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.”