“But here also the ministers of justice were waiting. Knowing that he would return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest dignitary in San Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of humble station, all three fired with the same reasons for revenge. He could do little during the day, for Murillo took every precaution, and never went out save with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he was known in the days of his greatness. At night, however, he slept alone, and the avenger might find him. On a certain evening, which had been prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the man was for ever on the alert, and continually changed his room. I was to see that the doors were open and the signal of a green or white light in a window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was safe, or if the attempt had better be postponed.
“But everything went wrong with us. In some way I had excited the suspicion of Lopez, the secretary. He crept up behind me, and sprang upon me just as I had finished the note. He and his master dragged me to my room, and held judgment upon me as a convicted traitress. Then and there they would have plunged their knives into me, could they have seen how to escape the consequence of the deed. Finally, after much debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous. But they determined to get rid for ever of Garcia.26 They had gagged me, and Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address. I swear that he might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean to Garcia. Lopez addressed the note which I had written, sealed it with his sleeve-link, and sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose.27 How they murdered him I do not know, save that it was Murillo’s hand who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to guard me. I believe he must have waited among the gorse bushes through which the path winds and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind to let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity would at once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further attacks. With the death of Garcia the pursuit might cease, since such a death might frighten others from the task.
“He crept up behind me just as I had finished the note.”
Lee Conrey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 8, 1912
“He and his master dragged me to my room.”
Arthur Twidle, Strand Magazine, 1908
“All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge of what they had done. I have no doubt that there were times when my life hung in the balance. I was confined to my room, terrorised by the most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my spirit—see this stab on my shoulder and the bruises from end to end of my arms—and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion when I tried to call from the window. For five days this cruel imprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul together. This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half-led, half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the train. Only then, when the wheels were almost moving did I suddenly realise that my liberty lay in my own hands. I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had it not been for the help of this good man, who led me to the cab, I should never have broken away. Now, thank God, I am beyond their power for ever.”
“They had gagged me, and Murillo twisted my arm round.”
Frederick Dorr Steele, Collier’s, 1908
We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was Holmes who broke the silence.
“Our difficulties are not over,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Our police work ends, but our legal work begins.”
“Exactly,” said I. “A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of self-defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only on this one that they can be tried.”
“Come, come,” said Baynes, cheerily; “I think better of the law than that. Self-defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with the object of murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear from him. No, no; we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of High Gable at the next Guildford Assizes.”28
It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to elapse before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. Wily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their track by entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the back-gate into Curzon Square. From that day they were seen no more in England. Some six months afterwards the Marquess29 of Montalva and Signor Rulli,30 his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the Hotel Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism,31 and the murderers were never arrested. Inspector Baynes visited us at Baker Street with a printed description of the dark face of the secretary, and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted brows of his master. We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had come at last.
The crime was ascribed to Nihilism, and the murderers were never arrested.
Frederick Dorr Steele, Collier’s, 1908
“The man walked into the trap and was captured.”
Arthur Twidle, Strand Magazine, 1908
“A chaotic case, my dear Watson,” said Holmes, over an evening pipe. “It will not be possible for you to present it in that compact form which is dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy collaborator the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any point which is not quite clear to you?”
“The object of the mulatto cook’s return?”
“I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it. The man was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and this was his fetish.32 When his companion and he had fled to some prearranged retreat—already occupied, no doubt, by a confederate—the companion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of furniture. But the mulatto’s heart was with it, and he was driven back to it next day, when, on reconnoitring through the window, he found policeman Walters in possession. He waited three days longer, and then his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more. Inspector Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimised the incident before me, had really recognised its importance, and had left a trap into which the creature walked. Any other point, Watson?”
“The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery of that weird kitchen?”
Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his notebook.
“I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up that and other points. Here is a quotation from Eckermann’s Voodooism and the Negroid Religions:
Sacrifices to propitiate his unclean gods.
Frederick Dorr Steele, Collier’s, 1908
The true Voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods. In extreme cases these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed by cannibalism. The more usual victims are a white cock, which is plucked in pieces alive, or a black goat, whose throat is cut and body burned.33
“So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is grotesque, Watson,” Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook; “but, as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.”
