The Case of the Abandoned Overcoat

0:00 A Raw December Evening and a Telephone Directory

0:04 Watson: It was the raw December of nineteen eighty-seven, and London smelt of wet leaves and gunpowder. Sunday evening, the sixth; the boys of Baker Street were letting off bangers left over from Guy Fawkes. My surgery had kept me late all week; Holmes had kept to the sofa. Tonight he had propped the London telephone directory against the bookcase and was firing his revolver into it. I was counting the holes.

0:30 Holmes: One more bang on a night like this passes unremarked. Watson: Into the directory, Holmes. You've shot the Smiths.

0:38 Holmes: All of them? Watson: Most. And the plaster behind.

0:43 Holmes: Again. Not one curtain twitched across the road. Watson: I've lost count of the holes. I suspect that was the plan.

0:51 Holmes: Counting is bookkeeping. This is demonstration. Mrs Hudson: That wasn't a banger, and I know it!

0:59 Watson: Mrs Hudson remarked it, Holmes. Holmes: One witness in all London. The theory stands.

1:13 Watson: Baker Street. Rutherford: Doctor Watson? Rutherford, Washington police, Foxhall -- I tried your surgery first.

1:21 Watson: You sound as though you're down a well, Inspector Rutherford. Rutherford: Bottom of the Atlantic, Doc. Is your Mr Holmes about?

1:28 Holmes: At your elbow. Proceed. Rutherford: A young man named Kemp landed at Heathrow tonight looking for you.

1:34 Holmes: For me by name? Rutherford: By name. He's in trouble over Saturday night in Foxhall, and he won't talk to anyone else.

1:43 Watson: Is that the whole of— Rutherford: The whole of what my department can afford at these rates. Good night.

1:50 Watson: Well! Holmes: Foxhall is the Inspector's district, Watson, not mine. Watson: He seems to have posted it across the ocean regardless.

1:59 Holmes: A man running from his troubles wants a hole to hide in. And his embassy is in Grosvenor Square. Watson: Yet a young American in trouble flies the Atlantic to a stranger in Baker Street, sooner than walk into his own embassy. It's queer, that's all...

2:14 Holmes: A taxi from Heathrow would set him on its doorstep. Watson: And instead he asks for you. That isn't hiding.

2:21 Holmes: No. I grant you that. The Smiths have suffered enough. Tell Mrs Hudson I'll pay the plasterer. Your hat, Watson.

2:29 Watson: I left the riddled directory on the hall table with an apology, and followed him out into the bangers and the dark.

2:41 Chez Marcel and a Coat on a Chair

2:46 Watson: We flew the Atlantic with Kemp, who told us on the way that the man she had lost was a Soviet defector named Danilov; by the next evening Holmes sat in his chair at Chez Marcel, in Foxhall, while a waitress called Lorraine served. Lorraine: Pig's feet, house style. Same as your Russian had, honey.

3:03 Kemp: Thanks, Lorraine. He sat right there, Mr Holmes. Back to the wall.

3:09 Holmes: And his coat hung on this chair, behind me. Kemp: Over the back. Gray wool. I picked it out for him myself.

3:17 Watson: Inspector Rutherford promised us a young man. I confess I stared at you across half the Atlantic. Kemp: Kemp on a cable reads like a man. Saves everybody a meeting.

3:29 Watson: Ah. Holmes: What did he say when he rose? His words, not yours.

3:35 Kemp: He put down his fork and said, "I am going for a walk." Calm as— calm as Sunday. Holmes: He asked your leave, then.

3:43 Kemp: He didn't ask, sir. He told me. Then he was out the door.

3:48 Holmes: He told you, and you let him— Kemp: Defectors aren't prisoners! My orders were to give him air.

3:54 Watson: Without his coat, on a raw night? Kemp: That's why I didn't worry. Who walks off and leaves his coat?

4:01 Holmes: A man who wants you to think he's coming back. Kemp: Then I raised the alarm. At once. I— right away. Telephone, Agency, police, the works.

4:11 Lorraine: More bread, honey? Kitchen closes in an hour. Kemp: No... thank you.

