46,458 Vivian? You think I— me? With what, the chair? 185 00:17:46,978 --> 00:17:48,119 Where's she, ma'am? 186 00:17:48,639 --> 00:17:52,327 She never— I can't— she never came— 187 00:17:53,347 --> 00:17:57,627 Stand back. Ma'am, look at me. Breathe. Stay on the floor. 188 00:17:58,147 --> 00:18:09,307 You told me home all that Sunday, ma'am. The Doctor gave me the name on your poster, so I ran it. The sheet caught me leaving. Lerner, Rosie. Booked and printed, and— 189 00:18:08,944 --> 00:18:11,854 Captain, I'm on my knees here. Put that away. 190 00:18:12,374 --> 00:18:26,117 Sixth Avenue flea market, peddling silver, no license. Jailed Sunday morning at ten. Prints turned up an old warrant, nineteen sixty-one, a hotel bill. Holiday court, no bail, held until Thursday the ninth. 191 00:18:26,637 --> 00:18:35,126 Don't— don't read it out. They were my mother's forks, on a card table. I was paying Vivian back, a fork at a time. 192 00:18:35,646 --> 00:18:36,266 Easy. 193 00:18:36,786 --> 00:18:45,692 I gave them Rosie, so Vivian would never... Four nights in my good shoes, Doctor. I'd sooner you thought I killed her. 194 00:18:46,212 --> 00:18:47,950 Captain. The hour again. 195 00:18:48,470 --> 00:18:51,008 Ten in the morning. What's it matter, she— 196 00:18:50,673 --> 00:18:55,580 Ten. Marta left Mrs. Thorne alive at noon. 197 00:18:56,100 --> 00:18:57,617 But then... 198 00:18:58,137 --> 00:19:01,555 I have her pulse, Holmes. That's all I have. 199 00:19:06,575 --> 00:19:13,979 By ten on Friday the study held Holmes, Marta and me, and Captain Arroyo with one useless sheet of paper. 200 00:19:14,999 --> 00:19:23,469 There's my charge. A woman jailed Sunday morning at ten doesn't meet anybody at noon. They held her till the day after you reported, Marta. 201 00:19:23,989 --> 00:19:28,896 And the message was waiting a day before she got out. That cell covers all of it. 202 00:19:29,416 --> 00:19:37,392 Lab called on the deed, too. Signature's traced, pen lifted where a hand don't lift. Forged. 203 00:19:37,912 --> 00:19:39,192 Of course it is. 204 00:19:39,712 --> 00:19:50,078 Then nobody was selling up or calling in debts. A forged deed holds only if she never comes home to deny it. There goes your theory, Captain, and mine. 205 00:19:51,098 --> 00:19:59,852 Six hundred and forty dollars, Marta. The forks, the table, and my chair went at nine. That's Vivian's. Count it. 206 00:20:00,372 --> 00:20:07,096 One question, ma'am. The message has Mrs. Thorne visiting Mrs. Bo-shomp for a rest. Was it arranged? 207 00:20:07,616 --> 00:20:15,489 Not one word. No call, no card, nothing. I know what my oath's worth this week, but I swear— 208 00:20:15,063 --> 00:20:16,727 You swore you were home, ma'am. 209 00:20:17,247 --> 00:20:27,225 She's in a cell from ten, Captain; she can't swear to plans made at lunch. Forget her oath. Handbag, pills, blue case, all still here. Who takes a rest like that? 210 00:20:27,745 --> 00:20:32,580 Nobody. I said so myself over the candlesticks, then I stopped saying it. 211 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,898 Take it back. She never counted it, Mrs. Beecham. 212 00:20:41,918 --> 00:20:50,371 The Nineteenth Precinct kept its evidence in a basement cage, and Captain Arroyo signed us in himself, Marta first, Holmes close behind. 