I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the
end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a telegram while we sat at
our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He made no remark, but the matter
remained in his thoughts, for he stood in front of the fire afterwards with a
thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the
message. Suddenly he turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
“I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters,” said he. “How
do you define the word ‘grotesque’?”
“Strange—remarkable,” I suggested.
He shook his head at my definition.
“There is surely something more than that,” said he; “some underlying
suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind back to some
of those narratives with which you have afflicted a long-suffering public, you
will recognise how often the grotesque has deepened into the criminal. Think of
that little affair of the red-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the
outset, and yet it ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there
was that most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which led straight to a
murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert.”
“Have you it there?” I asked.
He read the telegram aloud.
“Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I consult
you?
“Scott Eccles,
“Post Office, Charing Cross.”
“Man or woman?” I asked.
“Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. She would
have come.”
“Will you see him?”
“My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up Colonel
Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because
it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is
commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed
forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to
look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove? But here, unless I am
mistaken, is our client.”
A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout, tall,
grey-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into the room. His
life history was written in his heavy features and pompous manner. From his
spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was a Conservative, a churchman, a good
citizen, orthodox and conventional to the last degree. But some amazing
experience had disturbed his native composure and left its traces in his
bristling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. He
plunged instantly into his business.
“I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes,” said he.
“Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. It is most
improper—most outrageous. I must insist upon some explanation.” He swelled and
puffed in his anger.
“Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles,” said Holmes in a soothing voice. “May I ask,
in the first place, why you came to me at all?”
“Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the police, and
yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I could not leave it
where it was. Private detectives are a class with whom I have absolutely no
sympathy, but none the less, having heard your name—”
“Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?”
Holmes glanced at his watch.
“It is a quarter-past two,” he said. “Your telegram was dispatched about one.
But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing that your
disturbance dates from the moment of your waking.”
Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin.
“You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I was only too
glad to get out of such a house. But I have been running round making inquiries
before I came to you. I went to the house agents, you know, and they said that
Mr. Garcia’s rent was paid up all right and that everything was in order at
Wisteria Lodge.”
“Come, come, sir,” said Holmes, laughing. “You are like my friend, Dr. Watson,
who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end foremost. Please arrange
your thoughts and let me know, in their due sequence, exactly what those events
are which have sent you out unbrushed and unkempt, with dress boots and
waistcoat buttoned awry, in search of advice and assistance.”
Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional appearance.
“I’m sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in my
whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But I will tell you the whole
queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am sure, that there
has been enough to excuse me.”
But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside, and Mrs.
Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and official-looking individuals,
one of whom was well known to us as Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an
energetic, gallant, and, within his limitations, a capable officer. He shook
hands with Holmes and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey
Constabulary.
“We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this direction.” He
turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. “Are you Mr. John Scott Eccles, of
Popham House, Lee?”
“I am.”
“We have been following you about all the morning.”
“You traced him through the telegram, no doubt,” said Holmes.
“Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing Cross Post-Office and
came on here.”
“But why do you follow me? What do you want?”
“We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which led up to the
death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, near Esher.”
Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour struck from
his astonished face.
“Dead? Did you say he was dead?”
“Yes, sir, he is dead.”
“But how? An accident?”
“Murder, if ever there was one upon earth.”
“Good God! This is awful! You don’t mean—you don’t mean that I am suspected?”
“A letter of yours was found in the dead man’s pocket, and we know by it that
you had planned to pass last night at his house.”
“So I did.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
Out came the official notebook.
“Wait a bit, Gregson,” said Sherlock Holmes. “All you desire is a plain
statement, is it not?”
“And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used against him.”
“Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room. I think,
Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, I suggest that you
take no notice of this addition to your audience, and that you proceed with
your narrative exactly as you would have done had you never been interrupted.”
Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned to his face.
With a dubious glance at the inspector’s notebook, he plunged at once into his
extraordinary statement.
“I am a bachelor,” said he, “and being of a sociable turn I cultivate a large
number of friends. Among these are the family of a retired brewer called
Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington. It was at his table that I
met some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia. He was, I understood, of
Spanish descent and connected in some way with the embassy. He spoke perfect
English, was pleasing in his manners, and as good-looking a man as ever I saw
in my life.
“In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I. He
seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two days of our meeting
he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to another, and it ended in his
inviting me out to spend a few days at his house, Wisteria Lodge, between Esher
and Oxshott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher to fulfil this engagement.
“He had described his household to me before I went there. He lived with a
faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after all his needs. This
fellow could speak English and did his housekeeping for him. Then there was a
wonderful cook, he said, a half-breed whom he had picked up in his travels, who
could serve an excellent dinner. I remember that he remarked what a queer
household it was to find in the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him,
though it has proved a good deal queerer than I thought.
