The Case of the Thursday Club

0:00 A Long Hot Summer at Baker Street

0:04 Watson: It was Sunday evening, the twenty-eighth of September, nineteen seventy-seven. The long hot summer still pressed on London, and every window at Baker Street stood open to the dust and the buses. Holmes had been restless all week. Tonight he knelt among the Sunday papers, snipping columns for his index, and the scraps drifted like snow onto Mrs Hudson's new carpet. I held her bill for the old carpet, itemised in the new decimal pence, and I read it to him aloud.

0:35 Watson: "Item. One Axminster carpet, burnt through by acid before the hearth." Holmes: A controlled experiment. The carpet volunteered.

0:44 Watson: Hm. "Item. Bullet holes, assorted, in the pile."

0:49 Holmes: Those were in the wall, Watson. The carpet merely caught the plaster. Watson: She's charged you for the plaster too. And you're snowing newsprint on the new one as we speak.

1:00 Holmes: Paper sweeps up. Acid doesn't. I call that reform. Watson: Ha! She'll call it something shorter, Holmes.

1:14 Watson: Baker Street. Kincaid: Is this Baker Street? I'm calling from New York. I need Sherlock Holmes.

1:21 Watson: He's here. You sound a long way off. Who's calling?

1:25 Kincaid: My name is Kincaid. Please, put him on. Watson: New York. A Mr Kincaid. He won't wait.

1:32 Holmes: Speaking. Kincaid: My son Gavin hasn't come home to Purchase, Mr Holmes. I need you here, and I need the truth of it, before another night goes by.

1:43 Holmes: One moment. Watson: Well? Holmes: An ocean away, Watson, with the New York police surely in the house already.

1:50 Watson: Very likely. Holmes: A rich man's missing son is their bread and butter. I should only stand in their light.

1:57 Watson: Then why are you still holding the receiver, Holmes? Holmes: Courtesy. Watson: Mark what he asked for. Not his boy back. The truth.

2:06 Holmes: A father's phrasing, Watson. Grief comes out crooked. Watson: That wasn't grief. That was fear. He fears what the boy has done, not what's been done to him.

2:17 Holmes: The first interesting remark anyone has made all September. Mr Kincaid? We'll be on the first flight in the morning.

2:25 Kincaid: Thank God. I'll have a car meet you. Watson: And Mrs Hudson's bill?

2:34 Holmes: Pay it, sweep the floor, and leave her a note of apology. Your hat, Watson.

2:43 The Gates at Purchase

2:47 Watson: Kincaid's hired limousine, driven by a Miss Novak, set us down towards six at his gates in Purchase, where a trooper's car blocked the lane and a thickset inspector stood chewing gum. Holmes: Thank you, Miss Novak. You found these gates without once asking the way.

3:04 Natalie: Many times I bring Mr Kincaid's guests here, Mr Holmes. Always he calls my firm. Abruzzo: Inspector Abruzzo, New York State Police. You'd be the fella from London.

3:15 Holmes: Holmes. Dr. Watson. And that, creaking, is the son's car.

3:21 Abruzzo: Found Friday, first light, door hanging open like that. Nobody's moved it. Watson: Left standing open all weekend? It's Monday evening, Inspector.

3:31 Abruzzo: My lab boys wanted it as found. Then yesterday Mr Kincaid phones London. Says he wants eyes that ain't mine. So I kept it for you.

3:40 Holmes: Handbrake on. Headlamps switched off by hand. He stopped to open his own gate, as he must every night, and never got back in.

3:47 Abruzzo: Since Friday my troopers watch every lane in Purchase. Nobody comes or goes I don't hear about it. Holmes: Since Friday. And on Thursday night?

3:57 Abruzzo: Thursday night it was a quiet road in Westchester. Watson: Did you know the young man, Miss Novak? Natalie: Only to wave. Late nights I drive people home from the big houses along these roads.

4:10 Watson: So you'd pass him coming in. Natalie: Thursdays the kid drove home alone, and always waved.

4:17 The Stable Yard

4:21 Watson: Kincaid himself met us at the stables, a long white range reeking of horse and fresh paint, with a man up a ladder at the far end, whistling. Kincaid: Mr Holmes. Dr. Watson. God bless you for coming. I couldn't sit in that house.

