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."
* * *
.
1 comment