Holmes. I desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at thetruth.”
My friend turned to the country inspector.
“I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating withyou, Mr. Baynes?”
“Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.”
“You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in allthat you have done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exacthour that the man met his death?”
“He had been there since one o’clock. There was rain about thattime, and his death had certainly been before the rain.”
“But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes,” cried our client.
“His voice is unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he whoaddressed me in my bedroom at that very hour.”
“Remarkable, but by no means impossible,” said Holmes,smiling.
“You have a clue?” asked Gregson.
“On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though itcertainly presents some novel and interesting features. A furtherknowledge of facts is necessary before I would venture to give a finaland definite opinion. By the way, Mr. Baynes, did you find anythingremarkable besides this note in your examination of the house?”
The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.
“There were,” said he, “one or two very remarkable things.
Perhaps when I have finished at the police-station you would careto come out and give me your opinion of them.”
“I am entirely at your service,” said Sherlock Holmes, ringingthe bell. “You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, andkindly send the boy with this telegram. He is to pay a five-shillingreply.”
We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left.
Holmes smoked hard, with his browns drawn down over his keeneyes, and his head thrust forward in the eager way characteristicof the man.
“Well, Watson,” he asked, turning suddenly upon me, “what doyou make of it?”
“I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles.”
“But the crime?”
“Well, taken with the disappearance of the man’s companions,I should say that they were in some way concerned in the murderand had fled from justice.”
“That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it youmust admit, however, that it is very strange that his two servantsshould have been in a conspiracy against him and should haveattacked him on the one night when he had a guest. They had himalone at their mercy every other night in the week.”
“Then why did they fly?”
“Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another bigfact is the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now,my dear Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity tofurnish an explanation which would cover both these big facts? Ifit were one which would also admit of the mysterious note with itsvery curious phraseology, why, then it would be worth acceptingas a temporary hypothesis. If the fresh facts which come to ourknowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesismay gradually become a solution.”
“But what is our hypothesis?”
Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.
“You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke isimpossible. There were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed,and the coaxing of Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had someconnection with them.”
“But what possible connection?”
“Let us take it link by link. There is, on the face of it, somethingunnatural about this strange and sudden friendship between theyoung Spaniard and Scott Eccles. It was the former who forcedthe pace. He called upon Eccles at the other end of London onthe very day after he first met him, and he kept in close touch withhim until he got him down to Esher. Now, what did he want withEccles? What could Eccles supply? I see no charm in the man. Heis not particularly intelligent—not a man likely to be congenialto a quick-witted Latin. Why, then, was he picked out from allthe other people whom Garcia met as particularly suited to hispurpose? Has he any one outstanding quality? I say that he has. Heis the very type of conventional British respectability, and the veryman as a witness to impress another Briton. You saw yourself howneither of the inspectors dreamed of questioning his statement,extraordinary as it was.”
“But what was he to witness?”
“Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they goneanother way. That is how I read the matter.”
“I see, he might have proved an alibi.”
“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.”