His Last Bow (Complete Edition). Arthur Conan Doyle

incident before me, had really recognized its importance and had left a trap into which the creature walked. Any other point, Watson?”

      “The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery of that weird kitchen?”

      Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his notebook.

      “I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other points. Here is a quotation from Eckermann’s Voodooism and the Negroid Religions:

      The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods. In extreme cases these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed by cannibalism. 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.

      “So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is grotesque, Watson,” Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook, “but, as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.”