The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge Read Online Free PDF Page B

feet. "Watson, the
gaps are closing rapidly."
    In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She
bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent
tragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised
it and turned her dull eyes upon us I saw that her pupils were dark
dots 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 our
emissary, the discharged gardener. "When the carriage came out I
followed it to the station. She was like one walking in her sleep, but
when they tried to get her into the train she came to life and
struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. She fought her way out
again. I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are. I shan't
forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have a
short 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 of
the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug.
Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained
to him.
    "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 call 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