4:17 Holmes: And Langley believed you? Kemp: Langley heard it eleven times, then suspended me. They can't even get me right. At Langley I'm the boy who lost a Russian over pig's feet.

4:31 Walking the Defector's Route Uphill

4:35 Watson: Holmes insisted on walking the defector's route himself, his overcoat over my arm, up the long climb of Wisconsin Avenue with Inspector Rutherford grumbling beside him. Rutherford: You'll catch your death, Mr Holmes. Free advice.

4:49 Holmes: I want to feel what he felt, Inspector. Rutherford: Hope he felt warm, because my men sure didn't. Agency calls Saturday night: he's despondent, he may jump. So I've got boats dragging the canal till dawn.

5:04 Holmes: They feared he'd drown himself. Then they knew him for an unhappy man. Rutherford: They knew squat. He was up the hill eating borscht while my guys froze.

5:14 Watson: A mile uphill on a heavy dinner, coatless. A man his age would arrive blowing. Rutherford: My man on the corner says he walked in fresh as you please.

5:24 Holmes: Cabs pass every minute on this road. He took none. Rutherford: Couldn't. His wallet was in the coat.

5:30 Holmes: No money, no coat, and still he never once turned downhill toward the river and the lights. He knew where he was going. Rutherford: Here she is, the Soviet compound. He walked in there on his own two feet.

5:45 Watson: Good heavens.

5:49 Two Rooms Above a Dry Cleaner's

5:52 Watson: Kemp's flat was two rooms above a dry cleaner's on P Street, and a letter from Langley lay open on her kitchen table. Kemp: Suspension pending inquiry. Read it, Doctor. Everybody else has.

6:06 Watson: Signed by a man who couldn't trouble to spell your name. Kemp: Nobody at Langley spells it right this week... Holmes: The paper, Miss Kemp. The one from his coat.

6:17 Kemp: I went through every pocket afterward. It was folded in the inside one. Holmes: Read me the printed side. Aloud.

6:25 Kemp: Not the Russian? Holmes: Presently. The print first.

6:30 Kemp: It's a lunch bill. It says two covers, forty-two fifty at the Carriage Room, Monday the thirtieth. Watson: The Carriage Room?

6:39 Kemp: Dining room at the Ritz-Carlton, Massachusetts Avenue. Senators and lobbyists. Holmes: Danilov never set foot in it, I take it.

6:48 Kemp: Never. He went nowhere we didn't drive him. Holmes: Then the paper came to him. He didn't fetch it.

6:56 Kemp: Or somebody stuck it in that pocket later. That coat hung in a lot of hallways. Holmes: Fair. Who lunches in such a room?

7:04 Kemp: Half of Washington lunches there on somebody else's money. Holmes: Indeed.

7:10 Closing Time, Chairs Up on the Tables

7:14 Watson: Holmes left Kemp at her door and brought me back to the restaurant, where Lorraine was turning chairs up onto the tables under the last light over the bar. Lorraine: We're closed, gentlemen. Unless you're buying the bottle.

7:26 Holmes: One question only, Lorraine. Your telephone lives behind the bar? Lorraine: Under it. I pass it over the top when somebody asks nice.

7:35 Holmes: Then you'll remember when the young lady asked for it on Saturday. Lorraine: Honey, Saturday I had forty covers and a Russian walking out on his check. Watson: He left without paying?

7:47 Lorraine: Government paid it next day. Fella in a raincoat. Holmes: You remember the check. You'll remember the telephone.

7:54 Lorraine: She asked for it a good half hour after he went out. Watson: She told us she raised the alarm at once. Lorraine: Then she told you wrong. And you didn't hear it from me.

8:05 Holmes: You timed her. So it was her you were watching. Lorraine: I watch everybody, mister. That's the job.

8:13 Holmes: Where was she, those thirty— Lorraine: Ask her. I got chairs to stack.

8:18 Watson: Half an hour, Holmes. Time enough to walk a mile.

8:23 Dripping Pines Out in Virginia

8:22 Holmes: Ample.

8:27 Watson: Among dripping pines an hour out in Virginia, Mr Garrett received us at the very table where he had questioned the defector; Kemp came under orders. Garrett: Garrett. That's Agency coffee, Mr Holmes. I don't recommend it.

