OpenAI Whisper Test 3

[00:02.960 --> 00:08.400]  File 1. No Adverts from audiobooksforfree.com
[00:10.080 --> 00:14.000]  A study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
[00:15.440 --> 00:21.600]  Part 1 being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, MD,
[00:21.600 --> 00:27.920]  late of the Army Medical Department. Chapter 1 Mr Sherlock Holmes
[00:30.480 --> 00:36.720]  In the year 1878, I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London
[00:36.720 --> 00:41.040]  and proceeded to neckly to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army.
[00:42.320 --> 00:46.800]  Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the fifth Northumberland
[00:46.800 --> 00:52.160]  Fusilias as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time,
[00:52.160 --> 00:55.840]  and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out.
[00:56.640 --> 01:01.920]  On landing at Bombay, I learned that my core had advanced through the passes and was already
[01:01.920 --> 01:07.360]  deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same
[01:07.360 --> 01:13.680]  situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Kandahar in safety, where I found my regiment,
[01:13.680 --> 01:20.880]  and at once entered upon my new duties. The campaign brought honors and promotion to many,
[01:20.880 --> 01:27.520]  but for me, it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached
[01:27.520 --> 01:33.200]  to the boxers with whom I served at the fatal battle of my wand. There, I was struck on the
[01:33.200 --> 01:38.480]  shoulder by a gizile bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery.
[01:38.480 --> 01:43.360]  I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous dazis had it not been for the devotion
[01:43.360 --> 01:49.520]  and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who flew me across a pack horse and succeeded in bringing
[01:49.520 --> 01:51.120]  me safely to the British lines.
[01:52.960 --> 01:57.120]  Worn with pain and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone,
[01:57.680 --> 02:02.800]  I was removed with a great train of wounded sufferers to the base hospital at Peshawar.
[02:02.800 --> 02:09.200]  Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards and even
[02:09.200 --> 02:16.400]  to bask a little upon the veranda, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our
[02:16.400 --> 02:22.720]  Indian possessions. For months, my life was disappeared off, and when at last I came to myself
[02:22.720 --> 02:28.560]  and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not
[02:28.560 --> 02:34.160]  a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched accordingly in the troop ship
[02:34.160 --> 02:40.800]  Arontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth Jettie with my health irretrievably ruined,
[02:40.800 --> 02:45.680]  but with permission from a paternal government to spend with the next nine months in attempting to
[02:45.680 --> 02:53.200]  improve it. I had neither kiss nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air,
[02:53.200 --> 02:59.120]  or as free as an income of 11 shillings and six months a day will permit a man to be. On the such
[02:59.120 --> 03:05.360]  circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great sespool into which all the lounges and
[03:05.360 --> 03:11.760]  idlers of the empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel
[03:11.760 --> 03:18.400]  in the strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had,
[03:18.400 --> 03:24.480]  considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming to the state of my finances become,
[03:24.480 --> 03:29.680]  that I soon realised that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country,
[03:29.680 --> 03:33.200]  or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living.
[03:34.240 --> 03:39.040]  Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel,
[03:39.040 --> 03:43.600]  and to take up my quarters in some mispretentious and less expensive domicile.
[03:43.600 --> 03:50.320]  On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the criterion bar
[03:50.320 --> 03:55.520]  when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round, I recognised young Stanford
[03:55.520 --> 04:00.560]  who had been a dresser under me at bats. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness
[04:00.560 --> 04:06.560]  of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days, Stanford had never been
[04:06.560 --> 04:12.320]  a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appears
[04:12.320 --> 04:18.240]  to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the
[04:18.240 --> 04:21.040]  Holden, and we started off together in a handsome.
[04:22.720 --> 04:27.600]  Whatever you've been doing with yourself, Watson, he asked in undistised wonder as we rattled
[04:27.600 --> 04:32.320]  through the crowded London streets. You're as thin as a left, and brown as a nut.
