The Case of the Falling Ash

0:00 Thunder, Heat and a Wedding Invitation

0:04 Watson: Thunder sulked over the rooftops beyond our window, and the sitting room held the heat like a kiln. This was Friday, the twenty-ninth of August, nineteen sixty-nine. Holmes lay on the settee with the evening papers, still quarrelling over the Beatles' new long-player. I sat at the desk, answering an old army friend's wedding invitation, and making poor work of it.

0:27 Holmes: Decline, Watson. The bridegroom would thank you. Watson: I'm accepting. What can you possibly know about the bridegroom?

0:35 Holmes: That nobody consulted him. Her mother's parish, her mother's club, her mother's taste in engraving. Watson: Freddie does loathe clubs.

0:44 Holmes: Then he'll be miserable in excellent company. Watson: Holmes, you might at least let me enjoy the— Holmes: You've written "Dear Freddie" and nothing else since tea.

0:53 Watson: I can't decide whether to congratulate the poor devil or console him. Holmes: Console. Gently.

1:01 Watson: Good Lord. Is that Mrs Hudson laughing? Holmes: Helplessly. And she's brought company.

1:08 Mrs Hudson: A gentleman for you, sir. Oh, I can't... Tolliver: Mr Holmes? Your landlady's the best house I've had since I left California. Ned Tolliver.

1:18 Holmes: Tea, I think, when you've recovered. Mrs Hudson: He did the milkman at me all the way up! Watson: Mr Tolliver, you've paint all over your face.

1:29 Tolliver: Studio make-up. Came straight from the set. Holmes: And straight up our stair. What brings you?

1:35 Tolliver: I've been losing. At cards, I mean, at the Harlequin Club in Beverly Hills, Mr Holmes. And I'd like to know why before I fly home on Sunday.

1:45 Holmes: Every man who loses at cards thinks he's been cheated, and he generally— Tolliver: Who said cheated? I never said cheated.

1:52 Holmes: And Beverly Hills is a long way to go for neither. Watson: Holmes, he accuses no one. He only asks why.

2:00 Holmes: They all ask. The answer is generally the cards. Watson: Well, then he's a rare one. A loser who doesn't cry cheat.

2:10 Tolliver: I know my own bad luck. We're old pals. This one, I don't recognize.

2:17 Holmes: A comedian who withholds the punchline. That's irritating, Mr Tolliver. Tolliver: Irritating good or irritating—

2:25 Watson: With him, it's the same thing. Holmes: Accept Freddie's invitation, and tell him you'll toast him from California. Your hat, Watson.

2:38 Watson: My reply went into the post that night, and Holmes's hat came off its peg.

2:44 Met at the Aeroplane and Shown Round the Club

2:47 Watson: Ned Tolliver met our aeroplane himself, and by noon he was showing us round his club in Beverly Hills, ladders, dust-sheets and all. Tolliver: Mind the ladder, Doctor. The Harlequins, gentlemen. Two hundred comedians, and not one could pay a decorator.

3:03 Watson: Somebody's paying. That hammering hasn't stopped since we walked in. Tolliver: That's Bascombe. He's redoing the whole joint at cost. Hey, Bascombe! Meet Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.

3:16 Bascombe: Sherlock Holmes? The detective? Ned, you flew in a detective to find out why you can't play gin?

3:23 Tolliver: I flew him in to find out if it's— if it's me. Bascombe: It's you. I'd have told you for the price of a sandwich.

3:32 Tolliver: Thanks, pal. Holmes: You build more than clubs, Mister Bascombe. That's a hotel elevation under your arm: eleven storeys and a casino canopy.

3:41 Bascombe: Las Vegas. Opens in the spring, if the Lord and the bank allow. Watson: Then you'll have seen Mr Tolliver's luck at close—

3:49 Bascombe: Me? No— I never watch the big game, Doctor. Can't stand to see a friend bleed. I hear about it at the bar, like everybody.

3:57 Holmes: And what does the bar say? Bascombe: That Augie Pell has the luck of the Irish, and Ned has the luck of the Titanic. Tolliver: Both of us went down singing.

4:08 Bascombe: Don't let him fool you, gentlemen. Ned plays gin the way he tells jokes. All heart.