1 “The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge” appeared as a title for this story only when book and omnibus editions were published. In Collier’s Magazine (August 15, 1908), the whole story was entitled “The Singular Experience of Mr. J. Scott Eccles,” and in England the Strand Magazine titled it “A Reminiscence of Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” calling the first installment (Septembe
r 1908) “The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles” and the second installment (October 1908) “The Tiger of San Pedro.” Indeed, until collected in book form, the entire series of stories, appearing from September 1908 to December 1913 (not including “The Cardboard Box” or “His Last Bow”), was entitled the “Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes.”
2 This date is of course incorrect, for between April 1891 and April 1894 Holmes was absent from London (and public view) on the Great Hiatus. See “The Empty House.”
3 The first of numerous snide remarks to Watson during the course of this tale, which Watson, to his everlasting credit, faithfully records.
4 The day-and-night post office in Charing Cross was one of the oldest of the London post offices. In Holmes and Watson’s day, it was tucked away on the ground floor of Morley’s Hotel, but had its entrance on the south side of the Strand. The central post office—a “magnificent pile,” in the words of one Victorian writer—was located in St. Martins-le-Grand, and there were only four branch offices, at Lombard Street; Charing Cross; Cavendish Street, Oxford Street; and 266 Borough High Street.
5 Although the question may seem strange to an American reader, the “Scott” was obviously part of a typical English compound name (for example, Conan Doyle) and not the writer’s first name. There would have been no reason for the writer to have wasted money on including his or her first name in the telegram.
6 This is not Bob Carruthers of “The Solitary Cyclist,” who had no apparent military connections. Carruthers is another in the long line of colonels of questionable integrity—see, for example, Colonel Lysander Stark, no doubt an alias (“The Engineer’s Thumb”); Colonel Dorking, whose conduct may have been cause for blackmail (“Charles Augustus Milverton”); Colonel James Barclay, “David” to his wife’s “Bathsheba” (“The Crooked Man”); Colonel Warburton, the madman (“The Engineer’s Thumb”); Colonel Openshaw of the Confederate Army (“The Five Orange Pips”); Colonel Upwood, guilty of scandalous conduct (The Hound of the Baskervilles); Colonel Emsworth, guilty of overreaction (“The Blanched Soldier”); Colonel Valentine Walker, guilty of treason (“The Bruce-Partington Plans”); Colonel James Moriarty, guilty of brotherhood (“The Empty House”); and Colonel Sebastian Moran, guilty of almost everything (“The Empty House”). Only Colonel Ross of “Silver Blaze,” Colonel Spence Munro of “The Copper Beeches,” Colonel Hayter of “The Reigate Squires,” and Colonel Sir James Damery of “The Illustrious Client” seem free of taint.
7 Holmes uses a similar analogy in “The Devil’s Foot” when he says, “To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.”
8 Gregson appears only here and in A Study in Scarlet and “The Greek Interpreter.”
9 How, exactly, Eccles was traced is not discussed, but Colonel E. Ennalls Berl speculates that Gregson and Baynes must have possessed some undisclosed information as to Eccles’s movements, since he visited several other locations before heading to Charing Cross Post Office and therefore, theoretically, could have wired the telegram from anywhere.
10 Commentators contend that Eccles and Garcia’s “friendship” was a homosexual relationship, albeit unconsummated. While male-male friendships were very different in Victorian times, and certainly many were free from homoerotic content (for example, as this editor firmly believes, that between Holmes and Watson), there are unexplained incidents in this tale, the implications of which seem to slide right by Watson, which suggest the initiation of an erotic relationship here. Holmes, perhaps to avoid shocking Watson, invents quite other reasons for the friendship.
11 This would have been Lady Day, March 25. The four “quarter-days,” upon which quarterly payments (such as rents) are due, derive from the medieval church calendar and indicate the start of a new fiscal season. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland they are Lady Day (also referenced in “The Resident Patient”), Midsummer (June 24), Michaelmas (September 29), and Christmas (December 25). In 1991 the dates were synchronised to February 28, May 28, August 28, and November 28.
12 A detached fire-grate standing in a fireplace on supports called dogs.
13 A cuff-link.
14 Such a comment seems “rather unfair,” remarks Cathy Fraser, “about someone who had the presence of mind to search the house, visit the house-agents, the Spanish Embassy and Melville, in his attempt to unravel the mystery, before resorting to Holmes.” Perhaps Holmes has not yet forgiven Eccles for his earlier declaration that “Private detectives are a class with whom I have absolutely no sympathy.”
