THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

By Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.
First published in 1902.

This version Copyright © 2014 by Enhanced Media. All rights
reserved.

Poster for the play Sherlock Holmes
(1900) by Doyle and actor William Gillette

Table of Contents

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

Chapter 1. Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 2. The Curse of the
Baskervilles

Chapter 3. The Problem

Chapter 4. Sir Henry Baskerville

Chapter 5. Three Broken Threads

Chapter 6. Baskerville Hall

Chapter 7. The Stapletons of Merripit
House

Chapter 8. First Report of Dr. Watson

Chapter 9. The Light upon the Moor
[Second Report of Dr. Watson]

Chapter 10. Extract from the Diary of
Dr. Watson

Chapter 11. The Man on the Tor

Chapter 12. Death on the Moor

Chapter 13. Fixing the Nets

Chapter 14. The Hound of the
Baskervilles

Link to free audio recording of The
Hound of the Baskervilles

IMAGE GALLERY

An article from Lippincott's Monthly
Magazine from July 1884

Sherlock Holmes in a 1904
illustration by Sidney Paget

The first appearance of Holmes, 1887

Sherlock Holmes and Watson

Holmes and Moriarty fighting over the
Reichenbach Falls, by Sidney Paget

Sherlock Holmes pipe and hat

Illustration of The Adventure of
the Golden Pince-Nez

A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by
Sidney Paget from The Strand Magazine, 1891 in "The Man with the Twisted
Lip".

Illustration of The Adventure of
Charles Augustus Milverton

Poster for the play Sherlock Holmes
(1900) by Doyle and actor William Gillette

Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure
of the Abbey Grange

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

Chapter 1. Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very
late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up
all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and
picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It
was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as
a "Penang lawyer." Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly
an inch across. "To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the
C.C.H.," was engraved upon it, with the date "1884." It was just
such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified,
solid, and reassuring.

"Well, Watson, what do you make of
it?"

Holmes was sitting with his back to me,
and I had given him no sign of my occupation.

"How did you know what I was doing? I
believe you have eyes in the back of your head."

"I have, at least, a well-polished,
silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me," said he. "But, tell me,
Watson, what do you make of our visitor's stick? Since we have been so
unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental
souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an
examination of it."

"I think," said I, following as
far as I could the methods of my companion, "that Dr. Mortimer is a
successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him give
him this mark of their appreciation."

"Good!" said Holmes.
"Excellent!"

"I think also that the probability is
in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his
visiting on foot."

"Why so?"

"Because this stick, though
originally a very handsome one has been so knocked about that I can hardly
imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down,
so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it."

"Perfectly sound!" said Holmes.

"And then again, there is the
'friends of the C.C.H.' I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local
hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which
has made him a small presentation in return."

"Really, Watson, you excel
yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette.
"I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as
to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own
abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a
conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable
power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your
debt."

He had never said as much before, and I
must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by
his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give
publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered
his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the
stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then
with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the
cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.

"Interesting, though
elementary," said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee.
"There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us
the basis for several deductions."

"Has anything escaped me?" I
asked with some self-importance. "I trust that there is nothing of consequence
which I have overlooked?"

"I am afraid, my dear Watson, that
most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I
meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided
towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is
certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal."

"Then I was right."

"To that extent."

"But that was all."

"No, no, my dear Watson, not all—by
no means all. I would suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is
more likely to come from a hospital than from a hunt, and that when the
initials 'C.C.' are placed before that hospital the words 'Charing Cross' very
naturally suggest themselves."

"You may be right."

"The probability lies in that direction.
And if we take this as a working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to
start our construction of this unknown visitor."

"Well, then, supposing that 'C.C.H.'
does stand for 'Charing Cross Hospital,' what further inferences may we
draw?"

"Do none suggest themselves? You know
my methods. Apply them!"

"I can only think of the obvious
conclusion that the man has practised in town before going to the
country."

"I think that we might venture a
little farther than this. Look at it in this light. On what occasion would it
be most probable that such a presentation would be made? When would his friends
unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr.
Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start a practice
for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has been a
change from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching our
inference too far to say that the presentation was on the occasion of the
change?"

"It certainly seems probable."

"Now, you will observe that he could
not have been on the staff of the hospital, since only a man well-established
in a London practice could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift
into the country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on
the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician—little
more than a senior student. And he left five years ago—the date is on the
stick. So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air,
my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable,
unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I
should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a
mastiff."

I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes
leaned back in his settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the
ceiling.

"As to the latter part, I have no
means of checking you," said I, "but at least it is not difficult to
find out a few particulars about the man's age and professional career."
From my small medical shelf I took down the Medical Directory and turned up the
name. There were several Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I
read his record aloud.

"Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen,
Dartmoor, Devon.

House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at
Charing Cross Hospital.

Winner of the Jackson prize for
Comparative Pathology,

with essay entitled 'Is Disease a
Reversion?' Corresponding

member of the Swedish Pathological
Society. Author of

'Some Freaks of Atavism' (Lancet 1882).
'Do We Progress?'

(Journal of Psychology, March, 1883).
Medical Officer

for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and
High Barrow."

"No mention of that local hunt,
Watson," said Holmes with a mischievous smile, "but a country doctor,
as you very astutely observed. I think that I am fairly justified in my
inferences. As to the adjectives, I said, if I remember right, amiable,
unambitious, and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is only an amiable
man in this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who
abandons a London career for the country, and only an absent-minded one who
leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an hour in your
room."

"And the dog?"

"Has been in the habit of carrying
this stick behind his master. Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly
by the middle, and the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog's
jaw, as shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for
a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It may have been—yes, by Jove, it
is a curly-haired spaniel."

He had risen and paced the room as he
spoke. Now he halted in the recess of the window. There was such a ring of
conviction in his voice that I glanced up in surprise.

"My dear fellow, how can you possibly
be so sure of that?"

"For the very simple reason that I
see the dog himself on our very door-step, and there is the ring of its owner.
Don't move, I beg you, Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your
presence may be of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate,
Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life,
and you know not whether for good or ill. What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man
of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!"

The appearance of our visitor was a
surprise to me, since I had expected a typical country practitioner. He was a
very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two
keen, gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair
of gold-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a professional but rather slovenly
fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and his trousers frayed. Though young,
his long back was already bowed, and he walked with a forward thrust of his
head and a general air of peering benevolence. As he entered his eyes fell upon
the stick in Holmes's hand, and he ran towards it with an exclamation of joy.
"I am so very glad," said he. "I was not sure whether I had left
it here or in the Shipping Office. I would not lose that stick for the
world."

"A presentation, I see," said
Holmes.

"Yes, sir."

"From Charing Cross Hospital?"

"From one or two friends there on the
occasion of my marriage."

"Dear, dear, that's bad!" said Holmes,
shaking his head.

Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses
in mild astonishment. "Why was it bad?"

"Only that you have disarranged our
little deductions. Your marriage, you say?"

"Yes, sir. I married, and so left the
hospital, and with it all hopes of a consulting practice. It was necessary to
make a home of my own."

"Come, come, we are not so far wrong,
after all," said Holmes. "And now, Dr. James Mortimer—"

"Mister, sir, Mister—a humble
M.R.C.S."

"And a man of precise mind,
evidently."

"A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a
picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean. I presume that it
is Mr. Sherlock Holmes whom I am addressing and not—"

"No, this is my friend Dr.
Watson."

"Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard
your name mentioned in connection with that of your friend. You interest me
very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such
well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my
running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until
the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum.
It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your
skull."

Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor
into a chair. "You are an enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive,
sir, as I am in mine," said he. "I observe from your forefinger that
you make your own cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one."

The man drew out paper and tobacco and
twirled the one up in the other with surprising dexterity. He had long,
quivering fingers as agile and restless as the antennae of an insect.

Holmes was silent, but his little darting
glances showed me the interest which he took in our curious companion. "I
presume, sir," said he at last, "that it was not merely for the
purpose of examining my skull that you have done me the honour to call here
last night and again today?"

"No, sir, no; though I am happy to
have had the opportunity of doing that as well. I came to you, Mr. Holmes,
because I recognized that I am myself an unpractical man and because I am
suddenly confronted with a most serious and extraordinary problem. Recognizing,
as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe—"

"Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has
the honour to be the first?" asked Holmes with some asperity.

"To the man of precisely scientific
mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly."

"Then had you not better consult
him?"

"I said, sir, to the precisely
scientific mind. But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you
stand alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently—"

"Just a little," said Holmes.
"I think, Dr. Mortimer, you would do wisely if without more ado you would
kindly tell me plainly what the exact nature of the problem is in which you
demand my assistance."

Chapter 2. The Curse of the Baskervilles

"I have in my pocket a
manuscript," said Dr. James Mortimer.

"I observed it as you entered the
room," said Holmes.

"It is an old manuscript."

"Early eighteenth century, unless it
is a forgery."

"How can you say that, sir?"

"You have presented an inch or two of
it to my examination all the time that you have been talking. It would be a
poor expert who could not give the date of a document within a decade or so.
You may possibly have read my little monograph upon the subject. I put that at
1730."

"The exact date is 1742." Dr.
Mortimer drew it from his breast-pocket. "This family paper was committed
to my care by Sir Charles Baskerville, whose sudden and tragic death some three
months ago created so much excitement in Devonshire. I may say that I was his
personal friend as well as his medical attendant. He was a strong-minded man,
sir, shrewd, practical, and as unimaginative as I am myself. Yet he took this
document very seriously, and his mind was prepared for just such an end as did
eventually overtake him."

Holmes stretched out his hand for the
manuscript and flattened it upon his knee. "You will observe, Watson, the
alternative use of the long s and the short. It is one of several indications
which enabled me to fix the date."

I looked over his shoulder at the yellow
paper and the faded script. At the head was written: "Baskerville
Hall," and below in large, scrawling figures: "1742."

"It appears to be a statement of some
sort."

"Yes, it is a statement of a certain
legend which runs in the Baskerville family."

"But I understand that it is
something more modern and practical upon which you wish to consult me?"

"Most modern. A most practical,
pressing matter, which must be decided within twenty-four hours. But the
manuscript is short and is intimately connected with the affair. With your
permission I will read it to you."

Holmes leaned back in his chair, placed
his finger-tips together, and closed his eyes, with an air of resignation. Dr.
Mortimer turned the manuscript to the light and read in a high, cracking voice
the following curious, old-world narrative:

"Of the origin of the Hound of the
Baskervilles there

have been many statements, yet as I come
in a direct

line from Hugo Baskerville, and as I had
the story from

my father, who also had it from his, I
have set it down

with all belief that it occurred even as
is here set

forth. And I would have you believe, my
sons, that the

same Justice which punishes sin may also
most graciously

forgive it, and that no ban is so heavy
but that by prayer

and repentance it may be removed. Learn
then from this

story not to fear the fruits of the past,
but rather to

be circumspect in the future, that those
foul passions

whereby our family has suffered so
grievously may not

again be loosed to our undoing.

"Know then that in the time of the
Great Rebellion (the

history of which by the learned Lord
Clarendon I most

earnestly commend to your attention) this
Manor of

Baskerville was held by Hugo of that name,
nor can it be

gainsaid that he was a most wild, profane,
and godless

man. This, in truth, his neighbours might
have pardoned,

seeing that saints have never flourished
in those parts,

but there was in him a certain wanton and
cruel humour

which made his name a by-word through the
West. It

chanced that this Hugo came to love (if,
indeed, so dark

a passion may be known under so bright a
name) the daughter

of a yeoman who held lands near the
Baskerville estate.

But the young maiden, being discreet and
of good repute,

would ever avoid him, for she feared his
evil name. So

it came to pass that one Michaelmas this
Hugo, with five

or six of his idle and wicked companions,
stole down upon

the farm and carried off the maiden, her
father and

brothers being from home, as he well knew.
When they had

brought her to the Hall the maiden was
placed in an upper

chamber, while Hugo and his friends sat
down to a long

carouse, as was their nightly custom. Now,
the poor lass

upstairs was like to have her wits turned
at the singing

and shouting and terrible oaths which came
up to her from

below, for they say that the words used by
Hugo Baskerville,

when he was in wine, were such as might
blast the man who

said them. At last in the stress of her
fear she did that

which might have daunted the bravest or
most active man,

for by the aid of the growth of ivy which
covered (and

still covers) the south wall she came down
from under the

eaves, and so homeward across the moor,
there being three

leagues betwixt the Hall and her father's
farm.

"It chanced that some little time
later Hugo left his

guests to carry food and drink—with other
worse things,

perchance—to his captive, and so found the
cage empty

and the bird escaped. Then, as it would
seem, he became

as one that hath a devil, for, rushing
down the stairs

into the dining-hall, he sprang upon the
great table,

flagons and trenchers flying before him,
and he cried

aloud before all the company that he would
that very

night render his body and soul to the
Powers of Evil if

he might but overtake the wench. And while
the revellers

stood aghast at the fury of the man, one
more wicked or,

it may be, more drunken than the rest,
cried out that

they should put the hounds upon her.
Whereat Hugo ran

from the house, crying to his grooms that
they should

saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and
giving the

hounds a kerchief of the maid's, he swung
them to the

line, and so off full cry in the moonlight
over the moor.

"Now, for some space the revellers
stood agape, unable

to understand all that had been done in
such haste. But

anon their bemused wits awoke to the
nature of the deed

which was like to be done upon the
moorlands. Everything

was now in an uproar, some calling for
their pistols,

some for their horses, and some for
another flask of

wine. But at length some sense came back
to their crazed

minds, and the whole of them, thirteen in
number, took

horse and started in pursuit. The moon
shone clear above

them, and they rode swiftly abreast,
taking that course

which the maid must needs have taken if
she were to reach

her own home.

"They had gone a mile or two when
they passed one of the

night shepherds upon the moorlands, and
they cried to

him to know if he had seen the hunt. And
the man, as

the story goes, was so crazed with fear
that he could

scarce speak, but at last he said that he
had indeed seen

the unhappy maiden, with the hounds upon
her track. 'But

I have seen more than that,' said he, 'for
Hugo Baskerville

passed me upon his black mare, and there
ran mute behind

him such a hound of hell as God forbid
should ever be at

my heels.' So the drunken squires cursed
the shepherd

and rode onward. But soon their skins
turned cold, for

there came a galloping across the moor,
and the black

mare, dabbled with white froth, went past
with trailing

bridle and empty saddle. Then the
revellers rode close

together, for a great fear was on them,
but they still

followed over the moor, though each, had
he been alone,

would have been right glad to have turned
his horse's

head. Riding slowly in this fashion they
came at last

upon the hounds. These, though known for
their valour

and their breed, were whimpering in a
cluster at the

head of a deep dip or goyal, as we call
it, upon the

moor, some slinking away and some, with
starting hackles

and staring eyes, gazing down the narrow
valley before them.

"The company had come to a halt, more
sober men, as you

may guess, than when they started. The
most of them

would by no means advance, but three of
them, the boldest,

or it may be the most drunken, rode
forward down the goyal.

Now, it opened into a broad space in which
stood two of

those great stones, still to be seen
there, which were

set by certain forgotten peoples in the
days of old.

The moon was shining bright upon the
clearing, and there

in the centre lay the unhappy maid where
she had fallen,

dead of fear and of fatigue. But it was
not the sight

of her body, nor yet was it that of the
body of Hugo

Baskerville lying near her, which raised
the hair upon

the heads of these three dare-devil
roysterers, but it

was that, standing over Hugo, and plucking
at his throat,

there stood a foul thing, a great, black
beast, shaped

like a hound, yet larger than any hound
that ever mortal

eye has rested upon. And even as they
looked the thing

tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville,
on which, as it

turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws
upon them, the

three shrieked with fear and rode for dear
life, still

screaming, across the moor. One, it is
said, died that

very night of what he had seen, and the
other twain were

but broken men for the rest of their days.

"Such is the tale, my sons, of the
coming of the hound

which is said to have plagued the family
so sorely ever

since. If I have set it down it is because
that which

is clearly known hath less terror than
that which is but

hinted at and guessed. Nor can it be
denied that many

of the family have been unhappy in their
deaths, which

have been sudden, bloody, and mysterious.
Yet may we

shelter ourselves in the infinite goodness
of Providence,

which would not forever punish the
innocent beyond that

third or fourth generation which is
threatened in Holy

Writ. To that Providence, my sons, I
hereby commend

you, and I counsel you by way of caution
to forbear from

crossing the moor in those dark hours when
the powers of

evil are exalted.

"[This from Hugo Baskerville to his sons Rodger and
John, with instructions that they say nothing thereof to their sister
Elizabeth.]"

When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading
this singular narrative he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared
across at Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his
cigarette into the fire.

"Well?" said he.

"Do you not find it
interesting?"

"To a collector of fairy tales."

Dr. Mortimer drew a folded newspaper out
of his pocket.

"Now, Mr. Holmes, we will give you
something a little more recent. This is the Devon County Chronicle of May 14th
of this year. It is a short account of the facts elicited at the death of Sir
Charles Baskerville which occurred a few days before that date."

My friend leaned a little forward and his
expression became intent. Our visitor readjusted his glasses and began:

"The recent sudden death of Sir
Charles Baskerville, whose

name has been mentioned as the probable
Liberal candidate

for Mid-Devon at the next election, has
cast a gloom over

the county. Though Sir Charles had resided
at Baskerville

Hall for a comparatively short period his
amiability of

character and extreme generosity had won
the affection

and respect of all who had been brought
into contact with

him. In these days of nouveaux riches it
is refreshing

to find a case where the scion of an old
county family

which has fallen upon evil days is able to
make his own

fortune and to bring it back with him to
restore the

fallen grandeur of his line. Sir Charles,
as is well known,

made large sums of money in South African
speculation.

More wise than those who go on until the
wheel turns

against them, he realized his gains and
returned to England

with them. It is only two years since he
took up his

residence at Baskerville Hall, and it is
common talk how

large were those schemes of reconstruction
and improvement

which have been interrupted by his death.
Being himself

childless, it was his openly expressed
desire that the

whole countryside should, within his own
lifetime, profit

by his good fortune, and many will have
personal reasons

for bewailing his untimely end. His
generous donations

to local and county charities have been
frequently

chronicled in these columns.

"The circumstances connected with the
death of Sir Charles

cannot be said to have been entirely
cleared up by the

inquest, but at least enough has been done
to dispose of

those rumours to which local superstition
has given rise.

There is no reason whatever to suspect
foul play, or to

imagine that death could be from any but
natural causes.

Sir Charles was a widower, and a man who
may be said to

have been in some ways of an eccentric
habit of mind.

In spite of his considerable wealth he was
simple in his

personal tastes, and his indoor servants at
Baskerville

Hall consisted of a married couple named
Barrymore, the

husband acting as butler and the wife as
housekeeper.

Their evidence, corroborated by that of
several friends,

tends to show that Sir Charles's health
has for some time

been impaired, and points especially to
some affection

of the heart, manifesting itself in
changes of colour,

breathlessness, and acute attacks of
nervous depression.

Dr. James Mortimer, the friend and medical
attendant of

the deceased, has given evidence to the
same effect.

"The facts of the case are simple.
Sir Charles Baskerville

was in the habit every night before going
to bed of walking

down the famous yew alley of Baskerville
Hall. The evidence

of the Barrymores shows that this had been
his custom.

On the fourth of May Sir Charles had
declared his intention

of starting next day for London, and had
ordered Barrymore

to prepare his luggage. That night he went
out as usual

for his nocturnal walk, in the course of
which he was in

the habit of smoking a cigar. He never returned.
At

twelve o'clock Barrymore, finding the hall
door still open,

became alarmed, and, lighting a lantern,
went in search

of his master. The day had been wet, and
Sir Charles's

footmarks were easily traced down the
alley. Halfway down

this walk there is a gate which leads out
on to the moor.

There were indications that Sir Charles
had stood for some

little time here. He then proceeded down
the alley, and

it was at the far end of it that his body
was discovered.

One fact which has not been explained is
the statement

of Barrymore that his master's footprints
altered their

character from the time that he passed the
moor-gate, and

that he appeared from thence onward to
have been walking

upon his toes. One Murphy, a gipsy
horse-dealer, was on

the moor at no great distance at the time,
but he appears

by his own confession to have been the
worse for drink.

He declares that he heard cries but is
unable to state

from what direction they came. No signs of
violence were

to be discovered upon Sir Charles's
person, and though

the doctor's evidence pointed to an almost
incredible

facial distortion—so great that Dr.
Mortimer refused at

first to believe that it was indeed his
friend and patient

who lay before him—it was explained that
that is a symptom

which is not unusual in cases of dyspnoea
and death from

cardiac exhaustion. This explanation was
borne out by

the post-mortem examination, which showed
long-standing

organic disease, and the coroner's jury
returned a

verdict in accordance with the medical
evidence. It is

well that this is so, for it is obviously
of the utmost

importance that Sir Charles's heir should
settle at the

Hall and continue the good work which has
been so sadly

interrupted. Had the prosaic finding of
the coroner not

finally put an end to the romantic stories
which have been

whispered in connection with the affair,
it might have been

difficult to find a tenant for Baskerville
Hall. It is

understood that the next of kin is Mr.
Henry Baskerville,

if he be still alive, the son of Sir
Charles Baskerville's

younger brother. The young man when last
heard of was

in America, and inquiries are being
instituted with a

view to informing him of his good
fortune."

Dr. Mortimer refolded his paper and
replaced it in his pocket. "Those are the public facts, Mr. Holmes, in
connection with the death of Sir Charles Baskerville."

"I must thank you," said
Sherlock Holmes, "for calling my attention to a case which certainly
presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at
the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the
Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several
interesting English cases. This article, you say, contains all the public
facts?"

"It does."

"Then let me have the private ones."
He leaned back, put his finger-tips together, and assumed his most impassive
and judicial expression.