[04:33.040 --> 04:37.760]  I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and that hardly concluded it by the time that we
[04:37.760 --> 04:42.960]  reached our destination. Poor, devil, he said, commiseratingly after he had listened to
[04:42.960 --> 04:49.280]  mine as fortunes. What are you up to now? Looking for lodgings, I answered. Trying to solve
[04:49.280 --> 04:53.200]  the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.
[04:54.000 --> 04:58.640]  That's a strange thing, remarked my companion. You're the second band today that has used that
[04:58.640 --> 05:03.840]  expression to me. And who was the first, I asked. A fellow who is working at the chemical
[05:03.840 --> 05:07.840]  laboratory up at the hospital. He was been moaning himself this morning because he could not
[05:07.840 --> 05:12.560]  get someone to go hard with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for
[05:12.560 --> 05:18.880]  his purse. By, drove, I cried. If he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense,
[05:18.880 --> 05:22.480]  I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone.
[05:23.520 --> 05:26.800]  Young Stanford looked rather strangely at me over his wine glass.
[05:26.800 --> 05:33.680]  You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet, he said. Perhaps it would not care for him as a constant
[05:33.680 --> 05:38.880]  companion. Why? What is the regenstein? Well, I didn't say there was anything against him.
[05:38.880 --> 05:43.520]  He is a little queer in his ideas, an enthusiast in some branches of science,
[05:43.520 --> 05:49.440]  as far as I know he is a decent fellow enough. A medical student, I suppose, said I.
[05:49.440 --> 05:54.320]  No, I have no idea what he intends to do in fourth. I believe he is well happy in an
[05:54.320 --> 05:59.760]  enemy, and he is a first class chemist. But as far as I know, he has never taken out any
[05:59.760 --> 06:05.920]  systematic medical classes. His study is a very desolate and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of
[06:05.920 --> 06:10.640]  out of the way knowledge which would aspire his professors. Did you never ask him what he was
[06:10.640 --> 06:17.200]  going in for? I asked. No, he is not a man that is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative
[06:17.200 --> 06:22.720]  enough when the fancy ceases him. I should like to meet him, I said. If I am to lodge with anyone,
[06:22.720 --> 06:27.920]  I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much
[06:27.920 --> 06:33.120]  noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural
[06:33.120 --> 06:38.320]  existence. How could I meet this friend of yours? He is sure to be at the laboratory,
[06:38.320 --> 06:42.720]  returned my companion. He either avoids the place or weeks or else he works there for morning
[06:42.720 --> 06:48.720]  till night. If you like, we would drive around together after lunch and certainly, I answered,
[06:48.720 --> 06:54.560]  and the conversation drifted away into other channels. As we made our way to the hospital after
[06:54.560 --> 06:59.440]  leaving the Holden, Stanford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed
[06:59.440 --> 07:04.480]  to take as a fellow lodger. You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him," he said.
[07:04.480 --> 07:08.400]  I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory.
[07:08.960 --> 07:14.640]  You propose this arrangement, so you must not hold me responsible. If we don't get on, it will be
[07:14.640 --> 07:20.000]  easy to part company, I answered. It seems to me, Stanford, I had it looking hard at my
[07:20.000 --> 07:24.800]  companion, that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow's
[07:24.800 --> 07:31.360]  temper so formidable law? What is it? Don't be merely mouth about it? It is not easy to express
[07:31.360 --> 07:38.080]  the inexmissible," he answered with a laugh. Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes.
[07:38.080 --> 07:42.560]  It approaches the cold bloodiness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the
[07:42.560 --> 07:47.360]  latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of the spirit
[07:47.360 --> 07:53.040]  of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he
[07:53.040 --> 07:58.640]  would pig it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact
[07:58.640 --> 08:05.280]  knowledge. Very right, too. Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the
[08:05.280 --> 08:10.080]  subject and the dissecting rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape.
[08:10.080 --> 08:16.400]  Beating the subject. Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death.
