The Case of the Empty Gilt Frames

0:00 Marmalade, a Revolver and Mrs Hudson's Lease

0:04 Watson: Holmes and I had quarrelled at breakfast over the last of the marmalade, and neither of us had yielded since. This was Sunday, the seventh of July, nineteen sixty-three, with London emptied for the holidays. Our sitting room sweltered behind drawn blinds, with the wireless murmuring a Sunday band concert. I was reading aloud the new lease from our landlady, Mrs Hudson, while Holmes lay opposite with his revolver, improving the wallpaper.

0:31 Watson: "The tenant shall not deface or disfigure the walls." Holmes: I'm not disfiguring them, Watson. I'm decorating.

0:40 Watson: Good Lord, that's an E. The Queen's cipher, in bullets! Holmes: And presently an R. My aim suffers. Somebody hid the—

0:49 Watson: I hid nothing! You ate the whole jar. Holmes: Strictly in self-defence.

0:55 Watson: Give me that thing before the lease forbids breathing. Holmes: A polite ring. And Mrs Hudson's tread, coming up to scold.

1:05 Mrs Hudson: Gunfire, on the Sabbath! I heard it from the scullery, and I won't have— Holmes: A royal salute, Mrs Hudson. Who's behind you?

1:13 Mrs Hudson: A lady from abroad, with no name to give. And no more shooting! Garnier: Mr Holmes? I came straight from the airport, and I would— I'd rather nobody knew. My name is Garnier.

1:26 Holmes: Then nobody shall. Doctor Watson will find you a chair. Garnier: Pictures were stolen from my exhibition at the Villa Castelane, in Aix-en-Provence.

1:36 Holmes: And the exhibition is in your keeping? Garnier: I'm its curator. I must have them back at once, and I may not ask the police.

1:44 Watson: Good heavens. Holmes: I have no standing in France. Watson: Since when has standing ever stopped you?

1:52 Holmes: Without the police, I should be an Englishman asking impertinent questions in a town that— Watson: Mark how she put it, though. Forbidden the police, and only the police.

2:02 Holmes: Meaning? Watson: Whoever gave that order, Madame Garnier, never thought to forbid Baker Street. Garnier: I hadn't seen it so...

2:10 Holmes: An oversight. I adore an oversight. And the lease?

2:15 Watson: I'll sign for us both. Mrs Hudson may bill you for the crown. Holmes: Your hat, Watson.

2:21 Watson: Within the hour our taxi was bound for the airport, and the lonely E still waited for its R.

2:32 Cicadas and a White Glare in Aix

2:37 Watson: Aix met us with cicadas and a white glare, and before noon Madame Garnier was leading Holmes and me round the walled garden of the Villa Castelane. Garnier: Eight canvases, Mr Holmes, gone on the night of the sixth. Every one of them lent.

2:54 Holmes: Lent by whom? Garnier: Collectors in Paris, in Basel, in New York. The Harp Singers among them.

3:01 Watson: The Harp Singers? There's a print of it in every waiting room in Harley Street. Garnier: Together the originals are insured for four million dollars. But the money isn't the—

3:11 Holmes: Then what is? Garnier: That they came to Aix, to this house, because I asked for them. Watson: Madame...

3:20 Holmes: You've folded that paper so often the creases are wearing through. The lenders' names, Madame Garnier? Garnier: Yes.

3:28 Holmes: And you've not telephoned one of them. Garnier: How can you know that? Holmes: A woman who'd made those calls would have put the list away. You carry it like an unpaid bill.

3:38 Garnier: I've rehearsed every call. I lift the telephone, and I— I can't make one. Watson: Surely they'd understand, Madame. A theft is hardly the curator's—

3:50 Garnier: They didn't lend to Aix, Doctor. They lent to me. I sat at their tables.

3:56 Holmes: Promised them what? Garnier: That every picture would come home. Every one. I gave my word on it.

4:04 Coffee and Camphor at the Gate Lodge

4:08 Watson: The watchman's lodge stood just inside the gate, one room smelling of coffee and camphor, and an old man in a blue jacket rose as we stooped in. Luc: The English gentlemen. Madame said you'd come. I'm Luc. I keep the gate, or I kept it.

