A young woman's letter changes everything: Holmes, Watson and Detective Superintendent Ernst Gennat visit Marie Butlies, who only just escaped the man Düsseldorf calls the Vampire. Patiently, Holmes lets her tell her story – of a polite, perfectly ordinary gentleman, of a house with a dark door and of a path leading into a wood. For the first time the police have something they did not have before: a path and a house. Then the story turns back to 7 November 1929 and to Gertrud Albermann, five years old, playing in front of her foster family's shop with a piece of wood that is a ship bound for America. This episode tells of a real child murder – with restraint, without embellishment, and with its eyes on the child rather than on the killer.
This radio play was produced with the help of Eleven Labs and using properly licensed voice clones, and was checked by human proofreaders.
