The Case of the Saint's Day Ransom · Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases

This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.

The curator of Aldermoor House calls up to Sherlock Holmes's window at Baker Street: its Van Brandt was stolen last night. By the next morning a letter to the newspaper threatens to burn the girl in the picture on Saint Patrick's Day. Who would steal a painting that can never be sold, and what does the thief want in return?

🎧 Full episode of Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a new Sherlock Holmes radio drama, an audio mystery performed by a full cast.

Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/

Stories, transcripts and the schedule: https://matezz.com

🎭 Directed Edition — every role cast for this story and every line performed with full voice direction.

London, a raw Sunday evening at the fag end of winter, 1974. The miners' strike has half the city's lamps turned low, Mrs Hudson has gone to her sister's, and Holmes is running down her bill for the hearthrug he burnt with acid before Christmas, line by line, while Watson sits with the chequebook open and keeps his opinions to himself. Then a motor horn sounds in the street below, three short blasts and a pause, and when the sash goes up a woman calls that nobody answers Holmes's door and she will not go away. She is Miss Thane, curator of Aldermoor House, whose Van Brandt was stolen the night before; unless it comes home she will lose her post. Holmes calls it a day-old scene the Yard has trodden flat, until Watson asks the question that gets them down the stairs: every dealer alive would know the picture on sight, so it can never be sold, so why would anyone steal it? Miss Thane puts them up at Aldermoor, and by nine they stand with her in the picture room, where Mrs Navarro, the cleaner, is at her dusting and Miss Thane describes the stolen girl of sixteen, smiling at someone just out of the frame. A letter has reached The Courier, asking for something no Government will give; if it is refused, she burns on Saint Patrick's Day. Down the corridor, boards are nailed over a broken window, and Inspector Lestrade is waiting with a young night guard in a borrowed overcoat. The newspapers want to know why the Yard cannot find one girl with a lute, and Saint Patrick's Day will not wait.

From the series Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a real crime of the 1970s reimagined as a classic Sherlock Holmes radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast, with sound design and a light score that stays under the story.

Loosely inspired by a real event of the 1970s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including the curator and staff of the house, its guards and cleaners, the councillors and officials who ran it, the journalists, the investigators and the police, and anyone ever suspected or accused in a real case — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, state, public body or newspaper is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the house, its paintings and the painters named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.

Setting: Hampstead, London — late winter, 1974.

Writer v2.7 — the studio's newest writing process: the plot is planned and checked by an AI story editor, then each act is drafted with the whole story in view and edited before a word is voiced — and then cast and performed with our new casting and voice direction.

Chapters:
0:00 A Raw Sunday Evening and Mrs Hudson's Bill
2:40 Nine O'Clock in the Picture Room
4:13 Boards Nailed Over a Broken Window
5:39 An Office Gone Cold for Want of Power
7:27 Lodgings Over a Tobacconist's
9:04 The Whitewashed Guardroom at Dusk
10:23 Next Morning in Miss Thane's Office
11:47 A Sunday Suit in the Front Hall
13:18 Cold Tea and Floor Polish at Scotland Yard
14:39 The Night the Thief Had Named
15:42 At Miss Thane's Desk With the Day's Paper
17:34 Among the Pictures, Unslept
18:54 Lestrade at Noon With Rain on His Hat
20:47 The Gaoler's Desk Below the Yard
23:06 Aldermoor Dark, and a Notebook Under the Lamp
24:29 Lestrade's Office and the Filing Cabinets
26:59 Mrs Hudson's New Carpet at Last

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