The Golden Glasses

by Arthur Conan Doyle

(Adapted book. Pre-Intermediate level)

Sherlock Holmes and I worked on many cases in 1894, but this was one of the most interesting.

It was a very stormy night near the end of November. Sherlock Holmes and I were reading by the fire. It was late, and most people were already in bed.

Holmes put down his book and said, ‘I’m glad that we don’t have to go out tonight, Watson.’

‘I am too,’ I replied.

Then, above the sound of the wind and the rain, I heard something outside the house. I went to the window and looked out into the darkness.

‘Someone is coming here,’ I said.

‘Who can it be, at this hour?’ Holmes answered.

We soon learned who our visitor was. It was Stanley Hopkins, a young detective from Scotland Yard. Holmes and I were sometimes able to help him with his cases.

‘Sit down by the fire,’ said Holmes. ‘It’s so cold and wet tonight. Have you got an interesting case for me?’

‘Yes, I have,’ the detective replied. ‘Have you seen the newspapers this evening, Mr Holmes?’

‘No,’ said Holmes. 'I’ve been busy with a book.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Hopkins said. ‘There were only a few facts in the papers. The case is very new - the police at Yoxley only sent for me this afternoon.’

‘Where is Yoxley?’ I asked.

‘It’s in Kent,’ he replied. ‘It’s a very small place. I thought it was going to be an easy case. Now it seems very difficult. A man is dead. But I really don’t know why anyone wanted to kill him.’

‘Tell me everything,’ said Sherlock Holmes.

‘Yoxley Old Place is a large house in the country, near a small village,’ said the detective. ‘About ten years ago an old man, Professor Coram, came to live there. He was ill, and walked with a stick. After a few months, his neighbours became friendly with him, but they didn’t often visit his house. They say he’s very clever. He spends most of his time working with his books. He has a gardener, Mortimer, and two servants. The cook is Mrs Marker and the other servant is Susan Tarleton. They’re good servants, and they’ve been with him for a long time.

‘The professor is writing a book. About a year ago, he decided to employ a secretary. A man came, but he wasn’t very good and he didn’t stay very long. A second man came. He was called Smith. He became a good friend and helper to the professor. They worked together every day, and the book’s nearly finished. But now the young man is dead. And I think someone killed him.

‘As I said before, very few people visit the house. The people in the house don’t go out very often either. Old Mortimer lives in a little house in the garden.

‘Yoxley Old Place is near the London road. A visitor can easily go through the garden gate to the house, get in and escape quite quickly.

‘I spoke to Susan Tarleton, the servant girl. She was working in one of the bedrooms between eleven and twelve o’clock this morning. Professor Coram was still in bed; he often gets up late. Smith was in his bedroom, reading a book. After a few minutes she heard him go down to the professor’s study. Suddenly she heard a very loud cry. She ran down to the room. She found Mr Smith lying on the floor. He was nearly dead. There was blood on his neck, and a lot more on the floor.

‘Mr Smith said a few words in a weak voice before he died. Susan Tarleton thinks he said, “The professor - it was she.”

‘I spoke to the cook next. She arrived in the room after Mr Smith died. The two women quickly went to the professor’s bedroom. He was still in bed. He, too, heard the loud cry, but he can’t get out of bed without help. Mortimer has to help him get up at twelve o’clock every day.

‘I spoke to the professor. He can’t think of any reason why Mr Smith was killed.

‘Mortimer got the police, and they sent for me. When I arrived, I told everyone not to walk on the garden path. Nothing in the house was moved either.

‘I think that someone very clever came to the house this morning. There were no footprints on the garden path. But I saw signs that someone walked along the grass near the path. That person didn’t want anyone to know about his or her visit to the house.

‘I went to the study and looked at Mr Smith’s body. There was a small knife on the floor. I think he was killed with that. It’s the professor’s, and he always kept it on the table in that room. And we found these.’

He gave Holmes a pair of glasses. Holmes took them and looked at them very carefully. After a few minutes, he took a piece of paper and wrote something on it. Then he gave it to Stanley Hopkins. Hopkins read the note.