4:15 Filing Cabinets, Carbon Paper and Open Ledgers

4:19 Watson: The club office was a narrow room off the lobby, all filing cabinets and carbon paper, and its bookkeeper had the ledgers open before Holmes could ask. Yolanda: Sit down before you fall down, Ned. I'm Yolanda, Mister Holmes. I keep the books.

4:35 Tolliver: Yolanda knows where every dollar in this club is buried. Mostly mine. Holmes: Read me the markers, please. The date, the sum, the winner.

4:44 Yolanda: All five years? All right. March, sixty-two. Four thousand dollars. Augie Pell.

4:51 Yolanda: June, nine thousand, Augie Pell. September, two thousand, a dentist from Encino. The one night somebody else got lucky. After that it's Augie Pell, Augie Pell, Augie Pell. Sixty-four is a whole page of him.

5:10 Tolliver: Yeah, yeah. Watson: One man taking the money for five years. In the regiment we'd have had him up before the colonel.

5:18 Tolliver: You never met Augie. Nicest guy in Beverly Hills. Sends my mother flowers.

5:24 Holmes: Your signature has grown, Mr Tolliver. The early markers are small and neat. These last are twice the size, pressed clean through the paper.

5:33 Tolliver: Bigger the number, bigger the autograph. That's show— Yolanda: He's right, Ned. You used to sign like a bank clerk. Now you sign like you're mad at the pen.

5:42 Tolliver: Just add it up, Yolanda. Yolanda: Five hundred and thirty-one thousand, four hundred dollars. Watson: Good heavens.

5:53 Tolliver: Funny. That's exactly what my house cost.

5:58 Eight O'Clock at the Green Felt

6:02 Watson: By eight o'clock the card room at the back was blue with smoke, and Ned Tolliver sat at the green felt under its low lamp, his opponent shuffling across the table. Tolliver: Lorene, honey, fill it to the top. Augie smokes when he's winning, and Augie's always smoking.

6:20 Lorene: Then I'd best fetch another box, Mister Tolliver. Tolliver: She laughs! Holmes, write that down. Somebody in this club still laughs.

6:30 Holmes: She laughed before you reached the end of it, Mr Tolliver. She's heard it before. Lorene: Every night for five years, Mister Holmes. It gets funnier.

6:40 Watson: That's an honest shuffle Mr Pell has, Holmes. I've watched sharpers in the mess. They never let you see the bottom card.

6:47 Holmes: Quite honest. Whatever happens at this table, it doesn't happen in his hands. Tolliver: Lorene stands back there every night. My guardian angel.

6:58 Lorene: Soon as you're dealt, I'll fetch Mister Pell his rye, same as always. Holmes: Come, Watson. A man can't lose properly in front of an audience.

7:07 Watson: Good luck, Mr Tolliver. Tolliver: Luck. Sure. Deal me in.

7:13 The Bar, Half in Darkness

7:17 Watson: Holmes and I left him to his cards and found the bar half in darkness, with a heavy man in a grey suit on the stool nearest the card-room door.

7:32 Voss: Pull up a stool, Mister Holmes. Voss, Beverly Hills police. Word gets around.

7:39 Holmes: This is your third night on that stool, Inspector. The barman refills your soda water without being asked. Voss: Third game night, sure. And it's club soda. I'm on duty, God help me.

7:53 Watson: Bad luck. Has someone complained to the police, then? Voss: Four members, Doctor. All losers, all friends of the mayor. So I sit, and I drink soda.

8:06 Holmes: And you sit here because this stool sees both the card-room door and the bar. Voss: You catch on. Bascombe and a couple of the others say it's the waitress. From here I see why.

8:18 Watson: The girl? But she struck me as a perfectly pleasant— Voss: Pleasant's cheap, Doctor. That girl writes behind Tolliver's chair every hand. Then she carries a rye round to Augie Pell, nice as you like.

8:30 Watson: And there she's now, for the rye. Holmes: Between the pencil and the glass, Inspector, what passes? Voss: That I can't see from a barstool. Find out what she's writing, Mister Holmes, and you've found your cheat.

8:44 A White Convertible Past Midnight

8:48 Watson: Past midnight, our host drove us back along Santa Monica Boulevard in a white convertible, the top down, the radio off, and not a joke left in him.

9:04 Watson: How bad was it, Mr Tolliver? Tolliver: Eleven hands, eleven losses. Augie said sorry every time, and meant it...