“I drove to the place—about two miles on the south side of Esher. The house was
a fair-sized one, standing back from the road, with a curving drive which was
banked with high evergreen shrubs. It was an old, tumbledown building in a
crazy state of disrepair. When the trap pulled up on the grass-grown drive in
front of the blotched and weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in
visiting a man whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however,
and greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the
manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag in his
hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner was
tête-à-tête, and though my host did his best to be entertaining, his
thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he talked so vaguely and wildly that
I could hardly understand him. He continually drummed his fingers on the table,
gnawed his nails, and gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner itself
was neither well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy presence of the
taciturn servant did not help to enliven us. I can assure you that many times
in the course of the evening I wished that I could invent some excuse which
would take me back to Lee.
“One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the business
that you two gentlemen are investigating. I thought nothing of it at the time.
Near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the servant. I noticed that
after my host had read it he seemed even more distrait and strange than before.
He gave up all pretence at conversation and sat, smoking endless cigarettes,
lost in his own thoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents. About
eleven I was glad to go to bed. Some time later Garcia looked in at my door—the
room was dark at the time—and asked me if I had rung. I said that I had not. He
apologised for having disturbed me so late, saying that it was nearly one
o’clock. I dropped off after this and slept soundly all night.
“And now I come to the amazing part of my tale. When I woke it was broad
daylight. I glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly nine. I had
particularly asked to be called at eight, so I was very much astonished at this
forgetfulness. I sprang up and rang for the servant. There was no response. I
rang again and again, with the same result. Then I came to the conclusion that
the bell was out of order. I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an
exceedingly bad temper to order some hot water. You can imagine my surprise
when I found that there was no one there. I shouted in the hall. There was no
answer. Then I ran from room to room. All were deserted. My host had shown me
which was his bedroom the night before, so I knocked at the door. No reply. I
turned the handle and walked in. The room was empty, and the bed had never been
slept in. He had gone with the rest. The foreign host, the foreign footman, the
foreign cook, all had vanished in the night! That was the end of my visit to
Wisteria Lodge.”
Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this bizarre
incident to his collection of strange episodes.
“Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique,” said he. “May I ask,
sir, what you did then?”
“I was furious. My first idea was that I had been the victim of some absurd
practical joke. I packed my things, banged the hall door behind me, and set off
for Esher, with my bag in my hand. I called at Allan Brothers’, the chief land
agents in the village, and found that it was from this firm that the villa had
been rented. It struck me that the whole proceeding could hardly be for the
purpose of making a fool of me, and that the main object must be to get out of
the rent. It is late in March, so quarter-day is at hand. But this theory would
not work. The agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me that the rent
had been paid in advance. Then I made my way to town and called at the Spanish
embassy. The man was unknown there. After this I went to see Melville, at whose
house I had first met Garcia, but I found that he really knew rather less about
him than I did. Finally when I got your reply to my wire I came out to you,
since I gather that you are a person who gives advice in difficult cases. But
now, Mr. Inspector, I understand, from what you said when you entered the room,
that you can carry the story on, and that some tragedy had occurred. I can
assure you that every word I have said is the truth, and that, outside of what
I have told you, I know absolutely nothing about the fate of this man. My only
desire is to help the law in every possible way.”
“I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles—I am sure of it,” said Inspector Gregson in
a very amiable tone. “I am bound to say that everything which you have said
agrees very closely with the facts as they have come to our notice. For
example, there was that note which arrived during dinner. Did you chance to
observe what became of it?”
“Yes, I did. Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire.”
“What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?”
The country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was only redeemed
from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost hidden behind the
heavy creases of cheek and brow. With a slow smile he drew a folded and
discoloured scrap of paper from his pocket.
“It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it. I picked this out
unburned from the back of it.”
Holmes smiled his appreciation.
“You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single pellet of
paper.”
“I did, Mr. Holmes. It’s my way. Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?”
The Londoner nodded.
“The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without watermark. It is a
quarter-sheet. The paper is cut off in two snips with a short-bladed scissors.
It has been folded over three times and sealed with purple wax, put on
hurriedly and pressed down with some flat oval object. It is addressed to Mr.
Garcia, Wisteria Lodge. It says:
“Our own colours, green and white. Green open, white shut. Main stair, first
corridor, seventh right, green baize. Godspeed. D.
“It is a woman’s writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the address is
either done with another pen or by someone else. It is thicker and bolder, as
you see.”
“A very remarkable note,” said Holmes, glancing it over. “I must compliment
you, Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in your examination of it. A few
trifling points might perhaps be added. The oval seal is undoubtedly a plain
sleeve-link—what else is of such a shape? The scissors were bent nail scissors.
Short as the two snips are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve in
each.”
The country detective chuckled.
“I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there was a little
over,” he said. “I’m bound to say that I make nothing of the note except that
there was something on hand, and that a woman, as usual was at the bottom of
it.”
Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation.
“I am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story,” said he. “But I
beg to point out that I have not yet heard what has happened to Mr. Garcia, nor
what has become of his household.”