‘Look for a woman who has plenty of money. She wears good clothes, has a thick nose, and her eyes are close together. She looks closely at things. She has probably visited an optician more than twice during the last two months. Her glasses are unusually strong, and quite expensive. There are not many good opticians in London, so you can find her name easily.’

The detective was surprised when he read this. I was too. Holmes looked at our faces and laughed.

‘Glasses can tell us many things about the people who wear them,’ he said. ‘These glasses belong to a woman - they’re very pretty. Mr Smith said “it was she” before he died. That, too, tells me that a woman was there. She has money and likes good things. Why? Because the glasses are made of gold. And they’re made for a thick nose, and eyes that are close together.’

‘But how did you know that she looks closely at things? And about her visits to the optician?’ I asked.

Holmes replied, ‘These glasses are very strong, so the woman has very weak eyes. People with very weak eyes always look closely at things to see them better. And the optician? It’s clear that the glasses were mended twice, at different times. Can you see here? The gold is very new and yellow. Here it’s a little older.’ Hopkins said, ‘You’re always so clever, Mr Holmes. You know more about this case than I do now. And you’ve never been to Yoxley Old Place! Will you and Dr Watson come there with me tomorrow?’

We both said yes. We had to catch the train at six o’clock next morning. So Holmes asked Stanley Hopkins to stay with us for the night.

* * *

The next day the weather was better, but it was still very cold. We took the train to a small town near Chatham. We had breakfast there before we continued to Yoxley Old Place.

A policeman was waiting for us at the garden gate. Stanley Hopkins asked him some questions, but there was no new information.

Hopkins said to Holmes, ‘Here’s the garden path, Mr Holmes. You can see that there are no footprints on it.’

‘Which side were the prints on the grass?’ asked Holmes.

‘Here,’ said Hopkins, pointing to one side of the path.

‘The grass is very narrow here,’ said Holmes. ‘Yes, I can see that someone has walked on it. Is this the only way to get from the road to the house?’

‘Yes,’ said the detective. ‘I’m sure that it is.’

‘So did the lady come back this way too?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘That was very clever of her,’ said Holmes. ‘She needed to walk very carefully, as she has weak eyes. Well, I’ve seen everything that I want to see in the garden. Let’s go into the house. The door to the garden is always open, so she could get in easily,’ Holmes continued. ‘I don’t think she planned to kill anyone. She didn’t bring a knife or a gun. She used the professor’s knife from the table.’

We went into the house and Holmes said, ‘She came down this passage, but she didn’t make any footprints on the floor. Then she came into this room. How long was she here? Do you know?’

‘She was only here for a few minutes, Mr Holmes,’ replied Hopkins. ‘The cook cleaned in here only a quarter of an hour before Mr Smith was killed.’

‘Good,’ Holmes said. ‘So she wasn’t here for more than fifteen minutes. She went to that cupboard by the table. It’s the only piece of furniture in here with a lock on it. If there’s anything important in the room, it’s in there.’

He went down on his knees and looked at the door of the cupboard. Then he stood up, and said, ‘Look!’ He pointed at the door. ‘There’s a small mark near the keyhole. Why didn’t you tell me about this, Hopkins?’

‘I didn’t think it was important,’ said the detective. ‘There are always marks by keyholes.’

‘I know,’ said Holmes. ‘But this mark is very new. I think it was only made yesterday. Is Mrs Marker here?’

‘Yes,’ said Hopkins. ‘I’ll call her.’

A sad-faced woman of about fifty came into the room. She was Professor Coram’s cook. She also helped to clean his house.

Sherlock Holmes asked her to look at the mark by the keyhole. ‘Tell me, Mrs Marker,’ he said, ‘did you see this mark when you cleaned the room yesterday?’

‘No, sir, I didn’t.’

‘I’m sure that you didn’t,’ said Holmes. ‘I think that Mr Smith’s killer made it. Who has the key to this lock, Mrs Marker? ’

‘The professor has it,’ she replied. ‘He keeps it in his room with him.’

Holmes’s next question was, ‘Is it an ordinary key?’

‘No, sir,’ she replied. ‘That’s a very strong lock. It’s a special kind of key.’