8:43 Holmes: You questioned him at this table? Garrett: Three months of it. I spent more hours with that man than his wife did. And everybody in this building has a view. Danilov was a dangle. Moscow sent him in.

8:56 Holmes: He gave you two traitors. An expensive gift. Garrett: Spent ones. One had already skipped to Moscow, and the other was small change, about to fall anyhow.

9:08 Watson: Hm. Holmes: So Moscow lost nothing and bought a look inside your house. Garrett: Three months of our questions. Every one tells them what we know. Then Saturday he gets his cue and strolls home crying kidnap.

9:23 Watson: It hangs together uncommonly well, Holmes. Holmes: Miss Kemp stands. Someone has told her she's no longer—

9:30 Garrett: Suspended, Mr Holmes, not shot. Sit down, Kemp. Kemp: I'll stand, sir.

9:36 Garrett: You gave Mr Holmes your statement? Kemp: Same as I gave you, sir. Garrett: Nobody here could have held him once Moscow called. Not Kemp. Not me. I blame a system that hands a dangle a twenty-six-year-old and a nice restaurant. It's in my report.

9:52 Holmes: And if he was never a plant at— Garrett: Then he walked out on the best deal of his life. Which is likelier? Go home, Mr Holmes. He was never ours.

10:02 Reporters at the Soviet Gate

10:06 Watson: By afternoon reporters besieged the Soviet gate, Rutherford's men held them behind a rope, and inside the bars, in a borrowed overcoat, stood Danilov. Rutherford: Back of the rope, folks! One question, Mr Holmes, then I've got a riot.

10:20 Holmes: Mr Danilov. Why did you leave your coat on the chair? Danilov: You cross an ocean to ask me of a coat?

10:28 Holmes: You walked a mile in the cold rather than— Danilov: It was bought for me. Everything in America was bought for me...

10:34 Holmes: Then you left it to be rid of them. It had nothing to do with your escort. Danilov: Your young lady was kind. I fooled— I fooled nobody.

10:44 Holmes: Then tell me what was done to you. Danilov: I was drugged and kidnapped in Lisbon. They held me three months. Now I go home to my Rodina.

10:53 Holmes: You say so with two of your countrymen at your— Danilov: I say what happened, Mr Holmes. Good day.

10:59 Rutherford: Every reporter here got the same: drugged and kidnapped, word for word, like he learned it off a card. Watson: He said it as a schoolboy says his catechism. Holmes: Or as a man says the only thing he's permitted to say.

11:14 Watson: Then was Danilov Moscow's man from the very first, Holmes, or...

11:19 Packing Up the Defector's Room

11:23 Watson: At dusk Garrett took us upstairs in the Virginia house to the room where the defector had slept, and Kemp, under orders, was packing his things into cartons. Garrett: Home sweet home, Mr Holmes. Seen one Agency bedroom, you've seen them all.

11:39 Holmes: Not a photograph, not a letter, not a book of his own. He never meant to stay. Kemp: There were two books, sir. Both ours. Tolstoy and a Sears catalogue.

11:51 Holmes: Borrowed, then. My point stands, somewhat dented. Garrett: Inventory, Kemp. Anything out of the ordinary goes on the sheet.

12:00 Kemp: Six shirts, one razor, a radio he never turned on. And from Tuesday on he— he slept with a chair wedged under his door. The legs gouged the floor.

12:11 Holmes: Did he. Garrett: Put the floor down too. Housekeeping bills us for every scratch.

12:18 Watson: I keep hearing Rutherford at that gate, Holmes. Drugged and kidnapped, word for word, to every— Garrett: It's the line Moscow hands them all for the trip home.

12:27 Watson: I've sat with men in casualty after a real shock. Not one tells it the same way twice. They lose the thread and start again.

12:36 Holmes: And Danilov never lost it once. Watson: Because he'd learned it. Like a lesson. He's a plant, exactly as Mr Garrett says.

12:45 Holmes: A frightened man improvises; a trained man recites. Very well. I'm with you, Mr Garrett.

