The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
A bride vanishes from her own wedding breakfast to a lord. Holmes resolves the scandal by revealing a first husband returned from the dead.
A lord, a bride who disappears between the wedding and the breakfast, and an ending that is less a crime than a social embarrassment. The comedy is all in the register: Lord Robert St Simon speaks as though being interviewed by a servant, Holmes answers as though he has not noticed, and Lestrade blunders about dragging the Serpentine. Then two Americans arrive and talk like people who have actually lived, and the difference between the two halves of the cast is the joke Doyle is telling.
The voices that carry it
Lord St Simon is cast with just enough self-regard to be funny rather than unpleasant. Hatty Doran, when she finally explains herself, is the plainest speaker in the story on purpose.
Chapter one plays without an account. Start listening to The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor.
Voice cast
6 characters plus the narrator, each with their own voice. All the voices of The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor.
- Sherlock Holmes — The world's only consulting detective. Razor-sharp analytical mind, cold precision, theatrical wit. Alternates between lethargy and explosive energy. Speaks in crisp, certain pronouncements.
- Dr. Watson — Holmes's loyal friend and biographer. A former army surgeon, warm, practical, earnest. Speaks with admiration for Holmes and genuine concern for clients.
- Inspector Lestrade — Scotland Yard's lead inspector. Competent but conventional, inclined to the obvious theory. Treats Holmes with mixed scepticism and grudging reliance.
- Lord Robert St. Simon — A pompous, self-important English nobleman in The Noble Bachelor whose American bride disappears on the wedding day.
- Hatty Doran — The spirited American heiress in The Noble Bachelor who married St. Simon but had a prior husband she believed dead. Frank, unabashed, and unapologetic.
- Francis Hay Moulton — Hatty Doran's first husband in The Noble Bachelor, a prospector believed dead who resurfaces on her wedding day to Lord St. Simon.
Chapters
- Chapter X: The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
About this recording
Is there a crime in The Noble Bachelor?
Barely. A woman leaves her own wedding breakfast and everyone assumes the worst; the truth is embarrassing rather than criminal. It is one of the lighter cases in the canon.
Does it need any background?
None. It is a self-contained story of about forty-five minutes, and Holmes explains the social conventions it depends on as he goes.