4:38 Holmes: Your painter's whistling, Mr Kincaid. Does he know? Kincaid: He knows. I bade him keep on; the place is quiet enough. Rourke! Come down a minute, man.

4:50 Rourke: Comin', Mr Kincaid. Gents. Don't shake, I'm all over white.

4:54 Holmes: You're a fireman, Mr Rourke. Rourke: Who told you that? Holmes: Your ladder's lashed to the beam with a fireman's hitch, and you came down it with a full pot, never once looking at your feet.

5:05 Rourke: Heh. Ladder company, twenty-two years. City's broke. They laid off firemen by the hundred last month, and I'm on the list next time. So on my days off I paint Mr Kincaid's barn.

5:19 Watson: A fireman painting barns for his rent. A sorry pass for a city. Rourke: Tell it to the mayor, Doc.

5:27 Holmes: You knew Gavin? Rourke: Kid was down at that rail every morning. Talk horses, talk the Mets, talk nothin'. Nice kid.

5:36 Kincaid: Every morning. Gavin talks to the painter. I've hardly had ten words with him in a twelvemonth.

5:43 Kincaid's Study

5:48 Watson: In his study Kincaid shut the heavy door on the troopers in the hall, and only then would he say a word. Holmes: You shut that door before you sat, Mr Kincaid. Whatever comes next, the Inspector hasn't heard it.

6:02 Kincaid: He's heard the half of it. A tape came Saturday. They want one million seven hundred thousand dollars.

6:11 Watson: Can you raise it? Kincaid: By tomorrow. That's not the question that keeps me awake.

6:17 Holmes: You quarrelled with your son. Kincaid: How do you know that? Holmes: You told me, on the telephone. A frightened father asks for his son back. You asked for the truth.

6:29 Watson: I said that, as I recall. Holmes: So you did, and you were right. Kincaid: Aye. We rowed. Gavin's twenty-six. He wanted his share of the business now. His own money, his own life.

6:44 Kincaid: I told him he'd have not a penny while I live. I shouted it at him in this very room. Holmes: And within the week he was gone.

6:54 Watson: Surely you don't believe your own boy would— Kincaid: I don't know what I believe, Doctor. That's the shame of it. If my son did this to me, Mr Holmes, I must know before I pay.

7:07 The State Police Command Van

7:11 Watson: Halfway up the drive the State Police had parked a command van, and at dusk Inspector Abruzzo sat us down inside among its radios. Abruzzo: Transcript. Typed it myself. I'm the only one's played the thing.

7:24 Holmes: Not the father? Abruzzo: He can't face it. I play it, I stop it where the kid stops talking. Every time.

7:33 Watson: Read it to us, Inspector. Abruzzo: "Dad, it's Gavin. I'm okay. They want one million seven hundred thousand dollars. Old bills, two bags."

7:44 Abruzzo: "No cops, no tricks. They'll phone the place. Pay them, Dad, or they put me in the river."

7:51 Holmes: Old bills, two bags, no tricks. That's an inventory, Inspector. Written out first, then read aloud. Nobody pleads for his life in a list.

8:00 Abruzzo: Read aloud is right. Not a tremble in him. Steady as a priest at Sunday mass.

8:07 Watson: Shock does that. I've seen men under shellfire read their orders like a railway timetable. Abruzzo: I've had nine kidnap tapes in this state, Doc. Every one of them, you hear the kid breathing wrong.

8:19 Holmes: And this one breathes right. Abruzzo: A frightened boy shakes. This one reads like he wrote it.

8:25 The Ransom Tape in the Drawing Room

8:30 Watson: The cassette recorder stood on a drawing-room table, and Kincaid sat over it a long while, Abruzzo at his elbow and Holmes and I by the window, before he dared touch a key. Gavin: Dad, it's Gavin. I'm okay.

8:45 Kincaid: I'll keep it low. I can't bear him loud. Watson: There's no need, sir. The Inspector's read us every word.

8:53 Kincaid: I'm his father, Doctor. I'll hear it once. Abruzzo: That's him done. Stop it there.

8:59 Kincaid: My hand won't... Let it run. Holmes: Yes. Let it run.

9:05 Tape Voice: Off... Carroll Street bridge... no. The river. Abruzzo: What the hell was that?