4:26 Holmes: You keep it still, Luc. That's the house key on your belt. Luc: A key to an empty house. Lock the stable when the horse has gone, eh?

4:35 Watson: Camphor. Someone here has a bad chest. Luc: My wife, Doctor. The medicine comes from Marseille, and my wage pays for it.

4:44 Watson: And if the wage stops? Luc: Then the medicine stops. Watson: Poor woman.

4:52 Bastide: Luc! Bread, still warm. Oh. You have company.

4:57 Luc: Bastide. These are Madame's Englishmen. Bastide: Bastide, gilder. I regilt every frame in the exhibition.

5:05 Holmes: Warm bread, and two bowls set by the stove before you knocked. You come every morning. Bastide: Every morning, yes. Every morning these six weeks. His gate is on my road.

5:18 Luc: He feeds me like a sparrow. But this morning I can't swallow. My father kept this gate. I was to keep it till they carried me out, and now the whole town looks at my hands...

5:31 Bastide: Hush, old friend. Sit. Luc: Madame trusted me. She trusted me with them, and I — I —

5:38 Bastide: Listen to me. Nobody in Aix blames you, Luc. Nobody.

5:43 A Broad Man in a Creased Linen Suit

5:47 Watson: Upstairs, in the room above the garden, a broad man in a creased linen suit waited by the tall shutters. Rocca: Rocca, inspector of police. And you're the Englishman Madame Garnier didn't mention to me.

6:02 Holmes: Holmes. Madame mentions nobody, Inspector. It's her finest quality.

6:07 Rocca: In my town I prefer people who talk. Here is your balcony, and the garden below. Holmes: Found as it's now?

6:15 Rocca: At dawn it hung open, unlatched, and not a scratch on wood or iron. Look at the hook. Watson: A thin blade between the leaves would lift a hook like that. I've seen it done in Lambeth, a fellow with a—

6:28 Rocca: Not here, Doctor. The leaves overlap a finger's width. You couldn't slide a hair between them.

6:34 Holmes: Then it was lifted from this side. And the balcony looks only onto garden walls. Not one window in the street can see it.

6:42 Rocca: You say what I say, only slower. Watson: Ha! Holmes: Whoever chose it knew the house.

6:50 Rocca: Bravo. And who knows this house at night? Every door locked, every key accounted for. One man was inside all night. So who opened it?

7:01 Holmes: Who indeed.

7:03 Back Down at the Lodge With the Inspector

7:07 Watson: Back down at the lodge, Inspector Rocca had the watchman hemmed in at his own table, and Madame Garnier stood at Luc's shoulder like a second. Rocca: So, Luc. The keys to the house. Who holds them?

7:21 Luc: Madame has one set. I have the other. Nobody else.

7:26 Rocca: Madame was in her bed in town. You were here. Eight pictures go out a window, and you hear—

7:32 Luc: Nothing, Inspector. Nothing. On my mother's grave.

7:36 Rocca: No bell. No alarm. Nothing.

7:40 Holmes: Your lodge faces the street, Luc, and the balcony faces the garden. The whole house stands between. Luc: Just so, Monsieur. Walls have ears, they say, but not walls that thick.

7:53 Rocca: So now the Englishman pleads for— Holmes: I'm measuring him, Inspector. It isn't the same thing.

7:59 Rocca: Hm. Watson: Measure him after he's eaten something. The man's hands are shaking.

8:04 Garnier: Luc kept that house like a church. After six weeks of gold dust, the gilding was finished, and on the morning of the sixth I swept every room myself. Rocca: Madame, with a broom?

8:17 Garnier: With my own broom. That afternoon I burned the sweepings in the garden. Not a scrap of paper was left in the house.

8:25 Rocca: And the balcony shutter, while you swept? Latched? Garnier: Closed, as every shutter is closed by day. The sun eats paint. I never put a hand to it.

8:36 Luc: Inspector, thirty years I've kept this gate, and never once — Rocca: Paris sends its own men soon, old man. I will have my thief first.

8:46 Up a Stepped Lane in the Old Town

8:50 Watson: Bastide's workshop lay up a stepped lane in the old town, a long low room under the eaves where every surface glinted. Bastide: Madame's Englishmen, in my little cave! Sit, sit, anywhere there's no glue.

