The Case of the Valdek Window · 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.

At dawn Prague telephones a woman in London: the minister she is to marry has killed himself, and the verdict comes in the same breath as the news. She wants Sherlock Holmes to look before he is buried, but Prague has changed hands and an English detective asking questions would have no standing. Why was the case closed so fast?

Read the story and the full transcript: https://matezz.com/episodes/the-case-of-the-valdek-window-sherlock-holmes-the-new-cases/

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, April 1949. A coal cart rattles down Baker Street in the sleet, the wireless murmurs the evening news, and Watson, who has spent a week losing at chess to a Holmes absorbed in reorganising his index, sits at the desk with a wedding invitation from his old adjutant and no coupons left for morning dress. Holmes advises him to plead the Board of Trade. Then the wireless dies mid-word, and a woman who will not sit down is in the room. Ruth Ashby has been disturbed since dawn, when Prague telephoned to say that the man she is to marry had killed himself at the Valdek Palace, and she wants someone to look before he is buried. Holmes reminds her that Prague has changed hands and that an English detective asking questions inside the Ministry would have no standing; Watson points out that the death and the verdict reached London in one breath. In Sovin Square, grey under a low sky, Inspector Navratil of the Prague police meets Holmes and Watson at the Valdek gate, where strangers have heaped flowers against the railings (fifty bunches, none of them signed) and two men by the church count who brings them. The Ministry has given the visitors one day and has announced suicide: Minister Pospisil went from his bathroom window before dawn. Navratil says he wants the truth, if it is a small one, and takes them through the palace: a red-eyed secretary named Tremayne at a desk where nothing has been moved; Bartonicek, the stocky guard who found the minister at first light in the courtyard of black cobbles three floors below the window; Kostka, a broad, easy-going man keeping the stove at the head of the stair; and, saved for last, the bathroom. Holmes and Watson have one day and no standing, in a city where, as Navratil puts it, one is careful with everything.

From the series Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a real crime of the 1940s 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 1940s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including the minister, his fiancée, his secretary, the guards and staff of his household, the investigators and the police, and the officials of his government — 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 palace, the ministry, the hotel and the streets 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: London and Prague — April 1949.

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 Sleet, Ration Books and a Wedding Invitation
2:48 Flowers Against the Railings at the Valdek Gate
4:25 Tall Cold Windows and a Red-Eyed Secretary
6:01 A Courtyard of Black Cobbles
7:26 The Head of the Stair, by the Minister's Front Door
9:04 Saving the Bathroom for Last
10:30 The Chair Facing the Secretary's Desk
11:57 A Pencilled Report Read at the Window
13:32 Coffee From a Tin Jug
14:46 Carbolic and Wet Plaster
16:08 Dusk on the Bridge, the Stone Saints Gone Black
17:06 Near Midnight in Navratil's Office
18:09 A Cupboard With a Desk and a Blackout Blind
19:52 A Cell Door and a Folded Report
21:37 Past Three in the Morning at an Unlit Window
22:46 A London Cable at the Palace Railings
24:22 The Smell of Scorched Coffee
26:40 Rain on the Panes at Teatime

#MonoNoirRadioDrama #SherlockHolmes #AudioDrama