[08:17.120 --> 08:22.880]  I saw him at it with my own eyes. And yet you say, he is not a medical student. No,
[08:22.880 --> 08:28.000]  heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must form your own
[08:28.000 --> 08:33.680]  impressions about him. As he spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small
[08:33.680 --> 08:38.640]  side door which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me,
[08:38.640 --> 08:43.600]  and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the
[08:43.600 --> 08:47.840]  long corridor with its vista of whitewash wall and dumb coloured doors.
[08:48.880 --> 08:55.200]  Near the farther end, a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.
[08:56.080 --> 09:00.640]  This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.
[09:01.440 --> 09:06.480]  Broad, low tables were scattered about which bristled with retorts, test tubes and little
[09:06.480 --> 09:11.840]  Bunsenlabs with their blue flickering flames. There was only one student in the room
[09:11.840 --> 09:17.200]  who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps,
[09:17.200 --> 09:23.920]  he glanced ground and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. I found it! I found it! He shouted
[09:23.920 --> 09:29.200]  to my companion, running towards us with a test tube in his hand. I had found a reagent,
[09:29.200 --> 09:34.160]  which is precipitated by human globin and by nothing else. Had he discovered a gold mine,
[09:34.160 --> 09:40.480]  greater delight, could not have shone upon his features. Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
[09:40.480 --> 09:45.680]  said Stanford, introducing us. How are you? He said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength
[09:45.680 --> 09:50.080]  for which I should hardly have given him credit. You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.
[09:50.720 --> 09:55.520]  How on earth did you know that? I asked him astonishment. Never mind, said he,
[09:55.520 --> 10:00.560]  chuckling to himself. The question now is about him a globin. No doubt you see the significance
[10:00.560 --> 10:07.040]  of this discovery of mine. It is interesting, chemically, no doubt, I answered, but practically,
[10:07.040 --> 10:13.120]  why then? It is the most practical medical legal discovery for years. Don't you see that it
[10:13.120 --> 10:18.640]  gives us an infallible test for blood stains? Come over here now! He seized me by the coat
[10:18.640 --> 10:22.800]  sleeve in his eagerness and drew me over to the table at which he had been working.
[10:23.600 --> 10:28.800]  Let us have some fresh blood, he said, digging a long botkin into his finger and drawing off the
[10:28.800 --> 10:34.400]  resulting drop of blood into a chemical pipette. Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a
[10:34.400 --> 10:39.120]  liter of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water.
[10:39.920 --> 10:44.320]  The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however,
[10:44.320 --> 10:50.640]  that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction. As he spoke, he flew into the vessel
[10:50.640 --> 10:56.240]  a few white crystals and then added some drops of the transparent fluid. In an instant,
[10:56.240 --> 11:01.600]  the contents assumed a dull mahogany color and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom
[11:01.600 --> 11:08.240]  of the glass jar. He cried, clapping his hands and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy.
[11:08.240 --> 11:15.920]  What do you think of that? It seems to be a very delicate test, I remarked. Beautiful! Beautiful!
[11:15.920 --> 11:21.440]  The old, grey come test was very clumsy and uncertain, so is the microscopic examination for
[11:21.440 --> 11:27.280]  blood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to
[11:27.280 --> 11:33.200]  act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of
[11:33.200 --> 11:37.920]  men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes. Indeed,
[11:37.920 --> 11:44.160]  a mermaid. Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is suspected of a
[11:44.160 --> 11:50.400]  crime months, perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined and brownish
[11:50.400 --> 11:56.080]  stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains or mud stains or rust stains or fruit stains
[11:56.080 --> 12:03.600]  or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert and why? Because there was no
[12:03.600 --> 12:10.160]  reliable test. Now, we have the Sherlock Holmes test and there will no longer be any difficulty.
[12:11.200 --> 12:17.040]  His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some
[12:17.040 --> 12:23.920]  applauding crowd comes it up by his imagination. You have to be congratulated by remarked,
[12:23.920 --> 12:29.760]  considerably surprised at his enthusiasm. There was the case of von Bischoff at Frankfurt last
[12:29.760 --> 12:35.600]  year. He would certainly have been hung at this test been in existence. Then there was mission
[12:35.600 --> 12:41.520]  at Bradford and the notorious Muller and Lefebvre of Montpellier and Samson of New Orleans.