"In doing so," said Dr.
Mortimer, who had begun to show signs of some strong emotion, "I am
telling that which I have not confided to anyone. My motive for withholding it
from the coroner's inquiry is that a man of science shrinks from placing
himself in the public position of seeming to indorse a popular superstition. I
had the further motive that Baskerville Hall, as the paper says, would certainly
remain untenanted if anything were done to increase its already rather grim
reputation. For both these reasons I thought that I was justified in telling
rather less than I knew, since no practical good could result from it, but with
you there is no reason why I should not be perfectly frank.

"The moor is very sparsely inhabited,
and those who live near each other are thrown very much together. For this
reason I saw a good deal of Sir Charles Baskerville. With the exception of Mr.
Frankland, of Lafter Hall, and Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist, there are no
other men of education within many miles. Sir Charles was a retiring man, but
the chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of interests in
science kept us so. He had brought back much scientific information from South
Africa, and many a charming evening we have spent together discussing the
comparative anatomy of the Bushman and the Hottentot.

"Within the last few months it became
increasingly plain to me that Sir Charles's nervous system was strained to the
breaking point. He had taken this legend which I have read you exceedingly to
heart—so much so that, although he would walk in his own grounds, nothing would
induce him to go out upon the moor at night. Incredible as it may appear to you,
Mr. Holmes, he was honestly convinced that a dreadful fate overhung his family,
and certainly the records which he was able to give of his ancestors were not
encouraging. The idea of some ghastly presence constantly haunted him, and on
more than one occasion he has asked me whether I had on my medical journeys at
night ever seen any strange creature or heard the baying of a hound. The latter
question he put to me several times, and always with a voice which vibrated
with excitement.

"I can well remember driving up to
his house in the evening some three weeks before the fatal event. He chanced to
be at his hall door. I had descended from my gig and was standing in front of
him, when I saw his eyes fix themselves over my shoulder and stare past me with
an expression of the most dreadful horror. I whisked round and had just time to
catch a glimpse of something which I took to be a large black calf passing at
the head of the drive. So excited and alarmed was he that I was compelled to go
down to the spot where the animal had been and look around for it. It was gone,
however, and the incident appeared to make the worst impression upon his mind.
I stayed with him all the evening, and it was on that occasion, to explain the
emotion which he had shown, that he confided to my keeping that narrative which
I read to you when first I came. I mention this small episode because it
assumes some importance in view of the tragedy which followed, but I was
convinced at the time that the matter was entirely trivial and that his excitement
had no justification.

"It was at my advice that Sir Charles
was about to go to London. His heart was, I knew, affected, and the constant
anxiety in which he lived, however chimerical the cause of it might be, was
evidently having a serious effect upon his health. I thought that a few months
among the distractions of town would send him back a new man. Mr. Stapleton, a
mutual friend who was much concerned at his state of health, was of the same
opinion. At the last instant came this terrible catastrophe.

"On the night of Sir Charles's death
Barrymore the butler, who made the discovery, sent Perkins the groom on
horseback to me, and as I was sitting up late I was able to reach Baskerville
Hall within an hour of the event. I checked and corroborated all the facts
which were mentioned at the inquest. I followed the footsteps down the yew
alley, I saw the spot at the moor-gate where he seemed to have waited, I
remarked the change in the shape of the prints after that point, I noted that
there were no other footsteps save those of Barrymore on the soft gravel, and
finally I carefully examined the body, which had not been touched until my
arrival. Sir Charles lay on his face, his arms out, his fingers dug into the
ground, and his features convulsed with some strong emotion to such an extent
that I could hardly have sworn to his identity. There was certainly no physical
injury of any kind. But one false statement was made by Barrymore at the
inquest. He said that there were no traces upon the ground round the body. He
did not observe any. But I did—some little distance off, but fresh and
clear."

"Footprints?"

"Footprints."

"A man's or a woman's?"

Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an
instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered.

"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints
of a gigantic hound!"

Chapter 3. The Problem

I confess at these words a shudder passed
through me. There was a thrill in the doctor's voice which showed that he was
himself deeply moved by that which he told us. Holmes leaned forward in his
excitement and his eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from them when he
was keenly interested.

"You saw this?"

"As clearly as I see you."

"And you said nothing?"

"What was the use?"

"How was it that no one else saw
it?"

"The marks were some twenty yards
from the body and no one gave them a thought. I don't suppose I should have
done so had I not known this legend."

"There are many sheep-dogs on the
moor?"

"No doubt, but this was no
sheep-dog."

"You say it was large?"

"Enormous."

"But it had not approached the
body?"

"No."

"What sort of night was it?'

"Damp and raw."

"But not actually raining?"

"No."

"What is the alley like?"

"There are two lines of old yew
hedge, twelve feet high and impenetrable. The walk in the centre is about eight
feet across."

"Is there anything between the hedges
and the walk?"

"Yes, there is a strip of grass about
six feet broad on either side."

"I understand that the yew hedge is
penetrated at one point by a gate?"

"Yes, the wicket-gate which leads on
to the moor."

"Is there any other opening?"

"None."

"So that to reach the yew alley one
either has to come down it from the house or else to enter it by the
moor-gate?"

"There is an exit through a
summer-house at the far end."

"Had Sir Charles reached this?"

"No; he lay about fifty yards from
it."

"Now, tell me, Dr. Mortimer—and this
is important—the marks which you saw were on the path and not on the
grass?"

"No marks could show on the
grass."

"Were they on the same side of the
path as the moor-gate?"

"Yes; they were on the edge of the
path on the same side as the moor-gate."

"You interest me exceedingly. Another
point. Was the wicket-gate closed?"

"Closed and padlocked."

"How high was it?"

"About four feet high."

"Then anyone could have got over
it?"

"Yes."

"And what marks did you see by the
wicket-gate?"

"None in particular."

"Good heaven! Did no one
examine?"

"Yes, I examined, myself."

"And found nothing?"

"It was all very confused. Sir
Charles had evidently stood there for five or ten minutes."

"How do you know that?"

"Because the ash had twice dropped
from his cigar."

"Excellent! This is a colleague,
Watson, after our own heart. But the marks?"

"He had left his own marks all over
that small patch of gravel. I could discern no others."

Sherlock Holmes struck his hand against
his knee with an impatient gesture.

"If I had only been there!" he
cried. "It is evidently a case of extraordinary interest, and one which
presented immense opportunities to the scientific expert. That gravel page upon
which I might have read so much has been long ere this smudged by the rain and
defaced by the clogs of curious peasants. Oh, Dr. Mortimer, Dr. Mortimer, to
think that you should not have called me in! You have indeed much to answer
for."

"I could not call you in, Mr. Holmes,
without disclosing these facts to the world, and I have already given my
reasons for not wishing to do so. Besides, besides—"

"Why do you hesitate?"

"There is a realm in which the most
acute and most experienced of detectives is helpless."

"You mean that the thing is
supernatural?"

"I did not positively say so."

"No, but you evidently think
it."

"Since the tragedy, Mr. Holmes, there
have come to my ears several incidents which are hard to reconcile with the
settled order of Nature."

"For example?"

"I find that before the terrible
event occurred several people had seen a creature upon the moor which
corresponds with this Baskerville demon, and which could not possibly be any
animal known to science. They all agreed that it was a huge creature, luminous,
ghastly, and spectral. I have cross-examined these men, one of them a
hard-headed countryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell
the same story of this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to the
hell-hound of the legend. I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the
district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the moor at night."

"And you, a trained man of science,
believe it to be supernatural?"

"I do not know what to believe."

Holmes shrugged his shoulders. "I
have hitherto confined my investigations to this world," said he. "In
a modest way I have combated evil, but to take on the Father of Evil himself
would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task. Yet you must admit that the footmark
is material."

"The original hound was material
enough to tug a man's throat out, and yet he was diabolical as well."

"I see that you have quite gone over
to the supernaturalists. But now, Dr. Mortimer, tell me this. If you hold these
views, why have you come to consult me at all? You tell me in the same breath
that it is useless to investigate Sir Charles's death, and that you desire me
to do it."

"I did not say that I desired you to
do it."

"Then, how can I assist you?"

"By advising me as to what I should
do with Sir Henry Baskerville, who arrives at Waterloo Station"—Dr.
Mortimer looked at his watch—"in exactly one hour and a quarter."

"He being the heir?"

"Yes. On the death of Sir Charles we
inquired for this young gentleman and found that he had been farming in Canada.
From the accounts which have reached us he is an excellent fellow in every way.
I speak now not as a medical man but as a trustee and executor of Sir Charles's
will."

"There is no other claimant, I
presume?"

"None. The only other kinsman whom we
have been able to trace was Rodger Baskerville, the youngest of three brothers
of whom poor Sir Charles was the elder. The second brother, who died young, is
the father of this lad Henry. The third, Rodger, was the black sheep of the
family. He came of the old masterful Baskerville strain and was the very image,
they tell me, of the family picture of old Hugo. He made England too hot to
hold him, fled to Central America, and died there in 1876 of yellow fever.
Henry is the last of the Baskervilles. In one hour and five minutes I meet him
at Waterloo Station. I have had a wire that he arrived at Southampton this
morning. Now, Mr. Holmes, what would you advise me to do with him?"

"Why should he not go to the home of
his fathers?"

"It seems natural, does it not? And
yet, consider that every Baskerville who goes there meets with an evil fate. I
feel sure that if Sir Charles could have spoken with me before his death he
would have warned me against bringing this, the last of the old race, and the
heir to great wealth, to that deadly place. And yet it cannot be denied that
the prosperity of the whole poor, bleak countryside depends upon his presence.
All the good work which has been done by Sir Charles will crash to the ground
if there is no tenant of the Hall. I fear lest I should be swayed too much by
my own obvious interest in the matter, and that is why I bring the case before
you and ask for your advice."

Holmes considered for a little time.

"Put into plain words, the matter is
this," said he. "In your opinion there is a diabolical agency which
makes Dartmoor an unsafe abode for a Baskerville—that is your opinion?"

"At least I might go the length of
saying that there is some evidence that this may be so."

"Exactly. But surely, if your
supernatural theory be correct, it could work the young man evil in London as
easily as in Devonshire. A devil with merely local powers like a parish vestry
would be too inconceivable a thing."

"You put the matter more flippantly,
Mr. Holmes, than you would probably do if you were brought into personal
contact with these things. Your advice, then, as I understand it, is that the
young man will be as safe in Devonshire as in London. He comes in fifty
minutes. What would you recommend?"

"I recommend, sir, that you take a
cab, call off your spaniel who is scratching at my front door, and proceed to
Waterloo to meet Sir Henry Baskerville."

"And then?"

"And then you will say nothing to him
at all until I have made up my mind about the matter."

"How long will it take you to make up
your mind?"

"Twenty-four hours. At ten o'clock
tomorrow, Dr. Mortimer, I will be much obliged to you if you will call upon me
here, and it will be of help to me in my plans for the future if you will bring
Sir Henry Baskerville with you."

"I will do so, Mr. Holmes." He
scribbled the appointment on his shirt-cuff and hurried off in his strange,
peering, absent-minded fashion. Holmes stopped him at the head of the stair.

"Only one more question, Dr.
Mortimer. You say that before Sir Charles Baskerville's death several people
saw this apparition upon the moor?"

"Three people did."

"Did any see it after?"

"I have not heard of any."

"Thank you. Good-morning."

Holmes returned to his seat with that
quiet look of inward satisfaction which meant that he had a congenial task
before him.

"Going out, Watson?"

"Unless I can help you."

"No, my dear fellow, it is at the
hour of action that I turn to you for aid. But this is splendid, really unique
from some points of view. When you pass Bradley's, would you ask him to send up
a pound of the strongest shag tobacco? Thank you. It would be as well if you
could make it convenient not to return before evening. Then I should be very
glad to compare impressions as to this most interesting problem which has been
submitted to us this morning."

I knew that seclusion and solitude were
very necessary for my friend in those hours of intense mental concentration
during which he weighed every particle of evidence, constructed alternative
theories, balanced one against the other, and made up his mind as to which
points were essential and which immaterial. I therefore spent the day at my
club and did not return to Baker Street until evening. It was nearly nine
o'clock when I found myself in the sitting-room once more.

My first impression as I opened the door
was that a fire had broken out, for the room was so filled with smoke that the
light of the lamp upon the table was blurred by it. As I entered, however, my
fears were set at rest, for it was the acrid fumes of strong coarse tobacco
which took me by the throat and set me coughing. Through the haze I had a vague
vision of Holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an armchair with his black
clay pipe between his lips. Several rolls of paper lay around him.

"Caught cold, Watson?" said he.

"No, it's this poisonous
atmosphere."

"I suppose it is pretty thick, now
that you mention it."

"Thick! It is intolerable."

"Open the window, then! You have been
at your club all day, I perceive."

"My dear Holmes!"

"Am I right?"

"Certainly, but how?"

He laughed at my bewildered expression.
"There is a delightful freshness about you, Watson, which makes it a
pleasure to exercise any small powers which I possess at your expense. A
gentleman goes forth on a showery and miry day. He returns immaculate in the
evening with the gloss still on his hat and his boots. He has been a fixture
therefore all day. He is not a man with intimate friends. Where, then, could he
have been? Is it not obvious?"

"Well, it is rather obvious."

"The world is full of obvious things
which nobody by any chance ever observes. Where do you think that I have
been?"

"A fixture also."

"On the contrary, I have been to
Devonshire."

"In spirit?"

"Exactly. My body has remained in
this armchair and has, I regret to observe, consumed in my absence two large
pots of coffee and an incredible amount of tobacco. After you left I sent down
to Stamford's for the Ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and my spirit
has hovered over it all day. I flatter myself that I could find my way
about."

"A large-scale map, I presume?"

"Very large."

He unrolled one section and held it over
his knee. "Here you have the particular district which concerns us. That
is Baskerville Hall in the middle."

"With a wood round it?"

"Exactly. I fancy the yew alley,
though not marked under that name, must stretch along this line, with the moor,
as you perceive, upon the right of it. This small clump of buildings here is
the hamlet of Grimpen, where our friend Dr. Mortimer has his headquarters.
Within a radius of five miles there are, as you see, only a very few scattered
dwellings. Here is Lafter Hall, which was mentioned in the narrative. There is
a house indicated here which may be the residence of the naturalist—Stapleton,
if I remember right, was his name. Here are two moorland farmhouses, High Tor
and Foulmire. Then fourteen miles away the great convict prison of Princetown.
Between and around these scattered points extends the desolate, lifeless moor.
This, then, is the stage upon which tragedy has been played, and upon which we
may help to play it again."

"It must be a wild place."

"Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If
the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men—"

"Then you are yourself inclining to
the supernatural explanation."

"The devil's agents may be of flesh
and blood, may they not? There are two questions waiting for us at the outset.
The one is whether any crime has been committed at all; the second is, what is
the crime and how was it committed? Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should
be correct, and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature,
there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other
hypotheses before falling back upon this one. I think we'll shut that window
again, if you don't mind. It is a singular thing, but I find that a
concentrated atmosphere helps a concentration of thought. I have not pushed it
to the length of getting into a box to think, but that is the logical outcome
of my convictions. Have you turned the case over in your mind?"

"Yes, I have thought a good deal of
it in the course of the day."

"What do you make of it?"

"It is very bewildering."

"It has certainly a character of its
own. There are points of distinction about it. That change in the footprints,
for example. What do you make of that?"

"Mortimer said that the man had
walked on tiptoe down that portion of the alley."

"He only repeated what some fool had
said at the inquest. Why should a man walk on tiptoe down the alley?"

"What then?"

"He was running, Watson—running
desperately, running for his life, running until he burst his heart—and fell
dead upon his face."

"Running from what?"

"There lies our problem. There are
indications that the man was crazed with fear before ever he began to
run."

"How can you say that?"

"I am presuming that the cause of his
fears came to him across the moor. If that were so, and it seems most probable,
only a man who had lost his wits would have run from the house instead of
towards it. If the gipsy's evidence may be taken as true, he ran with cries for
help in the direction where help was least likely to be. Then, again, whom was
he waiting for that night, and why was he waiting for him in the yew alley
rather than in his own house?"

"You think that he was waiting for
someone?"

"The man was elderly and infirm. We
can understand his taking an evening stroll, but the ground was damp and the
night inclement. Is it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as
Dr. Mortimer, with more practical sense than I should have given him credit
for, deduced from the cigar ash?"

"But he went out every evening."

"I think it unlikely that he waited
at the moor-gate every evening. On the contrary, the evidence is that he
avoided the moor. That night he waited there. It was the night before he made
his departure for London. The thing takes shape, Watson. It becomes coherent.
Might I ask you to hand me my violin, and we will postpone all further thought
upon this business until we have had the advantage of meeting Dr. Mortimer and
Sir Henry Baskerville in the morning."

Chapter 4. Sir Henry Baskerville

Our breakfast table was cleared early, and
Holmes waited in his dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our clients were
punctual to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr.
Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet. The latter was a small,
alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick
black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit
and had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of his time in
the open air, and yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet
assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman.

"This is Sir Henry Baskerville,"
said Dr. Mortimer.

"Why, yes," said he, "and
the strange thing is, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, that if my friend here had not
proposed coming round to you this morning I should have come on my own account.
I understand that you think out little puzzles, and I've had one this morning
which wants more thinking out than I am able to give it."

"Pray take a seat, Sir Henry. Do I
understand you to say that you have yourself had some remarkable experience
since you arrived in London?"

"Nothing of much importance, Mr.
Holmes. Only a joke, as like as not. It was this letter, if you can call it a
letter, which reached me this morning."

He laid an envelope upon the table, and we
all bent over it. It was of common quality, grayish in colour. The address,
"Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel," was printed in rough
characters; the post-mark "Charing Cross," and the date of posting
the preceding evening.

"Who knew that you were going to the
Northumberland Hotel?" asked Holmes, glancing keenly across at our
visitor.

"No one could have known. We only
decided after I met Dr. Mortimer."

"But Dr. Mortimer was no doubt
already stopping there?"

"No, I had been staying with a
friend," said the doctor.

"There was no possible indication
that we intended to go to this hotel."

"Hum! Someone seems to be very deeply
interested in your movements." Out of the envelope he took a half-sheet of
foolscap paper folded into four. This he opened and spread flat upon the table.
Across the middle of it a single sentence had been formed by the expedient of
pasting printed words upon it. It ran:

As you value your life or your reason keep
away from the moor.

The word "moor" only was printed
in ink.

"Now," said Sir Henry
Baskerville, "perhaps you will tell me, Mr. Holmes, what in thunder is the
meaning of that, and who it is that takes so much interest in my affairs?"

"What do you make of it, Dr.
Mortimer? You must allow that there is nothing supernatural about this, at any
rate?"

"No, sir, but it might very well come
from someone who was convinced that the business is supernatural."

"What business?" asked Sir Henry
sharply. "It seems to me that all you gentlemen know a great deal more
than I do about my own affairs."

"You shall share our knowledge before
you leave this room, Sir Henry. I promise you that," said Sherlock Holmes.
"We will confine ourselves for the present with your permission to this
very interesting document, which must have been put together and posted
yesterday evening. Have you yesterday's Times, Watson?"

"It is here in the corner."

"Might I trouble you for it—the
inside page, please, with the leading articles?" He glanced swiftly over
it, running his eyes up and down the columns. "Capital article this on
free trade. Permit me to give you an extract from it.

'You may be cajoled into imagining that
your own special

trade or your own industry will be encouraged
by a

protective tariff, but it stands to reason
that such

legislation must in the long run keep away
wealth from the

country, diminish the value of our
imports, and lower the

general conditions of life in this
island.'

"What do you think of that, Watson?"
cried Holmes in high glee, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction.
"Don't you think that is an admirable sentiment?"

Dr. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air
of professional interest, and Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled
dark eyes upon me.

"I don't know much about the tariff
and things of that kind," said he, "but it seems to me we've got a
bit off the trail so far as that note is concerned."

"On the contrary, I think we are
particularly hot upon the trail, Sir Henry. Watson here knows more about my
methods than you do, but I fear that even he has not quite grasped the
significance of this sentence."

"No, I confess that I see no
connection."

"And yet, my dear Watson, there is so
very close a connection that the one is extracted out of the other. 'You,'
'your,' 'your,' 'life,' 'reason,' 'value,' 'keep away,' 'from the.' Don't you
see now whence these words have been taken?"

"By thunder, you're right! Well, if
that isn't smart!" cried Sir Henry.

"If any possible doubt remained it is
settled by the fact that 'keep away' and 'from the' are cut out in one
piece."

"Well, now—so it is!"

"Really, Mr. Holmes, this exceeds
anything which I could have imagined," said Dr. Mortimer, gazing at my
friend in amazement. "I could understand anyone saying that the words were
from a newspaper; but that you should name which, and add that it came from the
leading article, is really one of the most remarkable things which I have ever
known. How did you do it?"

"I presume, Doctor, that you could
tell the skull of a negro from that of an Esquimau?"

"Most certainly."

"But how?"

"Because that is my special hobby.
The differences are obvious. The supra-orbital crest, the facial angle, the
maxillary curve, the—"

"But this is my special hobby, and
the differences are equally obvious. There is as much difference to my eyes
between the leaded bourgeois type of a Times article and the slovenly print of
an evening half-penny paper as there could be between your negro and your
Esquimau. The detection of types is one of the most elementary branches of
knowledge to the special expert in crime, though I confess that once when I was
very young I confused the Leeds Mercury with the Western Morning News. But a
Times leader is entirely distinctive, and these words could have been taken
from nothing else. As it was done yesterday the strong probability was that we
should find the words in yesterday's issue."

"So far as I can follow you, then,
Mr. Holmes," said Sir Henry Baskerville, "someone cut out this
message with a scissors—"

"Nail-scissors," said Holmes.
"You can see that it was a very short-bladed scissors, since the cutter
had to take two snips over 'keep away.'"

"That is so. Someone, then, cut out
the message with a pair of short-bladed scissors, pasted it with paste—"

"Gum," said Holmes.

"With gum on to the paper. But I want
to know why the word 'moor' should have been written?"

"Because he could not find it in
print. The other words were all simple and might be found in any issue, but
'moor' would be less common."

