11. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

2I 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.

3“I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters,” said he. “How do you define the word ‘grotesque’?”

4“Strange—remarkable,” I suggested.

5He shook his head at my definition.

6“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.”

7“Have you it there?” I asked.

8He read the telegram aloud.

9“Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I consult you?

10“Scott Eccles,

11“Post Office, Charing Cross.”

12“Man or woman?” I asked.

13“Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. She would have come.”

14“Will you see him?”

15“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.”

16A 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.

17“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.

18“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?”

19“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—”

20“Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?”

21Holmes glanced at his watch.

22“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.”

23Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin.

24“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.”

25“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.”

26Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional appearance.

27“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.”

28But 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.

29“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?”

30“I am.”

31“We have been following you about all the morning.”

32“You traced him through the telegram, no doubt,” said Holmes.

33“Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing Cross Post-Office and came on here.”

34“But why do you follow me? What do you want?”

35“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.”

36Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour struck from his astonished face.

37“Dead? Did you say he was dead?”

38“Yes, sir, he is dead.”

39“But how? An accident?”

40“Murder, if ever there was one upon earth.”

41“Good God! This is awful! You don’t mean—you don’t mean that I am suspected?”

42“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.”

43“So I did.”

44“Oh, you did, did you?”

45Out came the official notebook.

46“Wait a bit, Gregson,” said Sherlock Holmes. “All you desire is a plain statement, is it not?”

47“And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used against him.”

48“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.”

49Our 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.

50“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.

51“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.

52“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.

53“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.

54“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.

55“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.”

56Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this bizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes.

57“Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique,” said he. “May I ask, sir, what you did then?”

58“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.”

59“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?”

60“Yes, I did. Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire.”

61“What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?”

62The 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.

63“It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it. I picked this out unburned from the back of it.”

64Holmes smiled his appreciation.

65“You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single pellet of paper.”

66“I did, Mr. Holmes. It’s my way. Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?”

67The Londoner nodded.

68“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:

69“Our own colours, green and white. Green open, white shut. Main stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize. Godspeed. D.

70“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.”

71“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.”

72The country detective chuckled.

73“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.”

74Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation.

75“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.”

76“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.”

77“Robbed?”

78“No, there was no attempt at robbery.”

79“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?”

80“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.”

81“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.”

82“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.”

83My friend turned to the country inspector.

84“I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you, Mr. Baynes?”

85“Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.”

86“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?”

87“He had been there since one o’clock. There was rain about that time, and his death had certainly been before the rain.”

88“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.”

89“Remarkable, but by no means impossible,” said Holmes, smiling.

90“You have a clue?” asked Gregson.

91“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?”

92The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.

93“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.”

94“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.”

95We 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.

96“Well, Watson,” he asked, turning suddenly upon me, “what do you make of it?”

97“I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles.”

98“But the crime?”

99“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.”

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 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.”

103“But what is our hypothesis?”

104Holmes 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 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.”

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 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.”

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 ‘Godspeed’ had it not been so. ‘D’—that should be a guide.”

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 from the insufferable fatigues of idleness.”

118An 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.

120The telegram was a list of names and addresses:

121Lord 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 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.”

125It was nearly six o’clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.

126Holmes 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.

1272. The Tiger of San Pedro

128A 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-breathing policeman had opened the door, the candle wavering in his trembling hand.

130“What’s the matter, Walters?” asked Baynes sharply.

131The 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 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.”

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.”

146The 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.

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.”

148It 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?”

150He 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.

151“Very interesting—very interesting, indeed!” said Holmes, peering at this sinister relic. “Anything more?”

152In 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.”

154But 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.”

156Holmes 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.”

158Inspector 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.”

166Holmes 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!”

168I 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.

169I 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.

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 equipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which he would bring back of an evening.

171Occasionally 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:

172THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY

173A SOLUTION

174ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN

175Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the headlines.

176“By Jove!” he cried. “You don’t mean that Baynes has got him?”

177“Apparently,” said I as I read the following report:

178“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.”

179“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.

180“You’ve seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, holding one out to us.

181“Yes, Baynes, I’ve seen it. Pray don’t think it a liberty if I give you a word of friendly warning.”

182“Of warning, Mr. Holmes?”

183“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.”

184“You’re very kind, Mr. Holmes.”

185“I assure you I speak for your good.”

186It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over one of Mr. Baynes’s tiny eyes.

187“We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That’s what I am doing.”

188“Oh, very good,” said Holmes. “Don’t blame me.”

189“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.”

190“Let us say no more about it.”

191“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.”

192“And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?”

193“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.”

194Holmes 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.”

195“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.