9:04 Holmes: That callus on your second finger is a burnisher's. You water-gild, the old way. Bastide: The corners only, with the agate. The long rails take oil. Faster, and Aix pays by the frame.

9:16 Holmes: Then I stand half corrected. Watson: That leaf on your cushion. It's redder than any gold I know.

9:24 Bastide: Florentine, Doctor. The last book of what I laid on Madame's frames. Nobody in Provence uses it.

9:31 Watson: Apothecaries once gilded pills with leaf. Patients will swallow anything that shines. Bastide: A doctor who knows leaf! You see that sack? Spent tissue, from between the gold sheets.

9:44 Watson: You keep it? Bastide: It holds a little gold dust. Once a year the refiner burns the lot and pays me for the ash.

9:52 Watson: Thrifty. And the tissue you spent at the Villa, did that— Bastide: Came home in my apron pocket, every scrap. Every scrap. That tissue never leaves this workshop, and nobody comes in here but me.

10:04 Holmes: Should the pictures come home, would your frames take them again? Bastide: Easily. An afternoon's work, if they come home whole. But you've met the inspector.

10:15 Holmes: And he's chosen his man. Bastide: Since dawn, the whole town says. Poor Luc. A watchman's wage, and now a thief's name...

10:26 The Mayor's Secretary in His Empty Office

10:30 Watson: Towards evening a message brought us across to the Hotel de Ville, where Madame Garnier sat with the mayor's secretary in his empty office. Antoinette: Antoinette, Monsieur Holmes. His Honour is in Nice tonight, so I'm his ears. Madame, the letter.

10:47 Garnier: It came in this morning's post. Posted— it was posted here in Aix. Holmes: Was it, now.

10:55 Antoinette: Typed, no name. "Two hundred thousand dollars for all eight. No police, or you never see them again. Wait to be told where."

11:05 Watson: Dollars? From a man in Provence? Holmes: Because he expects the money from abroad, Watson. From the lenders, from—

11:11 Antoinette: Wrong, Monsieur. From us. His Honour won't let one lender hear a word.

11:18 Watson: Well, I'm blessed. Holmes: Then it's a twentieth of the insured value. A sum a town can find quietly. He knows what Aix can afford.

11:27 Garnier: And the police? Inspector Rocca is at my gate this minute — Antoinette: His Honour told you yesterday, Madame: no more police than we already have. Now the thief agrees with him.

11:38 Garnier: Then you'll pay. Without a word to anyone... Antoinette: In secret, from the reserve. This is a small town with a famous name. Aix will pay rather than tell the world it lost them.

11:52 Next Morning Along the Upstairs Gallery

11:56 Watson: Next morning Rocca walked us down the upstairs gallery, past eight gilt frames holding nothing but plaster. Rocca: There, Mr Holmes. Not one canvas slashed, not one corner torn.

12:10 Holmes: And the tacks drawn, not wrenched. Somebody stood here with pincers and patience. Rocca: Patience, exactly. A burglar with a clock in his head cuts and runs. This one lowered them on a rope.

12:25 Watson: From the balcony? Rocca: Fresh fibres on the rail, and the flowerbed below flattened where they landed. Holmes: Flattened, but not trodden. Nobody stood in that bed to catch them.

12:36 Rocca: Nor set a ladder in it. The pictures went down. Nobody came up.

12:42 Watson: These frames must outweigh the pictures. I'd not get one down that stair alone. Rocca: So he didn't try. He eased out every canvas, creased nothing, and left the eight frames hanging.

12:55 Holmes: He took his time, then. Rocca: You read tacks, Mr Holmes. I read my town. A thief from outside grabs and goes. A man with all night and the keys needs no frames.

13:10 A Crowded Gatehouse at Noon

13:08 Holmes: Perhaps.

13:14 Watson: The gatehouse was crowded by noon, Rocca at the table, Madame Garnier by the window, Luc on his feet beside the stove. Rocca: Your round, Luc. The night of the sixth. Tell the Englishman what you told me.

13:28 Luc: Ten o'clock, as always. Every room, every— every window. I latched every shutter myself, the balcony room's with the rest.

