The Adventure of Wisteria LodgeDoyle, Arthur Conan
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The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Detective and mystery stories; Holmes, Sherlock (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Private investigators -- England -- Fiction
"Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I want," said the inspector
warmly, shaking my friend by the hand. "I was on the same scent as you
from the first."
"What! You were after Henderson?"
"Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable
I was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below. It
was 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 was
in any danger. I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our
eyes were off him. I knew he would be likely to clear off then and
give 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 and
intuition," 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 he
must 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 without
her evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement the
better."
"Every minute she gets stronger," said Holmes, glancing at the
governess. "But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?"
"Henderson," the inspector answered, "is Don Murillo, once called the
Tiger of San Pedro."
The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history of the man came back to me
in a flash. He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty
tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to
civilization. Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient
virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people
for ten or twelve years. His name was a terror through all Central
America. At the end of that time there was a universal rising against
him. But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first whisper
of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship
which was manned by devoted adherents. It was an empty palace which
was stormed by the insurgents next day. The dictator, his two
children, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them. From that
moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had been a
frequent subject for comment in the European press.
"Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro," said Baynes. "If you
look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and
white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. Henderson he called himself,
but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where
his ship came in in '86. They've been looking for him all the time for
their revenge, but it is only now that they have begun to find him out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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