“As to Garcia,” said Gregson, “that is easily answered. He was found dead this
morning upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from his home. His head had been
smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some such instrument, which had
crushed rather than wounded. It is a lonely corner, and there is no house
within a quarter of a mile of the spot. He had apparently been struck down
first from behind, but his assailant had gone on beating him long after he was
dead. It was a most furious assault. There are no footsteps nor any clue to the
criminals.”
“Robbed?”
“No, there was no attempt at robbery.”
“This is very painful—very painful and terrible,” said Mr. Scott Eccles in a
querulous voice, “but it is really uncommonly hard on me. I had nothing to do
with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion and meeting so sad an end.
How do I come to be mixed up with the case?”
“Very simply, sir,” Inspector Baynes answered. “The only document found in the
pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that you would be with him
on the night of his death. It was the envelope of this letter which gave us the
dead man’s name and address. It was after nine this morning when we reached his
house and found neither you nor anyone else inside it. I wired to Mr. Gregson
to run you down in London while I examined Wisteria Lodge. Then I came into
town, joined Mr. Gregson, and here we are.”
“I think now,” said Gregson, rising, “we had best put this matter into an
official shape. You will come round with us to the station, Mr. Scott Eccles,
and let us have your statement in writing.”
“Certainly, I will come at once. But I retain your services, Mr. Holmes. I
desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the truth.”
My friend turned to the country inspector.
“I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you, Mr.
Baynes?”
“Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.”
“You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you have
done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that the man met his
death?”
“He had been there since one o’clock. There was rain about that time, and his
death had certainly been before the rain.”
“But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes,” cried our client. “His voice is
unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he who addressed me in my bedroom
at that very hour.”
“Remarkable, but by no means impossible,” said Holmes, smiling.
“You have a clue?” asked Gregson.
“On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it certainly
presents some novel and interesting features. A further knowledge of facts is
necessary before I would venture to give a final and definite opinion. By the
way, Mr. Baynes, did you find anything remarkable besides this note in your
examination of the house?”
The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.
“There were,” said he, “one or two very remarkable things. Perhaps when
I have finished at the police-station you would care to come out and give me
your opinion of them.”
“I am entirely at your service,” said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the bell. “You
will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send the boy with this
telegram. He is to pay a five-shilling reply.”
We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes smoked
hard, with his brows drawn down over his keen eyes, and his head thrust forward
in the eager way characteristic of the man.
“Well, Watson,” he asked, turning suddenly upon me, “what do you make of it?”
“I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles.”
“But the crime?”
“Well, taken with the disappearance of the man’s companions, I should say that
they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled from justice.”
“That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it you must admit,
however, that it is very strange that his two servants should have been in a
conspiracy against him and should have attacked him on the one night when he
had a guest. They had him alone at their mercy every other night in the week.”
“Then why did they fly?”
“Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another big fact is the
remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear Watson, is it
beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an explanation which would
cover both of these big facts? If it were one which would also admit of the
mysterious note with its very curious phraseology, why, then it would be worth
accepting as a temporary hypothesis. If the fresh facts which come to our
knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually
become a solution.”
“But what is our hypothesis?”
Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.
“You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is impossible. There
were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and the coaxing of Scott Eccles
to Wisteria Lodge had some connection with them.”
“But what possible connection?”
“Let us take it link by link. There is, on the face of it, something unnatural
about this strange and sudden friendship between the young Spaniard and Scott
Eccles. It was the former who forced the pace. He called upon Eccles at the
other end of London on the very day after he first met him, and he kept in
close touch with him until he got him down to Esher. Now, what did he want with
Eccles? What could Eccles supply? I see no charm in the man. He is not
particularly intelligent—not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted
Latin. Why, then, was he picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met
as particularly suited to his purpose? Has he any one outstanding quality? I
say that he has. He is the very type of conventional British respectability,
and the very man as a witness to impress another Briton. You saw yourself how
neither of the inspectors dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary
as it was.”
“But what was he to witness?”
“Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another way. That
is how I read the matter.”
“I see, he might have proved an alibi.”
“Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. We will suppose, for
argument’s sake, that the household of Wisteria Lodge are confederates in some
design. The attempt, whatever it may be, is to come off, we will say, before
one o’clock. By some juggling of the clocks it is quite possible that they may
have got Scott Eccles to bed earlier than he thought, but in any case it is
likely that when Garcia went out of his way to tell him that it was one it was
really not more than twelve. If Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be
back by the hour mentioned he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation.
Here was this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of law that
the accused was in the house all the time. It was an insurance against the
worst.”
“Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of the others?”
“I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any insuperable
difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find
yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.”
“And the message?”
“How did it run? ‘Our own colours, green and white.’ Sounds like racing. ‘Green
open, white shut.’ That is clearly a signal. ‘Main stair, first corridor,
seventh right, green baize.’ This is an assignation. We may find a jealous
husband at the bottom of it all. It was clearly a dangerous quest. She would
not have said ‘Godspeed’ had it not been so. ‘D’—that should be a guide.”
