look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and
white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself,
but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where
his ship came in in '86. They've been looking for him all the time
for their revenge, but it is only now that they have begun to find
him out."
"They discovered him a year ago," said Miss Burnet, who had sat up
and was now intently following the conversation. "Once already his
life has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now,
again, it is the noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the
monster goes safe. But another will come, and yet another, until some
day justice will be done; that is as certain as the rise of
to-morrow's sun." Her thin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched
with the passion of her hatred.
"But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?" asked Holmes. "How
can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?"
"I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which
justice can be gained. What does the law of England care for the
rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload of
treasure which this man has stolen? To you they are like crimes
committed in some other planet. But we know. We have learned the
truth in sorrow and in suffering. To us there is no fiend in hell
like Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry
for vengeance."
"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."
THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX
In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable
mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured,
as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of
sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is,
however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the
sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the
dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to
his statement and so give a false impression of the problem, or he
must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with.
With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be
a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.
It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven,
and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house
across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that
these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs
of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the
sofa, reading and re-reading a letter which he had received by the
morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me
to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no
hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had
risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the
New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had
caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the
country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He
loved to lie in the very center of five millions of people, with his
filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to
every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of
nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was
when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down
his brother of the country.
Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed
side the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fell into a
brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts:
"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a most preposterous
way of settling a dispute."
"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he