"Why, of course, that would explain
it. Have you read anything else in this message, Mr. Holmes?"

"There are one or two indications,
and yet the utmost pains have been taken to remove all clues. The address, you
observe is printed in rough characters. But the Times is a paper which is
seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated. We may take it,
therefore, that the letter was composed by an educated man who wished to pose
as an uneducated one, and his effort to conceal his own writing suggests that
that writing might be known, or come to be known, by you. Again, you will
observe that the words are not gummed on in an accurate line, but that some are
much higher than others. 'Life,' for example is quite out of its proper place.
That may point to carelessness or it may point to agitation and hurry upon the
part of the cutter. On the whole I incline to the latter view, since the matter
was evidently important, and it is unlikely that the composer of such a letter
would be careless. If he were in a hurry it opens up the interesting question
why he should be in a hurry, since any letter posted up to early morning would
reach Sir Henry before he would leave his hotel. Did the composer fear an
interruption—and from whom?"

"We are coming now rather into the region
of guesswork," said Dr. Mortimer.

"Say, rather, into the region where
we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use
of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start
our speculation. Now, you would call it a guess, no doubt, but I am almost
certain that this address has been written in a hotel."

"How in the world can you say
that?"

"If you examine it carefully you will
see that both the pen and the ink have given the writer trouble. The pen has
spluttered twice in a single word and has run dry three times in a short
address, showing that there was very little ink in the bottle. Now, a private
pen or ink-bottle is seldom allowed to be in such a state, and the combination
of the two must be quite rare. But you know the hotel ink and the hotel pen,
where it is rare to get anything else. Yes, I have very little hesitation in
saying that could we examine the waste-paper baskets of the hotels around
Charing Cross until we found the remains of the mutilated Times leader we could
lay our hands straight upon the person who sent this singular message. Halloa!
Halloa! What's this?"

He was carefully examining the foolscap,
upon which the words were pasted, holding it only an inch or two from his eyes.

"Well?"

"Nothing," said he, throwing it
down. "It is a blank half-sheet of paper, without even a water-mark upon
it. I think we have drawn as much as we can from this curious letter; and now,
Sir Henry, has anything else of interest happened to you since you have been in
London?"

"Why, no, Mr. Holmes. I think
not."

"You have not observed anyone follow
or watch you?"

"I seem to have walked right into the
thick of a dime novel," said our visitor. "Why in thunder should
anyone follow or watch me?"

"We are coming to that. You have
nothing else to report to us before we go into this matter?"

"Well, it depends upon what you think
worth reporting."

"I think anything out of the ordinary
routine of life well worth reporting."

Sir Henry smiled. "I don't know much
of British life yet, for I have spent nearly all my time in the States and in
Canada. But I hope that to lose one of your boots is not part of the ordinary
routine of life over here."

"You have lost one of your
boots?"

"My dear sir," cried Dr.
Mortimer, "it is only mislaid. You will find it when you return to the
hotel. What is the use of troubling Mr. Holmes with trifles of this kind?"

"Well, he asked me for anything
outside the ordinary routine."

"Exactly," said Holmes,
"however foolish the incident may seem. You have lost one of your boots,
you say?"

"Well, mislaid it, anyhow. I put them
both outside my door last night, and there was only one in the morning. I could
get no sense out of the chap who cleans them. The worst of it is that I only
bought the pair last night in the Strand, and I have never had them on."

"If you have never worn them, why did
you put them out to be cleaned?"

"They were tan boots and had never
been varnished. That was why I put them out."

"Then I understand that on your
arrival in London yesterday you went out at once and bought a pair of
boots?"

"I did a good deal of shopping. Dr.
Mortimer here went round with me. You see, if I am to be squire down there I
must dress the part, and it may be that I have got a little careless in my ways
out West. Among other things I bought these brown boots—gave six dollars for
them—and had one stolen before ever I had them on my feet."

"It seems a singularly useless thing
to steal," said Sherlock Holmes. "I confess that I share Dr.
Mortimer's belief that it will not be long before the missing boot is
found."

"And, now, gentlemen," said the
baronet with decision, "it seems to me that I have spoken quite enough
about the little that I know. It is time that you kept your promise and gave me
a full account of what we are all driving at."

"Your request is a very reasonable
one," Holmes answered. "Dr. Mortimer, I think you could not do better
than to tell your story as you told it to us."

Thus encouraged, our scientific friend
drew his papers from his pocket and presented the whole case as he had done
upon the morning before. Sir Henry Baskerville listened with the deepest
attention and with an occasional exclamation of surprise.

"Well, I seem to have come into an
inheritance with a vengeance," said he when the long narrative was
finished. "Of course, I've heard of the hound ever since I was in the
nursery. It's the pet story of the family, though I never thought of taking it
seriously before. But as to my uncle's death—well, it all seems boiling up in
my head, and I can't get it clear yet. You don't seem quite to have made up
your mind whether it's a case for a policeman or a clergyman."

"Precisely."

"And now there's this affair of the
letter to me at the hotel. I suppose that fits into its place."

"It seems to show that someone knows
more than we do about what goes on upon the moor," said Dr. Mortimer.

"And also," said Holmes,
"that someone is not ill-disposed towards you, since they warn you of
danger."

"Or it may be that they wish, for
their own purposes, to scare me away."

"Well, of course, that is possible
also. I am very much indebted to you, Dr. Mortimer, for introducing me to a
problem which presents several interesting alternatives. But the practical
point which we now have to decide, Sir Henry, is whether it is or is not
advisable for you to go to Baskerville Hall."

"Why should I not go?"

"There seems to be danger."

"Do you mean danger from this family
fiend or do you mean danger from human beings?"

"Well, that is what we have to find
out."

"Whichever it is, my answer is fixed.
There is no devil in hell, Mr. Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can
prevent me from going to the home of my own people, and you may take that to be
my final answer." His dark brows knitted and his face flushed to a dusky red
as he spoke. It was evident that the fiery temper of the Baskervilles was not
extinct in this their last representative. "Meanwhile," said he,
"I have hardly had time to think over all that you have told me. It's a
big thing for a man to have to understand and to decide at one sitting. I
should like to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my mind. Now, look here,
Mr. Holmes, it's half-past eleven now and I am going back right away to my
hotel. Suppose you and your friend, Dr. Watson, come round and lunch with us at
two. I'll be able to tell you more clearly then how this thing strikes
me."

"Is that convenient to you,
Watson?"

"Perfectly."

"Then you may expect us. Shall I have
a cab called?"

"I'd prefer to walk, for this affair
has flurried me rather."

"I'll join you in a walk, with
pleasure," said his companion.

"Then we meet again at two o'clock.
Au revoir, and good-morning!"

We heard the steps of our visitors descend
the stair and the bang of the front door. In an instant Holmes had changed from
the languid dreamer to the man of action.

"Your hat and boots, Watson, quick!
Not a moment to lose!" He rushed into his room in his dressing-gown and
was back again in a few seconds in a frock-coat. We hurried together down the
stairs and into the street. Dr. Mortimer and Baskerville were still visible
about two hundred yards ahead of us in the direction of Oxford Street.

"Shall I run on and stop them?"

"Not for the world, my dear Watson. I
am perfectly satisfied with your company if you will tolerate mine. Our friends
are wise, for it is certainly a very fine morning for a walk."

He quickened his pace until we had
decreased the distance which divided us by about half. Then, still keeping a
hundred yards behind, we followed into Oxford Street and so down Regent Street.
Once our friends stopped and stared into a shop window, upon which Holmes did
the same. An instant afterwards he gave a little cry of satisfaction, and,
following the direction of his eager eyes, I saw that a hansom cab with a man
inside which had halted on the other side of the street was now proceeding
slowly onward again.

"There's our man, Watson! Come along!
We'll have a good look at him, if we can do no more."

At that instant I was aware of a bushy
black beard and a pair of piercing eyes turned upon us through the side window
of the cab. Instantly the trapdoor at the top flew up, something was screamed
to the driver, and the cab flew madly off down Regent Street. Holmes looked
eagerly round for another, but no empty one was in sight. Then he dashed in wild
pursuit amid the stream of the traffic, but the start was too great, and
already the cab was out of sight.

"There now!" said Holmes
bitterly as he emerged panting and white with vexation from the tide of
vehicles. "Was ever such bad luck and such bad management, too? Watson,
Watson, if you are an honest man you will record this also and set it against
my successes!"

"Who was the man?"

"I have not an idea."

"A spy?"

"Well, it was evident from what we
have heard that Baskerville has been very closely shadowed by someone since he
has been in town. How else could it be known so quickly that it was the
Northumberland Hotel which he had chosen? If they had followed him the first
day I argued that they would follow him also the second. You may have observed that
I twice strolled over to the window while Dr. Mortimer was reading his
legend."

"Yes, I remember."

"I was looking out for loiterers in
the street, but I saw none. We are dealing with a clever man, Watson. This
matter cuts very deep, and though I have not finally made up my mind whether it
is a benevolent or a malevolent agency which is in touch with us, I am
conscious always of power and design. When our friends left I at once followed
them in the hopes of marking down their invisible attendant. So wily was he
that he had not trusted himself upon foot, but he had availed himself of a cab
so that he could loiter behind or dash past them and so escape their notice.
His method had the additional advantage that if they were to take a cab he was
all ready to follow them. It has, however, one obvious disadvantage."

"It puts him in the power of the
cabman."

"Exactly."

"What a pity we did not get the
number!"

"My dear Watson, clumsy as I have
been, you surely do not seriously imagine that I neglected to get the number?
No. 2704 is our man. But that is no use to us for the moment."

"I fail to see how you could have
done more."

"On observing the cab I should have
instantly turned and walked in the other direction. I should then at my leisure
have hired a second cab and followed the first at a respectful distance, or,
better still, have driven to the Northumberland Hotel and waited there. When
our unknown had followed Baskerville home we should have had the opportunity of
playing his own game upon himself and seeing where he made for. As it is, by an
indiscreet eagerness, which was taken advantage of with extraordinary quickness
and energy by our opponent, we have betrayed ourselves and lost our man."

We had been sauntering slowly down Regent
Street during this conversation, and Dr. Mortimer, with his companion, had long
vanished in front of us.

"There is no object in our following
them," said Holmes. "The shadow has departed and will not return. We
must see what further cards we have in our hands and play them with decision.
Could you swear to that man's face within the cab?"

"I could swear only to the
beard."

"And so could I—from which I gather
that in all probability it was a false one. A clever man upon so delicate an
errand has no use for a beard save to conceal his features. Come in here,
Watson!"

He turned into one of the district
messenger offices, where he was warmly greeted by the manager.

"Ah, Wilson, I see you have not
forgotten the little case in which I had the good fortune to help you?"

"No, sir, indeed I have not. You
saved my good name, and perhaps my life."

"My dear fellow, you exaggerate. I
have some recollection, Wilson, that you had among your boys a lad named
Cartwright, who showed some ability during the investigation."

"Yes, sir, he is still with us."

"Could you ring him up?—thank you!
And I should be glad to have change of this five-pound note."

A lad of fourteen, with a bright, keen
face, had obeyed the summons of the manager. He stood now gazing with great
reverence at the famous detective.

"Let me have the Hotel
Directory," said Holmes. "Thank you! Now, Cartwright, there are the
names of twenty-three hotels here, all in the immediate neighbourhood of
Charing Cross. Do you see?"

"Yes, sir."

"You will visit each of these in
turn."

"Yes, sir."

"You will begin in each case by
giving the outside porter one shilling. Here are twenty-three shillings."

"Yes, sir."

"You will tell him that you want to
see the waste-paper of yesterday. You will say that an important telegram has
miscarried and that you are looking for it. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"But what you are really looking for
is the centre page of the Times with some holes cut in it with scissors. Here
is a copy of the Times. It is this page. You could easily recognize it, could
you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"In each case the outside porter will
send for the hall porter, to whom also you will give a shilling. Here are
twenty-three shillings. You will then learn in possibly twenty cases out of the
twenty-three that the waste of the day before has been burned or removed. In
the three other cases you will be shown a heap of paper and you will look for
this page of the Times among it. The odds are enormously against your finding
it. There are ten shillings over in case of emergencies. Let me have a report
by wire at Baker Street before evening. And now, Watson, it only remains for us
to find out by wire the identity of the cabman, No. 2704, and then we will drop
into one of the Bond Street picture galleries and fill in the time until we are
due at the hotel."

Chapter 5. Three Broken Threads

Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable
degree, the power of detaching his mind at will. For two hours the strange
business in which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was
entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He would talk
of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas, from our leaving the
gallery until we found ourselves at the Northumberland Hotel.

"Sir Henry Baskerville is upstairs
expecting you," said the clerk. "He asked me to show you up at once
when you came."

"Have you any objection to my looking
at your register?" said Holmes.

"Not in the least."

The book showed that two names had been
added after that of Baskerville. One was Theophilus Johnson and family, of Newcastle;
the other Mrs. Oldmore and maid, of High Lodge, Alton.

"Surely that must be the same Johnson
whom I used to know," said Holmes to the porter. "A lawyer, is he
not, gray-headed, and walks with a limp?"

"No, sir, this is Mr. Johnson, the
coal-owner, a very active gentleman, not older than yourself."

"Surely you are mistaken about his
trade?"

"No, sir! he has used this hotel for
many years, and he is very well known to us."

"Ah, that settles it. Mrs. Oldmore,
too; I seem to remember the name. Excuse my curiosity, but often in calling
upon one friend one finds another."

"She is an invalid lady, sir. Her
husband was once mayor of Gloucester. She always comes to us when she is in
town."

"Thank you; I am afraid I cannot
claim her acquaintance. We have established a most important fact by these
questions, Watson," he continued in a low voice as we went upstairs
together. "We know now that the people who are so interested in our friend
have not settled down in his own hotel. That means that while they are, as we
have seen, very anxious to watch him, they are equally anxious that he should
not see them. Now, this is a most suggestive fact."

"What does it suggest?"

"It suggests—halloa, my dear fellow,
what on earth is the matter?"

As we came round the top of the stairs we
had run up against Sir Henry Baskerville himself. His face was flushed with
anger, and he held an old and dusty boot in one of his hands. So furious was he
that he was hardly articulate, and when he did speak it was in a much broader
and more Western dialect than any which we had heard from him in the morning.

"Seems to me they are playing me for
a sucker in this hotel," he cried. "They'll find they've started in
to monkey with the wrong man unless they are careful. By thunder, if that chap
can't find my missing boot there will be trouble. I can take a joke with the
best, Mr. Holmes, but they've got a bit over the mark this time."

"Still looking for your boot?"

"Yes, sir, and mean to find it."

"But, surely, you said that it was a
new brown boot?"

"So it was, sir. And now it's an old
black one."

"What! you don't mean to say—?"

"That's just what I do mean to say. I
only had three pairs in the world—the new brown, the old black, and the patent
leathers, which I am wearing. Last night they took one of my brown ones, and
today they have sneaked one of the black. Well, have you got it? Speak out,
man, and don't stand staring!"

An agitated German waiter had appeared
upon the scene.

"No, sir; I have made inquiry all
over the hotel, but I can hear no word of it."

"Well, either that boot comes back
before sundown or I'll see the manager and tell him that I go right straight
out of this hotel."

"It shall be found, sir—I promise you
that if you will have a little patience it will be found."

"Mind it is, for it's the last thing
of mine that I'll lose in this den of thieves. Well, well, Mr. Holmes, you'll
excuse my troubling you about such a trifle—"

"I think it's well worth troubling
about."

"Why, you look very serious over
it."

"How do you explain it?"

"I just don't attempt to explain it.
It seems the very maddest, queerest thing that ever happened to me."

"The queerest perhaps—" said
Holmes thoughtfully.

"What do you make of it
yourself?"

"Well, I don't profess to understand
it yet. This case of yours is very complex, Sir Henry. When taken in
conjunction with your uncle's death I am not sure that of all the five hundred
cases of capital importance which I have handled there is one which cuts so
deep. But we hold several threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or
other of them guides us to the truth. We may waste time in following the wrong
one, but sooner or later we must come upon the right."

We had a pleasant luncheon in which little
was said of the business which had brought us together. It was in the private
sitting-room to which we afterwards repaired that Holmes asked Baskerville what
were his intentions.

"To go to Baskerville Hall."

"And when?"

"At the end of the week."

"On the whole," said Holmes,
"I think that your decision is a wise one. I have ample evidence that you
are being dogged in London, and amid the millions of this great city it is
difficult to discover who these people are or what their object can be. If
their intentions are evil they might do you a mischief, and we should be powerless
to prevent it. You did not know, Dr. Mortimer, that you were followed this
morning from my house?"

Dr. Mortimer started violently.
"Followed! By whom?"

"That, unfortunately, is what I
cannot tell you. Have you among your neighbours or acquaintances on Dartmoor
any man with a black, full beard?"

"No—or, let me see—why, yes.
Barrymore, Sir Charles's butler, is a man with a full, black beard."

"Ha! Where is Barrymore?"

"He is in charge of the Hall."

"We had best ascertain if he is
really there, or if by any possibility he might be in London."

"How can you do that?"

"Give me a telegraph form. 'Is all
ready for Sir Henry?' That will do. Address to Mr. Barrymore, Baskerville Hall.
What is the nearest telegraph-office? Grimpen. Very good, we will send a second
wire to the postmaster, Grimpen: 'Telegram to Mr. Barrymore to be delivered
into his own hand. If absent, please return wire to Sir Henry Baskerville,
Northumberland Hotel.' That should let us know before evening whether Barrymore
is at his post in Devonshire or not."

"That's so," said Baskerville.
"By the way, Dr. Mortimer, who is this Barrymore, anyhow?"

"He is the son of the old caretaker,
who is dead. They have looked after the Hall for four generations now. So far
as I know, he and his wife are as respectable a couple as any in the
county."

"At the same time," said
Baskerville, "it's clear enough that so long as there are none of the
family at the Hall these people have a mighty fine home and nothing to
do."

"That is true."

"Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir
Charles's will?" asked Holmes.

"He and his wife had five hundred
pounds each."

"Ha! Did they know that they would
receive this?"

"Yes; Sir Charles was very fond of
talking about the provisions of his will."

"That is very interesting."

"I hope," said Dr. Mortimer,
"that you do not look with suspicious eyes upon everyone who received a
legacy from Sir Charles, for I also had a thousand pounds left to me."

"Indeed! And anyone else?"

"There were many insignificant sums
to individuals, and a large number of public charities. The residue all went to
Sir Henry."

"And how much was the residue?"

"Seven hundred and forty thousand
pounds."

Holmes raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"I had no idea that so gigantic a sum was involved," said he.

"Sir Charles had the reputation of
being rich, but we did not know how very rich he was until we came to examine
his securities. The total value of the estate was close on to a million."

"Dear me! It is a stake for which a
man might well play a desperate game. And one more question, Dr. Mortimer.
Supposing that anything happened to our young friend here—you will forgive the
unpleasant hypothesis!—who would inherit the estate?"

"Since Rodger Baskerville, Sir
Charles's younger brother died unmarried, the estate would descend to the
Desmonds, who are distant cousins. James Desmond is an elderly clergyman in
Westmoreland."

"Thank you. These details are all of
great interest. Have you met Mr. James Desmond?"

"Yes; he once came down to visit Sir
Charles. He is a man of venerable appearance and of saintly life. I remember
that he refused to accept any settlement from Sir Charles, though he pressed it
upon him."

"And this man of simple tastes would
be the heir to Sir Charles's thousands."

"He would be the heir to the estate
because that is entailed. He would also be the heir to the money unless it were
willed otherwise by the present owner, who can, of course, do what he likes
with it."

"And have you made your will, Sir
Henry?"

"No, Mr. Holmes, I have not. I've had
no time, for it was only yesterday that I learned how matters stood. But in any
case I feel that the money should go with the title and estate. That was my
poor uncle's idea. How is the owner going to restore the glories of the
Baskervilles if he has not money enough to keep up the property? House, land,
and dollars must go together."

"Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of
one mind with you as to the advisability of your going down to Devonshire
without delay. There is only one provision which I must make. You certainly
must not go alone."

"Dr. Mortimer returns with me."

"But Dr. Mortimer has his practice to
attend to, and his house is miles away from yours. With all the goodwill in the
world he may be unable to help you. No, Sir Henry, you must take with you
someone, a trusty man, who will be always by your side."

"Is it possible that you could come
yourself, Mr. Holmes?"

"If matters came to a crisis I should
endeavour to be present in person; but you can understand that, with my
extensive consulting practice and with the constant appeals which reach me from
many quarters, it is impossible for me to be absent from London for an
indefinite time. At the present instant one of the most revered names in
England is being besmirched by a blackmailer, and only I can stop a disastrous
scandal. You will see how impossible it is for me to go to Dartmoor."

"Whom would you recommend,
then?"

Holmes laid his hand upon my arm. "If
my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth having at your
side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than
I."

The proposition took me completely by
surprise, but before I had time to answer, Baskerville seized me by the hand
and wrung it heartily.

"Well, now, that is real kind of you,
Dr. Watson," said he. "You see how it is with me, and you know just
as much about the matter as I do. If you will come down to Baskerville Hall and
see me through I'll never forget it."

The promise of adventure had always a
fascination for me, and I was complimented by the words of Holmes and by the
eagerness with which the baronet hailed me as a companion.

"I will come, with pleasure,"
said I. "I do not know how I could employ my time better."

"And you will report very carefully
to me," said Holmes. "When a crisis comes, as it will do, I will direct
how you shall act. I suppose that by Saturday all might be ready?"

"Would that suit Dr. Watson?"

"Perfectly."

"Then on Saturday, unless you hear to
the contrary, we shall meet at the ten-thirty train from Paddington."

We had risen to depart when Baskerville
gave a cry, of triumph, and diving into one of the corners of the room he drew
a brown boot from under a cabinet.

"My missing boot!" he cried.

"May all our difficulties vanish as
easily!" said Sherlock Holmes.

"But it is a very singular
thing," Dr. Mortimer remarked. "I searched this room carefully before
lunch."