213 00:20:51,391 --> 00:20:55,916 You called her Beecham this morning, Marta. That's not the name on this tape. 214 00:20:56,436 --> 00:20:58,196 I told the Doctor yesterday. 215 00:20:58,716 --> 00:20:59,305 Did you. 216 00:20:59,825 --> 00:21:05,458 She did, and I— I blamed a telephone line. I never carried it to you. 217 00:21:05,978 --> 00:21:06,976 Play it, Marta. 218 00:21:07,996 --> 00:21:17,195 Marta, it's Mrs. Thorne. I've gone up to Mrs. Bo-shomp on Riverside Drive for a rest. I'll be home the twentieth. Don't fuss over the house. 219 00:21:17,715 --> 00:21:27,819 There. Bo-shomp. Madam never once— twenty-six years, she never— That's not her mouth, Captain. I swear it. That's some other woman. 220 00:21:28,339 --> 00:21:28,929 Marta— 221 00:21:28,526 --> 00:21:36,507 Every night I played it, to hear her. Forty times. And it was never— it was never her... 222 00:21:37,027 --> 00:21:38,482 Read the other paper, Watson. 223 00:21:39,002 --> 00:21:51,170 Della's statement, signed, written just as she said it in the hall. "She told me herself that Sunday, when I took her down some cake. Off to Mrs. Bo-shomp for a rest, back on the twentieth." 224 00:21:51,690 --> 00:22:00,529 Miss Della says this? Who— who gave her that day? I told no one. Not the sergeant, not my sister, not upstairs, not— 225 00:22:00,146 --> 00:22:06,535 And my log's got four names. You, me, Holmes, the Doctor. Nobody else ever heard this tape. 226 00:22:07,055 --> 00:22:11,291 The same wrong sound, the same day, and she's never heard this tape. 227 00:22:11,811 --> 00:22:13,857 Good grief. 228 00:22:14,877 --> 00:22:16,942 Then who's that woman on the tape? 229 00:22:21,962 --> 00:22:29,582 Della was crossing the front hall with her coffee pot when we came in: Holmes, the Captain with one signed sheet, Marta last. 230 00:22:30,602 --> 00:22:35,698 Your signature, miss. Mrs. Thorne told you herself, over cake. That stand? 231 00:22:36,218 --> 00:22:40,616 Of course it stands, Captain. What's happened? Is it the poor lady? 232 00:22:41,136 --> 00:22:45,162 You said Mrs. Bo-shomp in this hall. Is that what Mrs. Thorne said? 233 00:22:45,682 --> 00:22:52,167 Well, I read the name, Mr. Holmes. Three evenings with that address book. I say it the way I read— 234 00:22:51,809 --> 00:22:57,688 Madam said Beecham. Bo-shomp, only a stranger gets that from the page. 235 00:22:58,208 --> 00:23:03,890 Honey, I never met the woman. So I read it wrong. Is that a crime now? 236 00:23:04,410 --> 00:23:12,350 No. The name alone hangs nobody. But a woman telephoned Marta's machine as Mrs. Thorne, and she read it wrong too. 237 00:23:12,870 --> 00:23:13,316 Oh? 238 00:23:13,836 --> 00:23:19,131 Which makes that voice an impostor. Mrs. Thorne never said Bo-shomp in her life. 239 00:23:19,651 --> 00:23:27,649 So that woman made up the visit. No case, no handbag, no pills. Mrs. Thorne planned no such trip, so she told nobody about it. 240 00:23:28,169 --> 00:23:29,666 Not over cake, miss. 241 00:23:30,186 --> 00:23:35,430 Then I've— I've mixed up who told me. I heard talk. A house like this, people talk— 242 00:23:34,991 --> 00:23:40,075 You have her back on the twentieth. No page gave you that: no book, no card. 243 00:23:40,595 --> 00:23:43,623 And no talk. I told no one. 244 00:23:44,143 --> 00:23:48,134 Four people ever heard that tape, miss. You're not one. 245 00:23:48,654 --> 00:23:50,374 Now, wait, I— 246 00:23:49,959 --> 00:23:55,323 That day was made up once, by the woman on the call. Only she could sign her name to it. 247 00:23:55,843 --> 00:23:58,407 The rooms are his, Captain. Ask him. 248 00:24:03,427 --> 00:24:10,952 The warrants were sworn by dusk. The Captain led us up the stairs that had stayed shut, to Lyle, Della and the crates. 