Holmes thanked Mrs Marker, and she left the room. Then he said to us, ‘Now we know what happened. The lady came into this room. She went to the cupboard, and tried to open it. Smith came in while she was doing that. She quickly tried to take the key out of the lock. She made that mark because she was in a hurry. Smith went to her, and she picked up the knife. He held her. As she tried to get free, she dropped her glasses. He was too strong for her, so she used the knife. He fell to the floor, and she ran out of the room without her glasses.

‘There are two passages outside. One goes to the back door. The other goes to the professor’s room, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Hopkins. ‘There’s no way out of the house along the second passage.’

‘Let’s go and see the professor now,’ said Holmes.

We went down the passage to the professor’s room.

Holmes looked at the walls and floor of the passage, and said,

‘What do you notice about this passage that’s strange?’

‘Nothing,’ said Stanley Hopkins. ‘It is just like the other one.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Holmes. ‘The walls and floor are exactly the same colours as in the other passage.’

‘Is that important?’ asked the detective.

‘Possibly,’ replied Holmes. ‘But I am not sure about that yet.’ We went into the professor’s room. It was a very large room, and the walls were covered with books. There were too many books, so some of them were lying on the floor in front of the shelves. The professor’s bed was in the middle of the room, and the professor was lying in it. He had white hair and a big white beard, but the beard was dirty and yellow near his mouth. He was smoking a cigarette. Like his beard, his hand was yellow from cigarettes. The room smelt strongly of cigarette smoke. There were boxes of cigarettes everywhere.

The professor said, ‘Do you smoke, Mr Holmes? These are very good cigarettes; I smoke a lot of them. I’m happy when I’m smoking. I can’t walk easily, so I can’t go out. I only have my work and my cigarettes. Now Smith is dead and I can’t even work. He was a good young man; he helped me a lot. I’m sorry about what has happened to him - very sorry.’

Holmes took a cigarette and lit it. He walked round the room while he smoked it. The professor continued talking.

‘I’m happy that you’ve come, Mr Holmes. I’m sure that you’ll be able to help us.’

I noticed that Holmes was smoking more quickly than usual. He smoked four cigarettes while the professor talked.

The professor told us about his work - he was writing a history of Egypt.

‘I’m old now,’ he said. ‘My work is my only happiness. My work and my cigarettes. I can see that you like them, too, Mr Holmes. They’re very special cigarettes. They’re sent to me from Egypt. I smoke too much, I know. But sir, you smoke even faster than I do!’

At last the professor stopped talking.

Holmes then said, ‘You were in bed when Smith was killed. So I know that you don’t know anything. But can you tell me what his last words meant? “The professor - it was she.” ’

‘No, I can’t,’ said the professor. ‘But Susan Tarleton is only a girl. Perhaps she didn’t listen carefully. I’m sure that he wasn’t speaking clearly. Remember, he was dying!’

‘Can you think of any reason for his death?’ was Holmes’s next question.

‘Well, Mr Holmes,’ said the professor. ‘I’ll say this only to you, because it’s not very nice. I think he killed himself. I think he was in love. He had some glasses that belonged to a woman. Perhaps he loved her very much, but she didn’t love him. People sometimes kill themselves for that reason.’

Holmes looked surprised at that idea. He thought deeply about it. He walked up and down the room silently. At last he spoke to the professor again.

‘What’s in the cupboard in the room where Smith died?’ he asked.

‘Nothing for a thief, Mr Holmes,’ the professor replied. ‘Just papers and letters from my poor wife. She’s dead now. You can look in the cupboard if you want to. Here’s the key.’

Holmes took the key and looked at it. Then he said, ‘No, I don’t think I need to look in the cupboard. Perhaps you’re right about Smith, Professor Coram. I’ll think about your idea. Perhaps I’ll have an answer for you after lunch. I’ll come to you again after two o’clock. I’m sure that you need to rest.’ The professor looked pleased when Holmes said this. He said,

‘Yes, I am tired. I want to be alone now. Please don’t come here until two o’clock.’

Holmes and I walked in the garden. Holmes didn’t seem very happy or interested in the case. I asked him, ‘Do you think that you can find the answer now?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he replied. ‘But I’m interested in the cigarettes that I smoked.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘You’ll see later,’ he said. ‘Now, here comes Mrs Marker. I’ll talk to her again for five minutes.’