"And so did I," said
Baskerville. "Every inch of it."

"There was certainly no boot in it
then."

"In that case the waiter must have
placed it there while we were lunching."

The German was sent for but professed to
know nothing of the matter, nor could any inquiry clear it up. Another item had
been added to that constant and apparently purposeless series of small
mysteries which had succeeded each other so rapidly. Setting aside the whole grim
story of Sir Charles's death, we had a line of inexplicable incidents all
within the limits of two days, which included the receipt of the printed
letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown boot,
the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new brown boot.
Holmes sat in silence in the cab as we drove back to Baker Street, and I knew
from his drawn brows and keen face that his mind, like my own, was busy in
endeavouring to frame some scheme into which all these strange and apparently
disconnected episodes could be fitted. All afternoon and late into the evening
he sat lost in tobacco and thought.

Just before dinner two telegrams were
handed in. The first ran:

Have just heard that Barrymore is at the
Hall. BASKERVILLE.

The second:

Visited twenty-three hotels as directed,
but sorry, to report unable to trace cut sheet of Times. CARTWRIGHT.

"There go two of my threads, Watson.
There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against
you. We must cast round for another scent."

"We have still the cabman who drove
the spy."

"Exactly. I have wired to get his
name and address from the Official Registry. I should not be surprised if this
were an answer to my question."

The ring at the bell proved to be something
even more satisfactory than an answer, however, for the door opened and a
rough-looking fellow entered who was evidently the man himself.

"I got a message from the head office
that a gent at this address had been inquiring for No. 2704," said he.
"I've driven my cab this seven years and never a word of complaint. I came
here straight from the Yard to ask you to your face what you had against
me."

"I have nothing in the world against
you, my good man," said Holmes. "On the contrary, I have half a
sovereign for you if you will give me a clear answer to my questions."

"Well, I've had a good day and no
mistake," said the cabman with a grin. "What was it you wanted to
ask, sir?"

"First of all your name and address,
in case I want you again."

"John Clayton, 3 Turpey Street, the
Borough. My cab is out of Shipley's Yard, near Waterloo Station."

Sherlock Holmes made a note of it.

"Now, Clayton, tell me all about the
fare who came and watched this house at ten o'clock this morning and afterwards
followed the two gentlemen down Regent Street."

The man looked surprised and a little
embarrassed. "Why, there's no good my telling you things, for you seem to
know as much as I do already," said he. "The truth is that the
gentleman told me that he was a detective and that I was to say nothing about
him to anyone."

"My good fellow; this is a very
serious business, and you may find yourself in a pretty bad position if you try
to hide anything from me. You say that your fare told you that he was a
detective?"

"Yes, he did."

"When did he say this?"

"When he left me."

"Did he say anything more?"

"He mentioned his name."

Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at
me. "Oh, he mentioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the
name that he mentioned?"

"His name," said the cabman,
"was Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

Never have I seen my friend more
completely taken aback than by the cabman's reply. For an instant he sat in
silent amazement. Then he burst into a hearty laugh.

"A touch, Watson—an undeniable
touch!" said he. "I feel a foil as quick and supple as my own. He got
home upon me very prettily that time. So his name was Sherlock Holmes, was
it?"

"Yes, sir, that was the gentleman's
name."

"Excellent! Tell me where you picked
him up and all that occurred."

"He hailed me at half-past nine in
Trafalgar Square. He said that he was a detective, and he offered me two
guineas if I would do exactly what he wanted all day and ask no questions. I
was glad enough to agree. First we drove down to the Northumberland Hotel and
waited there until two gentlemen came out and took a cab from the rank. We
followed their cab until it pulled up somewhere near here."

"This very door," said Holmes.

"Well, I couldn't be sure of that,
but I dare say my fare knew all about it. We pulled up halfway down the street
and waited an hour and a half. Then the two gentlemen passed us, walking, and
we followed down Baker Street and along—"

"I know," said Holmes.

"Until we got three-quarters down
Regent Street. Then my gentleman threw up the trap, and he cried that I should
drive right away to Waterloo Station as hard as I could go. I whipped up the
mare and we were there under the ten minutes. Then he paid up his two guineas,
like a good one, and away he went into the station. Only just as he was leaving
he turned round and he said: 'It might interest you to know that you have been
driving Mr. Sherlock Holmes.' That's how I come to know the name."

"I see. And you saw no more of
him?"

"Not after he went into the
station."

"And how would you describe Mr.
Sherlock Holmes?"

The cabman scratched his head. "Well,
he wasn't altogether such an easy gentleman to describe. I'd put him at forty
years of age, and he was of a middle height, two or three inches shorter than
you, sir. He was dressed like a toff, and he had a black beard, cut square at
the end, and a pale face. I don't know as I could say more than that."

"Colour of his eyes?"

"No, I can't say that."

"Nothing more that you can
remember?"

"No, sir; nothing."

"Well, then, here is your
half-sovereign. There's another one waiting for you if you can bring any more
information. Good-night!"

"Good-night, sir, and thank
you!"

John Clayton departed chuckling, and
Holmes turned to me with a shrug of his shoulders and a rueful smile.

"Snap goes our third thread, and we
end where we began," said he. "The cunning rascal! He knew our
number, knew that Sir Henry Baskerville had consulted me, spotted who I was in
Regent Street, conjectured that I had got the number of the cab and would lay
my hands on the driver, and so sent back this audacious message. I tell you,
Watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of our steel. I've been
checkmated in London. I can only wish you better luck in Devonshire. But I'm
not easy in my mind about it."

"About what?"

"About sending you. It's an ugly
business, Watson, an ugly dangerous business, and the more I see of it the less
I like it. Yes, my dear fellow, you may laugh, but I give you my word that I
shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once
more."

Chapter 6. Baskerville Hall

Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer
were ready upon the appointed day, and we started as arranged for Devonshire.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes drove with me to the station and gave me his last parting
injunctions and advice.

"I will not bias your mind by
suggesting theories or suspicions, Watson," said he; "I wish you
simply to report facts in the fullest possible manner to me, and you can leave
me to do the theorizing."

"What sort of facts?" I asked.

"Anything which may seem to have a
bearing however indirect upon the case, and especially the relations between
young Baskerville and his neighbours or any fresh particulars concerning the
death of Sir Charles. I have made some inquiries myself in the last few days,
but the results have, I fear, been negative. One thing only appears to be
certain, and that is that Mr. James Desmond, who is the next heir, is an
elderly gentleman of a very amiable disposition, so that this persecution does
not arise from him. I really think that we may eliminate him entirely from our
calculations. There remain the people who will actually surround Sir Henry
Baskerville upon the moor."

"Would it not be well in the first
place to get rid of this Barrymore couple?"

"By no means. You could not make a
greater mistake. If they are innocent it would be a cruel injustice, and if
they are guilty we should be giving up all chance of bringing it home to them.
No, no, we will preserve them upon our list of suspects. Then there is a groom
at the Hall, if I remember right. There are two moorland farmers. There is our
friend Dr. Mortimer, whom I believe to be entirely honest, and there is his
wife, of whom we know nothing. There is this naturalist, Stapleton, and there
is his sister, who is said to be a young lady of attractions. There is Mr.
Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who is also an unknown factor, and there are one or
two other neighbours. These are the folk who must be your very special
study."

"I will do my best."

"You have arms, I suppose?"

"Yes, I thought it as well to take
them."

"Most certainly. Keep your revolver
near you night and day, and never relax your precautions."

Our friends had already secured a
first-class carriage and were waiting for us upon the platform.

"No, we have no news of any
kind," said Dr. Mortimer in answer to my friend's questions. "I can
swear to one thing, and that is that we have not been shadowed during the last
two days. We have never gone out without keeping a sharp watch, and no one
could have escaped our notice."

"You have always kept together, I presume?"

"Except yesterday afternoon. I
usually give up one day to pure amusement when I come to town, so I spent it at
the Museum of the College of Surgeons."

"And I went to look at the folk in
the park," said Baskerville.

"But we had no trouble of any kind."

"It was imprudent, all the
same," said Holmes, shaking his head and looking very grave. "I beg,
Sir Henry, that you will not go about alone. Some great misfortune will befall
you if you do. Did you get your other boot?"

"No, sir, it is gone forever."

"Indeed. That is very interesting.
Well, good-bye," he added as the train began to glide down the platform.
"Bear in mind, Sir Henry, one of the phrases in that queer old legend
which Dr. Mortimer has read to us, and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness
when the powers of evil are exalted."

I looked back at the platform when we had
left it far behind and saw the tall, austere figure of Holmes standing
motionless and gazing after us.

The journey was a swift and pleasant one,
and I spent it in making the more intimate acquaintance of my two companions
and in playing with Dr. Mortimer's spaniel. In a very few hours the brown earth
had become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and red cows grazed in
well-hedged fields where the lush grasses and more luxuriant vegetation spoke
of a richer, if a damper, climate. Young Baskerville stared eagerly out of the
window and cried aloud with delight as he recognized the familiar features of
the Devon scenery.

"I've been over a good part of the
world since I left it, Dr. Watson," said he; "but I have never seen a
place to compare with it."

"I never saw a Devonshire man who did
not swear by his county," I remarked.

"It depends upon the breed of men
quite as much as on the county," said Dr. Mortimer. "A glance at our
friend here reveals the rounded head of the Celt, which carries inside it the
Celtic enthusiasm and power of attachment. Poor Sir Charles's head was of a
very rare type, half Gaelic, half Ivernian in its characteristics. But you were
very young when you last saw Baskerville Hall, were you not?"

"I was a boy in my teens at the time
of my father's death and had never seen the Hall, for he lived in a little
cottage on the South Coast. Thence I went straight to a friend in America. I
tell you it is all as new to me as it is to Dr. Watson, and I'm as keen as
possible to see the moor."

"Are you? Then your wish is easily
granted, for there is your first sight of the moor," said Dr. Mortimer,
pointing out of the carriage window.

Over the green squares of the fields and
the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill,
with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some
fantastic landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed
upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him, this first
sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had held sway so long and
left their mark so deep. There he sat, with his tweed suit and his American
accent, in the corner of a prosaic railway-carriage, and yet as I looked at his
dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of
that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men. There were pride,
valour, and strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large
hazel eyes. If on that forbidding moor a difficult and dangerous quest should
lie before us, this was at least a comrade for whom one might venture to take a
risk with the certainty that he would bravely share it.

The train pulled up at a small wayside
station and we all descended. Outside, beyond the low, white fence, a wagonette
with a pair of cobs was waiting. Our coming was evidently a great event, for
station-master and porters clustered round us to carry out our luggage. It was
a sweet, simple country spot, but I was surprised to observe that by the gate
there stood two soldierly men in dark uniforms who leaned upon their short
rifles and glanced keenly at us as we passed. The coachman, a hard-faced,
gnarled little fellow, saluted Sir Henry Baskerville, and in a few minutes we
were flying swiftly down the broad, white road. Rolling pasture lands curved
upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out from amid the
thick green foliage, but behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose
ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken
by the jagged and sinister hills.

The wagonette swung round into a side
road, and we curved upward through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high
banks on either side, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart's-tongue ferns.
Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the sinking sun.
Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a
noisy stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the gray
boulders. Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oak
and fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking
eagerly about him and asking countless questions. To his eyes all seemed
beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore
so clearly the mark of the waning year. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and
fluttered down upon us as we passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we
drove through drifts of rotting vegetation—sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for
Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

"Halloa!" cried Dr. Mortimer,
"what is this?"

A steep curve of heath-clad land, an
outlying spur of the moor, lay in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear
like an equestrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and
stern, his rifle poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the road along
which we travelled.

"What is this, Perkins?" asked
Dr. Mortimer.

Our driver half turned in his seat.
"There's a convict escaped from Princetown, sir. He's been out three days
now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but they've had no
sight of him yet. The farmers about here don't like it, sir, and that's a
fact."

"Well, I understand that they get
five pounds if they can give information."

"Yes, sir, but the chance of five
pounds is but a poor thing compared to the chance of having your throat cut.
You see, it isn't like any ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at
nothing."

"Who is he, then?"

"It is Selden, the Notting Hill
murderer."

I remembered the case well, for it was one
in which Holmes had taken an interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of
the crime and the wanton brutality which had marked all the actions of the
assassin. The commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as
to his complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct. Our wagonette had topped
a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with
gnarled and craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind swept down from it and set us
shivering. Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, was lurking this fiendish
man, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast, his heart full of malignancy against
the whole race which had cast him out. It needed but this to complete the grim
suggestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky.
Even Baskerville fell silent and pulled his overcoat more closely around him.

We had left the fertile country behind and
beneath us. We looked back on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning
the streams to threads of gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the
plough and the broad tangle of the woodlands. The road in front of us grew bleaker
and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders.
Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with
no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into a cuplike
depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent
by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The
driver pointed with his whip.

"Baskerville Hall," said he.

Its master had risen and was staring with
flushed cheeks and shining eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the
lodge-gates, a maze of fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bitten
pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted by the boars'
heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bared ribs
of rafters, but facing it was a new building, half constructed, the first fruit
of Sir Charles's South African gold.

Through the gateway we passed into the
avenue, where the wheels were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees
shot their branches in a sombre tunnel over our heads. Baskerville shuddered as
he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at
the farther end.

"Was it here?" he asked in a low
voice.

"No, no, the yew alley is on the
other side."

The young heir glanced round with a gloomy
face.

"It's no wonder my uncle felt as if
trouble were coming on him in such a place as this," said he. "It's
enough to scare any man. I'll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of
six months, and you won't know it again, with a thousand candle-power Swan and
Edison right here in front of the hall door."

The avenue opened into a broad expanse of
turf, and the house lay before us. In the fading light I could see that the
centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole
front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a
window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block
rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes. To
right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull
light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which
rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of
smoke.

"Welcome, Sir Henry! Welcome to
Baskerville Hall!"

A tall man had stepped from the shadow of
the porch to open the door of the wagonette. The figure of a woman was
silhouetted against the yellow light of the hall. She came out and helped the
man to hand down our bags.

"You don't mind my driving straight
home, Sir Henry?" said Dr. Mortimer. "My wife is expecting me."

"Surely you will stay and have some
dinner?"

"No, I must go. I shall probably find
some work awaiting me. I would stay to show you over the house, but Barrymore
will be a better guide than I. Good-bye, and never hesitate night or day to
send for me if I can be of service."

The wheels died away down the drive while
Sir Henry and I turned into the hall, and the door clanged heavily behind us.
It was a fine apartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty, and heavily
raftered with huge baulks of age-blackened oak. In the great old-fashioned
fireplace behind the high iron dogs a log-fire crackled and snapped. Sir Henry
and I held out our hands to it, for we were numb from our long drive. Then we
gazed round us at the high, thin window of old stained glass, the oak
panelling, the stags' heads, the coats of arms upon the walls, all dim and
sombre in the subdued light of the central lamp.

"It's just as I imagined it,"
said Sir Henry. "Is it not the very picture of an old family home? To
think that this should be the same hall in which for five hundred years my
people have lived. It strikes me solemn to think of it."

I saw his dark face lit up with a boyish
enthusiasm as he gazed about him. The light beat upon him where he stood, but
long shadows trailed down the walls and hung like a black canopy above him.
Barrymore had returned from taking our luggage to our rooms. He stood in front of
us now with the subdued manner of a well-trained servant. He was a
remarkable-looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and pale,
distinguished features.

"Would you wish dinner to be served
at once, sir?"

"Is it ready?"

"In a very few minutes, sir. You will
find hot water in your rooms. My wife and I will be happy, Sir Henry, to stay
with you until you have made your fresh arrangements, but you will understand
that under the new conditions this house will require a considerable staff."

"What new conditions?"

"I only meant, sir, that Sir Charles
led a very retired life, and we were able to look after his wants. You would,
naturally, wish to have more company, and so you will need changes in your
household."

"Do you mean that your wife and you
wish to leave?"

"Only when it is quite convenient to
you, sir."

"But your family have been with us
for several generations, have they not? I should be sorry to begin my life here
by breaking an old family connection."

I seemed to discern some signs of emotion
upon the butler's white face.

"I feel that also, sir, and so does
my wife. But to tell the truth, sir, we were both very much attached to Sir
Charles, and his death gave us a shock and made these surroundings very painful
to us. I fear that we shall never again be easy in our minds at Baskerville
Hall."

"But what do you intend to do?"

"I have no doubt, sir, that we shall
succeed in establishing ourselves in some business. Sir Charles's generosity
has given us the means to do so. And now, sir, perhaps I had best show you to
your rooms."

A square balustraded gallery ran round the
top of the old hall, approached by a double stair. From this central point two
long corridors extended the whole length of the building, from which all the
bedrooms opened. My own was in the same wing as Baskerville's and almost next
door to it. These rooms appeared to be much more modern than the central part
of the house, and the bright paper and numerous candles did something to remove
the sombre impression which our arrival had left upon my mind.

But the dining-room which opened out of
the hall was a place of shadow and gloom. It was a long chamber with a step
separating the dais where the family sat from the lower portion reserved for
their dependents. At one end a minstrel's gallery overlooked it. Black beams
shot across above our heads, with a smoke-darkened ceiling beyond them. With
rows of flaring torches to light it up, and the colour and rude hilarity of an
old-time banquet, it might have softened; but now, when two black-clothed
gentlemen sat in the little circle of light thrown by a shaded lamp, one's
voice became hushed and one's spirit subdued. A dim line of ancestors, in every
variety of dress, from the Elizabethan knight to the buck of the Regency,
stared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company. We talked little,
and I for one was glad when the meal was over and we were able to retire into
the modern billiard-room and smoke a cigarette.

"My word, it isn't a very cheerful
place," said Sir Henry. "I suppose one can tone down to it, but I
feel a bit out of the picture at present. I don't wonder that my uncle got a
little jumpy if he lived all alone in such a house as this. However, if it
suits you, we will retire early tonight, and perhaps things may seem more
cheerful in the morning."

I drew aside my curtains before I went to
bed and looked out from my window. It opened upon the grassy space which lay in
front of the hall door. Beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a
rising wind. A half moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds. In its cold
light I saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and the long, low curve
of the melancholy moor. I closed the curtain, feeling that my last impression
was in keeping with the rest.

And yet it was not quite the last. I found
myself weary and yet wakeful, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for
the sleep which would not come. Far away a chiming clock struck out the
quarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house.
And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my
ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. It was the sob of a woman, the
muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow. I sat
up in bed and listened intently. The noise could not have been far away and was
certainly in the house. For half an hour I waited with every nerve on the
alert, but there came no other sound save the chiming clock and the rustle of
the ivy on the wall.

Chapter 7. The Stapletons of Merripit House

The fresh beauty of the following morning
did something to efface from our minds the grim and gray impression which had
been left upon both of us by our first experience of Baskerville Hall. As Sir
Henry and I sat at breakfast the sunlight flooded in through the high mullioned
windows, throwing watery patches of colour from the coats of arms which covered
them. The dark panelling glowed like bronze in the golden rays, and it was hard
to realize that this was indeed the chamber which had struck such a gloom into
our souls upon the evening before.

"I guess it is ourselves and not the
house that we have to blame!" said the baronet. "We were tired with
our journey and chilled by our drive, so we took a gray view of the place. Now
we are fresh and well, so it is all cheerful once more."

"And yet it was not entirely a
question of imagination," I answered. "Did you, for example, happen
to hear someone, a woman I think, sobbing in the night?"

"That is curious, for I did when I
was half asleep fancy that I heard something of the sort. I waited quite a
time, but there was no more of it, so I concluded that it was all a
dream."

"I heard it distinctly, and I am sure
that it was really the sob of a woman."

"We must ask about this right
away." He rang the bell and asked Barrymore whether he could account for
our experience. It seemed to me that the pallid features of the butler turned a
shade paler still as he listened to his master's question.

"There are only two women in the
house, Sir Henry," he answered. "One is the scullery-maid, who sleeps
in the other wing. The other is my wife, and I can answer for it that the sound
could not have come from her."

And yet he lied as he said it, for it
chanced that after breakfast I met Mrs. Barrymore in the long corridor with the
sun full upon her face. She was a large, impassive, heavy-featured woman with a
stern set expression of mouth. But her telltale eyes were red and glanced at me
from between swollen lids. It was she, then, who wept in the night, and if she
did so her husband must know it. Yet he had taken the obvious risk of discovery
in declaring that it was not so. Why had he done this? And why did she weep so
bitterly? Already round this pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded man there was
gathering an atmosphere of mystery and of gloom. It was he who had been the
first to discover the body of Sir Charles, and we had only his word for all the
circumstances which led up to the old man's death. Was it possible that it was
Barrymore, after all, whom we had seen in the cab in Regent Street? The beard
might well have been the same. The cabman had described a somewhat shorter man,
but such an impression might easily have been erroneous. How could I settle the
point forever? Obviously the first thing to do was to see the Grimpen
postmaster and find whether the test telegram had really been placed in
Barrymore's own hands. Be the answer what it might, I should at least have
something to report to Sherlock Holmes.

Sir Henry had numerous papers to examine
after breakfast, so that the time was propitious for my excursion. It was a
pleasant walk of four miles along the edge of the moor, leading me at last to a
small gray hamlet, in which two larger buildings, which proved to be the inn
and the house of Dr. Mortimer, stood high above the rest. The postmaster, who
was also the village grocer, had a clear recollection of the telegram.

"Certainly, sir," said he,
"I had the telegram delivered to Mr. Barrymore exactly as directed."

"Who delivered it?"

"My boy here. James, you delivered that
telegram to Mr. Barrymore at the Hall last week, did you not?"

"Yes, father, I delivered it."

"Into his own hands?" I asked.

"Well, he was up in the loft at the
time, so that I could not put it into his own hands, but I gave it into Mrs.
Barrymore's hands, and she promised to deliver it at once."

"Did you see Mr. Barrymore?"

"No, sir; I tell you he was in the
loft."

"If you didn't see him, how do you
know he was in the loft?"

