The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge, Part 3

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's time to relax.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let your body fall into a comfortable position in your bed and drift gently into a state of total relaxation with tonight's story.
[SPEAKER_00]: chapter two, the tiger of San Pedro, part two.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was not destined that our investigation should have so adventurous and ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about five o'clock and the shadows of the March evening were beginning to fall when an excited, rustic rushed into our room.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've gone, Mr. Holmes, they went by the last train,
[SPEAKER_00]: The lady broke away and I've got her in a cab downstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent Warner, cried Holmes, springing to his feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watson, the gaps are closing rapidly.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the cab was a woman, half collapsed from nervous exhaustion.
[SPEAKER_00]: She bore upon her aqualine and emaciated face the traces of some recent tragedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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 center of the broad grey iris.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was drugged with opium.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched at the gate, same as you advised Mr. Holmes, said our emissary the discharged gardener.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the carriage came out, I followed it to the station.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like one walking in her sleep, but when they tried to get her into the train, she came to life and struggled.
[SPEAKER_00]: They pushed her into the carriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: She fought her way out again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shant for get the face at the carriage window as I let her away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd have a short life if he had his way, the black-eyed scowling yellow devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: We carried her upstairs later on the sofa and a couple of cups of the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bains had been summoned by homes and the situation rapidly explained to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wiser, you've got me the very evidence I want, said the inspector warmly, shaking my friend by the hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the same sentence you from the first.
[SPEAKER_00]: What, you were after Henderson?
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just who would get his evidence first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then why did you arrest the Milato?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bains chuckled.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our eyes were off him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew he would be likely to clear off then and give us a chance of getting at Miss Burnett.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homes laid his hand upon the inspector's shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will rise higher in your profession, you have instinct and intuition."
[SPEAKER_00]: said he.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bains flushed with pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a playing clothesman waiting at the station all the week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wherever the high-gable folk go, he will keep them in sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: but he must have been hard put to it when Ms. Burnett broke away.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, your man picked her up and it all ends well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't arrest without her evidence that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement, the better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every minute she gets stronger, said Holmes glancing at the governess, but tell me Baines, who is this man Henderson?
[SPEAKER_00]: Henderson, the inspector answered, is Don Murillo once called the Tiger of San Pedro.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Tiger of San Pedro.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole history of the man came back to me in a flash.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had made his name as the most lued and bloodthirsty tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to civilisation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Strongfielus and energetic he had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people for 10 or 12 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: His name was a terror through all Central America.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of that time there was a universal rising against him.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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 adherence
[SPEAKER_00]: It was an empty palace which was stormed by the insurgents next day.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dictator, his two children, his secretary and his wealth had all escaped them.
[SPEAKER_00]: From that moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had been a frequent subject for comment in the European press.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the tiger of San Pedro, said beans.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look it up, you will find that the San Pedro colors are green and white.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same as in the note, Mr. Holmes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Henderson, he called himself, but I traced him back Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona where his ship came in in 86.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they discovered him a year ago, said Miss Burnett, who had sat up and was now intently following the conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once already his life has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now again, it is the noble Chivalrasgarsia who was fallen while the monster goes safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: But another will come, and yet another until some day justice will be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is as certain as the rise of tomorrow's sun.
[SPEAKER_00]: a thin hands clenched and a worn face blanched with a passion of her hatred.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how come you enter this matter, Miss Burnett, as toms?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?
[SPEAKER_00]: I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which justice can be gained.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does the law of England care for the rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro or for the ship load of treasure which this man has stolen?
[SPEAKER_00]: To you they are like crimes committed in some other planet but we know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have learned the truth in sorrow and in suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: To us there is no fiend in hell like Juan Murillo, a no peace in life while his victims still cry for vengeance.
[SPEAKER_00]: No doubts at homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was, as you say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have heard that he was atrocious, but how are you affected?
[SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: This villain's policy was to murder on one pretext or another, every man who showed such promise that he might in time come to be a dangerous rival.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: My real name is Sinyora Viktor Durando.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was the San Pedro Minister in London?
[SPEAKER_00]: He met me and married me there.
[SPEAKER_00]: a noble man never lived upon earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unhappily Murio heard of his excellence, recalled him on some pretext, and had him shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: With a premonition of his fate he had refused to take me with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: His estates were confiscated, and I was left with a pittance and a broken heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: then came the downfall of the tyrant.