9:15 Holmes: You stopped drumming on the wheel at that last light. You have something to show us, and you're deciding whether— Tolliver: Glove box, Doctor. Wrapped in the handkerchief.

9:24 Watson: A playing card. The queen of spades, with ash on her face. Tolliver: Second hand tonight, down it comes from above, out of the smoke. Straight down, like snow. Right on her.

9:38 Watson: Extraordinary. Holmes: Straight down? Not off a cigar beside—

9:41 Tolliver: No. Lorene was at the bar getting Augie's rye. Augie had his nose in his own hand. Nobody saw that card but me.

9:50 Holmes: So you palmed it. That's a conjuror's grip. You worked the resort hotels with cards before you worked them with jokes.

9:57 Tolliver: Close. My uncle did the cards; I carried his table. The club breaks a fresh deck every hour. Nobody counts the old one.

10:06 Holmes: Ah. Watson: All the same, she was back behind your chair a minute later, with her pencil— Tolliver: Lorene? She— she laughs at my jokes, Doctor. Nobody laughs at a man's jokes and robs him.

10:20 Tolliver: Five years I thought it was me. That I'd gone — lousy. Lost my timing, lost...

10:28 Watson: Steady, now. Pull in if you need to. Tolliver: And it's ash. A lousy little pinch of ash.

10:35 Holmes: It is evidence, Mr Tolliver, and you were quick enough to keep it. Tolliver: So do I tell that cop at the— Holmes: No. Keep it so. Tell nobody, not even the Inspector.

10:47 Early at the Green Table Before a Card Is Dealt

10:51 Watson: The next evening we came early to the green table, before a card was dealt, and found Lorene setting out ashtrays while Inspector Voss leaned in the doorway. Holmes: Miss Lorene, a moment. The pad in your apron pocket. May I see it?

11:06 Lorene: My order pad? It's just— it's just drinks, Mister Holmes. Rye, club soda, a Scotch for the dentist.

11:14 Holmes: Two men at this table, and one of them drinks. That's a very full pad for one rye. Lorene: There's folks watching from the rail. They get thirsty.

11:25 Holmes: Do they. Voss: Then you won't mind, honey. Hand it over.

11:29 Lorene: I mind, Inspector. Voss: People who mind generally have a reason. Give it—

11:34 Lorene: No, sir. I'll fetch your drinks and empty your ashtrays, but nobody reads this pad. Nobody.

11:41 Watson: Miss Lorene, no one's accusing you of— Lorene: He is, Doctor. You heard him. Excuse me.

11:48 Voss: There's your drink orders, Mister Holmes. Holmes: She held it to her chest, Inspector, not behind her back. She was guarding it, not hiding it.

11:58 Voss: Same thing, from where I stand. Watson: Holmes, is that girl passing his cards across the table?

12:05 Signing for the Night Before

12:09 Watson: Next afternoon Ned Tolliver leaned on Yolanda's counter, signing for the night before, while she found Lorene's page in the wage book at Holmes's request. Yolanda: Lorene. Sixty-five dollars a week and her share of the tips. Five years, not one raise.

12:27 Holmes: You didn't need the book for that. You knew it by heart. Yolanda: I've asked the committee three times for her raise. Every time, there's no money.

12:36 Watson: No money? There are Cadillacs three deep out front. Yolanda: Cadillacs don't pay dues, Doctor. This year it all goes on the redecorating.

12:46 Holmes: Done at cost, I was told. Yolanda: Cost is still cost. Listen. Lobby carpet, nine thousand dollars. New lamps for the bar. Walnut panelling.

12:58 Yolanda: Card room: new felt, and an air vent in the ceiling over the high-stakes table — a member's request, to clear the smoke. Tolliver: Sign here, sign there. What am I, the Declaration of Independence?

13:11 Yolanda: You're behind on them, is what you are. Holmes: So Miss Lorene's raise waits behind the carpet. Yolanda: Behind everything. Mister Holmes, she came past this door last night with her eyes all— all red. Is it true? You people think it's her?

13:29 Watson: It isn't as simple as... Yolanda: Ned? You'd tell me.

13:35 Two Men on Foot Along Wilshire Boulevard

13:40 Watson: We walked home along Wilshire Boulevard as the sky went orange behind the palms, the only two men on foot in the city, so far as I could see. That patrol car has slowed for us twice. Walking must be a crime here.