"Well, surely his own wife ought to
know where he is," said the postmaster testily. "Didn't he get the
telegram? If there is any mistake it is for Mr. Barrymore himself to
complain."

It seemed hopeless to pursue the inquiry
any farther, but it was clear that in spite of Holmes's ruse we had no proof
that Barrymore had not been in London all the time. Suppose that it were
so—suppose that the same man had been the last who had seen Sir Charles alive,
and the first to dog the new heir when he returned to England. What then? Was
he the agent of others or had he some sinister design of his own? What interest
could he have in persecuting the Baskerville family? I thought of the strange
warning clipped out of the leading article of the Times. Was that his work or
was it possibly the doing of someone who was bent upon counteracting his schemes?
The only conceivable motive was that which had been suggested by Sir Henry,
that if the family could be scared away a comfortable and permanent home would
be secured for the Barrymores. But surely such an explanation as that would be
quite inadequate to account for the deep and subtle scheming which seemed to be
weaving an invisible net round the young baronet. Holmes himself had said that
no more complex case had come to him in all the long series of his sensational
investigations. I prayed, as I walked back along the gray, lonely road, that my
friend might soon be freed from his preoccupations and able to come down to
take this heavy burden of responsibility from my shoulders.

Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by
the sound of running feet behind me and by a voice which called me by name. I
turned, expecting to see Dr. Mortimer, but to my surprise it was a stranger who
was pursuing me. He was a small, slim, clean-shaven, prim-faced man,
flaxen-haired and leanjawed, between thirty and forty years of age, dressed in
a gray suit and wearing a straw hat. A tin box for botanical specimens hung
over his shoulder and he carried a green butterfly-net in one of his hands.

"You will, I am sure, excuse my
presumption, Dr. Watson," said he as he came panting up to where I stood.
"Here on the moor we are homely folk and do not wait for formal
introductions. You may possibly have heard my name from our mutual friend,
Mortimer. I am Stapleton, of Merripit House."

"Your net and box would have told me
as much," said I, "for I knew that Mr. Stapleton was a naturalist.
But how did you know me?"

"I have been calling on Mortimer, and
he pointed you out to me from the window of his surgery as you passed. As our
road lay the same way I thought that I would overtake you and introduce myself.
I trust that Sir Henry is none the worse for his journey?"

"He is very well, thank you."

"We were all rather afraid that after
the sad death of Sir Charles the new baronet might refuse to live here. It is
asking much of a wealthy man to come down and bury himself in a place of this
kind, but I need not tell you that it means a very great deal to the
countryside. Sir Henry has, I suppose, no superstitious fears in the
matter?"

"I do not think that it is
likely."

"Of course you know the legend of the
fiend dog which haunts the family?"

"I have heard it."

"It is extraordinary how credulous
the peasants are about here! Any number of them are ready to swear that they
have seen such a creature upon the moor." He spoke with a smile, but I
seemed to read in his eyes that he took the matter more seriously. "The
story took a great hold upon the imagination of Sir Charles, and I have no
doubt that it led to his tragic end."

"But how?"

"His nerves were so worked up that
the appearance of any dog might have had a fatal effect upon his diseased
heart. I fancy that he really did see something of the kind upon that last
night in the yew alley. I feared that some disaster might occur, for I was very
fond of the old man, and I knew that his heart was weak."

"How did you know that?"

"My friend Mortimer told me."

"You think, then, that some dog
pursued Sir Charles, and that he died of fright in consequence?"

"Have you any better
explanation?"

"I have not come to any
conclusion."

"Has Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

The words took away my breath for an
instant but a glance at the placid face and steadfast eyes of my companion
showed that no surprise was intended.

"It is useless for us to pretend that
we do not know you, Dr. Watson," said he. "The records of your
detective have reached us here, and you could not celebrate him without being
known yourself. When Mortimer told me your name he could not deny your
identity. If you are here, then it follows that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is
interesting himself in the matter, and I am naturally curious to know what view
he may take."

"I am afraid that I cannot answer
that question."

"May I ask if he is going to honour
us with a visit himself?"

"He cannot leave town at present. He
has other cases which engage his attention."

"What a pity! He might throw some
light on that which is so dark to us. But as to your own researches, if there
is any possible way in which I can be of service to you I trust that you will
command me. If I had any indication of the nature of your suspicions or how you
propose to investigate the case, I might perhaps even now give you some aid or
advice."

"I assure you that I am simply here
upon a visit to my friend, Sir Henry, and that I need no help of any
kind."

"Excellent!" said Stapleton.
"You are perfectly right to be wary and discreet. I am justly reproved for
what I feel was an unjustifiable intrusion, and I promise you that I will not
mention the matter again."

We had come to a point where a narrow
grassy path struck off from the road and wound away across the moor. A steep,
boulder-sprinkled hill lay upon the right which had in bygone days been cut
into a granite quarry. The face which was turned towards us formed a dark
cliff, with ferns and brambles growing in its niches. From over a distant rise
there floated a gray plume of smoke.

"A moderate walk along this moor-path
brings us to Merripit House," said he. "Perhaps you will spare an
hour that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to my sister."

My first thought was that I should be by
Sir Henry's side. But then I remembered the pile of papers and bills with which
his study table was littered. It was certain that I could not help with those.
And Holmes had expressly said that I should study the neighbours upon the moor.
I accepted Stapleton's invitation, and we turned together down the path.

"It is a wonderful place, the
moor," said he, looking round over the undulating downs, long green
rollers, with crests of jagged granite foaming up into fantastic surges.
"You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which
it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious."

"You know it well, then?"

"I have only been here two years. The
residents would call me a newcomer. We came shortly after Sir Charles settled.
But my tastes led me to explore every part of the country round, and I should
think that there are few men who know it better than I do."

"Is it hard to know?"

"Very hard. You see, for example,
this great plain to the north here with the queer hills breaking out of it. Do
you observe anything remarkable about that?"

"It would be a rare place for a
gallop."

"You would naturally think so and the
thought has cost several their lives before now. You notice those bright green
spots scattered thickly over it?"

"Yes, they seem more fertile than the
rest."

Stapleton laughed. "That is the great
Grimpen Mire," said he. "A false step yonder means death to man or
beast. Only yesterday I saw one of the moor ponies wander into it. He never
came out. I saw his head for quite a long time craning out of the bog-hole, but
it sucked him down at last. Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but
after these autumn rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the
very heart of it and return alive. By George, there is another of those miserable
ponies!"

Something brown was rolling and tossing
among the green sedges. Then a long, agonized, writhing neck shot upward and a
dreadful cry echoed over the moor. It turned me cold with horror, but my
companion's nerves seemed to be stronger than mine.

"It's gone!" said he. "The
mire has him. Two in two days, and many more, perhaps, for they get in the way
of going there in the dry weather and never know the difference until the mire
has them in its clutches. It's a bad place, the great Grimpen Mire."

"And you say you can penetrate
it?"

"Yes, there are one or two paths
which a very active man can take. I have found them out."

"But why should you wish to go into
so horrible a place?"

"Well, you see the hills beyond? They
are really islands cut off on all sides by the impassable mire, which has
crawled round them in the course of years. That is where the rare plants and
the butterflies are, if you have the wit to reach them."

"I shall try my luck some day."

He looked at me with a surprised face.
"For God's sake put such an idea out of your mind," said he.
"Your blood would be upon my head. I assure you that there would not be
the least chance of your coming back alive. It is only by remembering certain
complex landmarks that I am able to do it."

"Halloa!" I cried. "What is
that?"

A long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept
over the moor. It filled the whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence
it came. From a dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then sank back
into a melancholy, throbbing murmur once again. Stapleton looked at me with a
curious expression in his face.

"Queer place, the moor!" said
he.

"But what is it?"

"The peasants say it is the Hound of
the Baskervilles calling for its prey. I've heard it once or twice before, but
never quite so loud."

I looked round, with a chill of fear in my
heart, at the huge swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes.
Nothing stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked
loudly from a tor behind us.

"You are an educated man. You don't
believe such nonsense as that?" said I. "What do you think is the
cause of so strange a sound?"

"Bogs make queer noises sometimes.
It's the mud settling, or the water rising, or something."

"No, no, that was a living
voice."

"Well, perhaps it was. Did you ever
hear a bittern booming?"

"No, I never did."

"It's a very rare bird—practically
extinct—in England now, but all things are possible upon the moor. Yes, I
should not be surprised to learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last
of the bitterns."

"It's the weirdest, strangest thing
that ever I heard in my life."

"Yes, it's rather an uncanny place
altogether. Look at the hillside yonder. What do you make of those?"

The whole steep slope was covered with
gray circular rings of stone, a score of them at least.

"What are they? Sheep-pens?"

"No, they are the homes of our worthy
ancestors. Prehistoric man lived thickly on the moor, and as no one in
particular has lived there since, we find all his little arrangements exactly
as he left them. These are his wigwams with the roofs off. You can even see his
hearth and his couch if you have the curiosity to go inside.

"But it is quite a town. When was it
inhabited?"

"Neolithic man—no date."

"What did he do?"

"He grazed his cattle on these
slopes, and he learned to dig for tin when the bronze sword began to supersede
the stone axe. Look at the great trench in the opposite hill. That is his mark.
Yes, you will find some very singular points about the moor, Dr. Watson. Oh,
excuse me an instant! It is surely Cyclopides."

A small fly or moth had fluttered across
our path, and in an instant Stapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and
speed in pursuit of it. To my dismay the creature flew straight for the great
mire, and my acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft to
tuft behind it, his green net waving in the air. His gray clothes and jerky,
zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge moth himself. I was
standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of admiration for his
extraordinary activity and fear lest he should lose his footing in the
treacherous mire, when I heard the sound of steps and, turning round, found a
woman near me upon the path. She had come from the direction in which the plume
of smoke indicated the position of Merripit House, but the dip of the moor had
hid her until she was quite close.

I could not doubt that this was the Miss
Stapleton of whom I had been told, since ladies of any sort must be few upon
the moor, and I remembered that I had heard someone describe her as being a
beauty. The woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a most uncommon
type. There could not have been a greater contrast between brother and sister,
for Stapleton was neutral tinted, with light hair and gray eyes, while she was
darker than any brunette whom I have seen in England—slim, elegant, and tall.
She had a proud, finely cut face, so regular that it might have seemed
impassive were it not for the sensitive mouth and the beautiful dark, eager
eyes. With her perfect figure and elegant dress she was, indeed, a strange
apparition upon a lonely moorland path. Her eyes were on her brother as I
turned, and then she quickened her pace towards me. I had raised my hat and was
about to make some explanatory remark when her own words turned all my thoughts
into a new channel.

"Go back!" she said. "Go
straight back to London, instantly."

I could only stare at her in stupid
surprise. Her eyes blazed at me, and she tapped the ground impatiently with her
foot.

"Why should I go back?" I asked.

"I cannot explain." She spoke in
a low, eager voice, with a curious lisp in her utterance. "But for God's
sake do what I ask you. Go back and never set foot upon the moor again."

"But I have only just come."

"Man, man!" she cried. "Can
you not tell when a warning is for your own good? Go back to London! Start
tonight! Get away from this place at all costs! Hush, my brother is coming! Not
a word of what I have said. Would you mind getting that orchid for me among the
mare's-tails yonder? We are very rich in orchids on the moor, though, of
course, you are rather late to see the beauties of the place."

Stapleton had abandoned the chase and came
back to us breathing hard and flushed with his exertions.

"Halloa, Beryl!" said he, and it
seemed to me that the tone of his greeting was not altogether a cordial one.

"Well, Jack, you are very hot."

"Yes, I was chasing a Cyclopides. He
is very rare and seldom found in the late autumn. What a pity that I should
have missed him!" He spoke unconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced
incessantly from the girl to me.

"You have introduced yourselves, I
can see."

"Yes. I was telling Sir Henry that it
was rather late for him to see the true beauties of the moor."

"Why, who do you think this is?"

"I imagine that it must be Sir Henry
Baskerville."

"No, no," said I. "Only a
humble commoner, but his friend. My name is Dr. Watson."

A flush of vexation passed over her
expressive face. "We have been talking at cross purposes," said she.

"Why, you had not very much time for
talk," her brother remarked with the same questioning eyes.

"I talked as if Dr. Watson were a
resident instead of being merely a visitor," said she. "It cannot
much matter to him whether it is early or late for the orchids. But you will
come on, will you not, and see Merripit House?"

A short walk brought us to it, a bleak
moorland house, once the farm of some grazier in the old prosperous days, but
now put into repair and turned into a modern dwelling. An orchard surrounded
it, but the trees, as is usual upon the moor, were stunted and nipped, and the
effect of the whole place was mean and melancholy. We were admitted by a
strange, wizened, rusty-coated old manservant, who seemed in keeping with the
house. Inside, however, there were large rooms furnished with an elegance in
which I seemed to recognize the taste of the lady. As I looked from their
windows at the interminable granite-flecked moor rolling unbroken to the
farthest horizon I could not but marvel at what could have brought this highly
educated man and this beautiful woman to live in such a place.

"Queer spot to choose, is it
not?" said he as if in answer to my thought. "And yet we manage to
make ourselves fairly happy, do we not, Beryl?"

"Quite happy," said she, but
there was no ring of conviction in her words.

"I had a school," said
Stapleton. "It was in the north country. The work to a man of my
temperament was mechanical and uninteresting, but the privilege of living with
youth, of helping to mould those young minds, and of impressing them with one's
own character and ideals was very dear to me. However, the fates were against
us. A serious epidemic broke out in the school and three of the boys died. It
never recovered from the blow, and much of my capital was irretrievably
swallowed up. And yet, if it were not for the loss of the charming
companionship of the boys, I could rejoice over my own misfortune, for, with my
strong tastes for botany and zoology, I find an unlimited field of work here,
and my sister is as devoted to Nature as I am. All this, Dr. Watson, has been
brought upon your head by your expression as you surveyed the moor out of our
window."

"It certainly did cross my mind that
it might be a little dull—less for you, perhaps, than for your sister."

"No, no, I am never dull," said
she quickly.

"We have books, we have our studies,
and we have interesting neighbours. Dr. Mortimer is a most learned man in his
own line. Poor Sir Charles was also an admirable companion. We knew him well
and miss him more than I can tell. Do you think that I should intrude if I were
to call this afternoon and make the acquaintance of Sir Henry?"

"I am sure that he would be
delighted."

"Then perhaps you would mention that
I propose to do so. We may in our humble way do something to make things more
easy for him until he becomes accustomed to his new surroundings. Will you come
upstairs, Dr. Watson, and inspect my collection of Lepidoptera? I think it is
the most complete one in the south-west of England. By the time that you have
looked through them lunch will be almost ready."

But I was eager to get back to my charge.
The melancholy of the moor, the death of the unfortunate pony, the weird sound
which had been associated with the grim legend of the Baskervilles, all these
things tinged my thoughts with sadness. Then on the top of these more or less
vague impressions there had come the definite and distinct warning of Miss
Stapleton, delivered with such intense earnestness that I could not doubt that
some grave and deep reason lay behind it. I resisted all pressure to stay for
lunch, and I set off at once upon my return journey, taking the grass-grown
path by which we had come.

It seems, however, that there must have
been some short cut for those who knew it, for before I had reached the road I
was astounded to see Miss Stapleton sitting upon a rock by the side of the
track. Her face was beautifully flushed with her exertions and she held her
hand to her side.

"I have run all the way in order to
cut you off, Dr. Watson," said she. "I had not even time to put on my
hat. I must not stop, or my brother may miss me. I wanted to say to you how
sorry I am about the stupid mistake I made in thinking that you were Sir Henry.
Please forget the words I said, which have no application whatever to
you."

"But I can't forget them, Miss
Stapleton," said I. "I am Sir Henry's friend, and his welfare is a
very close concern of mine. Tell me why it was that you were so eager that Sir
Henry should return to London."

"A woman's whim, Dr. Watson. When you
know me better you will understand that I cannot always give reasons for what I
say or do."

"No, no. I remember the thrill in
your voice. I remember the look in your eyes. Please, please, be frank with me,
Miss Stapleton, for ever since I have been here I have been conscious of shadows
all round me. Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green
patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the
track. Tell me then what it was that you meant, and I will promise to convey
your warning to Sir Henry."

An expression of irresolution passed for
an instant over her face, but her eyes had hardened again when she answered me.

"You make too much of it, Dr.
Watson," said she. "My brother and I were very much shocked by the
death of Sir Charles. We knew him very intimately, for his favourite walk was
over the moor to our house. He was deeply impressed with the curse which hung
over the family, and when this tragedy came I naturally felt that there must be
some grounds for the fears which he had expressed. I was distressed therefore
when another member of the family came down to live here, and I felt that he
should be warned of the danger which he will run. That was all which I intended
to convey.

"But what is the danger?"

"You know the story of the hound?"

"I do not believe in such
nonsense."

"But I do. If you have any influence
with Sir Henry, take him away from a place which has always been fatal to his
family. The world is wide. Why should he wish to live at the place of
danger?"

"Because it is the place of danger.
That is Sir Henry's nature. I fear that unless you can give me some more
definite information than this it would be impossible to get him to move."

"I cannot say anything definite, for
I do not know anything definite."

"I would ask you one more question,
Miss Stapleton. If you meant no more than this when you first spoke to me, why
should you not wish your brother to overhear what you said? There is nothing to
which he, or anyone else, could object."

"My brother is very anxious to have
the Hall inhabited, for he thinks it is for the good of the poor folk upon the
moor. He would be very angry if he knew that I have said anything which might
induce Sir Henry to go away. But I have done my duty now and I will say no
more. I must go back, or he will miss me and suspect that I have seen you.
Good-bye!" She turned and had disappeared in a few minutes among the
scattered boulders, while I, with my soul full of vague fears, pursued my way
to Baskerville Hall.

Chapter 8. First Report of Dr. Watson

From this point onward I will follow the
course of events by transcribing my own letters to Mr. Sherlock Holmes which
lie before me on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly
as written and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more accurately
than my memory, clear as it is upon these tragic events, can possibly do.

Baskerville Hall, October 13th. MY DEAR
HOLMES: My previous letters and telegrams have kept you pretty well up to date
as to all that has occurred in this most God-forsaken corner of the world. The
longer one stays here the more does the spirit of the moor sink into one's
soul, its vastness, and also its grim charm. When you are once out upon its
bosom you have left all traces of modern England behind you, but, on the other
hand, you are conscious everywhere of the homes and the work of the prehistoric
people. On all sides of you as you walk are the houses of these forgotten folk,
with their graves and the huge monoliths which are supposed to have marked
their temples. As you look at their gray stone huts against the scarred
hillsides you leave your own age behind you, and if you were to see a
skin-clad, hairy man crawl out from the low door fitting a flint-tipped arrow
on to the string of his bow, you would feel that his presence there was more
natural than your own. The strange thing is that they should have lived so
thickly on what must always have been most unfruitful soil. I am no
antiquarian, but I could imagine that they were some unwarlike and harried race
who were forced to accept that which none other would occupy.

All this, however, is foreign to the
mission on which you sent me and will probably be very uninteresting to your
severely practical mind. I can still remember your complete indifference as to
whether the sun moved round the earth or the earth round the sun. Let me,
therefore, return to the facts concerning Sir Henry Baskerville.

If you have not had any report within the
last few days it is because up to today there was nothing of importance to
relate. Then a very surprising circumstance occurred, which I shall tell you in
due course. But, first of all, I must keep you in touch with some of the other
factors in the situation.

One of these, concerning which I have said
little, is the escaped convict upon the moor. There is strong reason now to
believe that he has got right away, which is a considerable relief to the
lonely householders of this district. A fortnight has passed since his flight,
during which he has not been seen and nothing has been heard of him. It is
surely inconceivable that he could have held out upon the moor during all that
time. Of course, so far as his concealment goes there is no difficulty at all.
Any one of these stone huts would give him a hiding-place. But there is nothing
to eat unless he were to catch and slaughter one of the moor sheep. We think,
therefore, that he has gone, and the outlying farmers sleep the better in
consequence.

We are four able-bodied men in this
household, so that we could take good care of ourselves, but I confess that I
have had uneasy moments when I have thought of the Stapletons. They live miles
from any help. There are one maid, an old manservant, the sister, and the
brother, the latter not a very strong man. They would be helpless in the hands
of a desperate fellow like this Notting Hill criminal if he could once effect
an entrance. Both Sir Henry and I were concerned at their situation, and it was
suggested that Perkins the groom should go over to sleep there, but Stapleton
would not hear of it.

The fact is that our friend, the baronet,
begins to display a considerable interest in our fair neighbour. It is not to
be wondered at, for time hangs heavily in this lonely spot to an active man
like him, and she is a very fascinating and beautiful woman. There is something
tropical and exotic about her which forms a singular contrast to her cool and
unemotional brother. Yet he also gives the idea of hidden fires. He has
certainly a very marked influence over her, for I have seen her continually
glance at him as she talked as if seeking approbation for what she said. I
trust that he is kind to her. There is a dry glitter in his eyes and a firm set
of his thin lips, which goes with a positive and possibly a harsh nature. You
would find him an interesting study.

He came over to call upon Baskerville on
that first day, and the very next morning he took us both to show us the spot
where the legend of the wicked Hugo is supposed to have had its origin. It was
an excursion of some miles across the moor to a place which is so dismal that
it might have suggested the story. We found a short valley between rugged tors
which led to an open, grassy space flecked over with the white cotton grass. In
the middle of it rose two great stones, worn and sharpened at the upper end until
they looked like the huge corroding fangs of some monstrous beast. In every way
it corresponded with the scene of the old tragedy. Sir Henry was much
interested and asked Stapleton more than once whether he did really believe in
the possibility of the interference of the supernatural in the affairs of men.
He spoke lightly, but it was evident that he was very much in earnest.
Stapleton was guarded in his replies, but it was easy to see that he said less
than he might, and that he would not express his whole opinion out of
consideration for the feelings of the baronet. He told us of similar cases,
where families had suffered from some evil influence, and he left us with the
impression that he shared the popular view upon the matter.

