The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge

I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day
towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a
telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He
made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood
in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his
pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he
turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

"I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters," said
he. "How do you define the word 'grotesque'?"

"Strange—remarkable," I suggested.

He shook his head at my definition.

"There is surely something more than that," said he; "some underlying
suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind back
to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a
long-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has
deepened into the criminal. Think of that little affair of the
red-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it
ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there was that
most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which let straight to a
murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert."

"Have you it there?" I asked.

He read the telegram aloud.

"Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I consult
you?

"Scott Eccles,
"Post Office, Charing Cross."

"Man or woman?" I asked.

"Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram.
She would have come."

"Will you see him?"

"My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up
Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to
pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was
built. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and
romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you
ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however
trivial it may prove? But here, unless I am mistaken, is our client."

A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout,
tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into
the room. His life history was written in his heavy features and
pompous manner. From his spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was a
Conservative, a churchman, a good citizen, orthodox and conventional to
the last degree. But some amazing experience had disturbed his native
composure and left its traces in his bristling hair, his flushed, angry
cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. He plunged instantly into his
business.

"I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes,"
said he. "Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. It
is most improper—most outrageous. I must insist upon some
explanation." He swelled and puffed in his anger.

"Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles," said Holmes in a soothing voice.
"May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?"

"Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the
police, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I
could not leave it where it was. Private detectives are a class with
whom I have absolutely no sympathy, but none the less, having heard
your name—"

"Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?"

Holmes glanced at his watch.

"It is a quarter-past two," he said. "Your telegram was dispatched
about one. But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without
seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking."

Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin.

"You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I was
only too glad to get out of such a house. But I have been running
round making inquiries before I came to you. I went to the house
agents, you know, and they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up all
right and that everything was in order at Wisteria Lodge."

"Come, come, sir," said Holmes, laughing. "You are like my friend, Dr.
Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end foremost.
Please arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due sequence,
exactly what those events are which have sent you out unbrushed and
unkempt, with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned awry, in search of
advice and assistance."

Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional
appearance.

"I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in
my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But will tell you
the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am
sure, that there has been enough to excuse me."

But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside,
and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and
official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as
Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, within
his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands with Holmes and
introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey Constabulary.

"We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this
direction." He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. "Are you Mr.
John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, Lee?"

"I am."

"We have been following you about all the morning."

"You traced him through the telegram, no doubt," said Holmes.

"Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the scent at Charing Cross
Post-Office and came on here."

"But why do you follow me? What do you want?"

"We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which let up
to the death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, near
Esher."

Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour
struck from his astonished face.

"Dead? Did you say he was dead?"

"Yes, sir, he is dead."

"But how? An accident?"

"Murder, if ever there was one upon earth."

"Good God! This is awful! You don't mean—you don't mean that I am
suspected?"

"A letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know by
it that you had planned to pass last night at his house."

"So I did."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

Out came the official notebook.

"Wait a bit, Gregson," said Sherlock Holmes. "All you desire is a
plain statement, is it not?"

"And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used against
him."

"Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room. I
think, Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, I
suggest that you take no notice of this addition to your audience, and
that you proceed with your narrative exactly as you would have done had
you never been interrupted."

Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned to
his face. With a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, he
plunged at once into his extraordinary statement.

"I am a bachelor," said he, "and being of a sociable turn I cultivate a
large number of friends. Among these are the family of a retired
brewer called Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington. It
was at his table that I met some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia.
He was, I understood, of Spanish descent and connected in some way with
the embassy. He spoke perfect English, was pleasing in his manners,
and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life.

"In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I.
He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two days of
our meeting he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to another, and it
ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at his house, Wisteria
Lodge, between Esher and Oxshott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher to
fulfil this engagement.

"He had described his household to me before I went there. He lived
with a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after all
his needs. This fellow could speak English and did his housekeeping
for him. Then there was a wonderful cook, he said, a half-breed whom
he had picked up in his travels, who could serve an excellent dinner.
I remember that he remarked what a queer household it was to find in
the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him, though it has proved a
good deal queerer than I thought.

"I drove to the place—about two miles on the south side of Esher. The
house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the road, with a curving
drive which was banked with high evergreen shrubs. It was an old,
tumbledown building in a crazy state of disrepair. When the trap
pulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and
weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man
whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however, and
greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the
manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag
in his hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our
dinner was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be
entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he talked
so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him. He
continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and
gave other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner itself was neither
well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy presence of the taciturn
servant did not help to enliven us. I can assure you that many times
in the course of the evening I wished that I could invent some excuse
which would take me back to Lee.

"One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the
business that you two gentlemen are investigating. I thought nothing
of it at the time. Near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the
servant. I noticed that after my host had read it he seemed even more
distrait and strange than before. He gave up all pretence at
conversation and sat, smoking endless cigarettes, lost in his own
thoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents. About eleven I was
glad to go to bed. Some time later Garcia looked in at my door—the
room was dark at the time—and asked me if I had rung. I said that I
had not. He apologized for having disturbed me so late, saying that it
was nearly one o'clock. I dropped off after this and slept soundly all
night.

"And now I come to the amazing part of my tale. When I woke it was
broad daylight. I glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly nine.
I had particularly asked to be called at eight, so I was very much
astonished at this forgetfulness. I sprang up and rang for the
servant. There was no response. I rang again and again, with the same
result. Then I came to the conclusion that the bell was out of order.
I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad
temper to order some hot water. You can imagine my surprise when I
found that there was no one there. I shouted in the hall. There was
no answer. Then I ran from room to room. All were deserted. My host
had shown me which was his bedroom the night before, so I knocked at
the door. No reply. I turned the handle and walked in. The room was
empty, and the bed had never been slept in. He had gone with the rest.
The foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all had
vanished in the night! That was the end of my visit to Wisteria Lodge."