9:11 Kincaid: Someone whispering. Carroll Street bridge, he says, then changes it. To the river.

9:19 Watson: Is it Gavin? Kincaid: I can't tell. It's only a whisper. It could be anyone...

9:36 Abruzzo: Tried 'em out. Fixed 'em. Watson: Or a kidnapper practising, so as not to fluff it on the—

9:41 Abruzzo: Kidnappers don't rehearse, Doc. Actors do. The boy and his gunman.

9:47 Kincaid: No. Not my boy...

9:50 Gavin's Bedroom

9:54 Watson: The missing son's bedroom, at the top of the stairs, was tidy as a hotel's; his father hovered at the door as though he needed leave to go in, and Abruzzo came up behind us with a notebook. Holmes: Thursday night, Mr Kincaid. Where was he driving home from?

10:10 Kincaid: His club, at Rye. The Saltmeadow. Every Thursday this past year, regular as the tide.

10:19 Holmes: Then why is his club tie hanging on this hook? Dust along the fold. It hasn't been knotted in a long while.

10:25 Kincaid: He was never one for ties, Mr Holmes, he always said they— Abruzzo: Tie's the least of it. You gave us the club story Friday, so I sent a trooper to Rye this afternoon.

10:34 Watson: And? Abruzzo: Dues paid up by cheque every quarter, steward says. The club hasn't seen him in months.

10:41 Kincaid: That's not possible. He told me himself, every week, at this door— Abruzzo: He told you. The doorman never laid eyes on him.

10:49 Kincaid: I don't... Watson: A young man may lie about his evenings for a dozen reasons, Inspector. Usually there's a girl in it.

10:57 Abruzzo: Sure, Doc. A girl with a pistol and a tape recorder. Kid lies about his Thursdays, and Thursday's the night he goes missing. Fake club, fake tape. It's a hoax.

11:08 Kincaid: Mr Holmes. You've seen his room, you've heard all that. Did my son... did my son stage this?

11:16 Two Canvas Bags

11:21 Watson: By the next afternoon the bank's men had come and gone, and the money lay in two canvas bags across Kincaid's desk while the Inspector paced. Kincaid: Last night I asked you a question, Mr Holmes, and— Holmes: And I couldn't answer it. I still can't.

11:37 Kincaid: Then I'll not gamble my son's life on the Inspector's hunch. Holmes: You'd settled that before you asked me. Your cuffs are grey with banknote dust. You counted it yourself.

11:49 Kincaid: Aye. Every note of it. One million seven hundred thousand dollars, old notes, two bags, just as the boy said.

12:00 Abruzzo: You're paying for a hoax, Mr Kincaid. The kid'll come home with a suntan. Watson: When do they want it, sir?

12:07 Kincaid: They rang at noon. Queens, tonight, alone. They'll send me on from a call box.

12:13 Abruzzo: Then let me put two cars a mile behind you— Kincaid: No cops, no tricks. You typed it yourself, Inspector.

12:19 Abruzzo: Okay. Then one thing my way. Papers have been camped at your gate since breakfast.

12:26 Kincaid: Vultures. Abruzzo: I gave 'em the kid's plea, word for word, river and all, so they'd quit making things up. Not the whisper. That tape goes in your safe, now, and stays there.

12:38 Watson: And nobody else has heard the end of it? Abruzzo: Us four in this room, Doc. I want it kept that way.

12:45 Kincaid: Hm. Locked. I alone have the combination.

12:50 Holmes: Then the whisper's safer tonight than you'll be. Watson: At least let me ride with you. A doctor in the back seat—

12:56 Kincaid: Alone, they said. Hold the door for me, Doctor. I'll take a bag on each shoulder and be in Queens by ten.

13:03 A Trooper's Car at Three in the Morning

13:07 Watson: At a little after three in the morning a trooper's car brought Gavin home, and we gathered in the kitchen, his father in a dressing-gown and Abruzzo still in his hat. Abruzzo: Trooper found him walking the shoulder of the Hutchinson River Parkway, half past two. Blindfold still knotted on.

13:25 Kincaid: Gavin. Gavin, lad. Let me look at you.

13:29 Gavin: I'm all right, Dad. Really, I'm— just don't grab my hands. Watson: Let me have them, Gavin. I'm a doctor. This will sting.