12:52 Kemp: Shall I tape the boxes, sir? Garrett: Tape them. Mr Holmes, he flies out tomorrow morning. Come to the gate and watch the actor take his bow.

13:03 Near Midnight in Kemp's Kitchen

13:07 Watson: Near midnight Holmes and I climbed to Kemp's kitchen again, and steam from the cleaner's below was still knocking in the pipes. Holmes: Lorraine says a good half hour went by before you asked for her telephone, Miss Kemp. Kemp: She— she told you that?

13:23 Holmes: Half an hour's a mile uphill at an easy pace. That's a head start. Kemp: You think I sold him? To the Russians? To—

13:30 Holmes: I think you swore "at once" to Langley eleven times, and it was never true. Kemp: Fine. Fine. I was at the bar.

13:41 Watson: Doing what, for half an hour? Kemp: Asking Lorraine to a movie. A Sunday matinee. I'd worked up the nerve for a month, and while I stood there blushing he walked a mile, and my— my whole career walked out with him.

13:56 Watson: That's no crime, my dear. Holmes: A story that does its teller so little credit is often true. Often.

14:04 Kemp: It's true. She won't tell you, though. She's decent.

14:08 Holmes: And the note. You read the Russian to Langley over the telephone, I take it, so the paper itself never left this flat. Kemp: Sunday morning, before my flight. I read them the words. I never said what it's written on.

14:22 Watson: Why ever not? Kemp: Because it's the only thing they haven't taken off me. Holmes: Then only the three of us know. Keep it so.

14:32 A Black Car Idling in the Compound

14:36 Watson: Next morning a black car stood idling inside the compound. Garrett waited on the pavement with a file under his arm, and Danilov came out between two minders. Danilov: Mr Garrett. I go freely. You'll write it so.

14:51 Garrett: Nobody's holding you, Danilov. Nobody ever did. Danilov: No. Nobody. Mr Holmes. The young lady, with the coat. Tell her it was not— in that house, I could not—

15:02 Holmes: You glance at the car before every sentence, Mr Danilov. An actor, checking his prompter. Danilov: An actor.

15:09 Holmes: A good one. Three months of it, and now it's finished. Danilov: Yes. It's over. Goodbye.

15:18 Garrett: The inquiry file, Mr Holmes, as promised. Langley would like your name under the finding: plant, not negligence. It puts Kemp back at her desk.

15:28 Watson: Generous of Langley. Garrett: Her translation's in there too. Moscow's cue, scribbled on the back of a bill. Then Saturday night he walks.

15:37 Watson: He never once looked back at us...

15:41 Back Down the Hill Toward the River

15:45 Watson: When the car had gone, Holmes and I went down the hill the defector had climbed, with buses groaning past us toward the river. Two things won't sit together, Holmes. The same few words to every reporter, like a lesson learned.

16:00 Holmes: And the other? Watson: Kemp, folding his shirts. A chair jammed against his bedroom door, every night since Tuesday.

16:08 Holmes: At the safe house I was certain, Watson. Halfway down this hill, I find I'm rather less so. Watson: I've no conclusion to offer. I thought I had, but...

16:20 Holmes: Nor have I. Which of those two men walked up this hill?

16:25 Typewriter Keys at the Foxhall Station

16:29 Watson: By noon we were crowded into Inspector Rutherford's office at the Foxhall station. The inquiry file lay open on my knees while he typed with two fingers. Rutherford: "Subject left voluntarily. No crime in this district." One weekend of my life, two sentences.

16:47 Watson: Garrett's file is thorough, I'll give him that. Every dime of the debriefing is itemised. Rutherford: Read me some, Doc. I need cheering up.

16:57 Watson: Motel, two agents, one week. Petrol. Groceries for the safe house, including a jar of caviar.

17:04 Rutherford: On my taxes. Watson: Then lunch with a Soviet contact, approved, at the Carriage Room on Monday the thirtieth: forty-two dollars fifty, receipt marked lost. Holmes: Approved. So Garrett asked leave before he broke bread with the opposition. A careful officer.

17:22 Rutherford: A careful officer at the Ritz. I buy a Russian a hot dog, I get Internal Affairs and a lecture. Watson: Garrett wants your signature at the foot, Holmes. Under "plant".