13:38 Holmes: Your own hand on that hook, Luc? You're certain? Luc: I would swear it in church, Monsieur.

13:44 Rocca: Then tell me why at dawn I found that hook unlatched, and not a scratch near it. Luc: I can't. I— I know what my hand did, that's all. Rocca: Mr Holmes, you saw the hook. Tell Madame what it means.

13:59 Holmes: If Luc latched it at ten, only a hand inside the house could lift it before dawn. Garnier: Mr Holmes — Holmes: And by his own account, Madame, his was the only—

14:09 Garnier: Thirty years he's kept this house! Rocca: Thirty years his wage was enough. Now there's a sick wife, and her medicine.

14:18 Luc: You leave my wife out of — Rocca: Luc, I arrest you for the theft of eight canvases from this house. Your hands.

14:25 Garnier: No. No, you can't— Luc: Madame. The medicine— it comes on Thursday. Who'll fetch it?

14:35 Garnier: I will, Luc. I promise you. I brought you here, Mr Holmes. I wish I hadn't.

14:43 Two Coffees Beneath the Plane Trees

14:47 Watson: We escaped the heat beneath the plane trees of the Cours Mirabeau, two coffees between us and a mossy fountain dripping at our backs. You stood with Rocca back there, Holmes. I didn't care for it.

14:59 Holmes: Your coffee's gone cold untouched. You've rehearsed that since the gate. Watson: Since the handcuffs.

15:06 Holmes: Fair. Then judge it with me. A shutter undone from inside. A watchman who swears he latched it.

15:14 Watson: Eight empty frames. Holmes: Left by a man in no hurry. A ransom in dollars, from a town that counts in francs. And an old man in a cell.

15:25 Watson: I've heard a good many liars across a surgery desk. That old man hasn't the gift. Holmes: Or just enough to seem as if he hadn't.

15:33 Watson: You believe it, Holmes? Holmes: I believe the shutter.

15:38 Three Days Later, Back at the Villa

15:42 Watson: Three days later Madame Garnier telephoned for us, and we found her office at the Villa strewn with brown paper and string. Garnier: Six. Seven. Eight. Not a crack in the varnish, Mr Holmes. Not one.

15:57 Watson: The Harp Singers. Smaller than the print in my waiting room. Garnier: They always are, Doctor. The town paid last night. This morning a muffled voice on my telephone: a grey Peugeot behind the cathedral, the key in it.

16:11 Holmes: And he rang off before you could say a word. Garnier: But how— Holmes: You tell it in one breath, Madame. That's how it was given to you.

16:18 Garnier: And look how they were packed. Between every canvas, this. Watson: Fine as cigarette paper. Used, by the creases.

16:28 Garnier: Gold-leaf tissue. Here, and here, still flecked with the gold. Holmes: You know the stuff.

16:35 Garnier: Six weeks of gilding in this house, Mr Holmes. I know it. Holmes: But none of it lay here the night they went. You told the inspector, "I swept every room myself," and your fire had the sweepings.

16:48 Watson: So the thief brought his packing with him. Holmes: Or packed them somewhere else entirely. Watson: Either way, the old man was locked up when that car was parked.

16:58 Garnier: Rocca says every watchman has a cousin with a car. All eight home, unframed, and Luc still in a cell... Watson: Oh, for pity's sake.

17:09 Paris Comes Tomorrow

17:13 Watson: Rocca fetched Luc from the cells that afternoon, and the four of us stood at the foot of the balcony stair. Rocca: Paris comes tomorrow, Luc. I want my case shut before they unpack. Up you go, the way you went that night.

17:26 Luc: Inspector, if you'd only — Rocca: Fourteen steps. Your round. Up.

17:32 Holmes: The same foot first, and the other dragged after it. The man's in pain, Inspector. Luc: Old bones, Monsieur. It's— it's nothing.

17:41 Rocca: Then climb. Luc: I cannot. I cannot — God forgive me, I never went up. Not that night. Not the night before.

17:52 Rocca: You swore to me, at your own table — Luc: I said I latched every shutter myself. It was a lie. I sat by my stove with a wet cloth on my knee, and prayed nobody would ask... A lame watchman is no watchman. Madame would give my gate away, and my wife... her medicine... I could not —

18:12 Watson: Sit, man, here on the step. Let me see it. When did it go?