13:38 Gavin: God almighty. Watson: Rubbed raw, both wrists. You've been chained some days.

13:45 Holmes: And not pulling against it, I think. The raw places are on the knuckle side. Fidgeting, I'd say. Not straining.

13:53 Gavin: Five days on a chain, you'd fidget too. Who are you? Holmes: Sherlock Holmes. Your father sent for me. The man at the gate, Gavin. What did you see?

14:03 Gavin: Nothing. A pistol behind my ear, cold. Then a— a blindfold, and a car floor that smelled of carpet shampoo.

14:12 Holmes: And his voice? Young, old, from these parts? Gavin: He never said a word. Not at the gate, not in that room. A shove meant walk. A hand on my head meant sit.

14:25 Abruzzo: Heh. Five days and not a peep. That's a quiet kidnapper.

14:30 Gavin: So? Holmes: How did a blindfolded man read a plea? Gavin: He'd push the cloth up off one eye. A printed card, held against the wall. I read it.

14:41 Abruzzo: Read it nice and steady too. Gavin: What's that supposed to— Kincaid: Enough. Leave him be, Inspector. Not tonight.

14:48 Gavin: Dad. Did you... did you pay them? Kincaid: Every penny. Last night, in Queens.

14:56 Kincaid: Gavin? Son, don't turn your back on me.

14:59 The Guest Room in the Dark

15:04 Watson: Sent up to bed an hour later, Holmes and I sat on in the guest room with the lamp off and the house dark beneath us. Four o'clock. We'll be fit for nothing.

15:15 Holmes: Two facts, Watson. Side by side. Watson: Very well. He's lied to his father about his Thursdays for months.

15:24 Holmes: And his captor kept silent for five days together. Watson: Kidnappers threaten, Holmes. It's the whole of their trade.

15:32 Holmes: Unless the threat was arranged beforehand. Watson: You're leaning Abruzzo's way. I saw those wrists.

15:39 Holmes: I lean nowhere yet. A liar may still be kidnapped. A silent man may only be shy.

15:46 Watson: Then what's the lie for? Holmes: He still pays dues to a club he never enters. A man keeps up an alibi only when it guards something he values.

15:56 Watson: Then ask him what it guards. Holmes: In the morning, Watson, we put it to the boy.

16:02 Morning at the Paddock Rail

16:06 Watson: We came down at eight to find the son leaning on the paddock rail in his old place, Abruzzo trailing two troopers across the yard, and the painter Rourke already up his ladder. Rourke: Mornin', gents. Look who's back at the rail, huh? Thank God.

16:20 Gavin: I couldn't stay in that house. Dad keeps staring at me. Holmes: So do I, Gavin. Where do you go on Thursday nights?

16:29 Gavin: My club. In Rye. Abruzzo: The steward says different.

16:33 Gavin: Then that's my business, Inspector, not yours. Holmes: It stopped being your business when your father paid for it. You wanted your inheritance now, and he refused you. Then came a tape read as calm as a lesson. Not a tremble in him, the Inspector said, and I can find no better words.

16:52 Watson: Holmes, those wrists. I dressed them myself. Holmes: A hoaxer can chafe his own wrists, Watson. A night or two working a chain round a pipe.

17:02 Watson: And turning his back when he heard the money was paid? Holmes: Shame. A son who has bled his father can't meet his eye.

17:10 Gavin: You think I did this to him? Holmes: A gunman who never once spoke to you. A prisoner needs threatening. A partner doesn't.

17:18 Gavin: I never saw him! I never even— Abruzzo: Hands behind you, Gavin.

17:22 Rourke: Holy Mother. The kid? And me sick for him all yesterday, papers sayin' they'd drop him off the Carroll Street bridge.

17:31 Holmes: Carroll Street— Abruzzo: Mr Holmes. The car. I want you at the barracks for this.

17:36 Holmes: Yes. Coming. Watson: I hope to God you're right, Holmes.

17:41 The Drawing Room Again

17:45 Watson: Kincaid had the cassette out of his safe before Holmes had finished telling him, and he sat grey-faced at the recorder in the drawing room, alone with the two of us. Kincaid: You've arrested my son, Mr Holmes, on the strength of a tape I could only bear at a whisper. Watson: Sir, Mr Holmes believes—

18:04 Kincaid: I know what he believes. I'll hear the boy myself. Loud, this time.

