Sherlock Holmes Audio - The Adventure of The Phantom Coachman

Mr Rodney Trasker, an old school friend of Mycroft Holmes, is of a nervous disposition, and is considerably upset by recent events at his home. An intruder has broken in at night for no apparent reason, since later nothing was found to be missing. Disturbed, he fled, only to fall to his death during the escape. His identity was eventually discovered to be Micah Bitterfield, a known agent of Imperial Germany.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Trasker employs a new coachman, Albert Derringham, who is soon found ransacking the library when all in the house have retired. Derringham threatens Mr Trasker with a pistol, but is overcome and suffers a fatal blow.

This second seemingly purposeless intrusion further weighs on Mr Trasker's nerves, all the more so when he is awakened at midnight three days later by his sister's screams. He rushes to her room where she stares, horrified, from the window. There in the road at the front of the house stands a coach, driven by an unscathed Albert Derringham! Mr Trasker has little time to do more than gape at the spectacle, before the coach makes off into the night.

The same occurrance is repeated the following night, but this time Mr Trasker has armed himself with a shotgun. As the coachman leers up at him he discharges both barrels, an instant before the coach speeds away. He comments later that the police will have no interest in the death of a ghost.

Yet the coach and its driver return the following night, having suffered no damage or injury.

Mr Trasker, mystified and afraid, journeys to London to seek the help of Mycroft Holmes. While there he sends a message to his sister, enquiring if there has been a further visitation. She replies that there has.

On hearing his old school friend's account, Mycroft summons Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to whom he relates these events. Holmes, as always, is scornful of any tale tinged with the supernatural, but nevertheless agrees to investigate.

Format     Audio

Author     Arthur Hall

Editor      David Marcum

Narrator  JT McDaniel