“Really we must see Baynes at once,” cried Holmes, picking up his hat. “We will just catch him before he starts.” We hurried down the village street and found, as we had expected, that the inspector was just leaving his lodgings.
“You’ve seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, holding one out to us.
“Yes, Baynes, I’ve seen it. Pray don’t think it a liberty if I give you a word of friendly warning.”
“Of warning, Mr. Holmes?”
“I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced that you are on the right lines. I don’t want you to commit yourself too far unless you are sure.”
“You’re very kind, Mr. Holmes.”
“I assure you I speak for your good.”
It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over one of Mr. Baynes’s tiny eyes.
“We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes. That’s what I am doing.”
“Oh, very good,” said Holmes. “Don’t blame me.”
“No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. But we all have our own systems, Mr. Holmes. You have yours, and maybe I have mine.”
“Let us say no more about it.”
“You’re welcome always to my news. This fellow is a perfect savage, as strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed Downing’s thumb nearly off before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word of English, and we can get nothing out of him but grunts.”
“And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?”
“I didn’t say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn’t say so. We all have our little ways. You try yours and I will try mine. That’s the agreement.”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together. “I can’t make the man out. He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he says, we must each try our own way and see what comes of it. But there’s something in Inspector Baynes which I can’t quite understand.”
“Just sit down in that chair, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes when we had returned to our apartment at the Bull. “I want to put you in touch with the situation, as I may need your help to-night. Let me show you the evolution of this case so far as I have been able to follow it. Simple as it has been in its leading features, it has none the less presented surprising difficulties in the way of an arrest. There are gaps in that direction which we have still to fill.
“We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the evening of his death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes’s that Garcia’s servants were concerned in the matter. The proof of this lies in the fact that it was _he_ who had arranged for the presence of Scott Eccles, which could only have been done for the purpose of an alibi. It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and apparently a criminal enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met his death. I say ‘criminal’ because only a man with a criminal enterprise desires to establish an alibi. Who, then, is most likely to have taken his life? Surely the person against whom the criminal enterprise was directed. So far it seems to me that we are on safe ground.
“We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia’s household. They were _all_ confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off when Garcia returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by the Englishman’s evidence, and all would be well. But the attempt was a dangerous one, and if Garcia did _not_ return by a certain hour it was probable that his own life had been sacrificed. It had been arranged, therefore, that in such a case his two subordinates were to make for some prearranged spot where they could escape investigation and be in a position afterwards to renew their attempt. That would fully explain the facts, would it not?”
The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.
“But why should one servant return?”
“We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious, something which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind. That would explain his persistence, would it not?”
“Well, what is the next step?”
“The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner. It indicates a confederate at the other end. Now, where was the other end? I have already shown you that it could only lie in some large house, and that the number of large houses is limited. My first days in this village were devoted to a series of walks in which in the intervals of my botanical researches I made a reconnaissance of all the large houses and an examination of the family history of the occupants. One house, and only one, riveted my attention. It is the famous old Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of Oxshott, and less than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The other mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from romance. But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, was by all accounts a curious man to whom curious adventures might befall. I concentrated my attention, therefore, upon him and his household.
