Sherlock Holmes Short Stories - The Adventure of the Empty House: Part Two

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Holmes and Watson stage an ingenious stakeout, laying a trap for Moriarty’s right-hand man… the deadly Colonel Sebastian Moran.  A Noiser podcast production.   Narrated by Hugh Bonneville�� Written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Produced by Duncan Barrett Sound Design and Audio Editing: Tony Onuchukwu and George Tapp Sound Supervisor: Tom Pink Compositions: Dorry Macaulay and Oliver Baines Mix & Mastering: Ralph Tittley Series Consultant: Dan Smith Executive Producer: Katrina Hughes   For ad-free listening and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fans. And they're here with me on Spotify. Trust me, I know fans.

They don't skip, they stay for hours. They don't move on, they manifest. They're not a demographic group, they're fans. Spotify Advertising. You're among fans. Welcome to Sherlock Holmes short stories. I'm Hugh Bonneville and from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is The Adventure of the Empty House, Part 2.

Last time, Sherlock Holmes returned to London, three years after disappearing in Switzerland. Reports of his death, not least those published by Watson, having turned out to be somewhat exaggerated. Watson fainted at the sight of his old friend alive. and well, and marvelled at Sherlock's description of how he cheated death at the hands of Professor Moriarty and his Confederates. Now the two of them are hot on the trail of a new case, the so-called Park Lane mystery. Young aristocrat Ronald Adair has been found dead in a locked

room, his brains blown out by an expanding revolver bullet, but with no gun anywhere to be seen. All of London is perplexed by this seemingly insoluble mystery. But Sherlock thinks he may have a lead. This is The Adventure of the Empty House, Part Two. Holmes was cold and stern and silent. As the gleam of the street lamps flashed upon his austere features, I saw that his brows were drawn down in 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 most grave one. While the sardonic smile, which occasionally broke through his ascetic gloom, boded little good for the object of our quest. I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as he stepped out, he gave a 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 route was certainly a singular one. Holmes's knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary,

and on this occasion he passed rapidly and with an assured step through a network of muse and stables, 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 Blandford 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's cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist, and led me forwards down a long hall until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door. Here Holmes 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 centre 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 close to my ear. "'Do you know where we are?' he whispered. "'Surely that is Baker Street,' I answered, staring through the deep. 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 a view 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 our little adventures.

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. As my eyes fell 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 time. chair within was thrown in hard black 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 marvellous. I trust that age does not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety, said he, and I recognised 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 Monsieur Oscar Murnier of Grunobl, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon. But why? Because, my dear Watson, 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 enemies, Watson, by the charming society whose leader lies in the Reichenbach fall. You must remember that they knew, and only they knew,

that I was still alive. Sooner or 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 recognised their sentinel when I glanced out of my window.

He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garotta 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 Moriati, 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. Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027-volt and 26 Equinox EV models. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details. My friend's 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 repassed in front of us. Holmes was silent and motionless, but I could tell that he was keenly alert and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It was a bleak and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street. Many people were moving to and fro,

most of them muffled in their coats and cravats. 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 computer, attention to them, but he gave a little exclamation of impatience 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 altogether 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's arm and pointed upwards. The shadow has moved, I cried. It was indeed no longer the profile,

but the back which was turned towards us. Three years 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 bungler, 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 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. Ah! He drew in his breath,

with a shrill excited intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid 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. All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us,

with the black figure outlined upon its centre. 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 Moore 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, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the room. He was within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spirit. spring before I realized that he had no idea of our presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the window,

and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to the level of this opening, the light of the 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 shone like stars, and his features were working convulsively. He was an elderly man with a thin projecting nose,

a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. 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 gaunt and swarthy, scored with deep savage lines. In his hand, he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor, it gave a metallic 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 threw all his weight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long, whirling, grinding noise,

ending once more in a powerful click. He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the breach, put something in, and snapped the breech block. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder and saw that amazing target. The black man on the yellow ground standing clear at the end of his foresight.

For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then 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 convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him, my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter of running feet upon the pavement,

and two policemen in uniform with one plain-closed detective, through the front entrance and into the room. That you, Lestrade? said Holmes. Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It's good to see you back in London, sir. I think you want a little unofficial help.

Three undetected murders in one year won't do Lestrade, but you handled the Molesley mystery with less than your usual. That's to say, you handled it fairly well. We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner. breathing hard, with a stalwart 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. The strad had produced two candles, and the policeman had uncovered their lanterns.

I was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner. It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face, which was turned to. towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil, but one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce aggressive nose and the threatening deep-lined brow without reading nature's plainest danger signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were far. fixed upon Holmes' face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended.

You've fiend. He kept on muttering, you never, ever fiend. Ah, Colonel, said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar, Journey's end in lovers' meetings, as the old play says. I don't think I've had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions, as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach 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 in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivaled? The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion. With his savage eyes and bristling moustache, he was wonderfully like a tiger himself. I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so

older shikari, said Holmes. It must be very familiar to you. Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger. This empty house is my tree, and you are my tiger, who have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you, these, he pointed around, are my other guns. The parallel is exact. Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the constable. The troubles dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to look at.

