His last bow Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
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.
2. The Tiger of San Pedro
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