He began talking to the cook. ‘You probably don’t cook much for the professor, do you?’ he asked. ‘Smokers like him don’t usually eat much.’

‘Sometimes he eats a lot, sometimes only a little,’ she said.

‘And today?’ Holmes asked. ‘I saw him smoke a lot of cigarettes. I’m sure that he didn’t want any breakfast today.’

‘You’re wrong, sir!’ the cook replied. ‘He had a large breakfast, and then he asked for a large lunch. I was surprised. When I heard about poor Mr Smith’s death, I didn’t want to eat anything. The professors a strange man.’

After this, Holmes did not talk very much. He listened to Susan, the servant, without asking questions. She told him about Mr Smith’s visit to the village on the morning before his death.

At two o’clock, Holmes said to the young detective, ‘Now we must go and see the professor again.’

* * *

The old man’s lunch was finished. The food was gone, and his plate was clean. He was sitting on a chair, and he was already smoking another cigarette.

‘Well, Mr Holmes,’ he said. ‘Have you solved this case?’

He pushed his box of cigarettes towards Holmes. Holmes put out his hand to take one. But he knocked the box off the table, and the cigarettes fell on the floor.

Holmes got down on the floor and picked them up. Then he stood up and said to Professor Coram, ‘Yes, I’ve solved it!’

‘Really?’ said Professor Coram. ‘Where did you find the answer? In the garden?’ His face was angry as he spoke to Holmes.

‘No,’ said my friend. ‘The answer is here in your bedroom!’

‘And when did you find this answer?’

‘Two minutes ago,’ said Holmes.

Then the professor said, ‘You’re not being serious, Mr Holmes. This is an important case - Smith is dead. Please don’t joke about it.’

‘I’m not joking,’ said Holmes. ‘I am sure about what I know. I don’t know everything yet. But I know that you’ve done something bad. I’ll tell you what I think.

‘Yesterday, a lady came into your house and went into your study She had a key to the cupboard. It was a new key, with a sharp point, and it made a mark near the lock. There’s no sharp point on your key, Professor. I noticed that when you gave it to me this morning. She didn’t use your key. And you didn’t know that she was in the house. She came here, as a thief, to steal something from the cupboard.’

‘This is all very interesting,’ said Coram. ‘But can’t you tell us more? What happened to this lady after that?’

‘I’ll try to tell you,’ replied Holmes. ‘Your secretary came into the room and found her there, and she killed him. I think his death was a mistake. She didn’t plan to kill anybody. I know that because she didn’t bring her own knife.

‘She lost her glasses in the fight, but she had to run away quickly. Her eyes were not good and she made a second mistake. She went down the wrong passage. It was an easy mistake, because both passages have floors and walls of the same colour. She didn’t go to the outside door - she came to your room, Professor.’

‘Do you mean that she came in here? She came in here and I didn’t even see her?’ cried the professor. His face was white.

‘No, I don’t mean that. She came in here and you did see her! ’ said Holmes. ‘I think you knew her. You spoke to her and helped her.’

The professor laughed loudly. ‘You’re mad, Mr Holmes, mad! Where is this woman now?’

Holmes pointed at one of the walls. ‘She’s there, behind the bookshelves! ’ he said.

We all looked at the shelves that he was pointing to. We could only see books. Then the shelves began to move. The wall was opening like a door. The professor cried out loudly as a woman came into the room.

‘Yes,’ she said in a strange voice. ‘I’m here!’

‘You must come with me,’ Hopkins said to her.

‘I will not try to escape,’ the woman replied. ‘You know that I killed Smith. I have not got very much time, but I want to tell you about this man.’

She pointed at the professor. ‘He is not English - he is Russian. I will not tell you his name, because that is not important.’

Professor Coram seemed a little happier when she said this. He replied, ‘Thank you, Anna, thank you.’

She looked at him angrily. ‘Why do you want to live?’ she asked him. ‘Your life is nothing - you are an animal!’

She turned to us again. ‘I am this man’s wife,’ she continued. ‘We lived in a city in Russia. 1 will not tell you the name of that city.’

Again the old man said, ‘Thank you, Anna.’

‘We were revolutionaries,’ she said. ‘We were fighting to make our country a better place. We had friends who were also revolutionaries. The police wanted to catch us and send us to prison - or kill us.’