“The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that ‘D’ stands for Dolores, a common female
name in Spain.”
“Good, Watson, very good—but quite inadmissible. A Spaniard would write to a
Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note is certainly English. Well, we can
only possess our soul in patience until this excellent inspector come back for
us. Meanwhile we can thank our lucky fate which has rescued us for a few short
hours from the insufferable fatigues of idleness.”
An answer had arrived to Holmes’s telegram before our Surrey officer had
returned. Holmes read it and was about to place it in his notebook when he
caught a glimpse of my expectant face. He tossed it across with a laugh.
“We are moving in exalted circles,” said he.
The telegram was a list of names and addresses:
Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers; Mr. Hynes
Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James Baker Williams, Forton Old Hall; Mr.
Henderson, High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone, Nether Walsling.
“This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations,” said Holmes.
“No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already adopted some similar
plan.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that the
message received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an assignation. Now,
if the obvious reading of it is correct, and in order to keep the tryst one has
to ascend a main stair and seek the seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly
clear that the house is a very large one. It is equally certain that this house
cannot be more than a mile or two from Oxshott, since Garcia was walking in
that direction and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to be back in
Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi, which would only be valid
up to one o’clock. As the number of large houses close to Oxshott must be
limited, I adopted the obvious method of sending to the agents mentioned by
Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them. Here they are in this telegram, and
the other end of our tangled skein must lie among them.”
It was nearly six o’clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey
village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.
Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and found comfortable quarters at
the Bull. Finally we set out in the company of the detective on our visit to
Wisteria Lodge. It was a cold, dark March evening, with a sharp wind and a fine
rain beating upon our faces, a fit setting for the wild common over which our
road passed and the tragic goal to which it led us.
A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high wooden
gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. The curved and shadowed
drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-black against a slate-coloured sky.
From the front window upon the left of the door there peeped a glimmer of a
feeble light.
“There’s a constable in possession,” said Baynes. “I’ll knock at the window.”
He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on the pane. Through
the fogged glass I dimly saw a man spring up from a chair beside the fire, and
heard a sharp cry from within the room. An instant later a white-faced,
hard-breathing policeman had opened the door, the candle wavering in his
trembling hand.
“What’s the matter, Walters?” asked Baynes sharply.
The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and gave a long sigh of
relief.
“I am glad you have come, sir. It has been a long evening, and I don’t think my
nerve is as good as it was.”
“Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nerve in your body.”
“Well, sir, it’s this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in the kitchen.
Then when you tapped at the window I thought it had come again.”
“That what had come again?”
“The devil, sir, for all I know. It was at the window.”
“What was at the window, and when?”
“It was just about two hours ago. The light was just fading. I was sitting
reading in the chair. I don’t know what made me look up, but there was a face
looking in at me through the lower pane. Lord, sir, what a face it was! I’ll
see it in my dreams.”
“Tut, tut, Walters. This is not talk for a police-constable.”
“I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, and there’s no use to deny it. It
wasn’t black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that I know but a kind of
queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in it. Then there was the size of
it—it was twice yours, sir. And the look of it—the great staring goggle eyes,
and the line of white teeth like a hungry beast. I tell you, sir, I couldn’t
move a finger, nor get my breath, till it whisked away and was gone. Out I ran
and through the shrubbery, but thank God there was no one there.”
“If I didn’t know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a black mark
against you for this. If it were the devil himself a constable on duty should
never thank God that he could not lay his hands upon him. I suppose the whole
thing is not a vision and a touch of nerves?”
“That, at least, is very easily settled,” said Holmes, lighting his little
pocket lantern. “Yes,” he reported, after a short examination of the grass bed,
“a number twelve shoe, I should say. If he was all on the same scale as his
foot he must certainly have been a giant.”
“What became of him?”
“He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the road.”
“Well,” said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, “whoever he may
have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he’s gone for the present, and we
have more immediate things to attend to. Now, Mr. Holmes, with your permission,
I will show you round the house.”
The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a careful search.
Apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing with them, and all the
furniture down to the smallest details had been taken over with the house. A
good deal of clothing with the stamp of Marx and Co., High Holborn, had been
left behind. Telegraphic inquiries had been already made which showed that Marx
knew nothing of his customer save that he was a good payer. Odds and ends, some
pipes, a few novels, two of them in Spanish, an old-fashioned pinfire revolver,
and a guitar were among the personal property.
“Nothing in all this,” said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand, from room to
room. “But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to the kitchen.”
It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, with a straw
litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bed for the cook. The table
was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates, the débris of last
night’s dinner.
“Look at this,” said Baynes. “What do you make of it?”
He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at the back of
the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that it was difficult
to say what it might have been. One could but say that it was black and
leathery and that it bore some resemblance to a dwarfish, human figure. At
first, as I examined it, I thought that it was a mummified negro baby, and then
it seemed a very twisted and ancient monkey. Finally I was left in doubt as to
whether it was animal or human. A double band of white shells were strung round
the centre of it.
