Showing results by narrator "David Ian Davies" in All Categories

Holmes and Watson arrive at Trinity college, summoned by an message that Cambridge Varsity rugby star Godfrey Staunton has disappeared after reading a note that has left him utterly stunned.

Young John McFarland is accused of the violent murder of a man who has just left all his worldly goods to the accused in his will. The evidence against the great detective’s client mounts and Holmes candidly admits to Watson that, perhaps, the case Lestrade is building is as sound as Holmes believes it is untrue.

Sherlock Holmes first regards the experiences related by newly arrived visitor Violet Smith with a degree of impatience and disinterest. This solitary cyclist, however, is being shadowed by a mysterious man on a bicycle as she travels to and from her new employer's home as a music teacher. As Holmes and Watson investigate, a dark, dangerous picture begins to emerge that threatens the young lady's safety and ultimately her freedom.

In desperation, Holmes is asked to rescue the kidnapped only son of the Duke of Holdernesse. Motivated by greed and jealousy, the criminal in this classic Sherlock Holmes mystery causes a far greater tragedy than mere kidnapping.

A precious stone with a history of murders and violence behind it is discovered in the crop of a Christmas goose after being reported stolen yet again, from its owner's jewel case, and the guilt placed upon a plumber who protests his innocence.

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone - In this entry from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the master detective is on the trail of the stolen crown jewel known as the Mazarin Stone. Knowing his activity on the case makes him a target for murder, Sherlock Holmes is preparing a ruse to smoke out the suspected thief. To his surprise, however, his quarry - a renowned big game hunter - comes directly to him, and as Watson slips away to get the police, an impromptu game of cat and mouse ensues.

A Case of Identity - Miss Mary Sutherland, angry and beside herself with feelings of loss, asks Sherlock Holmes to solve the sudden, mysterious disappearance of a shy and attentive man she has grown to love upon the very day they were to be married.

The Adventure of the Creeping Man: The strange behavior of a family dog towards its master brings Holmes into a case involving the increasingly odd and disturbing behavior of the man himself, a respected professor.

The Problem of Thor Bridge: A love triangle culminates in the shooting death of the wife and murder charges against the household's beautiful governess. The arrogant, combative husband seeks the services of Sherlock Holmes to clear the young lady in question. The case appears cut and dried, 'til a stroke of insight leads the detective to the solution to the perplexing evidence.

The Adventure of the Retired Colourman: Sherlock Holmes begins to suspect there is more to the story of a depressed, pathetic client, sent to Holmes by Scotland Yard, than the man would have anyone know.

When Pyecroft, an obese man who cannot stop eating, becomes a member at the club H.G. belongs to, his corpulence becomes a disturbance and a distraction. Soon, Pyecroft gets wind of the fact that H.G. has some mystical weight loss remedies given to him by his grandmother, and he begs H.G. to let him have one.

Death at the Excelsior is the first, and only, PI mystery P.G. Wodehouse wrote. This comprehensive story from Wodehouse is a perfect introduction to his unique style.

Seed-merchant employee Roland Bleke finds his romance with girlfriend Muriel becoming ever more complicated. Knowing his growing wages will cause her family members to demand Bleke marry her so that they can leech off her new husband's money, he successfully hides this fact until his winning the £40,000 prize of a sweepstake is publicized in a local newspaper.

In this brief yet eloquent story, the writer recounts his trip from Europe to California visit to an old friend, during which he hears a tapping on the wall to an adjoining apartment. With regret, his friend tells the story of his coldhearted, selfish denial of his love for a young lady.

Edgar Allan Poe's tale of Hop-Frog, the practical-joke-loving king's crippled dwarf servant, draws upon Poe's affinity for tales of vengeance and the horrific. The fat king and his seven ministers treat Hop-Frog and his female friend Trippetta, who is also a dwarf but beautifully proportioned, with disrespect whenever the king loses his temper. As long as the king and the likewise raucous seven are about their merriment and Hop-Frog joins them in their 'play', all is well. But beneath this lightness, the King has a dark and violent nature.

H. P. Lovecraft's "The Hound" is the tale of two dark-minded men whose hobby is robbing crypts and graves, collecting "souvenirs" such as headstones and skulls from the decayed corpses for private exhibition in the house they share. Stealing a cursed jade amulet from the skeletal remains of a Dutchman who was himself a legendary graverobbing ghoul, they find themselves pursued back to their 'museum' by an unseen hound, whose distant baying comes from the distance. At this point the story takes ever darker directions....

When a mysterious female visitor leaves her hat with a message at the door of Mrs. Hudson, Holmes and Watson find themselves always one or more steps behind a thief who leaves intriguing messages and challenges the great detective, again and again, to apprehend her. Though the clues are there, they leave Holmes completely baffled.

Six brothers have been turned into swans by their evil stepmother. They can only take their human forms for 15 minutes every evening. In order to free them, their sister must make six shirts out of starwort for her brothers, and neither speak nor laugh for six years.

As the visitor to Lorraine Castle tells its two elderly caretakers, he does not believe in ghosts and will prove it by spending the night in the Red Room. Their parting words to him are that he is doing it by his own choosing. He moves away, smug with confidence. But as he ascends the spiral stairs with a single candle, what he senses around him begins to fill him with a growing, unnamable fear.

Egbert Craddock Cummins, now dramatic critic to the Fiery Cross, is in a quandary. What happens when you are so suggestible that you take on the characteristics of your surroundings and begin losing your own identity? H. G. Wells explores his hidden, but rapidly growing, dilemma with great humor.