18:11 Gavin: No cops, no tricks. Pay them, Dad, or they put me in the river. Watson: There's the chain. Poor devil, shifting about on it.

18:20 Holmes: Not shifting. Listen. It comes in groups, with gaps between. Short and long.

18:27 Kincaid: Dash, dot, dot. Dash, dash, dash. Dash, dot. Dash.

18:33 Watson: Morse? From a chained man? Kincaid: I taught him. With a torch across the lawn, when he was eight and couldn't sleep.

18:43 Holmes: Under every word of that steady reading. He held his voice still so his hands could talk. Kincaid: D. O. N. T. Then dot, dash, dash, dot. P. A. Y.

18:58 Kincaid: Hear it, Doctor? His chain spells don't pay. And I paid.

19:05 A Bare Green Room in Westchester

19:09 Watson: They held Gavin in a bare green room at the Westchester barracks, where by noon his father, Abruzzo, Holmes and I stood over him. Holmes: Inspector, I was wrong, and I was wrong louder than anyone. Take those off him.

19:24 Abruzzo: On what grounds? A kid who lies about his Thursdays? Kincaid: His chain spells don't pay, Inspector, under every word, if you'll only turn the thing up.

19:35 Abruzzo: Morse? The kid was tapping Morse? Holmes: His wrists are chafed on the knuckle side. I called it fidgeting. It was five days of rapping a chain, letter by letter.

19:46 Holmes: No hoaxer begs his father, in secret, not to pay. Abruzzo: Hell. Okay. Hold still, Gavin.

19:56 Gavin: You heard it? I never thought anyone would play it loud enough. Kincaid: I couldn't bear you loud, son. Not till they'd taken you away.

20:05 Gavin: I wanted them to get nothing, Dad. Not a dime of yours. Kincaid: I swore not a penny while I live, and there you lay on a chain, begging me not to pay one.

20:19 Gavin: I listened to you, for once. Watson: Any father would have paid all the same, Gavin. Kincaid: Then there's one thing left between us, lad. Thursdays. Where do you go?

20:33 Thursday Night in White Plains

20:32 Gavin: I'll show you.

20:38 Watson: The Methodist hall in White Plains smelled of floor polish and cold coffee, its chairs stacked along the walls, when Gavin led his father and us in after dark. Gavin: Thursdays at eight. Back row, by the urn.

20:52 Holmes: Hm. A coffee urn, a tin-lid ashtray, and a card on the wall. One day at a time.

20:59 Gavin: Alcoholics Anonymous, Dad. Fourteen months sober, and fourteen months of a club I never set foot in. Holmes: The club hasn't seen him in months, the Inspector told you. Now you know where it lost him.

21:12 Kincaid: Why in God's name did you not tell me? Gavin: Your name's on every bottle in America, Dad. How does your son tell you he can't stop drinking it? I kept paying the dues so the lie would hold. Easier than watching your face.

21:28 Watson: It's an illness, sir, not a disgrace. I've seen it kill men too proud to say so. Kincaid: I poured him his first dram myself. At Christmas, when he was fifteen.

21:42 Gavin: You didn't know, Dad. Kincaid: I didn't ask. That's worse.

21:47 Kincaid: Budge up, son. There's room at the back for a father, I hope.

21:52 Past Midnight at the Paddock

21:56 Watson: Long past midnight I found Holmes's bed empty, and followed the glow of his pipe across the lawn to the paddock rail. You'll catch your death out here, Holmes. Holmes: I've been playing the tape again, Watson. In my head. The end of it.

22:12 Watson: The whisper. Carroll Street bridge, then the river. Holmes: He tried it one way, then mended it, like a man fixing his own draft. And at this rail, yesterday morning—

22:22 Watson: Rourke, up his ladder. Carroll Street bridge, the papers said. Holmes: He even supplied the little word the hiss swallowed. The tape lost "the". The painter put it back.

22:35 Watson: Good heavens. You heard him at eight o'clock. Why only now?

22:40 Holmes: At eight I was busy being certain, and certainty is deaf. Watson: Some rag at the gate may have... oh, dressed the story up, I don't know. Holmes: Perhaps. But Carroll Street is in Brooklyn, over a canal. Not a river in sight.