“Very interesting—very interesting, indeed!” said Holmes, peering at this
sinister relic. “Anything more?”
In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his candle. The
limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely to pieces with the
feathers still on, were littered all over it. Holmes pointed to the wattles on
the severed head.
“A white cock,” said he. “Most interesting! It is really a very curious case.”
But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. From under the
sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood. Then from the
table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of charred bone.
“Something has been killed and something has been burned. We raked all these
out of the fire. We had a doctor in this morning. He says that they are not
human.”
Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.
“I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and instructive
a case. Your powers, if I may say so without offence, seem superior to your
opportunities.”
Inspector Baynes’s small eyes twinkled with pleasure.
“You’re right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A case of this sort
gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it. What do you make of
these bones?”
“A lamb, I should say, or a kid.”
“And the white cock?”
“Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique.”
“Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some very strange
ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did his companions follow him and kill
him? If they did we should have them, for every port is watched. But my own
views are different. Yes, sir, my own views are very different.”
“You have a theory then?”
“And I’ll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It’s only due to my own credit to do so.
Your name is made, but I have still to make mine. I should be glad to be able
to say afterwards that I had solved it without your help.”
Holmes laughed good-humouredly.
“Well, well, Inspector,” said he. “Do you follow your path and I will follow
mine. My results are always very much at your service if you care to apply to
me for them. I think that I have seen all that I wish in this house, and that
my time may be more profitably employed elsewhere. Au revoir and good
luck!”
I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost upon anyone
but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive as ever to the casual
observer, there were none the less a subdued eagerness and suggestion of
tension in his brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the
game was afoot. After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked no
questions. Sufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humble help to the
capture without distracting that intent brain with needless interruption. All
would come round to me in due time.
I waited, therefore—but to my ever-deepening disappointment I waited in vain.
Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward. One morning he spent in
town, and I learned from a casual reference that he had visited the British
Museum. Save for this one excursion, he spent his days in long and often
solitary walks, or in chatting with a number of village gossips whose
acquaintance he had cultivated.
“I’m sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you,” he
remarked. “It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon the hedges
and the catkins on the hazels once again. With a spud, a tin box, and an
elementary book on botany, there are instructive days to be spent.” He prowled
about with this equipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which he
would bring back of an evening.
Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes. His fat, red face
wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he greeted my
companion. He said little about the case, but from that little we gathered that
he also was not dissatisfied at the course of events. I must admit, however,
that I was somewhat surprised when, some five days after the crime, I opened my
morning paper to find in large letters:
THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY
A SOLUTION
ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN
Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the headlines.
“By Jove!” he cried. “You don’t mean that Baynes has got him?”
“Apparently,” said I as I read the following report:
“Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring district when it was
learned late last night that an arrest had been effected in connection with the
Oxshott murder. It will be remembered that Mr. Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was
found dead on Oxshott Common, his body showing signs of extreme violence, and
that on the same night his servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show
their participation in the crime. It was suggested, but never proved, that the
deceased gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their
abstraction was the motive of the crime. Every effort was made by Inspector
Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding place of the
fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had not gone far but
were lurking in some retreat which had been already prepared. It was certain
from the first, however, that they would eventually be detected, as the cook,
from the evidence of one or two tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him
through the window, was a man of most remarkable appearance—being a huge and
hideous mulatto, with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid type. This man
has been seen since the crime, for he was detected and pursued by Constable
Walters on the same evening, when he had the audacity to revisit Wisteria
Lodge. Inspector Baynes, considering that such a visit must have some purpose
in view and was likely, therefore, to be repeated, abandoned the house but left
an ambuscade in the shrubbery. The man walked into the trap and was captured
last night after a struggle in which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the
savage. We understand that when the prisoner is brought before the magistrates
a remand will be applied for by the police, and that great developments are
hoped from his capture.”
“Really we must see Baynes at once,” cried Holmes, picking up his hat. “We will
just catch him before he starts.” We hurried down the village street and found,
as we had expected, that the inspector was just leaving his lodgings.
“You’ve seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, holding one out to us.
“Yes, Baynes, I’ve seen it. Pray don’t think it a liberty if I give you a word
of friendly warning.”
“Of warning, Mr. Holmes?”
“I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced that you
are on the right lines. I don’t want you to commit yourself too far unless you
are sure.”
“You’re very kind, Mr. Holmes.”
“I assure you I speak for your good.”
It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over one of
Mr. Baynes’s tiny eyes.
“We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That’s what I am doing.”
“Oh, very good,” said Holmes. “Don’t blame me.”
“No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. But we all have our own systems, Mr.
Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine.”
“Let us say no more about it.”
“You’re welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage, as strong
as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed Downing’s thumb nearly
off before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word of English, and we
can get nothing out of him but grunts.”
