The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - "The Submarine Caves" (Old Time Radio, 1946)

Come in, come in, come in.

Good evening, Doctor.

Good evening, Mr. Bartow.

Say, how are you feeling, Doctor, all over that attack of flu you had?

I'm feeling very much better, thank you, my boy.

I'm still a little weak.

We old fossils take much longer to get over that sort of thing than you young fellas.

Well, you take good

care

of yourself, Doctor.

You've got a lot of friends, you know.

Oh, I'm very glad to hear that.

Thank you, Mr. Bartow.

And now settle yourself down, and I'll get on with tonight's new Sherlock Holmes adventure.

Where did it take place? You may not be familiar with the names of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, but those are the four principal islands that make up the group known as the Channel Islands.

Oh, yes, Doctor, I have heard of them.

Somewhere in the English Channel, aren't they? Between the southern coast of England and the northern coast of France? That's

quite right, my boy, though I very much doubt if you ever heard of the tiny island on which this story happened.

It was the island of Garth, a minute but self-contained spot with a population of just under a thousand inhabitants, subsisting, and from what I saw of the island in those days, subsisting very well on its dairy products.

Was it under the rule of the British government, Doctor?

No, Mr. Bartell, not exactly.

You see, the island belonged to a family by the name of Horn, the head of the family, who was known as the Senior of Garth, was an independent ruler owing nominal allegiance to the King of England.

That allegiance was expressed by one of those traditional ceremonies in which the seigneur annually presented one pound of freshly churned butter to a representative of the British

crown.

Times haven't changed much, have they, Doctor? A pound of butter is still worth a king's ransom.