Sherlock Holmes Short Stories - The Adventure of the Gloria Scott: Part Two

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Part two of three.  The plot thickens, as the young Sherlock finally cracks the coded message - but it’s too late for poor Mr Trevor.    And a note from beyond the grave answers a number of outstanding questions… even as it raises others.    A Noiser podcast production.    Narrated by Hugh Bonneville   Written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  Produced by Duncan Barrett  Sound Design and Audio Editing by Mirianna Pitman Latham  Sound Supervisor: Tom Pink  Compositions: Dorry Macaulay and Oliver Baines  Mix & Mastering: Josh Latham 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

Welcome to Sherlock Holmes short stories. I'm Hugh Bonneville, and from the Noiser podcast network, this is The Adventure of the Gloria Scott, part two. Last time, Holmes shared the story of his very first case, the extraordinary affair of the Gloria Scott. At the centre of this mystery was a seemingly innocent message about game, supplies and flypaper, which somehow struck a Norfolk landowner dead with horror. Holmes told Watson how, during his college years, he had formed an unlikely friendship with a jovial fellow student named Victor Trevor. Despite their differences, they bonded, and Holmes accepted an invitation to Trevor's

family estate in Norfolk. There, Holmes met Trevor's father, a wealthy widower and justice of the peace. During dinner one evening, Holmes demonstrated his powers of observation, deducing that Mr. Trevor had boxed in his youth, had done physical labour, visited New Zealand and Japan, and had once been intimately associated with someone with the initials, J.A., whom he later wished to forget. This final observation caused his friend's father to faint. When he came round, Mr. Trevor acknowledged Holmes' gift for detection, while showing signs of deep unease. Holmes later explained he had noticed the partially removed tattoo on Trevor's.

arm during a fishing excursion. Later, the household's peace was shattered by the arrival of a rough-looking sailor named Hudson, whom Trevor knew from his time at sea. Their interaction was tense, with Hudson making veiled threats and mentioning someone named Beddows. Trevor provided Hudson food and lodging before retreating to drink himself into unconsciousness. Months later, Holmes received an urgent telegram from Victor. Upon returning to Donnythorpe, Holmes learnt that Mr. Trevor was dying of apoplexy, following a nervous shock. Victor revealed that Hudson, whom he called the devil himself,

had been tormenting his father since his arrival, and now the old man's heart was giving out. We rejoin Holmes's story as he and Trevor continue their drive to Donnithorpe. We were dashing along the smooth white, country road, with the long stretch of the broads in front of us glimmering and the red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left, I could already see the high chimneys and the flagstaff which marked the squire's dwelling. My father made the fellow gardener, said my companion, and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed to be

at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to little shooting trips. And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I'd tell you, Holmes, I've had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time,

and now I am asking myself whether, that if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have been a wiser man. Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal Hudson became more and more intrusive. Until at last, on making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulders and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind apologising to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such

liberties with himself and his household. Ah, my boy, said he, it is all very well to talk, but you don't know how I am placed. "'But you shall know, Victor, I'll see that you shall know come what may.' "'You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad?' He was very much moved and shut himself up in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he was writing busily. That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release, for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us.

He walked into the dining room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in the thick voice of a half-drunken man. "'I've had enough of Norfolk,' said he. "'I'll run down to Mr. Beddows in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I dare say. "'You're not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I hope,' said my father with a tameness which made my blood boil. I've not had my apology, said he sulkily, glancing in my direction. Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow, rather roughly, said the dad, turning to me. On the contrary, I think we have both shown extraordinary patience towards him, I answered.

Oh, you do, do you? He snarls. "'Very good, mate. We'll see about that.' He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall.

"'And how?' I asked eagerly. In a most extraordinary fashion, a letter arrived for my father yesterday evening, bearing the fording bridge postmark. My father redded, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down onto the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once. We put him to bed, but the paralysis has spread. He has shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive.

You horrify me, Trevor, I cried. What then could have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result? Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was absurd and trivial. Oh my God, it is as I feared. As he spoke, we came round the curve of the avenue and saw in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down.