18:17 Luc: On the cellar step. The Wednesday before. It locks, Doctor, like a door.

18:23 Watson: Feel that, Inspector. The joint won't straighten. Torn cartilage, and the bruise gone green at the edges. That's a week old, more. It was done before your theft.

18:34 Rocca: Or he's a fine actor. Watson: Nobody acts a locked joint. That knee could never climb a stair, Inspector, that night or any night since.

18:45 Madame Garnier Waits at the Gate

18:44 Rocca: Pah.

18:49 Watson: Within the hour Rocca had marched us all back to the gate, where Madame Garnier waited, and Luc stood blinking at his own door. Rocca: The doctor tells me your knee could never climb a stair. So you go free. Don't— don't thank me, Luc.

19:05 Luc: Then I thank the doctor, Inspector. Madame. Hear it from me before the town— before anyone tells you. Those two nights I never went up. I swore I had.

19:19 Garnier: For your wage. Luc: For my wife. Garnier: Oh, Luc. You foolish, faithful man. You keep your gate. And the pictures are home, all eight.

19:31 Luc: Home? Then God is kinder than the inspector. Holmes: Then who last saw that hook, Luc? Who was the last man—

19:38 Luc: The night before, Monsieur. Bastide, late in the balcony room with his gold. He looked in at my door and said, leave that shutter to me, I'll latch it myself going out.

19:49 Holmes: And after that nobody went up to try the hook. Madame swept round a closed shutter, and closed looks very like latched. Garnier: Then it stood unlatched two nights together.

20:01 Rocca: So the gilder forgot a hook. It happens. Watson: Then the thief came from the garden. Over the wall and up the—

20:08 Rocca: With no ladder in my flowerbed? Then who climbed my wall?

20:13 After Dark, With the Waiters Stacking Chairs

20:17 Watson: Dark had cooled the Cours Mirabeau when Holmes and I walked back along it, the waiters stacking chairs and the fountains talking to nobody. Holmes: Your hand has been in that pocket since we left the Villa. You took a sheet of Madame's tissue.

20:32 Watson: One sheet. She has forty more, and I wanted it under a decent lamp. Holmes: Then hold three things beside it. First, the house, swept by her own hand that morning, the sweepings burned by afternoon.

20:46 Watson: Brooms miss things, Holmes. Holmes: Not hers. She counted eight canvases aloud as she unwrapped them. She'd not miss a scrap.

20:54 Watson: Second? Holmes: The packing. Used tissue between every picture, still glinting. Third, a gilder's habit. His spent tissue rides home in his apron to a sack, and no foot crosses his floor but his own.

21:10 Watson: Then some sneak-thief robbed the sack. A shop up a back lane, nobody minding it. I'd rob it myself.

21:18 Holmes: Perhaps. Or the broom missed after all. Or some gilder in another town keeps a sack of his own.

21:25 Watson: Three doors, and you want me to pick one. Holmes: Pick whichever you like. The paper is still in your pocket. Then how did it come to wrap stolen pictures, Watson?

21:36 Two Porters Leaving the Curator's Office

21:40 Watson: Two porters were leaving the curator's office as we came along the passage, and behind them Madame Garnier knelt beside an empty gilt frame. Holmes: You had them carry it down from the gallery, Madame. You wanted the answer before you sent for us.

21:55 Garnier: Before I— yes. Before I had to ask it out loud. Doctor, your eyes are younger than mine. Look.

22:04 Watson: Hold it to the corner, there... The flecks aren't yellow. They're red.

22:11 Holmes: Ah. Garnier: Every sheet of it still flecked with the gold, and that gold is red. Like this corner. Like all eight.

22:20 Watson: Florentine. Bastide had the last book of it on his cushion, and swore nobody else in Provence lays it. Garnier: There are gilders in Marseille, in Nice —

22:31 Watson: Not with this leaf, Madame. He was rather proud of that. Holmes: And Luc's word at the gate. Bastide, late in the balcony room, promising to latch that shutter himself.