“And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?”
“I didn’t say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn’t say so. We all have our little ways. You
try yours and I will try mine. That’s the agreement.”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. “I can’t make the man
out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he says, we must each try our
own way and see what comes of it. But there’s something in Inspector Baynes
which I can’t quite understand.”
“Just sit down in that chair, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes when we had
returned to our apartment at the Bull. “I want to put you in touch with the
situation, as I may need your help to-night. Let me show you the evolution of
this case so far as I have been able to follow it. Simple as it has been in its
leading features, it has none the less presented surprising difficulties in the
way of an arrest. There are gaps in that direction which we have still to fill.
“We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the evening of
his death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes’s that Garcia’s servants were
concerned in the matter. The proof of this lies in the fact that it was
he who had arranged for the presence of Scott Eccles, which could only
have been done for the purpose of an alibi. It was Garcia, then, who had an
enterprise, and apparently a criminal enterprise, in hand that night in the
course of which he met his death. I say ‘criminal’ because only a man with a
criminal enterprise desires to establish an alibi. Who, then, is most likely to
have taken his life? Surely the person against whom the criminal enterprise was
directed. So far it seems to me that we are on safe ground.
“We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia’s household. They were
all confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off when Garcia
returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by the Englishman’s
evidence, and all would be well. But the attempt was a dangerous one, and if
Garcia did not return by a certain hour it was probable that his own
life had been sacrificed. It had been arranged, therefore, that in such a case
his two subordinates were to make for some prearranged spot where they could
escape investigation and be in a position afterwards to renew their attempt.
That would fully explain the facts, would it not?”
The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I wondered,
as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.
“But why should one servant return?”
“We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious, something
which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind. That would explain
his persistence, would it not?”
“Well, what is the next step?”
“The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It indicates a
confederate at the other end. Now, where was the other end? I have already
shown you that it could only lie in some large house, and that the number of
large houses is limited. My first days in this village were devoted to a series
of walks in which in the intervals of my botanical researches I made a
reconnaissance of all the large houses and an examination of the family history
of the occupants. One house, and only one, riveted my attention. It is the
famous old Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of
Oxshott, and less than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The other
mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from
romance. But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, was by all accounts a curious man to
whom curious adventures might befall. I concentrated my attention, therefore,
upon him and his household.
“A singular set of people, Watson—the man himself the most singular of them
all. I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to read in his
dark, deep-set, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of my true business.
He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-grey hair, great bunched black
eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of an emperor—a fierce, masterful man,
with a red-hot spirit behind his parchment face. He is either a foreigner or
has lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as
whipcord. His friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner,
chocolate brown, wily, suave, and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of
speech. You see, Watson, we have come already upon two sets of foreigners—one
at Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable—so our gaps are beginning to close.
“These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the
household; but there is one other person who for our immediate purpose may be
even more important. Henderson has two children—girls of eleven and thirteen.
Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an Englishwoman of forty or thereabouts.
There is also one confidential manservant. This little group forms the real
family, for they travel about together, and Henderson is a great traveller,
always on the move. It is only within the last weeks that he has returned,
after a year’s absence, to High Gable. I may add that he is enormously rich,
and whatever his whims may be he can very easily satisfy them. For the rest,
his house is full of butlers, footmen, maidservants, and the usual overfed,
underworked staff of a large English country house.
“So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own
observation. There are no better instruments than discharged servants with a
grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one. I call it luck, but it would not
have come my way had I not been looking out for it. As Baynes remarks, we all
have our systems. It was my system which enabled me to find John Warner, late
gardener of High Gable, sacked in a moment of temper by his imperious employer.
He in turn had friends among the indoor servants who unite in their fear and
dislike of their master. So I had my key to the secrets of the establishment.
“Curious people, Watson! I don’t pretend to understand it all yet, but very
curious people anyway. It’s a double-winged house, and the servants live on one
side, the family on the other. There’s no link between the two save for
Henderson’s own servant, who serves the family’s meals. Everything is carried
to a certain door, which forms the one connection. Governess and children
hardly go out at all, except into the garden. Henderson never by any chance
walks alone. His dark secretary is like his shadow. The gossip among the
servants is that their master is terribly afraid of something. ‘Sold his soul
to the devil in exchange for money,’ says Warner, ‘and expects his creditor to
come up and claim his own.’ Where they came from, or who they are, nobody has
an idea. They are very violent. Twice Henderson has lashed at folk with his
dog-whip, and only his long purse and heavy compensation have kept him out of
the courts.
“Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information. We may
take it that the letter came out of this strange household and was an
invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had already been planned.
Who wrote the note? It was someone within the citadel, and it was a woman. Who
then but Miss Burnet, the governess? All our reasoning seems to point that way.
At any rate, we may take it as a hypothesis and see what consequences it would
entail. I may add that Miss Burnet’s age and character make it certain that my
first idea that there might be a love interest in our story is out of the
question.