13:53 Holmes: Then let's commit another, and lay the facts side by side. The first? Watson: Augie Pell wins. Five years, all but one night.

14:02 Holmes: The second. Watson: The girl stands at Tolliver's shoulder with a pencil, deal after deal, then carries a rye straight round to Pell. Holmes: The third.

14:13 Watson: She'd sooner walk out on a policeman than show him a single page. Holmes: And against all that: a cheat's partner keeps her signals in her head, Watson. Paper hangs people.

14:24 Watson: Not if she can't hold ten cards in her head. I couldn't, at the end of a double shift. Holmes: A fair answer, and a tired doctor's answer.

14:33 Watson: I like the girl, Holmes. I don't like the arithmetic. Holmes: Nor do I. Two pictures, and both of them fit the frame.

14:42 Watson: Then what's she writing?

14:45 Wet Paint in the Lobby Before the Next Game

14:49 Watson: Wet paint scented the lobby before the next game, the ladders were gone, and Bascombe had Inspector Voss by the elbow beneath a new chandelier. Bascombe: Mister Holmes! Doctor! Tell this officer to arrest somebody. I'm tired of buying Ned his—

15:04 Watson: Where's Mr Tolliver? Voss: At the table ten minutes since. Same chair.

15:09 Bascombe: Poor Ned. Deuces when he wants kings, kings when he wants deuces, ash on his queen of spades. And who's at his shoulder all night? That girl.

15:20 Voss: That's what I been telling them. Bascombe: Twenty years I'm a Harlequin, gentlemen. She writes what he holds, and she— look, she tucks it under the napkin on Augie's rye. He reads it when he picks up the glass.

15:33 Holmes: Then Pell drinks before his first discard, every deal. Voss: He does. Every night I've watched. Rye first, cards after.

15:42 Holmes: Odd, for a man who wins that often. Bascombe: There you go. I hate it, Mister Holmes. I like the kid, I do. I just... I like Ned more.

15:53 Watson: She did refuse the Inspector her pad, Holmes. I saw her face. Holmes: So did I. The waitress, Inspector. Tonight I send her home.

16:03 Voss: About time.

16:05 A Steel Drawer Behind Two Shut Doors

16:09 Watson: Behind two shut doors the game went on, while Yolanda unlocked a steel drawer of cancelled cheques for us, frowning before she had lifted one. Holmes: If the waitress is paid for her pencil, the money comes through Augie Pell. Where do his winnings go?

16:25 Yolanda: The club settles the markers and pays Augie by cheque. The bank sends them back endorsed. Not one to Lorene. Not— not one to cash, even.

16:36 Holmes: You looked for her name first, and prayed not to find it. Yolanda: You'd pray too, if you'd seen her face. Augie signs every winning cheque over. See? Silver Mesa Investments. A box number in Reno.

16:50 Watson: Endorsed to a third party. Half the bookmakers in Aldershot were— Yolanda: Nothing crooked in it, Doctor. Augie told me once. He's an investor.

16:58 Holmes: An investor. Very well. Now for the waitress.

17:04 From the Barstools, Through the Open Door

17:08 Watson: From our barstools we could see straight through the open card-room door to the lamp and the felt, with Voss on the next stool, nursing his soda.

17:23 Voss: First deal's made. Here she comes for the rye. Lorene: Rye for Mister Pell, same as always.

17:30 Holmes: Not tonight, Miss Lorene. The barman will carry it. Fetch your coat and go home.

17:35 Lorene: Home? It's not but nine o'clock. Voss: With my blessing, honey. A girl who writes behind Tolliver's chair every hand can take one night off.

17:45 Lorene: Five years I've stood back there. Five years, and never once— He'll look round, and I won't be there, and he'll think... he'll think I'm a thief.

17:58 Watson: Here, Miss Lorene. Take my handkerchief. Lorene: I've got my own, Doctor. I always carry my own.

18:06 Watson: That was a cruel thing, Holmes. Holmes: I know it was. It had to be done. Watch the chair.

18:13 Watson: Nobody behind him. He's looked round for her twice. Holmes: And now he doesn't look round at all. That hand has gone.