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. "'Colonel Moran turned to the official detective. "'You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,' said he.

"'But at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes 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,' said Lestrade. "'Nothing further, you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?' Holmes had picked up the powerful air gun from the floor and was examining its mechanism. An admirable and unique weapon, said he, noiseless and of tremendous power. I knew von Herder, the blind German mechanic who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years I have been aware of its existence, though I have never before had the opportunity of handling it.

I commend it very specially to your attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets which fit it. You can trust us to look after that, Mr Holmes, said Lestrade, as the whole party moved towards the door. Anything further to say? Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer. What charge, sir? Why, of course.

The attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the man. matter at all. To you and to you only belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you with your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity. You have got him. Got him? Got whom, Mr. Holmes? The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain, Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair, with an expanding bullet from an air gun

through the open window of the second floor front of number 427 Park Lane upon the 30th of last month. That's the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draft from a broken window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement. Performance Auto Group's 37th annual sale event, is back. Now for three days. Lease or finance from zero percent plus loyalty incentives and maximum

trade in value. Shop thousands of in-stock new, pre-owned and demonstrator vehicles. To 11th to 13th, across all Performance Auto Group retailers. Make your move this summer. Performance Auto Group's three-day sale. 72 hours of savings. Shop now at performance.ca.clair. Driven by Performance Auto Group. Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of Mycroft homes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered, I saw it is true an unwonted tidiness. But the old landmarks were all in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrapbooks and books of reference,

which many of our fellow citizens would have been so glad to burn. the diagrams, the violin case and the pipe rack, even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco, all met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room, one Mrs Hudson who beamed upon us both as we entered, the other the strange dummy which had played so important a part in the evening's adventures.

It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely perfect. I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson, said Holmes. I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me. Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where the bullet went?

Yes, sir. "'I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, "'for it passed right through the head "'and flattened itself on the wall. "'I picked it up from the carpet. "'Here it is.' "'Holmes held it out for me. "'A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive, Watson.

"'There's genius in that, "'for who would expect to find such a thing fired from an air gun? "'All right, Mrs. Hudson, I am much obliged for your assistance. "'And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat once more. for there are several points which I should like to discuss with you. He had thrown off the seedy frock coat, and now he was the homes of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown, which he took from his effigy.

The old Shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his eyes their keenness, said he with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead of his bust. Plum in the middle of the back of the head and smacked through the brain, he was the best shot in India and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name? No, I have not.

Well, well, such is fame. But then, if I remember a right, you had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from the shelf. He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing great clouds from his... cigar. My collection of M's is a fine one, said he. Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter

illustrious, and here is Morgan the Poisoner, and Meridieu of abominable memory, and Matthews, who knocked out my left canine in the waiting room at Charing Cross, and finally, here is our friend of tonight. He handed over the book, and I read Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. unemployed, formerly first Bengalore pioneers. Born London, 1840, son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B. Once British minister to Persia, educated Eton and Oxford, served in Jowaki campaign, Afghan campaign, Charasiab, Dispatches, Sherpur and Kabul, author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas, 1881, three months in the jungle, 1884, address conduit street, clubs, the Anglo-Indian, the Tangerville, the Bagotel Card Club. On the margin was written in Holmes's precise hand,

the second most dangerous man in London. This is astonishing, said I, as I handed back the volume. The man's career is that of an honourable soldier. It is true, Holmes answered. Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson,

which grow to a certain height and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree.

The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family. It is surely rather fanciful. Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriati, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff.

Moriati supplied him liberally with money and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart of Lauder in 1887? Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the Colonel concealed that even when the Moriati gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him.

You remember at that date when I called upon you in your rooms how I put up the shutters for fear of air guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in Switzerland, he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge. You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my sojourn in France on the lookout for any chance of laying him by the heels.

So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get him.

Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at last. Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the lad. He had followed him home from the club. He had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once.

I was seen by the sentinel who would, I knew, direct the colonel's attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way at once and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark in the window, and having warned the police that they might be needed, by the way, Watson you spotted their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy. I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation,

never dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain? Yes, said I, you have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair. Ah, my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine. You have formed one then. I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had between them won a considerable amount of money.

Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul. Of that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken to him privately and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the club, and promised not to play cards again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much older than himself. Probably he acted, as I suggest.

The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how. much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his partner's foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass? I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.

It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what may, Colonel Moran, will trouble us no more. The famous air gun of Fon Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents. Next time on Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson are drawn away to the countryside

in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. Robert Ferguson believes his wife has attacked their infant son, and, worse still, that she may be a vampire. The evidence is damning, bite marks on the child's neck, and the mother found with blood on her lips. But Holmes has never been one to accept the supernatural. In his eyes, even the strangest mystery has a rational explanation if one only looks closely enough. That's next time. Can't wait a week until the next episode,

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