On our way back we stayed for lunch at
Merripit House, and it was there that Sir Henry made the acquaintance of Miss
Stapleton. From the first moment that he saw her he appeared to be strongly
attracted by her, and I am much mistaken if the feeling was not mutual. He
referred to her again and again on our walk home, and since then hardly a day
has passed that we have not seen something of the brother and sister. They dine
here tonight, and there is some talk of our going to them next week. One would
imagine that such a match would be very welcome to Stapleton, and yet I have
more than once caught a look of the strongest disapprobation in his face when
Sir Henry has been paying some attention to his sister. He is much attached to
her, no doubt, and would lead a lonely life without her, but it would seem the
height of selfishness if he were to stand in the way of her making so brilliant
a marriage. Yet I am certain that he does not wish their intimacy to ripen into
love, and I have several times observed that he has taken pains to prevent them
from being tete-a-tete. By the way, your instructions to me never to allow Sir
Henry to go out alone will become very much more onerous if a love affair were
to be added to our other difficulties. My popularity would soon suffer if I
were to carry out your orders to the letter.

The other day—Thursday, to be more
exact—Dr. Mortimer lunched with us. He has been excavating a barrow at Long
Down and has got a prehistoric skull which fills him with great joy. Never was
there such a single-minded enthusiast as he! The Stapletons came in afterwards,
and the good doctor took us all to the yew alley at Sir Henry's request to show
us exactly how everything occurred upon that fatal night. It is a long, dismal
walk, the yew alley, between two high walls of clipped hedge, with a narrow
band of grass upon either side. At the far end is an old tumble-down
summer-house. Halfway down is the moor-gate, where the old gentleman left his
cigar-ash. It is a white wooden gate with a latch. Beyond it lies the wide
moor. I remembered your theory of the affair and tried to picture all that had
occurred. As the old man stood there he saw something coming across the moor,
something which terrified him so that he lost his wits and ran and ran until he
died of sheer horror and exhaustion. There was the long, gloomy tunnel down
which he fled. And from what? A sheep-dog of the moor? Or a spectral hound,
black, silent, and monstrous? Was there a human agency in the matter? Did the
pale, watchful Barrymore know more than he cared to say? It was all dim and
vague, but always there is the dark shadow of crime behind it.

One other neighbour I have met since I
wrote last. This is Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who lives some four miles to
the south of us. He is an elderly man, red-faced, white-haired, and choleric.
His passion is for the British law, and he has spent a large fortune in
litigation. He fights for the mere pleasure of fighting and is equally ready to
take up either side of a question, so that it is no wonder that he has found it
a costly amusement. Sometimes he will shut up a right of way and defy the
parish to make him open it. At others he will with his own hands tear down some
other man's gate and declare that a path has existed there from time
immemorial, defying the owner to prosecute him for trespass. He is learned in
old manorial and communal rights, and he applies his knowledge sometimes in
favour of the villagers of Fernworthy and sometimes against them, so that he is
periodically either carried in triumph down the village street or else burned
in effigy, according to his latest exploit. He is said to have about seven
lawsuits upon his hands at present, which will probably swallow up the
remainder of his fortune and so draw his sting and leave him harmless for the
future. Apart from the law he seems a kindly, good-natured person, and I only
mention him because you were particular that I should send some description of
the people who surround us. He is curiously employed at present, for, being an
amateur astronomer, he has an excellent telescope, with which he lies upon the
roof of his own house and sweeps the moor all day in the hope of catching a
glimpse of the escaped convict. If he would confine his energies to this all
would be well, but there are rumours that he intends to prosecute Dr. Mortimer
for opening a grave without the consent of the next of kin because he dug up
the Neolithic skull in the barrow on Long Down. He helps to keep our lives from
being monotonous and gives a little comic relief where it is badly needed.

And now, having brought you up to date in
the escaped convict, the Stapletons, Dr. Mortimer, and Frankland, of Lafter
Hall, let me end on that which is most important and tell you more about the
Barrymores, and especially about the surprising development of last night.

First of all about the test telegram,
which you sent from London in order to make sure that Barrymore was really
here. I have already explained that the testimony of the postmaster shows that
the test was worthless and that we have no proof one way or the other. I told
Sir Henry how the matter stood, and he at once, in his downright fashion, had
Barrymore up and asked him whether he had received the telegram himself.
Barrymore said that he had.

"Did the boy deliver it into your own
hands?" asked Sir Henry.

Barrymore looked surprised, and considered
for a little time.

"No," said he, "I was in
the box-room at the time, and my wife brought it up to me."

"Did you answer it yourself?"

"No; I told my wife what to answer
and she went down to write it."

In the evening he recurred to the subject
of his own accord.

"I could not quite understand the
object of your questions this morning, Sir Henry," said he. "I trust
that they do not mean that I have done anything to forfeit your
confidence?"

Sir Henry had to assure him that it was
not so and pacify him by giving him a considerable part of his old wardrobe,
the London outfit having now all arrived.

Mrs. Barrymore is of interest to me. She
is a heavy, solid person, very limited, intensely respectable, and inclined to
be puritanical. You could hardly conceive a less emotional subject. Yet I have
told you how, on the first night here, I heard her sobbing bitterly, and since
then I have more than once observed traces of tears upon her face. Some deep
sorrow gnaws ever at her heart. Sometimes I wonder if she has a guilty memory
which haunts her, and sometimes I suspect Barrymore of being a domestic tyrant.
I have always felt that there was something singular and questionable in this
man's character, but the adventure of last night brings all my suspicions to a
head.

And yet it may seem a small matter in
itself. You are aware that I am not a very sound sleeper, and since I have been
on guard in this house my slumbers have been lighter than ever. Last night,
about two in the morning, I was aroused by a stealthy step passing my room. I
rose, opened my door, and peeped out. A long black shadow was trailing down the
corridor. It was thrown by a man who walked softly down the passage with a
candle held in his hand. He was in shirt and trousers, with no covering to his
feet. I could merely see the outline, but his height told me that it was
Barrymore. He walked very slowly and circumspectly, and there was something
indescribably guilty and furtive in his whole appearance.

I have told you that the corridor is
broken by the balcony which runs round the hall, but that it is resumed upon
the farther side. I waited until he had passed out of sight and then I followed
him. When I came round the balcony he had reached the end of the farther
corridor, and I could see from the glimmer of light through an open door that
he had entered one of the rooms. Now, all these rooms are unfurnished and
unoccupied so that his expedition became more mysterious than ever. The light
shone steadily as if he were standing motionless. I crept down the passage as
noiselessly as I could and peeped round the corner of the door.

Barrymore was crouching at the window with
the candle held against the glass. His profile was half turned towards me, and
his face seemed to be rigid with expectation as he stared out into the
blackness of the moor. For some minutes he stood watching intently. Then he
gave a deep groan and with an impatient gesture he put out the light. Instantly
I made my way back to my room, and very shortly came the stealthy steps passing
once more upon their return journey. Long afterwards when I had fallen into a
light sleep I heard a key turn somewhere in a lock, but I could not tell whence
the sound came. What it all means I cannot guess, but there is some secret
business going on in this house of gloom which sooner or later we shall get to
the bottom of. I do not trouble you with my theories, for you asked me to
furnish you only with facts. I have had a long talk with Sir Henry this
morning, and we have made a plan of campaign founded upon my observations of
last night. I will not speak about it just now, but it should make my next
report interesting reading.

Chapter 9. The Light upon the Moor [Second Report
of Dr. Watson]

Baskerville Hall, Oct. 15th. MY DEAR
HOLMES: If I was compelled to leave you without much news during the early days
of my mission you must acknowledge that I am making up for lost time, and that
events are now crowding thick and fast upon us. In my last report I ended upon
my top note with Barrymore at the window, and now I have quite a budget already
which will, unless I am much mistaken, considerably surprise you. Things have
taken a turn which I could not have anticipated. In some ways they have within
the last forty-eight hours become much clearer and in some ways they have
become more complicated. But I will tell you all and you shall judge for
yourself.

Before breakfast on the morning following
my adventure I went down the corridor and examined the room in which Barrymore
had been on the night before. The western window through which he had stared so
intently has, I noticed, one peculiarity above all other windows in the
house—it commands the nearest outlook on to the moor. There is an opening
between two trees which enables one from this point of view to look right down
upon it, while from all the other windows it is only a distant glimpse which
can be obtained. It follows, therefore, that Barrymore, since only this window
would serve the purpose, must have been looking out for something or somebody
upon the moor. The night was very dark, so that I can hardly imagine how he
could have hoped to see anyone. It had struck me that it was possible that some
love intrigue was on foot. That would have accounted for his stealthy movements
and also for the uneasiness of his wife. The man is a striking-looking fellow,
very well equipped to steal the heart of a country girl, so that this theory
seemed to have something to support it. That opening of the door which I had
heard after I had returned to my room might mean that he had gone out to keep
some clandestine appointment. So I reasoned with myself in the morning, and I
tell you the direction of my suspicions, however much the result may have shown
that they were unfounded.

But whatever the true explanation of
Barrymore's movements might be, I felt that the responsibility of keeping them
to myself until I could explain them was more than I could bear. I had an
interview with the baronet in his study after breakfast, and I told him all
that I had seen. He was less surprised than I had expected.

"I knew that Barrymore walked about
nights, and I had a mind to speak to him about it," said he. "Two or
three times I have heard his steps in the passage, coming and going, just about
the hour you name."

"Perhaps then he pays a visit every
night to that particular window," I suggested.

"Perhaps he does. If so, we should be
able to shadow him and see what it is that he is after. I wonder what your
friend Holmes would do if he were here."

"I believe that he would do exactly
what you now suggest," said I. "He would follow Barrymore and see
what he did."

"Then we shall do it together."

"But surely he would hear us."

"The man is rather deaf, and in any
case we must take our chance of that. We'll sit up in my room tonight and wait
until he passes." Sir Henry rubbed his hands with pleasure, and it was
evident that he hailed the adventure as a relief to his somewhat quiet life
upon the moor.

The baronet has been in communication with
the architect who prepared the plans for Sir Charles, and with a contractor
from London, so that we may expect great changes to begin here soon. There have
been decorators and furnishers up from Plymouth, and it is evident that our
friend has large ideas and means to spare no pains or expense to restore the
grandeur of his family. When the house is renovated and refurnished, all that
he will need will be a wife to make it complete. Between ourselves there are
pretty clear signs that this will not be wanting if the lady is willing, for I
have seldom seen a man more infatuated with a woman than he is with our
beautiful neighbour, Miss Stapleton. And yet the course of true love does not
run quite as smoothly as one would under the circumstances expect. Today, for
example, its surface was broken by a very unexpected ripple, which has caused
our friend considerable perplexity and annoyance.

After the conversation which I have quoted
about Barrymore, Sir Henry put on his hat and prepared to go out. As a matter
of course I did the same.

"What, are you coming, Watson?"
he asked, looking at me in a curious way.

"That depends on whether you are
going on the moor," said I.

"Yes, I am."

"Well, you know what my instructions
are. I am sorry to intrude, but you heard how earnestly Holmes insisted that I
should not leave you, and especially that you should not go alone upon the
moor."

Sir Henry put his hand upon my shoulder
with a pleasant smile.

"My dear fellow," said he,
"Holmes, with all his wisdom, did not foresee some things which have
happened since I have been on the moor. You understand me? I am sure that you
are the last man in the world who would wish to be a spoil-sport. I must go out
alone."

It put me in a most awkward position. I
was at a loss what to say or what to do, and before I had made up my mind he
picked up his cane and was gone.

But when I came to think the matter over
my conscience reproached me bitterly for having on any pretext allowed him to
go out of my sight. I imagined what my feelings would be if I had to return to
you and to confess that some misfortune had occurred through my disregard for
your instructions. I assure you my cheeks flushed at the very thought. It might
not even now be too late to overtake him, so I set off at once in the direction
of Merripit House.

I hurried along the road at the top of my
speed without seeing anything of Sir Henry, until I came to the point where the
moor path branches off. There, fearing that perhaps I had come in the wrong
direction after all, I mounted a hill from which I could command a view—the
same hill which is cut into the dark quarry. Thence I saw him at once. He was
on the moor path about a quarter of a mile off, and a lady was by his side who
could only be Miss Stapleton. It was clear that there was already an
understanding between them and that they had met by appointment. They were
walking slowly along in deep conversation, and I saw her making quick little
movements of her hands as if she were very earnest in what she was saying,
while he listened intently, and once or twice shook his head in strong dissent.
I stood among the rocks watching them, very much puzzled as to what I should do
next. To follow them and break into their intimate conversation seemed to be an
outrage, and yet my clear duty was never for an instant to let him out of my
sight. To act the spy upon a friend was a hateful task. Still, I could see no
better course than to observe him from the hill, and to clear my conscience by
confessing to him afterwards what I had done. It is true that if any sudden
danger had threatened him I was too far away to be of use, and yet I am sure
that you will agree with me that the position was very difficult, and that
there was nothing more which I could do.

Our friend, Sir Henry, and the lady had
halted on the path and were standing deeply absorbed in their conversation,
when I was suddenly aware that I was not the only witness of their interview. A
wisp of green floating in the air caught my eye, and another glance showed me
that it was carried on a stick by a man who was moving among the broken ground.
It was Stapleton with his butterfly-net. He was very much closer to the pair
than I was, and he appeared to be moving in their direction. At this instant
Sir Henry suddenly drew Miss Stapleton to his side. His arm was round her, but
it seemed to me that she was straining away from him with her face averted. He
stooped his head to hers, and she raised one hand as if in protest. Next moment
I saw them spring apart and turn hurriedly round. Stapleton was the cause of
the interruption. He was running wildly towards them, his absurd net dangling
behind him. He gesticulated and almost danced with excitement in front of the
lovers. What the scene meant I could not imagine, but it seemed to me that
Stapleton was abusing Sir Henry, who offered explanations, which became more
angry as the other refused to accept them. The lady stood by in haughty
silence. Finally Stapleton turned upon his heel and beckoned in a peremptory
way to his sister, who, after an irresolute glance at Sir Henry, walked off by
the side of her brother. The naturalist's angry gestures showed that the lady
was included in his displeasure. The baronet stood for a minute looking after
them, and then he walked slowly back the way that he had come, his head
hanging, the very picture of dejection.

What all this meant I could not imagine,
but I was deeply ashamed to have witnessed so intimate a scene without my
friend's knowledge. I ran down the hill therefore and met the baronet at the
bottom. His face was flushed with anger and his brows were wrinkled, like one
who is at his wit's ends what to do.

"Halloa, Watson! Where have you
dropped from?" said he. "You don't mean to say that you came after me
in spite of all?"

I explained everything to him: how I had
found it impossible to remain behind, how I had followed him, and how I had
witnessed all that had occurred. For an instant his eyes blazed at me, but my
frankness disarmed his anger, and he broke at last into a rather rueful laugh.

"You would have thought the middle of
that prairie a fairly safe place for a man to be private," said he,
"but, by thunder, the whole countryside seems to have been out to see me
do my wooing—and a mighty poor wooing at that! Where had you engaged a
seat?"

"I was on that hill."

"Quite in the back row, eh? But her
brother was well up to the front. Did you see him come out on us?"

"Yes, I did."

"Did he ever strike you as being
crazy—this brother of hers?"

"I can't say that he ever did."

"I dare say not. I always thought him
sane enough until today, but you can take it from me that either he or I ought
to be in a straitjacket. What's the matter with me, anyhow? You've lived near
me for some weeks, Watson. Tell me straight, now! Is there anything that would
prevent me from making a good husband to a woman that I loved?"

"I should say not."

"He can't object to my worldly
position, so it must be myself that he has this down on. What has he against
me? I never hurt man or woman in my life that I know of. And yet he would not
so much as let me touch the tips of her fingers."

"Did he say so?"

"That, and a deal more. I tell you,
Watson, I've only known her these few weeks, but from the first I just felt
that she was made for me, and she, too—she was happy when she was with me, and
that I'll swear. There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than
words. But he has never let us get together and it was only today for the first
time that I saw a chance of having a few words with her alone. She was glad to
meet me, but when she did it was not love that she would talk about, and she
wouldn't have let me talk about it either if she could have stopped it. She
kept coming back to it that this was a place of danger, and that she would
never be happy until I had left it. I told her that since I had seen her I was
in no hurry to leave it, and that if she really wanted me to go, the only way
to work it was for her to arrange to go with me. With that I offered in as many
words to marry her, but before she could answer, down came this brother of
hers, running at us with a face on him like a madman. He was just white with
rage, and those light eyes of his were blazing with fury. What was I doing with
the lady? How dared I offer her attentions which were distasteful to her? Did I
think that because I was a baronet I could do what I liked? If he had not been
her brother I should have known better how to answer him. As it was I told him
that my feelings towards his sister were such as I was not ashamed of, and that
I hoped that she might honour me by becoming my wife. That seemed to make the
matter no better, so then I lost my temper too, and I answered him rather more
hotly than I should perhaps, considering that she was standing by. So it ended
by his going off with her, as you saw, and here am I as badly puzzled a man as
any in this county. Just tell me what it all means, Watson, and I'll owe you
more than ever I can hope to pay."

I tried one or two explanations, but,
indeed, I was completely puzzled myself. Our friend's title, his fortune, his
age, his character, and his appearance are all in his favour, and I know
nothing against him unless it be this dark fate which runs in his family. That
his advances should be rejected so brusquely without any reference to the
lady's own wishes and that the lady should accept the situation without protest
is very amazing. However, our conjectures were set at rest by a visit from
Stapleton himself that very afternoon. He had come to offer apologies for his
rudeness of the morning, and after a long private interview with Sir Henry in
his study the upshot of their conversation was that the breach is quite healed,
and that we are to dine at Merripit House next Friday as a sign of it.

"I don't say now that he isn't a
crazy man," said Sir Henry; "I can't forget the look in his eyes when
he ran at me this morning, but I must allow that no man could make a more
handsome apology than he has done."

"Did he give any explanation of his
conduct?"

"His sister is everything in his
life, he says. That is natural enough, and I am glad that he should understand
her value. They have always been together, and according to his account he has
been a very lonely man with only her as a companion, so that the thought of
losing her was really terrible to him. He had not understood, he said, that I
was becoming attached to her, but when he saw with his own eyes that it was
really so, and that she might be taken away from him, it gave him such a shock
that for a time he was not responsible for what he said or did. He was very
sorry for all that had passed, and he recognized how foolish and how selfish it
was that he should imagine that he could hold a beautiful woman like his sister
to himself for her whole life. If she had to leave him he had rather it was to
a neighbour like myself than to anyone else. But in any case it was a blow to
him and it would take him some time before he could prepare himself to meet it.
He would withdraw all opposition upon his part if I would promise for three
months to let the matter rest and to be content with cultivating the lady's
friendship during that time without claiming her love. This I promised, and so
the matter rests."

So there is one of our small mysteries
cleared up. It is something to have touched bottom anywhere in this bog in
which we are floundering. We know now why Stapleton looked with disfavour upon
his sister's suitor—even when that suitor was so eligible a one as Sir Henry.
And now I pass on to another thread which I have extricated out of the tangled
skein, the mystery of the sobs in the night, of the tear-stained face of Mrs.
Barrymore, of the secret journey of the butler to the western lattice window.
Congratulate me, my dear Holmes, and tell me that I have not disappointed you
as an agent—that you do not regret the confidence which you showed in me when
you sent me down. All these things have by one night's work been thoroughly
cleared.

I have said "by one night's
work," but, in truth, it was by two nights' work, for on the first we drew
entirely blank. I sat up with Sir Henry in his rooms until nearly three o'clock
in the morning, but no sound of any sort did we hear except the chiming clock upon
the stairs. It was a most melancholy vigil and ended by each of us falling
asleep in our chairs. Fortunately we were not discouraged, and we determined to
try again. The next night we lowered the lamp and sat smoking cigarettes
without making the least sound. It was incredible how slowly the hours crawled
by, and yet we were helped through it by the same sort of patient interest
which the hunter must feel as he watches the trap into which he hopes the game
may wander. One struck, and two, and we had almost for the second time given it
up in despair when in an instant we both sat bolt upright in our chairs with
all our weary senses keenly on the alert once more. We had heard the creak of a
step in the passage.

Very stealthily we heard it pass along
until it died away in the distance. Then the baronet gently opened his door and
we set out in pursuit. Already our man had gone round the gallery and the
corridor was all in darkness. Softly we stole along until we had come into the
other wing. We were just in time to catch a glimpse of the tall, black-bearded
figure, his shoulders rounded as he tiptoed down the passage. Then he passed
through the same door as before, and the light of the candle framed it in the
darkness and shot one single yellow beam across the gloom of the corridor. We
shuffled cautiously towards it, trying every plank before we dared to put our
whole weight upon it. We had taken the precaution of leaving our boots behind
us, but, even so, the old boards snapped and creaked beneath our tread. Sometimes
it seemed impossible that he should fail to hear our approach. However, the man
is fortunately rather deaf, and he was entirely preoccupied in that which he
was doing. When at last we reached the door and peeped through we found him
crouching at the window, candle in hand, his white, intent face pressed against
the pane, exactly as I had seen him two nights before.

We had arranged no plan of campaign, but
the baronet is a man to whom the most direct way is always the most natural. He
walked into the room, and as he did so Barrymore sprang up from the window with
a sharp hiss of his breath and stood, livid and trembling, before us. His dark
eyes, glaring out of the white mask of his face, were full of horror and
astonishment as he gazed from Sir Henry to me.

"What are you doing here,
Barrymore?"

"Nothing, sir." His agitation
was so great that he could hardly speak, and the shadows sprang up and down
from the shaking of his candle. "It was the window, sir. I go round at
night to see that they are fastened."

"On the second floor?"

"Yes, sir, all the windows."

"Look here, Barrymore," said Sir
Henry sternly, "we have made up our minds to have the truth out of you, so
it will save you trouble to tell it sooner rather than later. Come, now! No
lies! What were you doing at that window?"