18:21 Voss: That's the break. Here comes your man. Tolliver: Where's my girl? Did you send her—

18:26 Holmes: Home. The Inspector and I did. How did you fare?

18:30 Tolliver: How'd I fare? How'd I— Nobody behind me, and I lost every hand since Lorene left!

18:37 A Stucco Rooming House and a Bag of Doughnuts

18:41 Watson: Lorene's rooming house was a stucco box off Franklin Avenue, and she came to the screen door in a housecoat, with Ned Tolliver behind us holding a bag of doughnuts. Lorene: Mister Tolliver. You brought them to my door.

18:55 Tolliver: I brought doughnuts. They brought themselves. Holmes: I owe you an apology, Miss Lorene. I sent you home to prove a theory. I was wrong.

19:05 Lorene: He lost anyhow, I heard. Tolliver: Every hand. You're in the clear, kid. Whatever's on that pad, I don't care.

19:14 Lorene: You'll care. I swore to the Inspector nobody reads this pad, and I meant— I meant you least of anybody. Sit down. I'll read it.

19:25 Lorene: "My bookie and my doctor both gave me six months. The bookie's the one I believe." Tolliver: That's mine! That's from March!

19:33 Lorene: "The Harlequins are so cheap, the last man who picked up a check, they had him stuffed for the lobby." Tolliver: Now hold on, that's— Watson: All of them his?

19:43 Lorene: Every one. Tuesdays I do amateur night at a little club on Sunset. They laugh, Mister Tolliver. At your jokes, in my mouth.

19:52 Tolliver: Honey, every comic in that club steals. You're the only one who took notes. Holmes: Mr Tolliver, the card, if you'll allow it.

20:02 Tolliver: You said tell nobody. You're the boss. Holmes: You've emptied the club's ashtrays for five years, Miss Lorene. Smell that.

20:11 Lorene: That's no cigar. Cigar ash is grey and sits in a lump. This is black, and fine as soot. That's a cheroot. Mister Pell smokes the club's cigars, and only Mister Bascombe smokes black cheroots.

20:26 Tolliver: Oh, brother. Watson: Then whoever dropped it wasn't sitting at that table. Holmes: No. It fell straight down, onto a card nobody at the table was watching, through that new vent above the felt. Then we go up, Watson. Into the ceiling.

20:43 That Afternoon With Yolanda's Keys

20:47 Watson: That afternoon Yolanda's keys let us through a door marked Staff Only, and Lorene went first up a service stair into the heat beneath the roof, with Inspector Voss labouring behind. Voss: Slow down, honey. Some of us are built for barstools.

21:02 Lorene: You were quick enough the other night, Inspector, seeing me off home. Voss: I had that coming. Yolanda: Stay on the joists, all of you. Step off them and you'll be dealt in downstairs.

21:14 Holmes: Here's the new vent. And the dust beside it's rubbed bare, the length of a man lying down. Voss: Huh.

21:22 Watson: Good Lord. You can see the whole table through the slats. The lamp, the felt, Tolliver's chair.

21:29 Holmes: And under that lamp, every card in Tolliver's hand. Lorene: Mister Holmes. All along this beam. Look.

21:36 Voss: Cigar ends. So the workmen— Lorene: Those are cheroots, Inspector. I've emptied every ashtray in this club for five years, and only Mister Bascombe smokes black cheroots.

21:48 Holmes: And this was never a workman's. A push-button screwed to the joist, with a wire running from it down through the plaster. Watson: Down the wall on Augie Pell's side, by the look of it. Holmes: Press it, and a buzzer taped under Pell's shirt gives him one tap for every card.

22:04 Voss: Well, I'll be. Yolanda: He was lying on this. A drawing. Silver Mesa Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas.

22:15 Holmes: The very elevation he carried under his arm the day we met. He spread his own hotel to keep the dust off his suit. Yolanda: That's where Augie signs every winning cheque over, Inspector. To this man's hotel. Five years I filed them, and I never once asked whose it was...

22:33 Voss: And Bascombe will tell me he climbed up here to keep an eye on his workmen. A jury might buy it. Butts, wire and cheques. Now tell me who lay here.

22:44 A Single Lamp Burning in the Guest House

22:48 Watson: Long past midnight a single lamp still burned in the guest house, and Holmes sat beneath it in his shirtsleeves, turning the palmed queen in his fingers. That's the hundredth time, Holmes. Come to bed. We have him.