[SPEAKER_00]: He escaped as you have just described.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let the matter rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: They banded themselves into a society which should never be dissolved until the work was done.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was my part after we had discovered in the transformed Henderson the fallen desperate, to attach myself to his household and keep
[SPEAKER_00]: This I was able to do by securing the position of governess in his family.
[SPEAKER_00]: He little knew that the woman who faced him at every meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's notice into eternity, I smiled on him, did my duty to his children and bided my time.
[SPEAKER_00]: an attempt was made in Paris and failed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We zigzagged swiftly here and there over Europe to throw off the pursuers and finally return to this house which he had taken upon his first arrival in England.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here also the ministers of justice were waiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could do little during the day for Morillo took every precaution and never went out safe with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez, as he was known in the days of his greatness.
[SPEAKER_00]: At night, however, he slept alone and the avenger might find him.
[SPEAKER_00]: On a certain evening which had been pre-arranged, I sent my friend final instructions.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the man was forever on the alert and continually changed his room.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: But everything went wrong with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: In some way I had excited the suspicion of Lopez, the secretary.
[SPEAKER_00]: He crept up behind me and sprang upon me just as I had finished the note.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and his master dragged me to my room and held judgment upon me as a convicted treacherous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then and there they would have plunged their knives into me, could they have seen how to escape the consequences of the deed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally after much debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had gagged me, and Marillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address.
[SPEAKER_00]: I swear that he might have twisted it off, had I understood what it would mean to Garcia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lopez addressed the note which I had written, sealed it with his sleeve link, and sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose.
[SPEAKER_00]: How they murdered him I do not know, save that it was Marillo's hand who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to guard me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe he must have waited among the gauce bushes through which the path winds and struck him down as he passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first they were of a mind to let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the death of Garcia, the pursuit might cease since such a death might frighten others from the task.
[SPEAKER_00]: All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge of what they had done.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt that there were times when my life hung in the balance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was confined to my room, terrorized by the most horrible threats, truly ill used to break my spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: For five days this cruel imprisonment continued with hardly enough food to hold body and soul together.
[SPEAKER_00]: This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I had been drugged.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a sort of dream I remember being half-led, half-carried to the carriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the same state I was
[SPEAKER_00]: Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly realize that my liberty lay in my own hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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 had broken away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now thank God I am beyond their power forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our difficulties are not over.
[SPEAKER_00]: He remarked, shaking his head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our police work ends, but our legal work begins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, said I, a plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of self-defense.
[SPEAKER_00]: There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only on this one that they can be tried.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come, come, said Baines cheerily.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think better of the law than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Self-defense is one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: To entice a man in cold blood with the object of murdering him as another, whatever danger you may fear from him.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of high-gable at the next gulf of the sizes.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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 desserts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wiley 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 Curse and Square.
[SPEAKER_00]: From that day, they were seen no more in England.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some six months afterwards, the Marcus of Montalva and Senior Rulie, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the hotel's Curial at Madrid.
[SPEAKER_00]: The crime was ascribed to nihilism, and the murderers were never arrested.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inspector Baines 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 tuffeted
[SPEAKER_00]: We could not doubt that justice if belated had come at last.
[SPEAKER_00]: A chaotic case, my dear Watson, said Holmes over an evening pipe.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is dear to your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is remarkable only for the fact that a mid-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?
[SPEAKER_00]: The object of the Milato Cooks Return I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man was a primitive savage from the backwards of San Pedro, and this was his fetish.
[SPEAKER_00]: When his companion and he had fled to some pre-arranged retreat, already occupied no doubt by a Confederate, the companion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of furniture.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the mulatto's heart was with it, and he was driven back to it next day when on
[SPEAKER_00]: He waited three days longer, and then his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inspector Baines, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimized the incident before me, had really recognized its importance and had left a trap into which the creature walked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any other point Watson?
[SPEAKER_00]: The torn bird, the pale of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery of that weird
[SPEAKER_00]: homes smiled as he turned up an entry in his notebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other points.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is a quotation from Ekaman's Vuduism and the Negroid religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: The true Vudu worshiper attempts nothing of importance without certain sacrifices, which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods.
[SPEAKER_00]: In extreme cases, these rights take the form of human sacrifices followed by cannibalism.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is grotesque Watson.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you very much.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.