The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (5 page)

"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, Jose.
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, terrorized 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
realize 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 minimized the incident
before me, had really recognized 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."