The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge Read online

long purse and heavycompensation have kept him out of the courts.

  "Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information.We may take it that the letter came out of this strange household andwas an invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had alreadybeen planned. Who wrote the note? It was someone within the citadel,and it was a woman. Who then but Miss Burnet, the governess? All ourreasoning seems to point that way. At any rate, we may take it as ahypothesis and see what consequences it would entail. I may add thatMiss Burnet's age and character make it certain that my first idea thatthere might be a love interest in our story is out of the question.

  "If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate ofGarcia. What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of hisdeath? If he met it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might besealed. Still, in her heart, she must retain bitterness and hatredagainst those who had killed him and would presumably help so far asshe could to have revenge upon them. Could we see her, then and try touse her? That was my first thought. But now we come to a sinisterfact. Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the nightof the murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is shealive? Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friendwhom she had summoned? Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the pointwhich we still have to decide.

  "You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There isnothing upon which we can apply for a warrant. Our whole scheme mightseem fantastic if laid before a magistrate. The woman's disappearancecounts for nothing, since in that extraordinary household any member ofit might be invisible for a week. And yet she may at the presentmoment be in danger of her life. All I can do is to watch the houseand leave my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates. We can't let such asituation continue. If the law can do nothing we must take the riskourselves."

  "What do you suggest?"

  "I know which is her room. It is accessible from the top of anouthouse. My suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if wecan strike at the very heart of the mystery."

  It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect. The old housewith its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants,the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were puttingourselves legally in a false position all combined to damp my ardour.But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which madeit impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend.One knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution be found. Iclasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast.

  But it was not destined that our investigation should have soadventurous an ending. It was about five o'clock, and the shadows ofthe March evening were beginning to fall, when an excited rustic rushedinto our room.

  "They've gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by the last train. The ladybroke away, and I've got her in a cab downstairs."

  "Excellent, Warner!" cried Holmes, springing to his feet. "Watson, thegaps are closing rapidly."

  In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. Shebore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recenttragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raisedit and turned her dull eyes upon us I saw that her pupils were darkdots in the centre of the broad gray iris. She was drugged with opium.

  "I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes," said ouremissary, the discharged gardener. "When the carriage came out Ifollowed it to the station. She was like one walking in her sleep, butwhen they tried to get her into the train she came to life andstruggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She fought her way outagain. I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are. I shan'tforget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have ashort life if he had his way--the black-eyed, scowling, yellow devil."

  We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups ofthe strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug.Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explainedto him.

  "Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I want," said the inspectorwarmly, shaking my friend by the hand. "I was on the same scent as youfrom the first."

  "What! You were after Henderson?"

  "Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High GableI was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below. Itwas just who would get his evidence first."

  "Then why did you arrest the mulatto?"

  Baynes chuckled.

  "I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected,and that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he wasin any danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that oureyes were off him. I knew he would be likely to clear off then andgive us a chance of getting at Miss Burnet."

  Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector's shoulder.

  "You will rise high in your profession. You have instinct andintuition," said he.

  Baynes flushed with pleasure.

  "I've had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week.Wherever the High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight. But hemust have been hard put to it when Miss Burnet broke away. However,your man picked her up, and it all ends well. We can't arrest withouther evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement thebetter."

  "Every minute she gets stronger," said Holmes, glancing at thegoverness. "But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?"

  "Henderson," the inspector answered, "is Don Murillo, once called theTiger of San Pedro."

  The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back to mein a flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirstytyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence tocivilization. Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficientvirtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering peoplefor ten or twelve years. His name was a terror through all CentralAmerica. At the end of that time there was a universal rising againsthim. But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first whisperof coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a shipwhich was manned by devoted adherents. It was an empty palace whichwas stormed by the insurgents next day. The dictator, his twochildren, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them. From thatmoment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had been afrequent subject for comment in the European press.

  "Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro," said Baynes. "If youlook it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green andwhite, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself,but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, wherehis ship came in in '86. They've been looking for him all the time fortheir 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 andwas now intently following the conversation. "Once already his lifehas been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him. Now, again, itis the noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goessafe. But another will come, and yet another, until some day justicewill be done; that is as certain as the rise of to-morrow's sun." Herthin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched with the passion of herhatred.

  "But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?" asked Holmes. "Howcan an English lady join in such a murderous affair?"

  "I join in it because there is no other way in the world by whichjustice can be gained. What does the law of England care for therivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload oftreasure which this man has stolen? To you they are like crimescommitted in some other planet. But _we_ know. We have learned thetruth in sorrow and in suffering. To us there is no fiend in hell likeJuan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry forvengeance."

  "No doubt," said Holmes, "he was as you say. I have heard that he wasatrocious. But how are you affected?"

  "I will tell you it all. This villain's policy was to murder, on onepretext or
another, every man who showed such promise that he might intime come to be a dangerous rival. My husband--yes, my real name isSignora Victor Durando--was the San Pedro minister in London. He metme and married me there. A nobler man never lived upon earth.Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on somepretext, and had him shot. With a premonition of his fate he hadrefused to take me with him. His estates were confiscated, and I wasleft with a pittance and a broken heart.

  "Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped as you have justdescribed. But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest anddearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let thematter rest. They banded themselves into a society which should neverbe