22:42 Garnier: He forgot a hook, that's all. The inspector said— Holmes: The inspector was guessing. Send for your gilder, Madame. Tell him the pictures are home and the frames are waiting. Nothing more.

22:52 Garnier: Ask him here? To put his hands on them? Holmes: To do the work Aix pays him for. Can you keep your face still?

23:01 Garnier: He'll want to be left alone with them. He always does. Holmes: Then for once he shan't be.

23:07 Garnier: Six weeks in this house, whistling on his ladder. And he brought poor Luc his bread every morning...

23:15 A Gathering in the Upstairs Gallery

23:19 Watson: The canvases lay in a row along the upstairs gallery, each beneath its empty frame, with Rocca and Madame Garnier beside them, when Bastide came up whistling with his tools rolled under his arm. Bastide: Madame! Your message says all eight are home, and whole! Oh. Unwrapped already. You did not wait for me.

23:40 Garnier: I couldn't wait. Bastide: Inspector. Mr Holmes. Quite a crowd, for an afternoon's tacking.

23:48 Rocca: Humour us, gilder. Holmes: Before you begin, Monsieur. They came home cushioned in this.

23:54 Bastide: Gilder's tissue. Every frame-maker in France has a drawer of it. Holmes: Flecked red. Florentine. You told us yourself that nobody in Provence lays it but you.

24:05 Bastide: Then some rogue— some rogue robbed my sack. Poor devil, he stole the paper and left the gold. Watson: Under your own eaves you told us your tissue never leaves this workshop. Nobody else sets foot on that floor.

24:20 Bastide: Scraps, then. I left scraps here, in the Villa — Garnier: Swept with my own broom and burned in my garden, Monsieur, the day they went.

24:28 Rocca: And my wall, Mr Holmes? A gilder climbs my wall? Holmes: Over it, and up the ironwork, to the shutter he promised Luc he would latch and never did.

24:39 Rocca: And the frames? I said a man with all night— Holmes: You were right about the night, Inspector. But he left the eight frames hanging so that Aix would have to send for its gilder.

24:48 Bastide: And who else in Aix can set a canvas back into gold? I'd come. I'd unwrap them alone, my tissue into my sack, my sack to the refiner's fire. Nobody the wiser.

25:02 Garnier: Oh, Monsieur... Bastide: Six weeks on my knees at those rails, and Aix paid me by the frame, like a joiner. I owe Florence for the leaf, I owe my rent, I owe —

25:13 Garnier: And Luc? In handcuffs, for you? Bastide: I told him nobody blamed him. It was true, Madame. Nobody but the inspector... I never — I only meant —

25:23 Rocca: Put down that knife, gilder. Bastide: It's only for the leaf, Inspector. It never cut anything else.

25:31 Rocca: Your arm.

25:33 The Marmalade Replaced, and a Letter From Aix

25:37 Watson: The marmalade had been replaced, and the bullet E still marked the wallpaper, when Mrs Hudson climbed the stair with a letter from Aix. Mrs Hudson: Your letter from France, Mr Holmes. And that E is still on my wall.

25:51 Holmes: Rocca's hand, Mrs Hudson. He presses so hard his nib has gone through the flap. Read it, Watson.

25:58 Watson: "Bastide charged with theft and extortion. He worked alone; the voice on the telephone was his own. Two hundred thousand dollars under his workbench, where the pictures lay hidden, not a note spent. Luc back at his gate. Every canvas home."

26:14 Watson: And a line from Madame Garnier. She has telephoned every lender, at last. Holmes: Good for her.

26:21 Mrs Hudson: I'd sooner somebody telephoned a plasterer. Watson: But why the paper, Holmes? Any thief can wrap a—

26:27 Holmes: Not in that. Madame said so at Luc's table. Swept, burned, not a scrap of it left in the house that night.

26:35 Watson: So it was carried in. Holmes: From where? Those red flecks were his Florentine leaf. The last book of it lay on his own cushion. And nobody else sets foot in his shop, he told us so himself.

26:47 Watson: And all the while that poor old man sat in a cell... Holmes: In handcuffs I— in handcuffs I helped Rocca put on him. And for six weeks he thanked the gilder for his bread. He packed them in his own gold, Watson. It framed him.