17:34 Rutherford: So sign it, and we can all go— Holmes: Not yet, Inspector. Rutherford: Aw, come on...

17:41 A Single Lamp in the Empty Restaurant

17:45 Watson: That evening the restaurant had emptied to a single lamp. Holmes took the Russian's chair again, and Kemp sat across from him. Holmes: The Russian side now, Miss Kemp. All of it, as he'd have read it.

17:58 Kemp: It isn't long. Pencil, written fast. It says come home, all forgiven, and say they drugged you. No signature.

18:08 Watson: Say they drugged you. Holmes, that's— that's his script, the very words he gave at the gate. Holmes: So he had no story of his own. A plant would learn his lines in Moscow. Nobody would need to post them to him.

18:21 Kemp: And the first part? Holmes: Forgiven. Forgiven for what, Watson?

18:27 Watson: For defecting, surely— Holmes: If Moscow sent him, he defected on orders. Nobody forgives an officer for obeying orders.

18:35 Kemp: Then he really did come over to us. Watson: Good Lord. Holmes: He was no plant, Watson, and I called him an actor.

18:46 Coffee Across the Bar After Hours

18:50 Watson: With the last diners gone, Lorraine poured coffee across her bar for Kemp, Holmes and me, and lit a cigarette under the sign forbidding it. Lorraine: On the house. Don't tell the owner, he counts the beans.

19:03 Holmes: Miss Kemp may lose her job over that half hour, and only you can vouch for it. Lorraine: She told me about the suspending. All for being slow with a telephone?

19:14 Kemp: You don't have to— Lorraine: Hush, honey. They think you sold that Russian a head start? You?

19:20 Holmes: Someone does. I thought it myself, last night, in her kitchen. Lorraine: Then think again, mister. She sat on that stool red as a beet, asking me to a movie.

19:33 Watson: For the whole half hour? Lorraine: Twenty minutes working up to it. Then ten more waiting for me to quit laughing.

19:40 Watson: Oh dear. Kemp: You said you'd think about it. Lorraine: I'm still thinking. Drink your coffee.

19:48 Holmes: So while the Russian climbed his hill, you two were... well. Watching each other. That's all the lost half hour was. Miss Kemp, I accused you of selling a man a mile. I withdraw it, humbly.

20:03 One Arm in His Coat, Late That Night

20:08 Watson: Rutherford had one arm in his coat when Kemp laid the folded bill on his blotter, late that same night, with Holmes and me at her back. Rutherford: Miss Kemp, my report's typed. Two sentences. I'm attached to them.

20:22 Holmes: Read this first, Inspector. The printed side. Kemp: It was in his coat, the inside pocket. The Russian's on the back.

20:30 Rutherford: Somebody put away forty-two fifty at the Carriage Room. Two covers, Monday the thirtieth. Holmes: Now Mr Garrett's file. Doctor, the page you read him at noon.

20:41 Rutherford: Lunch, Soviet contact, approved. Carriage Room, Monday the thirtieth. Same day. Same— same room, same money to the cent.

20:53 Kemp: That's Garrett's claim? Garrett's lunch? Rutherford: And there's the line I laughed at this noon: receipt marked lost. Ah.

21:04 Watson: Kemp told us half Washington eats there on expenses. Couldn't it be another table's— Holmes: Two covers, that day, that sum, and Garrett's own receipt gone. A man who claims for a jar of caviar doesn't mislay the receipt for a Ritz lunch.

21:19 Rutherford: Unless he gave it away. Kemp: To Danilov. Garrett sat alone with him every day for three months.

21:26 Rutherford: This is Agency business, Mr Holmes. The Ritz isn't even my district. Holmes: The coat was left in yours, Inspector.

21:34 Rutherford: Lost, he says. Found in Danilov's coat.

21:40 The Small Hours, Pacing in a Dressing-Gown

21:44 Watson: Our hotel stood two streets back from the river. At three in the morning Holmes was pacing in his dressing-gown, and I sat up in bed with my notebook. Holmes: The bill proves a lunch, Watson, nothing more. A lost receipt can be found by anyone.