15 Garcia’s plan hinged on Eccles’s believing that it was 1:00 A.M. when he disturbed his houseguest’s sleep; but Eccles had his own watch, having glanced at it when he awoke in the morning. “[I]t is rather unreasonable,” writes Edward F. Clark, Jr., in “Wisteria Lodge Revisited (A Model Cop, a Model Laundry Item, and a Not-So-Model Culinary Artist),” “to expect that a sly schemer, a plotter, like Garcia, would stake his alibi—everything—on the chance that Scott Eccles might not strike a light and check the hour.” Clark theorises that Garcia’s cook added some sort of sleeping potion to Eccles’s soup, rendering him so drowsy that he would not think to look at the time during the night.
D. Martin Dakin, on the other hand, takes issue with Garcia’s strategy regarding the actual timing of his alibi. If Garcia did leave the house at midnight, presumably he was to carry out his mission by 12:30 A.M. and return by 1:00 A.M.—meaning that he would need an alibi for 12:30, not 1:00.
16 This would mean the colours worn by racehorses and their jockeys, as in the program descriptions listed in “Silver Blaze.” That Holmes makes such an association for Watson’s benefit should not be surprising, given Watson’s admitted knowledge of the Turf (see “Shoscombe Old Place”).
17 A small spade used for digging out weeds. “Spud” as slang for potato is said to have derived from this word, since a spud or any other number of digging implements could be used to dig up potatoes.
18 Few would regard Holmes as a nature-lover; in fact, Humfrey Michell reminds readers that Holmes’s admiration of the moss-rose, in “The Naval Treaty,” is the only occasion on which he is recorded even noticing flowers. “Can we really believe that he would deceive a child when he prowled about with a spud, a tin box and an elementary book on botany during his singularly inept investigation . . . ? Assuredly that strange story should be classed among the Apocrypha.”
19 In the strictest terms, a mulatto was said to be the child of one black parent and one white parent. Reflecting the racial climate of the day, there were further terms that specified one’s mixed-race lineage to an even greater degree: a “quadroon” (one-quarter black) was the child of a mulatto and a white, while an “octoroon” (one-eighth black) was the child of a quadroon and a white. The child of an octoroon and a white was finally considered to be white, according to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, whose listing of “Negro Offspring” tellingly only presents situations in which a white man would mate with a “negro” or mixed-race woman. The word “mulatto” was derived from the Portuguese diminutive of mulo, or mule, the crossbred offspring of a male donkey and female horse.
20 In this context, a judicial order for committal of an alleged offender to custody pending trial.
21 Jacobean architecture, which originated during the reign of James I (1603–1625), bridged Elizabethan with English Renaissance style, combining the old ornamental decorations and grand manor flourishes with more formal design elements such as columns, arches, and flat roofs featuring low, protective parapets.
22 A Spanish title applied in courtesy to all of the “better” classes. It precedes the bearer’s Christian name (as in “Don Juan”). Thus the inspector’s reference to “Don Murillo” is improper.
23 Any attempt to guess the true location of “San Pedro” by looking for clues in the fateful note (“Our own colours, green and white”) is fruitless, for green and white, as Julian Wolff points out in Practical Handboo
k of Sherlockian Heraldry, are not the colours of any Central American flag. Wolff does notice that green and yellow are the colours of Brazil’s flag, a close enough match to support a possible correlation there. Cindy Stevens makes an excellent case for Hispaniola as “San Pedro.” Other suggestions include Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. (See note 24 for further details.)
24 Operating on the assumption that the green and white colours of Garcia’s note were actually meant to be the green and yellow colours of the Brazilian flag, Julian Wolff identifies the “Tiger” as Dom Pedro de Alcântara, or Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil. Pedro II reigned from 1831 until 1889, when a military coup forced him into exile in Europe. Far from being a “lewd and bloodthirsty tyrant,” Pedro II was widely popular; under his reign the slaves were emancipated, export revenues increased, and the railway system expanded. It was the monarchy’s ties to a traditionally elite feudal system, more than dissatisfaction with Pedro II himself, that caused pro-capitalist groups—among them the urban middle class, coffee farmers, and the military—to push for a new system of government. Wolff explains the contradiction between Pedro II’s actual nature and the violent description accorded him here by pointing out that Holmes and Watson were getting information from the point of view of the opposition. Although Watson seems to recall reading about Dom Pedro in the press, his recollection of those press reports may well have been coloured by the passions of Garcia and his confederates. As Wolff puts it, “Anyone who has read the opposition’s opinion of our best and wisest men will easily understand.”
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased edition) (Vol. 2) (The Annotated Books) Page 55