The fellow looked at us in a helpless way,
and he wrung his hands together like one who is in the last extremity of doubt
and misery.

"I was doing no harm, sir. I was
holding a candle to the window."

"And why were you holding a candle to
the window?"

"Don't ask me, Sir Henry—don't ask
me! I give you my word, sir, that it is not my secret, and that I cannot tell
it. If it concerned no one but myself I would not try to keep it from
you."

A sudden idea occurred to me, and I took the
candle from the trembling hand of the butler.

"He must have been holding it as a
signal," said I. "Let us see if there is any answer." I held it
as he had done, and stared out into the darkness of the night. Vaguely I could
discern the black bank of the trees and the lighter expanse of the moor, for
the moon was behind the clouds. And then I gave a cry of exultation, for a tiny
pinpoint of yellow light had suddenly transfixed the dark veil, and glowed
steadily in the centre of the black square framed by the window.

"There it is!" I cried.

"No, no, sir, it is nothing—nothing
at all!" the butler broke in; "I assure you, sir—"

"Move your light across the window,
Watson!" cried the baronet. "See, the other moves also! Now, you
rascal, do you deny that it is a signal? Come, speak up! Who is your
confederate out yonder, and what is this conspiracy that is going on?"

The man's face became openly defiant.
"It is my business, and not yours. I will not tell."

"Then you leave my employment right
away."

"Very good, sir. If I must I
must."

"And you go in disgrace. By thunder,
you may well be ashamed of yourself. Your family has lived with mine for over a
hundred years under this roof, and here I find you deep in some dark plot
against me."

"No, no, sir; no, not against you!"
It was a woman's voice, and Mrs. Barrymore, paler and more horror-struck than
her husband, was standing at the door. Her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt
might have been comic were it not for the intensity of feeling upon her face.

"We have to go, Eliza. This is the
end of it. You can pack our things," said the butler.

"Oh, John, John, have I brought you
to this? It is my doing, Sir Henry—all mine. He has done nothing except for my
sake and because I asked him."

"Speak out, then! What does it
mean?"

"My unhappy brother is starving on
the moor. We cannot let him perish at our very gates. The light is a signal to
him that food is ready for him, and his light out yonder is to show the spot to
which to bring it."

"Then your brother is—"

"The escaped convict, sir—Selden, the
criminal."

"That's the truth, sir," said
Barrymore. "I said that it was not my secret and that I could not tell it
to you. But now you have heard it, and you will see that if there was a plot it
was not against you."

This, then, was the explanation of the
stealthy expeditions at night and the light at the window. Sir Henry and I both
stared at the woman in amazement. Was it possible that this stolidly
respectable person was of the same blood as one of the most notorious criminals
in the country?

"Yes, sir, my name was Selden, and he
is my younger brother. We humoured him too much when he was a lad and gave him
his own way in everything until he came to think that the world was made for
his pleasure, and that he could do what he liked in it. Then as he grew older
he met wicked companions, and the devil entered into him until he broke my
mother's heart and dragged our name in the dirt. From crime to crime he sank
lower and lower until it is only the mercy of God which has snatched him from the
scaffold; but to me, sir, he was always the little curly-headed boy that I had
nursed and played with as an elder sister would. That was why he broke prison,
sir. He knew that I was here and that we could not refuse to help him. When he
dragged himself here one night, weary and starving, with the warders hard at
his heels, what could we do? We took him in and fed him and cared for him. Then
you returned, sir, and my brother thought he would be safer on the moor than
anywhere else until the hue and cry was over, so he lay in hiding there. But
every second night we made sure if he was still there by putting a light in the
window, and if there was an answer my husband took out some bread and meat to
him. Every day we hoped that he was gone, but as long as he was there we could
not desert him. That is the whole truth, as I am an honest Christian woman and
you will see that if there is blame in the matter it does not lie with my
husband but with me, for whose sake he has done all that he has."

The woman's words came with an intense
earnestness which carried conviction with them.

"Is this true, Barrymore?"

"Yes, Sir Henry. Every word of
it."

"Well, I cannot blame you for
standing by your own wife. Forget what I have said. Go to your room, you two,
and we shall talk further about this matter in the morning."

When they were gone we looked out of the
window again. Sir Henry had flung it open, and the cold night wind beat in upon
our faces. Far away in the black distance there still glowed that one tiny
point of yellow light.

"I wonder he dares," said Sir
Henry.

"It may be so placed as to be only
visible from here."

"Very likely. How far do you think it
is?"

"Out by the Cleft Tor, I think."

"Not more than a mile or two
off."

"Hardly that."

"Well, it cannot be far if Barrymore
had to carry out the food to it. And he is waiting, this villain, beside that
candle. By thunder, Watson, I am going out to take that man!"

The same thought had crossed my own mind.
It was not as if the Barrymores had taken us into their confidence. Their
secret had been forced from them. The man was a danger to the community, an
unmitigated scoundrel for whom there was neither pity nor excuse. We were only
doing our duty in taking this chance of putting him back where he could do no
harm. With his brutal and violent nature, others would have to pay the price if
we held our hands. Any night, for example, our neighbours the Stapletons might
be attacked by him, and it may have been the thought of this which made Sir
Henry so keen upon the adventure.

"I will come," said I.

"Then get your revolver and put on
your boots. The sooner we start the better, as the fellow may put out his light
and be off."

In five minutes we were outside the door,
starting upon our expedition. We hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the
dull moaning of the autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves. The night
air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. Now and again the moon peeped
out for an instant, but clouds were driving over the face of the sky, and just
as we came out on the moor a thin rain began to fall. The light still burned
steadily in front.

"Are you armed?" I asked.

"I have a hunting-crop."

"We must close in on him rapidly, for
he is said to be a desperate fellow. We shall take him by surprise and have him
at our mercy before he can resist."

"I say, Watson," said the
baronet, "what would Holmes say to this? How about that hour of darkness
in which the power of evil is exalted?"

As if in answer to his words there rose
suddenly out of the vast gloom of the moor that strange cry which I had already
heard upon the borders of the great Grimpen Mire. It came with the wind through
the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the
sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air
throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing. The baronet caught my sleeve
and his face glimmered white through the darkness.

"My God, what's that, Watson?"

"I don't know. It's a sound they have
on the moor. I heard it once before."

It died away, and an absolute silence
closed in upon us. We stood straining our ears, but nothing came.

"Watson," said the baronet,
"it was the cry of a hound."

My blood ran cold in my veins, for there
was a break in his voice which told of the sudden horror which had seized him.

"What do they call this sound?"
he asked.

"Who?"

"The folk on the countryside."

"Oh, they are ignorant people. Why
should you mind what they call it?"

"Tell me, Watson. What do they say of
it?"

I hesitated but could not escape the
question.

"They say it is the cry of the Hound
of the Baskervilles."

He groaned and was silent for a few
moments.

"A hound it was," he said at
last, "but it seemed to come from miles away, over yonder, I think."

"It was hard to say whence it
came."

"It rose and fell with the wind.
Isn't that the direction of the great Grimpen Mire?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, it was up there. Come now,
Watson, didn't you think yourself that it was the cry of a hound? I am not a
child. You need not fear to speak the truth."

"Stapleton was with me when I heard
it last. He said that it might be the calling of a strange bird."

"No, no, it was a hound. My God, can
there be some truth in all these stories? Is it possible that I am really in
danger from so dark a cause? You don't believe it, do you, Watson?"

"No, no."

"And yet it was one thing to laugh
about it in London, and it is another to stand out here in the darkness of the
moor and to hear such a cry as that. And my uncle! There was the footprint of
the hound beside him as he lay. It all fits together. I don't think that I am a
coward, Watson, but that sound seemed to freeze my very blood. Feel my
hand!"

It was as cold as a block of marble.

"You'll be all right tomorrow."

"I don't think I'll get that cry out
of my head. What do you advise that we do now?"

"Shall we turn back?"

"No, by thunder; we have come out to
get our man, and we will do it. We after the convict, and a hell-hound, as
likely as not, after us. Come on! We'll see it through if all the fiends of the
pit were loose upon the moor."

We stumbled slowly along in the darkness,
with the black loom of the craggy hills around us, and the yellow speck of
light burning steadily in front. There is nothing so deceptive as the distance
of a light upon a pitch-dark night, and sometimes the glimmer seemed to be far
away upon the horizon and sometimes it might have been within a few yards of
us. But at last we could see whence it came, and then we knew that we were
indeed very close. A guttering candle was stuck in a crevice of the rocks which
flanked it on each side so as to keep the wind from it and also to prevent it
from being visible, save in the direction of Baskerville Hall. A boulder of
granite concealed our approach, and crouching behind it we gazed over it at the
signal light. It was strange to see this single candle burning there in the
middle of the moor, with no sign of life near it—just the one straight yellow
flame and the gleam of the rock on each side of it.

"What shall we do now?"
whispered Sir Henry.

"Wait here. He must be near his
light. Let us see if we can get a glimpse of him."

The words were hardly out of my mouth when
we both saw him. Over the rocks, in the crevice of which the candle burned,
there was thrust out an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face, all seamed
and scored with vile passions. Foul with mire, with a bristling beard, and hung
with matted hair, it might well have belonged to one of those old savages who
dwelt in the burrows on the hillsides. The light beneath him was reflected in
his small, cunning eyes which peered fiercely to right and left through the
darkness like a crafty and savage animal who has heard the steps of the
hunters.

Something had evidently aroused his
suspicions. It may have been that Barrymore had some private signal which we
had neglected to give, or the fellow may have had some other reason for
thinking that all was not well, but I could read his fears upon his wicked
face. Any instant he might dash out the light and vanish in the darkness. I
sprang forward therefore, and Sir Henry did the same. At the same moment the
convict screamed out a curse at us and hurled a rock which splintered up
against the boulder which had sheltered us. I caught one glimpse of his short,
squat, strongly built figure as he sprang to his feet and turned to run. At the
same moment by a lucky chance the moon broke through the clouds. We rushed over
the brow of the hill, and there was our man running with great speed down the
other side, springing over the stones in his way with the activity of a mountain
goat. A lucky long shot of my revolver might have crippled him, but I had
brought it only to defend myself if attacked and not to shoot an unarmed man
who was running away.

We were both swift runners and in fairly
good training, but we soon found that we had no chance of overtaking him. We
saw him for a long time in the moonlight until he was only a small speck moving
swiftly among the boulders upon the side of a distant hill. We ran and ran
until we were completely blown, but the space between us grew ever wider.
Finally we stopped and sat panting on two rocks, while we watched him
disappearing in the distance.

And it was at this moment that there
occurred a most strange and unexpected thing. We had risen from our rocks and
were turning to go home, having abandoned the hopeless chase. The moon was low
upon the right, and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up against the
lower curve of its silver disc. There, outlined as black as an ebony statue on
that shining background, I saw the figure of a man upon the tor. Do not think
that it was a delusion, Holmes. I assure you that I have never in my life seen
anything more clearly. As far as I could judge, the figure was that of a tall,
thin man. He stood with his legs a little separated, his arms folded, his head
bowed, as if he were brooding over that enormous wilderness of peat and granite
which lay before him. He might have been the very spirit of that terrible
place. It was not the convict. This man was far from the place where the latter
had disappeared. Besides, he was a much taller man. With a cry of surprise I
pointed him out to the baronet, but in the instant during which I had turned to
grasp his arm the man was gone. There was the sharp pinnacle of granite still
cutting the lower edge of the moon, but its peak bore no trace of that silent
and motionless figure.

I wished to go in that direction and to
search the tor, but it was some distance away. The baronet's nerves were still
quivering from that cry, which recalled the dark story of his family, and he
was not in the mood for fresh adventures. He had not seen this lonely man upon
the tor and could not feel the thrill which his strange presence and his
commanding attitude had given to me. "A warder, no doubt," said he.
"The moor has been thick with them since this fellow escaped." Well,
perhaps his explanation may be the right one, but I should like to have some
further proof of it. Today we mean to communicate to the Princetown people
where they should look for their missing man, but it is hard lines that we have
not actually had the triumph of bringing him back as our own prisoner. Such are
the adventures of last night, and you must acknowledge, my dear Holmes, that I
have done you very well in the matter of a report. Much of what I tell you is
no doubt quite irrelevant, but still I feel that it is best that I should let
you have all the facts and leave you to select for yourself those which will be
of most service to you in helping you to your conclusions. We are certainly
making some progress. So far as the Barrymores go we have found the motive of
their actions, and that has cleared up the situation very much. But the moor
with its mysteries and its strange inhabitants remains as inscrutable as ever.
Perhaps in my next I may be able to throw some light upon this also. Best of
all would it be if you could come down to us. In any case you will hear from me
again in the course of the next few days.

Chapter 10. Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson

So far I have been able to quote from the
reports which I have forwarded during these early days to Sherlock Holmes. Now,
however, I have arrived at a point in my narrative where I am compelled to
abandon this method and to trust once more to my recollections, aided by the
diary which I kept at the time. A few extracts from the latter will carry me on
to those scenes which are indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory. I
proceed, then, from the morning which followed our abortive chase of the
convict and our other strange experiences upon the moor.

October 16th. A dull and foggy day with a
drizzle of rain. The house is banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and
then to show the dreary curves of the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the
sides of the hills, and the distant boulders gleaming where the light strikes
upon their wet faces. It is melancholy outside and in. The baronet is in a
black reaction after the excitements of the night. I am conscious myself of a
weight at my heart and a feeling of impending danger—ever present danger, which
is the more terrible because I am unable to define it.

And have I not cause for such a feeling?
Consider the long sequence of incidents which have all pointed to some sinister
influence which is at work around us. There is the death of the last occupant
of the Hall, fulfilling so exactly the conditions of the family legend, and
there are the repeated reports from peasants of the appearance of a strange
creature upon the moor. Twice I have with my own ears heard the sound which
resembled the distant baying of a hound. It is incredible, impossible, that it
should really be outside the ordinary laws of nature. A spectral hound which
leaves material footmarks and fills the air with its howling is surely not to
be thought of. Stapleton may fall in with such a superstition, and Mortimer
also, but if I have one quality upon earth it is common sense, and nothing will
persuade me to believe in such a thing. To do so would be to descend to the
level of these poor peasants, who are not content with a mere fiend dog but must
needs describe him with hell-fire shooting from his mouth and eyes. Holmes
would not listen to such fancies, and I am his agent. But facts are facts, and
I have twice heard this crying upon the moor. Suppose that there were really
some huge hound loose upon it; that would go far to explain everything. But
where could such a hound lie concealed, where did it get its food, where did it
come from, how was it that no one saw it by day? It must be confessed that the
natural explanation offers almost as many difficulties as the other. And
always, apart from the hound, there is the fact of the human agency in London,
the man in the cab, and the letter which warned Sir Henry against the moor.
This at least was real, but it might have been the work of a protecting friend
as easily as of an enemy. Where is that friend or enemy now? Has he remained in
London, or has he followed us down here? Could he—could he be the stranger whom
I saw upon the tor?

It is true that I have had only the one
glance at him, and yet there are some things to which I am ready to swear. He
is no one whom I have seen down here, and I have now met all the neighbours.
The figure was far taller than that of Stapleton, far thinner than that of
Frankland. Barrymore it might possibly have been, but we had left him behind
us, and I am certain that he could not have followed us. A stranger then is
still dogging us, just as a stranger dogged us in London. We have never shaken
him off. If I could lay my hands upon that man, then at last we might find ourselves
at the end of all our difficulties. To this one purpose I must now devote all
my energies.

My first impulse was to tell Sir Henry all
my plans. My second and wisest one is to play my own game and speak as little
as possible to anyone. He is silent and distrait. His nerves have been
strangely shaken by that sound upon the moor. I will say nothing to add to his
anxieties, but I will take my own steps to attain my own end.

We had a small scene this morning after
breakfast. Barrymore asked leave to speak with Sir Henry, and they were
closeted in his study some little time. Sitting in the billiard-room I more
than once heard the sound of voices raised, and I had a pretty good idea what
the point was which was under discussion. After a time the baronet opened his
door and called for me. "Barrymore considers that he has a
grievance," he said. "He thinks that it was unfair on our part to
hunt his brother-in-law down when he, of his own free will, had told us the
secret."

The butler was standing very pale but very
collected before us.

"I may have spoken too warmly,
sir," said he, "and if I have, I am sure that I beg your pardon. At
the same time, I was very much surprised when I heard you two gentlemen come
back this morning and learned that you had been chasing Selden. The poor fellow
has enough to fight against without my putting more upon his track."

"If you had told us of your own free
will it would have been a different thing," said the baronet, "you
only told us, or rather your wife only told us, when it was forced from you and
you could not help yourself."

"I didn't think you would have taken
advantage of it, Sir Henry—indeed I didn't."

"The man is a public danger. There
are lonely houses scattered over the moor, and he is a fellow who would stick
at nothing. You only want to get a glimpse of his face to see that. Look at Mr.
Stapleton's house, for example, with no one but himself to defend it. There's
no safety for anyone until he is under lock and key."

"He'll break into no house, sir. I
give you my solemn word upon that. But he will never trouble anyone in this
country again. I assure you, Sir Henry, that in a very few days the necessary
arrangements will have been made and he will be on his way to South America.
For God's sake, sir, I beg of you not to let the police know that he is still
on the moor. They have given up the chase there, and he can lie quiet until the
ship is ready for him. You can't tell on him without getting my wife and me
into trouble. I beg you, sir, to say nothing to the police."

"What do you say, Watson?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "If he were
safely out of the country it would relieve the tax-payer of a burden."

"But how about the chance of his
holding someone up before he goes?"

"He would not do anything so mad,
sir. We have provided him with all that he can want. To commit a crime would be
to show where he was hiding."

"That is true," said Sir Henry.
"Well, Barrymore—"

"God bless you, sir, and thank you from
my heart! It would have killed my poor wife had he been taken again."

"I guess we are aiding and abetting a
felony, Watson? But, after what we have heard I don't feel as if I could give
the man up, so there is an end of it. All right, Barrymore, you can go."

With a few broken words of gratitude the
man turned, but he hesitated and then came back.

"You've been so kind to us, sir, that
I should like to do the best I can for you in return. I know something, Sir
Henry, and perhaps I should have said it before, but it was long after the
inquest that I found it out. I've never breathed a word about it yet to mortal
man. It's about poor Sir Charles's death."

The baronet and I were both upon our feet.
"Do you know how he died?"

"No, sir, I don't know that."

"What then?"

"I know why he was at the gate at
that hour. It was to meet a woman."

"To meet a woman! He?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the woman's name?"

"I can't give you the name, sir, but
I can give you the initials. Her initials were L. L."

"How do you know this, Barrymore?"

"Well, Sir Henry, your uncle had a
letter that morning. He had usually a great many letters, for he was a public
man and well known for his kind heart, so that everyone who was in trouble was
glad to turn to him. But that morning, as it chanced, there was only this one
letter, so I took the more notice of it. It was from Coombe Tracey, and it was
addressed in a woman's hand."

"Well?"

"Well, sir, I thought no more of the
matter, and never would have done had it not been for my wife. Only a few weeks
ago she was cleaning out Sir Charles's study—it had never been touched since
his death—and she found the ashes of a burned letter in the back of the grate.
The greater part of it was charred to pieces, but one little slip, the end of a
page, hung together, and the writing could still be read, though it was gray on
a black ground. It seemed to us to be a postscript at the end of the letter and
it said: 'Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn this letter, and be at
the gate by ten o clock. Beneath it were signed the initials L. L."

"Have you got that slip?"

"No, sir, it crumbled all to bits
after we moved it."

"Had Sir Charles received any other
letters in the same writing?"

"Well, sir, I took no particular
notice of his letters. I should not have noticed this one, only it happened to
come alone."

"And you have no idea who L. L.
is?"

"No, sir. No more than you have. But
I expect if we could lay our hands upon that lady we should know more about Sir
Charles's death."

"I cannot understand, Barrymore, how
you came to conceal this important information."

"Well, sir, it was immediately after
that our own trouble came to us. And then again, sir, we were both of us very
fond of Sir Charles, as we well might be considering all that he has done for
us. To rake this up couldn't help our poor master, and it's well to go
carefully when there's a lady in the case. Even the best of us—"

"You thought it might injure his
reputation?"

"Well, sir, I thought no good could
come of it. But now you have been kind to us, and I feel as if it would be
treating you unfairly not to tell you all that I know about the matter."

"Very good, Barrymore; you can
go." When the butler had left us Sir Henry turned to me. "Well,
Watson, what do you think of this new light?"

"It seems to leave the darkness
rather blacker than before."

"So I think. But if we can only trace
L. L. it should clear up the whole business. We have gained that much. We know
that there is someone who has the facts if we can only find her. What do you
think we should do?"

"Let Holmes know all about it at
once. It will give him the clue for which he has been seeking. I am much
mistaken if it does not bring him down."

I went at once to my room and drew up my
report of the morning's conversation for Holmes. It was evident to me that he
had been very busy of late, for the notes which I had from Baker Street were
few and short, with no comments upon the information which I had supplied and
hardly any reference to my mission. No doubt his blackmailing case is absorbing
all his faculties. And yet this new factor must surely arrest his attention and
renew his interest. I wish that he were here.

October 17th. All day today the rain
poured down, rustling on the ivy and dripping from the eaves. I thought of the
convict out upon the bleak, cold, shelterless moor. Poor devil! Whatever his
crimes, he has suffered something to atone for them. And then I thought of that
other one—the face in the cab, the figure against the moon. Was he also out in
that deluged—the unseen watcher, the man of darkness? In the evening I put on
my waterproof and I walked far upon the sodden moor, full of dark imaginings,
the rain beating upon my face and the wind whistling about my ears. God help
those who wander into the great mire now, for even the firm uplands are
becoming a morass. I found the black tor upon which I had seen the solitary
watcher, and from its craggy summit I looked out myself across the melancholy
downs. Rain squalls drifted across their russet face, and the heavy,
slate-coloured clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in gray wreaths
down the sides of the fantastic hills. In the distant hollow on the left, half
hidden by the mist, the two thin towers of Baskerville Hall rose above the
trees. They were the only signs of human life which I could see, save only
those prehistoric huts which lay thickly upon the slopes of the hills. Nowhere
was there any trace of that lonely man whom I had seen on the same spot two
nights before.