As we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief. A gentleman in black emerged from it. When did it happen, doctor? asked Trevor. almost immediately after you left. Did he recover consciousness? For an instant before the end. Any message for me? Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.

My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my head, and feeling as somber as ever I had done in my life. What was the past of this Trevor, Pugilist, traveller, and gold-digger, and how had he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his arm,

and die of fright when he had a letter from fording-bridge? Then I remembered that fording-bridge was in Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddows, whom the seaman had gone to visit and presumably to blackmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter then might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddows, warning an old Confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear enough, but then how could this letter be trivial and grotesque, as described

by the sun. He must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those ingenious secret codes, which mean one thing while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid, brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee, held in his grasp. He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed me a short note, scribbled as you see upon a single sheet of grey paper. The supply of game for London is going steadily up, it ran, headkeeper Hudson, we believe,

has now been told to receive all orders for flypaper and for preservation of your hen-feasants' life. I dare say what's in my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when first I read this message. Then I reread it very carefully. It was evidently as I had thought, and some secret meaning must lie buried in this strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was a prearranged significance to such phrases as flypaper and hen-feasant?

Such a meaning would be arbitrary and could not be deduced in any way, and yet I was loath to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed to show that the subject of the message was, as I had guessed, and that it was from Beddows rather than the sailor. I tried it backwards, but the combination life-fessonel. Henn was not encouraging. Then I tried alternate words, but neither thee of four nor supply-game London promised to throw any light upon it. Then, in an instant, the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I saw that every third word, beginning with the first, would give a message which might well

drive old Trevor to despair. It was short and terse, the warning. as I now read it to my companion. The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life. Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. It must be that, I suppose, said he. This is worse than death, for it means disgrace as well. But what is the meaning of these,

headkeepers and hen pheasants. It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has begun by writing The Game Is, and so on. Afterwards, he had to fulfil the pre-arranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space.

He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddows? Why, now that you mention it, said he. I remember that my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves every autumn. Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes, said I. It only remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respected men. Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame, cried my friend.

But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told the doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength nor the courage to do it myself. These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I will read them to you as I read them in the old study that night to him. They are endorsed outside, as you see, some particulars of the voyage of the bark, glorious Scott, from my own. her leaving Falmouth on the 8th of October 1855 to her destruction in north latitude 15 degrees

20 west longitude 25 degrees 14 on November the 6th it is in the form of a letter and runs in this way my dear dear son now that approaching disgrace begins to darken the closing years of my life I can write with all truth and honesty that it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have known me which cuts me to the heart. But it is the thought that you should come to blush for me. You who love me and who have seldom, I hope, had reason to do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is forever hanging over me, then I should wish you to read this that you may know straight from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all should go well, which may kind God Almighty grant,

then if by any chance this paper should be still undestroyed and should fall into your hands, I conjure you by all you hold sacred. by the memory of your dear mother and by the love which had been between us, to hurl it into the fire and to never give one thought to it again. If then your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or, as is more likely, for you know that my heart is weak, by lying with my tongue sealed forever in death.

In either case, the time for suppression is past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth, and this I swear as I hope for mercy. My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my younger days, and you can understand how the shock that it was to me a few weeks ago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to imply, that he had surmised my secret. As Armitage, it was that I entered a London banking house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my country's laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so-called, which I had to pay,

and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill luck pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now, and on my twenty-third birthday, I found myself cheap. chained as a felon, with 37 other convicts in twine decks of the bark, glorious Scott, bound for Australia. Next time on Sherlock Holmes short stories, a dying man's final message leads homes to a long-forgotten shipwreck, and a shocking tale of violence at sea. And as a hidden past comes to light,

the great detective uncovers the truth behind the mysterious sailor, the coded letter, and the fatal terror it unleashed. That's next time. Can't wait a week until the next episode, well, listen to it right away by subscribing to Noyser Plus. Head to www.com slash subscriptions for more information, or click the link in the episode description. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer.

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