“If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate of Garcia.
What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of his death? If he met it
in some nefarious enterprise her lips might be sealed. Still, in her heart, she
must retain bitterness and hatred against those who had killed him and would
presumably help so far as she could to have revenge upon them. Could we see
her, then and try to use her? That was my first thought. But now we come to a
sinister fact. Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night
of the murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she alive? Has
she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend whom she had summoned?
Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the point which we still have to decide.
“You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There is nothing
upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our whole scheme might seem fantastic if
laid before a magistrate. The woman’s disappearance counts for nothing, since
in that extraordinary household any member of it might be invisible for a week.
And yet she may at the present moment be in danger of her life. All I can do is
to watch the house and leave my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates. We can’t
let such a situation continue. If the law can do nothing we must take the risk
ourselves.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I know which is her room. It is accessible from the top of an outhouse. My
suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we can strike at the very
heart of the mystery.”
It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old house with its
atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown
dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting ourselves legally in
a false position all combined to damp my ardour. But there was something in the
ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any
adventure which he might recommend. One knew that thus, and only thus, could a
solution be found. I clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast.
But it was not destined that our investigation should have so adventurous an
ending. It was about five o’clock, and the shadows of the March evening were
beginning to fall, when an excited rustic rushed into our room.
“They’ve gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The lady broke away,
and I’ve got her in a cab downstairs.”
“Excellent, Warner!” cried Holmes, springing to his feet. “Watson, the gaps are
closing rapidly.”
In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She bore upon
her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent tragedy. Her head
hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised it and turned her dull eyes
upon us I saw that her pupils were dark dots in the centre of the broad grey
iris. She was drugged with opium.
“I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes,” said our emissary,
the discharged gardener. “When the carriage came out I followed it to the
station. She was like one walking in her sleep, but when they tried to get her
into the train she came to life and struggled. They pushed her into the
carriage. She fought her way out again. I took her part, got her into a cab,
and here we are. I shan’t forget the face at the carriage window as I led her
away. I’d have a short life if he had his way—the black-eyed, scowling, yellow
devil.”
We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups of the
strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug. Baynes had
been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained to him.
“Why, sir, you’ve got me the very evidence I want,” said the inspector warmly,
shaking my friend by the hand. “I was on the same scent as you from the first.”
“What! You were after Henderson?”
“Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable I was
up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below. It was just who
would get his evidence first.”
“Then why did you arrest the mulatto?”
Baynes chuckled.
“I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected, and
that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was in any
danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our eyes were off
him. I knew he would be likely to clear off then and give us a chance of
getting at Miss Burnet.”
Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector’s shoulder.
“You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct and intuition,” said
he.
Baynes flushed with pleasure.
“I’ve had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week. Wherever the
High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight. But he must have been hard put
to it when Miss Burnet broke away. However, your man picked her up, and it all
ends well. We can’t arrest without her evidence, that is clear, so the sooner
we get a statement the better.”
“Every minute she gets stronger,” said Holmes, glancing at the governess. “But
tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?”
“Henderson,” the inspector answered, “is Don Murillo, once called the Tiger of
San Pedro.”
The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back to me in a
flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty tyrant that had
ever governed any country with a pretence to civilization. Strong, fearless,
and energetic, he had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious
vices upon a cowering people for ten or twelve years. His name was a terror
through all Central America. At the end of that time there was a universal
rising against him. But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first
whisper of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship
which was manned by devoted adherents. It was an empty palace which was stormed
by the insurgents next day. The dictator, his two children, his secretary, and
his wealth had all escaped them. From that moment he had vanished from the
world, and his identity had been a frequent subject for comment in the European
press.
“Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro,” said Baynes. “If you look it
up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and white, same as in the
note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself, but I traced him back, Paris and
Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where his ship came in in ’86. They’ve been
looking for him all the time for their revenge, but it is only now that they
have begun to find him out.”
“They discovered him a year ago,” said Miss Burnet, who had sat up and was now
intently following the conversation. “Once already his life has been attempted,
but some evil spirit shielded him. Now, again, it is the noble, chivalrous
Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goes safe. But another will come, and
yet another, until some day justice will be done; that is as certain as the
rise of to-morrow’s sun.” Her thin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched
with the passion of her hatred.
“But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?” asked Holmes. “How can an
English lady join in such a murderous affair?”
“I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which justice can
be gained. What does the law of England care for the rivers of blood shed years
ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload of treasure which this man has stolen? To
you they are like crimes committed in some other planet. But we know. We
have learned the truth in sorrow and in suffering. To us there is no fiend in
hell like Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry for
vengeance.”
“No doubt,” said Holmes, “he was as you say. I have heard that he was
atrocious. But how are you affected?”