23:02 Holmes: We have his cheroots in his ceiling, Watson, and he built the ceiling. Watson: And the wire? The cheques?

23:09 Holmes: Prove Pell cheats, and Bascombe is merely an unlucky investor. Nothing puts him on those joists on a game night. Watson: Ah. Then what's wrong with the card?

23:20 Holmes: Who knew of it, Watson, before Miss Lorene put her nose to it? Watson: We did, and Ned. He swore so in the car. Not a soul at that table looked at it.

23:31 Holmes: And in the lobby, under the new chandelier, what did Bascombe say to the Inspector? Watson: Some joke about Ned's luck. Deuces, kings, and ash... Good Lord, Holmes. Ash, on the queen.

23:45 Holmes: So how did Mister Bascombe know it was the queen?

23:49 The Empty Card Room an Hour Before the Deal

23:53 Watson: An hour before the deal, Holmes and I waited in the empty card room, a sealed deck on the felt, until Voss brought Bascombe in from the bar and Ned Tolliver at his heels. Bascombe: A private game, Inspector? I'm flattered. Who's dealing?

24:08 Voss: Nobody. We were up in your attic yesterday, Bascombe. Cheroot butts by the vent.

24:14 Bascombe: My attic? I— I built half of it. I was up there every day with the vent men, smoking like a chimney. Ask Yolanda.

24:23 Holmes: Every day, with the workmen. And on game nights? You told us the day we met that you never watch the big game.

24:31 Bascombe: Never. Can't stand to see Ned bleed. I meant it then, and I mean it now.

24:37 Holmes: Mr Tolliver. The night we landed. The second hand.

24:41 Tolliver: Ash came down on a card in my hand, and I palmed it. Till Lorene smelled it, I'd told two men alive, and nobody saw that card but me. Holmes: Miss Lorene was at the bar for the rye. Pell was studying his own hand. Nobody at that table saw it. Somebody above it did.

25:01 Voss: And before the game, under your chandelier, you stood there and told me about ash on his queen of spades. I took it for a gag. Bascombe: That? Somebody at the bar said it. Everybody talks at the—

25:14 Watson: Nobody at the bar knew, Mr Bascombe. Not even the Inspector. Bascombe: Well, I... that is...

25:22 Holmes: Fifty-two cards in a deck, and you named the one in my pocket. Tolliver: Twenty years, Bascombe. You bought me dinners with my own money. And every game night you lay up there over my head, reading my hand. And I went home and I thought— I thought I'd lost it. My timing, my nerve. I thought I was finished!

25:44 Bascombe: Easy, Ned. Think of the material. Voss: You're under arrest for fraud, Bascombe. And somebody go fetch me Augie Pell.

25:53 Some Weeks On, Rain Ticking at the Windows

25:57 Watson: Some weeks on, rain ticked at our windows while Ned Tolliver, back at his London picture and still in his studio paint, sat on our settee in a fog of pipe smoke.

26:14 Mrs Hudson: You'll smoke yourselves to kippers in here. I'm opening that window. Tolliver: In a minute, Mrs Hudson. I've got a confession, and it goes better in a fog.

26:24 Watson: Bascombe and Augie Pell both stand charged with fraud, Ned. What's left to— Tolliver: That vent. Yolanda read it out while I sat there signing: a member's request, to clear the smoke. That member was me.

26:38 Watson: You asked him for it? Tolliver: Begged him, over a sandwich. My eyes stung every hand. I ordered my own spy-hole.

26:49 Holmes: Your pen never stopped while she read it out. I heard it. You'd sooner be robbed than laughed at.

26:56 Tolliver: Show me a comic who wouldn't. Holmes: And it gave him his cover. Anyone who asked about that vent found your request in the book, not his.

27:05 Watson: But when did you stop believing it was the girl? Holmes: When Mr Tolliver came off that table and told us he'd lost every hand since Lorene left. Her pencil had gone home, and the cards still went to Pell.

27:17 Watson: And Lorene? Tolliver: Yolanda writes she did my stuffed-for-the-lobby joke on Sunset. Got a bigger laugh than I ever did.

27:25 Mrs Hudson: I call that justice. Now let me get some air in here. Holmes: Leave the smoke. It's cheaper.