“Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. Wewill suppose, for argument’s sake, that the household of WisteriaLodge are confederates in some design. The attempt, whateverit may be, is to come off, we will say, before one o’clock. By somejuggling of the clocks it is quite possible that they may have gotScott Eccles to bed earlier than he thought, but in any case it islikely that when Garcia went out of his way to tell him that itwas one it was really not more than twelve. If Garcia could dowhatever he had to do and be back by the hour mentioned hehad evidently a powerful reply to any accusation. Here was thisirreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of lawthat the accused was in his house all the time. It was an insuranceagainst the worst.”
“Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the disappearance of theothers?”
“I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are anyinsuperable difficulties. Still, it is an error to argue in front of yourdata. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit yourtheories.”
“And the message?”
“How did it run? ‘Our own colours, green and white.’ Soundslike racing. ‘Green open, white shut.’ That is clearly a signal.
‘Main stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize.’ This is anassignation. We may find a jealous husband at the bottom of itall. 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 Spaniardwould write to a Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note iscertainly English. Well, we can only possess our souls in patienceuntil this excellent inspector comes back for us. Meanwhile we canthank our lucky fate which has rescued us for a few short hoursfrom the insufferable fatigues of idleness.”
An answer had arrived to Holmes’s telegram before our Surreyofficer had returned. Holmes read it and was about to place it in1098 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
his notebook when he caught a glimpse of my expectant face. Hetossed 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, OxshottTowers; Mr. Hynes Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James BakerWilliams, 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, hasalready adopted some similar plan.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusionthat the massage received by Garcia at dinner was an appointmentor an assignation. Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct, andin order to keep this tryst one has to ascend a main stair and seekthe seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear that the housea very large one. It is equally certain that this house cannot bemore than a mile or two from Oxshott, since Garcia was walkingin 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 oflarge houses close to Oxshott must be limited, I adopted theobvious method of sending to the agents mentioned by ScottEccles 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 prettySurrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.
Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and foundcomfortable quarters at the Bull. Finally we set out in the companyof the detective on our visit to Wisteria Lodge. It was a cold, darkMarch evening, with a sharp wind and a fine rain beating uponour faces, a fit setting for the wild common over which our roadpassed 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 usto a high wooden gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue ofchestnuts. The curved and shadowed drive led us to a low, darkhouse, pitch-black against a slate-coloured sky. From the frontwindow upon the left of the door there peeped a glimmer of afeeble light.
“There’s a constable in possession,” said Baynes. “I’ll knock atthe window.” He stepped across the grass plot and tapped withhis hand on the pane. Through the fogged glass I dimly saw a manThe Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1099
spring up from a chair beside the fire, and heard a sharp cry fromwithin the room. An instant later a white-faced, hard-breathingpoliceman had opened the door, the candle wavering in histrembling hand.
“What’s the matter, Walters?” asked Baynes sharply.
The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and gave along sigh of relief.
“I am glad you have come, sir. It has been a long evening, and Idon’t think my nerve is as good as it was.”
“Your nerve, Walters? I should not have thought you had a nervein your body.”
“Well, sir, it’s this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in thekitchen. Then when you tapped at the window I thought it hadcome 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. Iwas sitting reading in the chair. I don’t know what made me lookup, 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 todeny it. It wasn’t black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that Iknow but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in it.
