The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothingto a careful search. Apparently the tenants had brought little ornothing with them, and all the furniture down to the smallestdetails had been taken over with the house. A good deal ofclothing with the stamp of Marx and Co., High Holborn, hadbeen left behind. Telegraphic inquiries had been already madewhich showed that Marx knew nothing of his customer save thathe was a good payer. Odds and ends, some pipes, a few novels, twoof them in Spanish, and old-fashioned pinfire revolver, and a guitarwere among the personal property.
“Nothing in all this,” said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand, fromroom to room. “But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention tothe kitchen.”
It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house,with a straw litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bedfor the cook. The table was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirtyplates, the debris of last night’s dinner.
“Look at this,” said Baynes. “What do you make of it?”
He held up his candle before an extraordinary object whichstood at the back of the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunkenand withered that it was difficult to say what it might have been.
One could but say that it was black and leathery and that itbore some resemblance to a dwarfish, human figure. At first, as Iexamined it, I thought that it was a mummified negro baby, andthen it seemed a very twisted and ancient monkey. Finally I wasleft in doubt as to whether it was animal or human. A double bandof white shells was strung round the centre of it.
“Very interesting—very interesting, indeed!” said Holmes,peering at this sinister relic. “Anything more?”
In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forwardhis candle. The limbs and body of some large, white bird, tornsavagely to pieces with the feathers still on, were littered all overit. Holmes pointed to the wattles on the severed head.
“A white cock,” said he. “Most interesting! It is really a verycurious case.”
But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last.
From under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained aquantity of blood. Then from the table he took a platter heapedwith small pieces of charred bone.
“Something has been killed and something has been burned. Weraked all these out of the fire. We had a doctor in this morning.
He says that they are not human.”
Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.
“I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctiveand instructive a case. Your powers, if I may say so withoutoffence, seem superior to your opportunities.”
Inspector Baynes’s small eyes twinkled with pleasure.
“You’re right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in the provinces. A caseof this sort gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it.
What do you make of these bones?”
“A lamb, I should say, or a kid.”
“And the white cock?”
“Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should say almost unique.”
“Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people withsome very strange ways in this house. One of them is dead. Did hiscompanions follow him and kill him? If they did we should havethem, for every port is watched. But my own views are different.
Yes, sir, my own views are very different.”
“You have a theory then?”
“And I’ll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It’s only due to my owncredit to do so. Your name is made, but I have still to make mine.
I should be glad to be able to say afterwards that I had solved itwithout your help.”
Holmes laughed good-humoredly.
“Well, well, Inspector,” said he. “Do you follow your path and Iwill follow mine. My results are always very much at your serviceif you care to apply to me for them. I think that I have seen allthat I wish in this house, and that my time may be more profitablyemployed elsewhere. Au revoir and good luck!”
I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have beenlost upon anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. Asimpassive as ever to the casual observer, there were none the lessa subdued eagerness and suggestion of tension in his brightenedeyes and brisker manner which assured me that the game wasafoot. After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked noquestions. Sufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humblehelp to the capture without distracting that intent brain withneedless interruption. All would come round to me in due time.
I waited, therefore—but to my ever-deepening disappointmentI waited in vain. Day succeeded day, and my friend took no stepforward. One morning he spent in town, and I learned from acasual reference that he had visited the British Museum. Save forthis one excursion, he spent his days in long and often solitarywalks, or in chatting with a number of village gossips whoseacquaintance he had cultivated.
“I’m sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluableto you,” he remarked. “It is very pleasant to see the first greenshoots upon the hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again.
With a spud, a tin box, and an elementary book on botany, thereare instructive days to be spent.” He prowled about with thisequipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which hewould bring back of an evening.
Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes.
His fat, red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyesglittered as he greeted my companion. He said little aboutthe case, but from that little we gathered that he also was notdissatisfied at the course of events. I must admit, however, that Iwas somewhat surprised when, some five days after the crime, Iopened my morning paper to find in large letters:
THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY
A SOLUTION
ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN
Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I readthe headlines.
“By Jove!” he cried. “You don’t mean that Baynes has got him?”
“Apparently,” said I as I read the following report: