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

On a wet June evening in 1949, Inspector Lestrade climbs to Baker Street clutching a sodden parcel he will not set down, hours after a passer-by was shot dead in Marlow Street. Why has Scotland Yard come to Holmes for something other than a name?

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

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

London, the last days of June 1949. Dr Watson is rehearsing a best man's speech by the fire at Baker Street when Inspector Lestrade arrives, rain-soaked and carrying a parcel he refuses to put down. A passer-by was shot dead in Marlow Street that afternoon, and Lestrade has come not for a name, since the Yard has been offered plenty of those, but for Holmes. At Dunmore's, a jeweller's shop, a young cashier describes three masked men with scarves to the eyes, one laying a revolver across her counter, and an old shopman who hurled his stool at them. The till was ignored. The men went straight for a safe the manager swears is never opened by day, yet it stood open when they walked in. Nearby, in Hallam House on the corner of Tottenham Court Road, the hall porter tells of a brave motorcyclist who laid his machine across the raiders' path, and of the masked man who fired and then ran into the building. Lestrade asks Holmes and Watson to keep silent about what was found there. Holmes begins to wonder who knew when that safe would stand open, and who has been left out of the story so far.

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 shop workers, a hall porter, passers-by, the investigators and the police — 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 jeweller's shop, the office building 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: Baker Street and Marlow Street — June 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 Rain on Baker Street
2:28 Broken Glass in Marlow Street
4:26 The Corner of Tottenham Court Road
6:13 A Landing Under a Weak Bulb
7:27 A Promise of Silence
8:50 Darkness on the Front Steps
10:14 Three Puzzles on a Wet Morning
11:17 Boards Across the Window
13:05 Back Through the Iron Gate
14:26 A Journey Through Wet Streets
16:11 Lestrade Meets Us Below
17:49 Smoke, Talk and Thirsty Men
19:10 An Inspector's Early Vigil
20:45 An Unwelcome Early Call
22:34 Questions Without Comfortable Answers
24:17 Tea by the Baker Street Fire

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