His Last Bow, Arthur Conan Doyle [love books to read TXT] 📗

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impossible. There were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed,

and the coaxing of Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had some

connection with them.”

 

“But what possible connection?”

 

“Let us take it link by link. There is, on the face of it,

something unnatural about this strange and sudden friendship

between the young Spaniard and Scott Eccles. It was the former

who forced the pace. He called upon Eccles at the other end of

London on the very day after he first met him, and he kept in

close touch with him until he got him down to Esher. Now, what

did he want with Eccles? What could Eccles supply? I see no

charm in the man. He is not particulary intelligent—not a man

likely to be congenial to a quick-witted Latin. Why, then, was he

picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met as

particularly suited to his purpose? Has he any one outstanding

quality? I say that he has. He is the very type of conventional

British respectability, and the very man as a witness to impress

another Briton. You saw yourself how neither of the inspectors

dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it was.”

 

“But what was he to witness?”

 

“Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone

another way. That is how I read the matter.”

 

“I see, he might have proved an alibi.”

 

“Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. We will

suppose, for argument’s sake, that the household of Wisteria

Lodge are confederates in some design. The attempt, whatever it

may be, is to come off, we will say, before one o’clock. By some

juggling of the clocks it is quite possible that they may have

got Scott Eccles to bed earlier than he thought, but in any case

it is likely that when Garcia went out of his way to tell him

that it was one it was really not more than twelve. If Garcia

could do whatever he had to do and be back by the hour mentioned

he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation. Here was

this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of law

that the accused was in the house all the time. It was an

insurance against the worst.”

 

“Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of the

others?”

 

“I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any

insuperable difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in

front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them

round to fit your theories.”

 

“And the message?”

 

“How did it run? ‘Our own colours, green and white.’ Sounds

like racing. ‘Green open, white shut.’ That is clearly a

signal. ‘Main stair, first corridor, seventh right, green

baize.’ This is an assignation. We may find a jealous husband

at the bottom of it all. It was clearly a dangerous quest. She

would not have said ‘Godspeed’ had it not been so. ‘D’—that

should be a guide.”

 

“The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that ‘D’ stands for Dolores,

a common female name in Spain.”

 

“Good, Watson, very good—but quite 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.”

 

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 massage 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 agave 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, and 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 debris 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.

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