‘We decided to kill a policeman. We wanted to show people that we were strong. One day one of us did kill a policeman. The police could not catch us, so they offered a lot of money for the name of the killer.’

‘My husband told the police the name of the killer. He got the money. All the other revolutionaries were caught. Some of us were killed, and some of us were sent to prison. I was lucky; I was only sent to prison for ten years.’

‘One young revolutionary, Alexis, did not want us to kill the policeman. He tried to stop us. He wrote letters to me about it. But my husband hid those letters because he wanted Alexis to die. Alexis was lucky - he did not die. But he went to prison for a very long time. He is in prison now, and he will stay there for another twenty years.’

She looked at the professor very angrily and said, ‘Yes, he is in prison, and you are free. You animal!’

The woman’s face was white. She looked weak and ill. ‘I must finish what I am saying quickly,’ she said. ‘I came out of prison last year. I wanted to get the letters that Alexis wrote to me. If the government in Russia sees them, they will know about Alexis. They will know that he tried to stop the killing of the policeman. Then they will let him out of prison.

‘I came to England to find my husband. I did not know where he was living. I spent a long time finding Yoxley Old Place. When I found his new home, I sent a man here. He was the first secretary, the man who worked here before Smith. He found out where the letters were kept. He got a key for me. But then my husband asked him to leave.

‘So I had to come here. When I was coming to the house, I met Mr Smith. I did not know that he worked for my husband. I asked him the way to Professor Coram’s house.’

‘Yes,’ said Holmes. ‘I think he told the professor about your conversation. That’s why he said, “The professor - it was she.” It was a message for Professor Coram about you. The killer was the woman that he spoke to that morning.’

‘I must have your permission to speak,’ said the woman. Her face was even whiter than before. ‘I did not want to kill Smith. I used the knife because it was the only thing on the table. It was the first thing that I saw. I ran out of the room, but I lost my glasses. I could not see. I came down the wrong passage, into this room.’

‘My husband was frightened and angry when he saw me. He wanted to call the police. But I knew that he could not do that. He did not want other revolutionaries to know his address. I wanted to escape because of Alexis. And my husband wanted me to escape because he was afraid of my friends.’

‘He decided to hide me from the police. There is a secret place behind the bookshelves. Only he knew about it. I stayed there for many hours. He took large meals and gave me food. He talked to me about leaving. When the police left, I could go. He promised to say nothing.’

The woman took a small packet from her dress and gave it to Holmes. ‘I must finish,’ she said strangely. ‘These are my last words. Here is the packet of letters that will save Alexis. Take it! You are a good man. You will make sure that it gets to the Russian Embassy in London. There is nothing more ...’

‘Stop her!’ cried Holmes. As she fell to the floor, he jumped to her side. He took a small bottle from her hand.

‘Too late,’ she said. ‘Too late! I took the poison before I left my hiding place. Please, sir, remember the packet!’

* * *

Soon we were able to catch the train back to London. Holmes said to us as we were travelling, ‘That wasn’t really a difficult case, but the glasses were important. I couldn’t solve the case without them. It was clear to me that the woman’s eyes were very weak. So when she lost her glasses, she couldn’t see well.

‘There were no marks on the path, and she couldn’t run straight along the grass without her glasses. It’s too narrow. So I knew that she never left the house.

‘It was her first visit to the house, and she made a mistake. The two passages are nearly the same, and she went down the wrong one. There’s no door from the professor’s room to the garden.

‘I thought that perhaps she was still in the professor’s room. But where?

‘I looked at the floor. It was very strong. I didn’t think that there were any secret places under it. Then I looked at the bookshelves. You can often find a secret place behind them in old houses. There were books all over the floor except in one place. Maybe there was a secret door there, I thought.

‘I smoked a lot of cigarettes, knocking the ash on the floor in that place. When the woman came out for food, her feet made marks in the ash. Then I was sure that the woman was there.’

Our train was now arriving in London.

‘Well. Hopkins,’ said Holmes, ‘here we are at Charing Cross station. I know that you must go to Scotland Yard. But Watson and I must go to another place. We have some papers, and we must take them to the Russian Embassy.’

- THE END -

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