22:56 Watson: Is it, now. Holmes: Where, Watson, did a stable painter hear those words?

23:03 First Light at Purchase

23:08 Watson: Grey light was touching the stable roofs when Abruzzo, Kincaid, Holmes and I walked down to Rourke at his paint pot, a black limousine idling nearby. Rourke: Mornin', Mr Kincaid. Heard the kid's home free. Thank God.

23:23 Holmes: Your ride is waiting, Mr Rourke. That's Miss Novak, isn't it? Rourke: Natalie, yeah. My heap's in the shop, so she runs me home to Brooklyn.

23:32 Natalie: Rourke, we go now. I have a fare at nine. Holmes: One minute, Miss Novak. Mr Rourke, yesterday you told us what the papers said.

23:41 Rourke: Sure, plain as day in the Daily News, off the Carroll Street bridge. Kincaid: I've bought every paper at my gate. Not one says Carroll Street.

23:51 Rourke: Heh. So it was the radio. WINS, somethin'. Everybody was sayin' it.

23:56 Abruzzo: Nobody was sayin' it. The papers got my typing, the river and all, and not one word after. The rest sits in Mr Kincaid's safe. Four people ever heard it, and you ain't one.

24:09 Rourke: I'm a fireman, I hear stuff at the firehouse, guys talk— Holmes: And Carroll Street, Mr Rourke, lies on the very Brooklyn run Miss Novak drives you home by. Rourke: So's two million people, pal!

24:20 Watson: Holmes, the limousine! She's making for the gate! Abruzzo: Gate's full of troopers and press trucks. She ain't goin' far.

24:28 Abruzzo: Here she comes. My trooper's got her by the arm, and two canvas bags out of her trunk. Kincaid: The bank's bags. That's my money.

24:37 Natalie: I only drive. Always I only drive, Inspector. Abruzzo: You drive, lady, he paints. Hands behind you, the pair of you.

24:48 Sunlight and Coffee in the Kitchen

24:52 Watson: By ten the kitchen was all sunlight and coffee, and Abruzzo came in with a fresh cassette to find Gavin and his father at table with Holmes and me. Abruzzo: Lab boys lifted the whisper clean out of the hiss. Took 'em all night.

25:06 Kincaid: You've never heard the end of your own tape, Gavin. I'd like you to. Rourke: Off the Carroll Street bridge... no. The river.

25:15 Gavin: That's Rourke. That's the painter. Every morning at that rail. He never said a word, because I'd have known him by the first one.

25:25 Watson: But you knew, Holmes, before the lab ever touched it. How? Holmes: Begin in the drawing room. Mr Kincaid let the tape run, and a whisper tried a line and mended it. Hm. Bridge first, river after; he says, then changes it, as you put it, Mr Kincaid. Only an author corrects his own words.

25:47 Watson: Any one of the gang might have written it. Holmes: Then the study. The Inspector gave the papers the plea alone and locked the tail in the safe. Four of us heard it.

25:57 Abruzzo: I'd have bet my pension on it stayin' four. Holmes: Then the paddock rail, the morning I wronged Gavin. Rourke up his ladder, quoting the tail and swearing it was in print.

26:09 Watson: Which you let pass. Holmes: Hah. Which I heard, and was too pleased with myself to hear.

26:17 Watson: And the gunman's silence? We all took it for menace. Holmes: Here in this kitchen Gavin told us his gunman never spoke. A painter he chatted with every morning dared not. A pistol, a blindfold, a printed card. None needs a voice. He rehearsed out of earshot, on that very cassette.

26:37 Watson: And Miss Novak? Holmes: Her firm drives Mr Kincaid's guests. At the gates she told us herself that Gavin drove home alone on Thursdays.

26:47 Abruzzo: Rourke and Novak, charged with kidnapping this morning. Money comes back to you when the court's done with it, Mr Kincaid. Holmes: Heh. A thrifty man, our painter. Never wasted a word, nor a cassette.

26:59 Home to Baker Street

27:04 Watson: A week later we were home at Baker Street, Mrs Hudson's new carpet swept, and Holmes back among his scissors. Do you suppose Rourke's lawyers will say the boy staged it after all? Holmes: I'm certain of it. I said so myself, Watson, for one whole morning. Let them call me as their witness.