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100 | "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." |
101 | "Then why did they fly?" |
102 | "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 w... |
103 | "But what is our hypothesis?" |
104 | Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes. |
105 | "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." |
106 | "But what possible connection?" |
107 | "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 ... |
108 | "But what was he to witness?" |
109 | "Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another way. That is how I read the matter." |
110 | "I see, he might have proved an alibi." |
111 | "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 go... |
112 | "Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of the others?" |
113 | "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." |
114 | "And the message?" |
115 | "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 ... |
116 | "The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that 'D' stands for Dolores, a common female name in Spain." |
117 | "Good, Watson, very good—but quite inadmissable. 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... |
118 | 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. |
119 | "We are moving in exalted circles," said he. |
120 | The telegram was a list of names and addresses: |
121 | 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. |
122 | "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." |
123 | "I don't quite understand." |
124 | "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 ... |
125 | It was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion. |
126 | 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 p... |
127 | 2. The Tiger of San Pedro |
128 | 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. |
129 | "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-breathi... |
130 | "What's the matter, Walters?" asked Baynes sharply. |
131 | The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and gave a long sigh of relief. |
132 | "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." |
133 | "Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nerve in your body." |
134 | "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." |
135 | "That what had come again?" |
136 | "The devil, sir, for all I know. It was at the window." |
137 | "What was at the window, and when?" |
138 | "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." |
139 | "Tut, tut, Walters. This is not talk for a police-constable." |
140 | "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 ... |
141 | "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?" |
142 | "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." |
143 | "What became of him?" |
144 | "He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the road." |
145 | "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." |
146 | 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 behin... |
147 | "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." |
148 | 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. |
149 | "Look at this," said Baynes. "What do you make of it?" |
150 | 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 e... |
151 | "Very interesting—very interesting, indeed!" said Holmes, peering at this sinister relic. "Anything more?" |
152 | 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. |
153 | "A white cock," said he. "Most interesting! It is really a very curious case." |
154 | 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. |
155 | "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." |
156 | Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands. |
157 | "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." |
158 | Inspector Baynes's small eyes twinkled with pleasure. |
159 | "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?" |
160 | "A lamb, I should say, or a kid." |
161 | "And the white cock?" |
162 | "Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique." |
163 | "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." |
164 | "You have a theory then?" |
165 | "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." |
166 | Holmes laughed good-humouredly. |
167 | "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!" |
168 | 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... |
169 | 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... |
170 | "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 equ... |
171 | 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 s... |
172 | THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY A SOLUTION ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN |
173 | Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the headlines. |
174 | "By Jove!" he cried. "You don't mean that Baynes has got him?" |
175 | "Apparently," said I as I read the following report: |
176 | "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... |
177 | "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. |
178 | "You've seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?" he asked, holding one out to us. |
179 | "Yes, Baynes, I've seen it. Pray don't think it a liberty if I give you a word of friendly warning." |
180 | "Of warning, Mr. Holmes?" |
181 | "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." |
182 | "You're very kind, Mr. Holmes." |
183 | "I assure you I speak for your good." |
184 | It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over one of Mr. Baynes's tiny eyes. |
185 | "We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That's what I am doing." |
186 | "Oh, very good," said Holmes. "Don't blame me." |
187 | "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." |
188 | "Let us say no more about it." |
189 | "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." |
190 | "And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?" |
191 | "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." |
192 | 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." |
193 | "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 featur... |
194 | "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... |
195 | "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_ ... |
196 | 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. |
197 | "But why should one servant return?" |
198 | "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?" |
199 | "Well, what is the next step?" |
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