249 00:24:11,972 --> 00:24:14,567 Empty. Some pictures, Mr. Lyle. 250 00:24:15,087 --> 00:24:18,236 You've got your— you've got your paper. Look and go. 251 00:24:18,756 --> 00:24:26,567 Albany has answered, Mr. Lyle. Mrs. Thorne's house went over to a paper company, and the one officer on its return is you. 252 00:24:27,087 --> 00:24:30,531 So I sign things. Della hands me papers, I sign. 253 00:24:31,051 --> 00:24:40,710 Note the pattern, Watson. Upstairs rooms in his name alone. Company officer, same name. Every paper a policeman reaches says Lyle. 254 00:24:41,230 --> 00:24:48,742 So I went behind it. The hired agent on Madison kept a stock book. He gave it up to my warrant an hour ago. 255 00:24:49,762 --> 00:24:54,570 Every share, transferred in June, to Della. Not one to you. 256 00:24:55,090 --> 00:24:59,010 That's— no. Half. She said half, she— 257 00:24:58,628 --> 00:25:01,887 He's overwrought, Captain. Hold still, your collar's— 258 00:25:01,548 --> 00:25:02,539 Don't touch me! 259 00:25:03,059 --> 00:25:07,818 You rented, you signed, you'd take the fall. She'd be pouring the Captain's coffee. 260 00:25:08,338 --> 00:25:11,950 Lyle's new to you, the housekeeper says. What's your name? 261 00:25:12,470 --> 00:25:19,475 Hollis. It's Hollis. Three calls up the stairs, every morning, and she laughed at me for it— 262 00:25:19,075 --> 00:25:21,795 Hush, now. Not one more word, you hear? 263 00:25:22,315 --> 00:25:24,049 Where's Mrs. Thorne, Hollis? 264 00:25:24,569 --> 00:25:30,773 I only— I only drove to Marlow Landing, Mother. You strangled her alone that Sunday. 265 00:25:35,793 --> 00:25:45,464 From the case log, the last card: Brooklyn again, the fan still going, Holmes by the window, Marta with Mrs. Thorne's address book in her lap. 266 00:25:46,484 --> 00:25:54,169 The Captain's invitation, on the deed's photograph, against the glass. Every tremor falls exactly on its twin. 267 00:25:54,689 --> 00:26:02,532 From the card, then, and the name from this book. She addressed every one for Madam, and I brought her tea for it. 268 00:26:03,052 --> 00:26:10,528 Murder for her, accessory for Hollis, the deed void. But "gone away" would have done, Holmes. Why name a friend at all? 269 00:26:11,048 --> 00:26:18,381 To buy two weeks and send us to Riverside. One sentence too many, on your machine, Marta, read off a page. 270 00:26:18,901 --> 00:26:20,126 And I played it... 271 00:26:20,646 --> 00:26:24,886 And the son? I took that secretary business for their shared cover. 272 00:26:25,406 --> 00:26:33,866 Her shield. You read the lease aloud in the study, no word of her. He got the false name and the drive; she kept the shares. 273 00:26:34,386 --> 00:26:36,396 And you thanked her for the coffee. 274 00:26:36,916 --> 00:26:38,958 I did. Log that too. 275 00:26:39,478 --> 00:26:53,235 Marlow Landing, the Captain says, and no more. No grave. Last night I didn't lay the tray, Doctor. Twenty-six years... I didn't know where to put my hands. 276 00:26:53,755 --> 00:26:55,664 One line for the log, Holmes. 277 00:26:56,184 --> 00:27:02,376 House recovered. Lady never found. Killer undone by reading.