[12:41.520 --> 12:46.080]  I could name a score of cases in which it would have been decisive. You seem to be
[12:46.080 --> 12:52.160]  walking, Canada of crime," said Stanford, with a laugh. You might start a paper on those lines,
[12:52.160 --> 12:58.240]  call it the police news of the past. Very interesting reading it might be made too,
[12:58.240 --> 13:02.480]  remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger.
[13:03.120 --> 13:07.760]  After he careful, he continued turning to me with a smile for a double with poison's a good deal.
[13:08.400 --> 13:13.120]  He held out his hand as he spoke and I noticed that it was mottled over with similar pieces of
[13:13.120 --> 13:20.240]  plaster and discolored with strong acids. We came here on business," said Stanford,
[13:20.240 --> 13:24.880]  sitting down on a high three legged stool and pushing another one in my direction with his foot.
[13:25.760 --> 13:30.720]  My friend here wants to take diggings and as you were complaining that you could get no one
[13:30.720 --> 13:36.000]  to go house with you, I thought that I had better bring you together. Sherlock Holmes
[13:36.000 --> 13:38.800]  seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me.
[13:38.800 --> 13:44.000]  I have my eye on a sweetened baker's street," he said, which would suit us down to the ground.
[13:44.720 --> 13:49.600]  We don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope. I always smoke ships myself,
[13:49.600 --> 13:54.160]  I answer it. That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about and occasionally do
[13:54.160 --> 14:00.880]  experiments, without an oil, but by no means. Let me see, for my other shortcomings.
[14:02.000 --> 14:06.400]  I get in the dumps at times and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I'm
[14:06.400 --> 14:12.240]  sulky when I do that, just let me alone and I'll soon be right. What have you been to confess now?
[14:12.240 --> 14:15.840]  It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.
[14:16.640 --> 14:22.960]  I laughed at this cross examination. I keep a bull pup," I said, and I object to rouse because
[14:22.960 --> 14:28.720]  my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sort of ungodly hours and I'm extremely lazy.
[14:28.720 --> 14:33.360]  I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present.
[14:33.360 --> 14:40.080]  Do you include violin playing in your category of rouse?" he asked, anxiously.
[14:40.080 --> 14:45.440]  But it depends on the player, I answered. A well played violin is a treat for the gods,
[14:45.440 --> 14:50.080]  a badly played one. Ah, that's all right, he cried with a merry laugh. I think we make
[14:50.080 --> 14:53.440]  consider the thing is settled. That is, if the rooms are agreeable to you,
[14:54.480 --> 14:57.840]  when should we see them? Of course, we'll be here at noon tomorrow and we'll go together and
[14:57.840 --> 15:03.920]  settle everything," he answered. All right, noon exactly, said I, shaking his hand. We left him
[15:03.920 --> 15:10.640]  working among his chemicals and we walked together towards my hotel. By the way, I asked suddenly
[15:10.640 --> 15:16.080]  stopping and turning upon Stanford. How did you still know that I'd come from Afghanistan?
[15:17.200 --> 15:23.280]  My companion smiled in any grammatical smile. That's just his little peculiarity, he said.
[15:23.280 --> 15:28.880]  A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out. Oh, a mystery is it, I cried,
[15:28.880 --> 15:34.240]  rubbing my hands. This is very pickled. I'm much obliged to you for bringing us together.
[15:34.240 --> 15:40.320]  The proper study of mankind is man, you know. You must study him then, Stanford said,
[15:40.320 --> 15:44.560]  as he'd bad me goodbye. You'll find him a naughty problem though. I'll read you, he learns more
[15:44.560 --> 15:50.800]  about you than you about him. Goodbye. Goodbye. I answered, and strolled onto my hotel,
[15:50.800 --> 16:00.800]  considerably interested in my newer acquaintance.