“I will tell you it all. This villain’s policy was to murder, on one pretext or
another, every man who showed such promise that he might in time come to be a
dangerous rival. My husband—yes, my real name is Signora Victor Durando—was the
San Pedro minister in London. He met me and married me there. A nobler man
never lived upon earth. Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled
him on some pretext, and had him shot. With a premonition of his fate he had
refused to take me with him. His estates were confiscated, and I was left with
a pittance and a broken heart.
“Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped as you have just described.
But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and dearest had suffered
torture and death at his hands, would not let the matter rest. They banded
themselves into a society which should never be dissolved until the work was
done. It was my part after we had discovered in the transformed Henderson the
fallen despot, to attach myself to his household and keep the others in touch
with his movements. This I was able to do by securing the position of governess
in his family. He little knew that the woman who faced him at every meal was
the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour’s notice into eternity. I
smiled on him, did my duty to his children, and bided my time. An attempt was
made in Paris and failed. We zig-zagged swiftly here and there over Europe to
throw off the pursuers and finally returned to this house, which he had taken
upon his first arrival in England.
“But here also the ministers of justice were waiting. Knowing that he would
return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest dignitary in San
Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of humble station, all three
fired with the same reasons for revenge. He could do little during the day, for
Murillo took every precaution and never went out save with his satellite Lucas,
or Lopez as he was known in the days of his greatness. At night, however, he
slept alone, and the avenger might find him. On a certain evening, which had
been prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the man was forever
on the alert and continually changed his room. I was to see that the doors were
open and the signal of a green or white light in a window which faced the drive
was to give notice if all was safe or if the attempt had better be postponed.
“But everything went wrong with us. In some way I had excited the suspicion of
Lopez, the secretary. He crept up behind me and sprang upon me just as I had
finished the note. He and his master dragged me to my room and held judgment
upon me as a convicted traitress. Then and there they would have plunged their
knives into me could they have seen how to escape the consequences of the deed.
Finally, after much debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous.
But they determined to get rid forever of Garcia. They had gagged me, and
Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address. I swear that he
might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean to Garcia. Lopez
addressed the note which I had written, sealed it with his sleeve-link, and
sent it by the hand of the servant, José. How they murdered him I do not know,
save that it was Murillo’s hand who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to
guard me. I believe he must have waited among the gorse bushes through which
the path winds and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind
to let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they
argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity would at
once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further attacks. With the
death of Garcia, the pursuit might cease, since such a death might frighten
others from the task.
“All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge of what
they had done. I have no doubt that there were times when my life hung in the
balance. I was confined to my room, terrorised by the most horrible threats,
cruelly ill-used to break my spirit—see this stab on my shoulder and the
bruises from end to end of my arms—and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the
one occasion when I tried to call from the window. For five days this cruel
imprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul together.
This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I
knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half-led,
half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the train.
Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly realise that my
liberty lay in my own hands. I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had
it not been for the help of this good man, who led me to the cab, I should
never had broken away. Now, thank God, I am beyond their power forever.”
We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was Holmes who
broke the silence.
“Our difficulties are not over,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Our police
work ends, but our legal work begins.”
“Exactly,” said I. “A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of
self-defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only
on this one that they can be tried.”
“Come, come,” said Baynes cheerily, “I think better of the law than that.
Self-defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with the object of
murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear from him. No, no, we
shall all be justified when we see the tenants of High Gable at the next
Guildford Assizes.”
It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to elapse
before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. Wily and bold, he
and his companion threw their pursuer off their track by entering a
lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the back-gate into Curzon
Square. From that day they were seen no more in England. Some six months
afterwards the Marquess of Montalva and Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both
murdered in their rooms at the Hotel Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed
to Nihilism, and the murderers were never arrested. Inspector Baynes visited us
at Baker Street with a printed description of the dark face of the secretary,
and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted brows of
his master. We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had come at last.
“A chaotic case, my dear Watson,” said Holmes over an evening pipe. “It will
not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is dear to your
heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and
is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend, Scott
Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind
and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for
the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy
collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials and so
been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any point which is not
quite clear to you?”
“The object of the mulatto cook’s return?”
“I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it. The man
was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and this was his
fetish. When his companion and he had fled to some prearranged retreat—already
occupied, no doubt by a confederate—the companion had persuaded him to leave so
compromising an article of furniture. But the mulatto’s heart was with it, and
he was driven back to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the window,
he found policeman Walters in possession. He waited three days longer, and then
his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more. Inspector Baynes,
who, with his usual astuteness, had minimised the incident before me, had
really recognised its importance and had left a trap into which the creature
walked. Any other point, Watson?”
“The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery of that
weird kitchen?”
Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book.
“I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other points.
Here is a quotation from Eckermann’s Voodooism and the Negroid
Religions:
“‘The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without certain
sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods. In extreme cases
these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed by cannibalism. The more
usual victims are a white cock, which is plucked in pieces alive, or a black
goat, whose throat is cut and body burned.’
“So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is grotesque,
Watson,” Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook, “but, as I have had
occasion to remark, there is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.”