21:59 Watson: A waiter, a busboy, a Russian at the next table. Holmes: Just so. Read me Kemp in her kitchen, about the paper.

22:08 Watson: She gave Langley the Russian on Sunday morning. Every word of it, and not a syllable about what it was written on. Holmes: And Garrett at the gate, handing me the file.

22:17 Watson: "Moscow's cue." Then, quite offhand, that it was scribbled on a bill. I underlined it because he said it so carelessly.

22:26 Holmes: And what was in the file he handed me? Kemp's translation. Words, Watson. No paper.

22:33 Watson: Danilov might have told him on the pavement, or— Holmes: Danilov gave him a dozen words, and we heard them all. Rutherford first saw the thing tonight. Then who told Garrett it was written on a bill?

22:45 Watson: Nobody. Unless...

22:48 A Little After Ten at the Station

22:52 Watson: Garrett came into the station a little after ten with an Agency envelope ready in his hand. Rutherford sat behind the desk, Kemp stood by the window, and Holmes and I flanked the bill. Garrett: Inspector, you called Langley about a note. We'll want the original. Chain of custody.

23:10 Rutherford: There on the blotter. Help yourself. Holmes: Moscow's cue, you called it, Mr Garrett.

23:16 Garrett: That's what it is. You've read the translation. Holmes: I have. Words only, as Miss Kemp dictated them. Yet yesterday at the gate you told me the thing had been scrawled across the back of a bill.

23:28 Garrett: Did I? Watson: You did. I wrote it down. And you never once asked which bill.

23:34 Garrett: Then it— it came up at Langley. Kemp's call went round half the seventh floor. Kemp: Nothing came up, sir. I read them the Russian, and I've never said what it's written on. Not to Langley. Not to you.

23:47 Garrett: You've told it eleven times, Kemp. Details— Kemp: Not this one, sir. You stood in his room and watched me pack his shirts, and you knew. You wrote me down as the system's mistake. They suspended me, they couldn't even spell my— and it was your lunch. Your lunch, in his pocket!

24:06 Garrett: Mr Holmes, she's exhausted. Any table at the Carriage Room could have— Holmes: Two covers, Monday the thirtieth, the sum on your own claim, and a receipt you call lost.

24:16 Garrett: That's... that isn't... Holmes: The paper sat in Kemp's kitchen. The words went to Langley. The bill went to no one. Only its writer knew.

24:27 Garrett: That's a theory, Mr Holmes. You had a different one at the safe house. Holmes: I did. You gave it to me.

24:36 Rutherford: Leave it on the desk, Mr Garrett. You're staying.

24:40 Tea in Baker Street After the Plasterer

24:44 Watson: Back in Baker Street the plasterer had come and gone. Mrs Hudson brought up the tea with his account folded on the tray. Mrs Hudson: Tea, Mr Holmes, and the plasterer. Eleven pounds for the Smiths.

24:58 Holmes: Cheap, for a whole family. Watson: One thing still nags me, Holmes. Danilov had run from Moscow. So why— why on earth believe Moscow's forgiveness?

25:09 Holmes: He didn't believe the words, Watson. He believed the post. Watson: The post?

25:15 Holmes: Moscow's note reached him inside the Agency's own house, from the man across that table. Where could he hide after— Mrs Hudson: In his own lodgings? I'd have bolted my door.

25:26 Holmes: He did, as near as a safe house allows. Kemp told us in his bedroom: from that Tuesday he slept behind a chair wedged under his door. Watson: And at the gate, "in that house, I could not—" He was trying to tell you.

25:41 Holmes: And I took him for an actor. "I am going for a walk" was no cue. It was a frightened man taking the only door left.

25:50 Mrs Hudson: Poor soul. And the gentleman with the note? Watson: Garrett's charged with espionage: Moscow's man for years, and terrified the defector who'd named two traitors would name him next. Danilov is in Moscow for good. And Kemp is back at her desk, with a Sunday matinee to go to.

26:09 Holmes: Undone by a lunch he'd make the Agency pay for. Keep your receipts, Mrs Hudson. Mrs Hudson: Hmph. Drink your tea.