The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge Read online

  Produced by David Brannan

  The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge

  by

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  CONTENTS

  1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles 2. The Tiger of San Pedro

  1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

  I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy daytowards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received atelegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. Hemade no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stoodin front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking hispipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly heturned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

  "I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters," saidhe. "How do you define the word 'grotesque'?"

  "Strange--remarkable," I suggested.

  He shook his head at my definition.

  "There is surely something more than that," said he; "some underlyingsuggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind backto some of those narratives with which you have afflicted along-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque hasdeepened into the criminal. Think of that little affair of thered-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet itended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there was thatmost grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which led straight to amurderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert."

  "Have you it there?" I asked.

  He read the telegram aloud.

  "Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I consultyou?

  "Scott Eccles, "Post Office, Charing Cross."

  "Man or woman?" I asked.

  "Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram.She would have come."

  "Will you see him?"

  "My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked upColonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself topieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it wasbuilt. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity andromance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can youask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, howevertrivial it may prove? But here, unless I am mistaken, is our client."

  A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout,tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered intothe room. His life history was written in his heavy features andpompous manner. From his spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was aConservative, a churchman, a good citizen, orthodox and conventional tothe last degree. But some amazing experience had disturbed his nativecomposure and left its traces in his bristling hair, his flushed, angrycheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. He plunged instantly into hisbusiness.

  "I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes,"said he. "Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. Itis most improper--most outrageous. I must insist upon someexplanation." He swelled and puffed in his anger.

  "Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles," said Holmes in a soothing voice."May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?"

  "Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned thepolice, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that Icould not leave it where it was. Private detectives are a class withwhom I have absolutely no sympathy, but none the less, having heardyour name--"

  "Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?"

  Holmes glanced at his watch.

  "It is a quarter-past two," he said. "Your telegram was dispatchedabout one. But no one can glance at your toilet and attire withoutseeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking."

  Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin.

  "You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I wasonly too glad to get out of such a house. But I have been runninground making inquiries before I came to you. I went to the houseagents, you know, and they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up allright and that everything was in order at Wisteria Lodge."

  "Come, come, sir," said Holmes, laughing. "You are like my friend, Dr.Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end foremost.Please arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due sequence,exactly what those events are which have sent you out unbrushed andunkempt, with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned awry, in search ofadvice and assistance."

  Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventionalappearance.

  "I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that inmy whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But I will tell youthe whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I amsure, that there has been enough to excuse me."

  But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside,and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust andofficial-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us asInspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, withinhis limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands with Holmes andintroduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey Constabulary.

  "We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in thisdirection." He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. "Are you Mr.John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, Lee?"

  "I am."

  "We have been following you about all the morning."

  "You traced him through the telegram, no doubt," said Holmes.

  "Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing CrossPost-Office and came on here."

  "But why do you follow me? What do you want?"

  "We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which led upto the death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, nearEsher."

  Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colourstruck from his astonished face.

  "Dead? Did you say he was dead?"

  "Yes, sir, he is dead."

  "But how? An accident?"

  "Murder, if ever there was one upon earth."

  "Good God! This is awful! You don't mean--you don't mean that I amsuspected?"

  "A letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know byit that you had planned to pass last night at his house."

  "So I did."

  "Oh, you did, did you?"

  Out came the official notebook.

  "Wait a bit, Gregson," said Sherlock Holmes. "All you desire is aplain statement, is it not?"

  "And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used againsthim."

  "Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room. Ithink, Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, Isuggest that you take no notice of this addition to your audience, andthat you proceed with your narrative exactly as you would have done hadyou never been interrupted."

  Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned tohis face. With a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, heplunged at once into his extraordinary statement.

  "I am a bachelor," said he, "and being of a sociable turn I cultivate alarge number of friends. Among these are the family of a retiredbrewer called Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington. Itwas at his table that I met some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia.He was, I understood, of Spanish descent and connected in some way withthe embassy. He spoke perfect English, was pleasing in his manners,and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life.

  "In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I.He seemed to take a fancy to me from
the first, and within two days ofour meeting he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to another, and itended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at his house, WisteriaLodge, between Esher and Oxshott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher tofulfil this engagement.

  "He had described his household to me before I went there. He livedwith a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after allhis needs. This fellow could speak English and did his housekeepingfor him. Then there was a wonderful cook, he said, a half-breed whomhe had picked up in his travels, who could serve an excellent dinner.I remember that he remarked what a queer household it was to find inthe heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him, though it has proved agood deal queerer than I thought.

  "I drove to the