As I walked back I was overtaken by Dr.
Mortimer driving in his dog-cart over a rough moorland track which led from the
outlying farmhouse of Foulmire. He has been very attentive to us, and hardly a
day has passed that he has not called at the Hall to see how we were getting
on. He insisted upon my climbing into his dog-cart, and he gave me a lift
homeward. I found him much troubled over the disappearance of his little
spaniel. It had wandered on to the moor and had never come back. I gave him
such consolation as I might, but I thought of the pony on the Grimpen Mire, and
I do not fancy that he will see his little dog again.

"By the way, Mortimer," said I
as we jolted along the rough road, "I suppose there are few people living
within driving distance of this whom you do not know?"

"Hardly any, I think."

"Can you, then, tell me the name of
any woman whose initials are L. L.?"

He thought for a few minutes.

"No," said he. "There are a
few gipsies and labouring folk for whom I can't answer, but among the farmers
or gentry there is no one whose initials are those. Wait a bit though," he
added after a pause. "There is Laura Lyons—her initials are L. L.—but she
lives in Coombe Tracey."

"Who is she?" I asked.

"She is Frankland's daughter."

"What! Old Frankland the crank?"

"Exactly. She married an artist named
Lyons, who came sketching on the moor. He proved to be a blackguard and
deserted her. The fault from what I hear may not have been entirely on one
side. Her father refused to have anything to do with her because she had
married without his consent and perhaps for one or two other reasons as well.
So, between the old sinner and the young one the girl has had a pretty bad
time."

"How does she live?"

"I fancy old Frankland allows her a
pittance, but it cannot be more, for his own affairs are considerably involved.
Whatever she may have deserved one could not allow her to go hopelessly to the
bad. Her story got about, and several of the people here did something to
enable her to earn an honest living. Stapleton did for one, and Sir Charles for
another. I gave a trifle myself. It was to set her up in a typewriting
business."

He wanted to know the object of my
inquiries, but I managed to satisfy his curiosity without telling him too much,
for there is no reason why we should take anyone into our confidence. Tomorrow
morning I shall find my way to Coombe Tracey, and if I can see this Mrs. Laura
Lyons, of equivocal reputation, a long step will have been made towards
clearing one incident in this chain of mysteries. I am certainly developing the
wisdom of the serpent, for when Mortimer pressed his questions to an
inconvenient extent I asked him casually to what type Frankland's skull
belonged, and so heard nothing but craniology for the rest of our drive. I have
not lived for years with Sherlock Holmes for nothing.

I have only one other incident to record
upon this tempestuous and melancholy day. This was my conversation with
Barrymore just now, which gives me one more strong card which I can play in due
time.

Mortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and
the baronet played ecarte afterwards. The butler brought me my coffee into the
library, and I took the chance to ask him a few questions.

"Well," said I, "has this
precious relation of yours departed, or is he still lurking out yonder?"

"I don't know, sir. I hope to heaven
that he has gone, for he has brought nothing but trouble here! I've not heard
of him since I left out food for him last, and that was three days ago."

"Did you see him then?"

"No, sir, but the food was gone when
next I went that way."

"Then he was certainly there?"

"So you would think, sir, unless it
was the other man who took it."

I sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my
lips and stared at Barrymore.

"You know that there is another man
then?"

"Yes, sir; there is another man upon
the moor."

"Have you seen him?"

"No, sir."

"How do you know of him then?"

"Selden told me of him, sir, a week
ago or more. He's in hiding, too, but he's not a convict as far as I can make
out. I don't like it, Dr. Watson—I tell you straight, sir, that I don't like
it." He spoke with a sudden passion of earnestness.

"Now, listen to me, Barrymore! I have
no interest in this matter but that of your master. I have come here with no
object except to help him. Tell me, frankly, what it is that you don't
like."

Barrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he
regretted his outburst or found it difficult to express his own feelings in
words.

"It's all these goings-on, sir,"
he cried at last, waving his hand towards the rain-lashed window which faced
the moor. "There's foul play somewhere, and there's black villainy brewing,
to that I'll swear! Very glad I should be, sir, to see Sir Henry on his way
back to London again!"

"But what is it that alarms
you?"

"Look at Sir Charles's death! That
was bad enough, for all that the coroner said. Look at the noises on the moor
at night. There's not a man would cross it after sundown if he was paid for it.
Look at this stranger hiding out yonder, and watching and waiting! What's he
waiting for? What does it mean? It means no good to anyone of the name of
Baskerville, and very glad I shall be to be quit of it all on the day that Sir
Henry's new servants are ready to take over the Hall."

"But about this stranger," said
I. "Can you tell me anything about him? What did Selden say? Did he find
out where he hid, or what he was doing?"

"He saw him once or twice, but he is
a deep one and gives nothing away. At first he thought that he was the police,
but soon he found that he had some lay of his own. A kind of gentleman he was,
as far as he could see, but what he was doing he could not make out."

"And where did he say that he
lived?"

"Among the old houses on the
hillside—the stone huts where the old folk used to live."

"But how about his food?"

"Selden found out that he has got a
lad who works for him and brings all he needs. I dare say he goes to Coombe
Tracey for what he wants."

"Very good, Barrymore. We may talk
further of this some other time." When the butler had gone I walked over
to the black window, and I looked through a blurred pane at the driving clouds
and at the tossing outline of the wind-swept trees. It is a wild night indoors,
and what must it be in a stone hut upon the moor. What passion of hatred can it
be which leads a man to lurk in such a place at such a time! And what deep and
earnest purpose can he have which calls for such a trial! There, in that hut
upon the moor, seems to lie the very centre of that problem which has vexed me
so sorely. I swear that another day shall not have passed before I have done
all that man can do to reach the heart of the mystery.

Chapter 11. The Man on the Tor

The extract from my private diary which
forms the last chapter has brought my narrative up to the eighteenth of
October, a time when these strange events began to move swiftly towards their
terrible conclusion. The incidents of the next few days are indelibly graven
upon my recollection, and I can tell them without reference to the notes made
at the time. I start them from the day which succeeded that upon which I had
established two facts of great importance, the one that Mrs. Laura Lyons of
Coombe Tracey had written to Sir Charles Baskerville and made an appointment
with him at the very place and hour that he met his death, the other that the
lurking man upon the moor was to be found among the stone huts upon the
hillside. With these two facts in my possession I felt that either my
intelligence or my courage must be deficient if I could not throw some further
light upon these dark places.

I had no opportunity to tell the baronet
what I had learned about Mrs. Lyons upon the evening before, for Dr. Mortimer
remained with him at cards until it was very late. At breakfast, however, I
informed him about my discovery and asked him whether he would care to
accompany me to Coombe Tracey. At first he was very eager to come, but on
second thoughts it seemed to both of us that if I went alone the results might
be better. The more formal we made the visit the less information we might
obtain. I left Sir Henry behind, therefore, not without some prickings of
conscience, and drove off upon my new quest.

When I reached Coombe Tracey I told
Perkins to put up the horses, and I made inquiries for the lady whom I had come
to interrogate. I had no difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central
and well appointed. A maid showed me in without ceremony, and as I entered the
sitting-room a lady, who was sitting before a Remington typewriter, sprang up
with a pleasant smile of welcome. Her face fell, however, when she saw that I
was a stranger, and she sat down again and asked me the object of my visit.

The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons
was one of extreme beauty. Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel
colour, and her cheeks, though considerably freckled, were flushed with the
exquisite bloom of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the
sulphur rose. Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the second
was criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness
of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness of lip which
marred its perfect beauty. But these, of course, are afterthoughts. At the
moment I was simply conscious that I was in the presence of a very handsome
woman, and that she was asking me the reasons for my visit. I had not quite
understood until that instant how delicate my mission was.

"I have the pleasure," said I,
"of knowing your father."

It was a clumsy introduction, and the lady
made me feel it. "There is nothing in common between my father and
me," she said. "I owe him nothing, and his friends are not mine. If
it were not for the late Sir Charles Baskerville and some other kind hearts I
might have starved for all that my father cared."

"It was about the late Sir Charles
Baskerville that I have come here to see you."

The freckles started out on the lady's
face.

"What can I tell you about him?"
she asked, and her fingers played nervously over the stops of her typewriter.

"You knew him, did you not?"

"I have already said that I owe a
great deal to his kindness. If I am able to support myself it is largely due to
the interest which he took in my unhappy situation."

"Did you correspond with him?"

The lady looked quickly up with an angry
gleam in her hazel eyes.

"What is the object of these
questions?" she asked sharply.

"The object is to avoid a public
scandal. It is better that I should ask them here than that the matter should
pass outside our control."

She was silent and her face was still very
pale. At last she looked up with something reckless and defiant in her manner.

"Well, I'll answer," she said.
"What are your questions?"

"Did you correspond with Sir
Charles?"

"I certainly wrote to him once or
twice to acknowledge his delicacy and his generosity."

"Have you the dates of those
letters?"

"No."

"Have you ever met him?"

"Yes, once or twice, when he came
into Coombe Tracey. He was a very retiring man, and he preferred to do good by
stealth."

"But if you saw him so seldom and
wrote so seldom, how did he know enough about your affairs to be able to help
you, as you say that he has done?"

She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.

"There were several gentlemen who
knew my sad history and united to help me. One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour
and intimate friend of Sir Charles's. He was exceedingly kind, and it was
through him that Sir Charles learned about my affairs."

I knew already that Sir Charles
Baskerville had made Stapleton his almoner upon several occasions, so the
lady's statement bore the impress of truth upon it.

"Did you ever write to Sir Charles
asking him to meet you?" I continued.

Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again.
"Really, sir, this is a very extraordinary question."

"I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat
it."

"Then I answer, certainly not."

"Not on the very day of Sir Charles's
death?"

The flush had faded in an instant, and a
deathly face was before me. Her dry lips could not speak the "No"
which I saw rather than heard.

"Surely your memory deceives
you," said I. "I could even quote a passage of your letter. It ran
'Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate
by ten o'clock.'"

I thought that she had fainted, but she
recovered herself by a supreme effort.

"Is there no such thing as a
gentleman?" she gasped.

"You do Sir Charles an injustice. He
did burn the letter. But sometimes a letter may be legible even when burned.
You acknowledge now that you wrote it?"

"Yes, I did write it," she
cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent of words. "I did write it. Why
should I deny it? I have no reason to be ashamed of it. I wished him to help
me. I believed that if I had an interview I could gain his help, so I asked him
to meet me."

"But why at such an hour?"

"Because I had only just learned that
he was going to London next day and might be away for months. There were
reasons why I could not get there earlier."

"But why a rendezvous in the garden
instead of a visit to the house?"

"Do you think a woman could go alone
at that hour to a bachelor's house?"

"Well, what happened when you did get
there?"

"I never went."

"Mrs. Lyons!"

"No, I swear it to you on all I hold
sacred. I never went. Something intervened to prevent my going."

"What was that?"

"That is a private matter. I cannot
tell it."

"You acknowledge then that you made
an appointment with Sir Charles at the very hour and place at which he met his
death, but you deny that you kept the appointment."

"That is the truth."

Again and again I cross-questioned her,
but I could never get past that point.

"Mrs. Lyons," said I as I rose
from this long and inconclusive interview, "you are taking a very great
responsibility and putting yourself in a very false position by not making an
absolutely clean breast of all that you know. If I have to call in the aid of
the police you will find how seriously you are compromised. If your position is
innocent, why did you in the first instance deny having written to Sir Charles
upon that date?"

"Because I feared that some false
conclusion might be drawn from it and that I might find myself involved in a
scandal."

"And why were you so pressing that
Sir Charles should destroy your letter?"

"If you have read the letter you will
know."

"I did not say that I had read all
the letter."

"You quoted some of it."

"I quoted the postscript. The letter
had, as I said, been burned and it was not all legible. I ask you once again
why it was that you were so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy this
letter which he received on the day of his death."

"The matter is a very private
one."

"The more reason why you should avoid
a public investigation."

"I will tell you, then. If you have
heard anything of my unhappy history you will know that I made a rash marriage
and had reason to regret it."

"I have heard so much."

"My life has been one incessant
persecution from a husband whom I abhor. The law is upon his side, and every
day I am faced by the possibility that he may force me to live with him. At the
time that I wrote this letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there was a
prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses could be met. It meant
everything to me—peace of mind, happiness, self-respect—everything. I knew Sir
Charles's generosity, and I thought that if he heard the story from my own lips
he would help me."

"Then how is it that you did not
go?"

"Because I received help in the
interval from another source."

"Why then, did you not write to Sir
Charles and explain this?"

"So I should have done had I not seen
his death in the paper next morning."

The woman's story hung coherently
together, and all my questions were unable to shake it. I could only check it
by finding if she had, indeed, instituted divorce proceedings against her
husband at or about the time of the tragedy.

It was unlikely that she would dare to say
that she had not been to Baskerville Hall if she really had been, for a trap
would be necessary to take her there, and could not have returned to Coombe
Tracey until the early hours of the morning. Such an excursion could not be
kept secret. The probability was, therefore, that she was telling the truth,
or, at least, a part of the truth. I came away baffled and disheartened. Once
again I had reached that dead wall which seemed to be built across every path
by which I tried to get at the object of my mission. And yet the more I thought
of the lady's face and of her manner the more I felt that something was being
held back from me. Why should she turn so pale? Why should she fight against
every admission until it was forced from her? Why should she have been so
reticent at the time of the tragedy? Surely the explanation of all this could
not be as innocent as she would have me believe. For the moment I could proceed
no farther in that direction, but must turn back to that other clue which was
to be sought for among the stone huts upon the moor.

And that was a most vague direction. I
realized it as I drove back and noted how hill after hill showed traces of the
ancient people. Barrymore's only indication had been that the stranger lived in
one of these abandoned huts, and many hundreds of them are scattered throughout
the length and breadth of the moor. But I had my own experience for a guide
since it had shown me the man himself standing upon the summit of the Black
Tor. That, then, should be the centre of my search. From there I should explore
every hut upon the moor until I lighted upon the right one. If this man were
inside it I should find out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if
necessary, who he was and why he had dogged us so long. He might slip away from
us in the crowd of Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do so upon the
lonely moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant should
not be within it I must remain there, however long the vigil, until he
returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It would indeed be a triumph for me
if I could run him to earth where my master had failed.

Luck had been against us again and again
in this inquiry, but now at last it came to my aid. And the messenger of good
fortune was none other than Mr. Frankland, who was standing, gray-whiskered and
red-faced, outside the gate of his garden, which opened on to the highroad
along which I travelled.

"Good-day, Dr. Watson," cried he
with unwonted good humour, "you must really give your horses a rest and
come in to have a glass of wine and to congratulate me."

My feelings towards him were very far from
being friendly after what I had heard of his treatment of his daughter, but I
was anxious to send Perkins and the wagonette home, and the opportunity was a
good one. I alighted and sent a message to Sir Henry that I should walk over in
time for dinner. Then I followed Frankland into his dining-room.

"It is a great day for me, sir—one of
the red-letter days of my life," he cried with many chuckles. "I have
brought off a double event. I mean to teach them in these parts that law is
law, and that there is a man here who does not fear to invoke it. I have
established a right of way through the centre of old Middleton's park, slap
across it, sir, within a hundred yards of his own front door. What do you think
of that? We'll teach these magnates that they cannot ride roughshod over the
rights of the commoners, confound them! And I've closed the wood where the
Fernworthy folk used to picnic. These infernal people seem to think that there
are no rights of property, and that they can swarm where they like with their
papers and their bottles. Both cases decided, Dr. Watson, and both in my
favour. I haven't had such a day since I had Sir John Morland for trespass
because he shot in his own warren."

"How on earth did you do that?"

"Look it up in the books, sir. It
will repay reading—Frankland v. Morland, Court of Queen's Bench. It cost me 200
pounds, but I got my verdict."

"Did it do you any good?"

"None, sir, none. I am proud to say
that I had no interest in the matter. I act entirely from a sense of public
duty. I have no doubt, for example, that the Fernworthy people will burn me in
effigy tonight. I told the police last time they did it that they should stop
these disgraceful exhibitions. The County Constabulary is in a scandalous
state, sir, and it has not afforded me the protection to which I am entitled.
The case of Frankland v. Regina will bring the matter before the attention of
the public. I told them that they would have occasion to regret their treatment
of me, and already my words have come true."

"How so?" I asked.

The old man put on a very knowing
expression. "Because I could tell them what they are dying to know; but
nothing would induce me to help the rascals in any way."

I had been casting round for some excuse
by which I could get away from his gossip, but now I began to wish to hear more
of it. I had seen enough of the contrary nature of the old sinner to understand
that any strong sign of interest would be the surest way to stop his
confidences.

"Some poaching case, no doubt?"
said I with an indifferent manner.

"Ha, ha, my boy, a very much more
important matter than that! What about the convict on the moor?"

I stared. "You don't mean that you
know where he is?" said I.

"I may not know exactly where he is,
but I am quite sure that I could help the police to lay their hands on him. Has
it never struck you that the way to catch that man was to find out where he got
his food and so trace it to him?"

He certainly seemed to be getting
uncomfortably near the truth. "No doubt," said I; "but how do
you know that he is anywhere upon the moor?"

"I know it because I have seen with
my own eyes the messenger who takes him his food."

My heart sank for Barrymore. It was a
serious thing to be in the power of this spiteful old busybody. But his next
remark took a weight from my mind.

"You'll be surprised to hear that his
food is taken to him by a child. I see him every day through my telescope upon
the roof. He passes along the same path at the same hour, and to whom should he
be going except to the convict?"

Here was luck indeed! And yet I suppressed
all appearance of interest. A child! Barrymore had said that our unknown was
supplied by a boy. It was on his track, and not upon the convict's, that
Frankland had stumbled. If I could get his knowledge it might save me a long
and weary hunt. But incredulity and indifference were evidently my strongest
cards.

"I should say that it was much more
likely that it was the son of one of the moorland shepherds taking out his
father's dinner."

The least appearance of opposition struck
fire out of the old autocrat. His eyes looked malignantly at me, and his gray
whiskers bristled like those of an angry cat.

"Indeed, sir!" said he, pointing
out over the wide-stretching moor. "Do you see that Black Tor over yonder?
Well, do you see the low hill beyond with the thornbush upon it? It is the
stoniest part of the whole moor. Is that a place where a shepherd would be
likely to take his station? Your suggestion, sir, is a most absurd one."

I meekly answered that I had spoken
without knowing all the facts. My submission pleased him and led him to further
confidences.

"You may be sure, sir, that I have
very good grounds before I come to an opinion. I have seen the boy again and
again with his bundle. Every day, and sometimes twice a day, I have been
able—but wait a moment, Dr. Watson. Do my eyes deceive me, or is there at the
present moment something moving upon that hillside?"

It was several miles off, but I could
distinctly see a small dark dot against the dull green and gray.

"Come, sir, come!" cried
Frankland, rushing upstairs. "You will see with your own eyes and judge
for yourself."

The telescope, a formidable instrument
mounted upon a tripod, stood upon the flat leads of the house. Frankland
clapped his eye to it and gave a cry of satisfaction.

"Quick, Dr. Watson, quick, before he
passes over the hill!"

There he was, sure enough, a small urchin
with a little bundle upon his shoulder, toiling slowly up the hill. When he
reached the crest I saw the ragged uncouth figure outlined for an instant
against the cold blue sky. He looked round him with a furtive and stealthy air,
as one who dreads pursuit. Then he vanished over the hill.

"Well! Am I right?"

"Certainly, there is a boy who seems
to have some secret errand."

"And what the errand is even a county
constable could guess. But not one word shall they have from me, and I bind you
to secrecy also, Dr. Watson. Not a word! You understand!"

"Just as you wish."

"They have treated me
shamefully—shamefully. When the facts come out in Frankland v. Regina I venture
to think that a thrill of indignation will run through the country. Nothing
would induce me to help the police in any way. For all they cared it might have
been me, instead of my effigy, which these rascals burned at the stake. Surely
you are not going! You will help me to empty the decanter in honour of this
great occasion!"

But I resisted all his solicitations and
succeeded in dissuading him from his announced intention of walking home with
me. I kept the road as long as his eye was on me, and then I struck off across
the moor and made for the stony hill over which the boy had disappeared.
Everything was working in my favour, and I swore that it should not be through
lack of energy or perseverance that I should miss the chance which fortune had
thrown in my way.

The sun was already sinking when I reached
the summit of the hill, and the long slopes beneath me were all golden-green on
one side and gray shadow on the other. A haze lay low upon the farthest
sky-line, out of which jutted the fantastic shapes of Belliver and Vixen Tor.
Over the wide expanse there was no sound and no movement. One great gray bird,
a gull or curlew, soared aloft in the blue heaven. He and I seemed to be the
only living things between the huge arch of the sky and the desert beneath it.
The barren scene, the sense of loneliness, and the mystery and urgency of my
task all struck a chill into my heart. The boy was nowhere to be seen. But down
beneath me in a cleft of the hills there was a circle of the old stone huts,
and in the middle of them there was one which retained sufficient roof to act
as a screen against the weather. My heart leaped within me as I saw it. This
must be the burrow where the stranger lurked. At last my foot was on the
threshold of his hiding place—his secret was within my grasp.

As I approached the hut, walking as warily
as Stapleton would do when with poised net he drew near the settled butterfly,
I satisfied myself that the place had indeed been used as a habitation. A vague
pathway among the boulders led to the dilapidated opening which served as a
door. All was silent within. The unknown might be lurking there, or he might be
prowling on the moor. My nerves tingled with the sense of adventure. Throwing
aside my cigarette, I closed my hand upon the butt of my revolver and, walking
swiftly up to the door, I looked in. The place was empty.

But there were ample signs that I had not
come upon a false scent. This was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets
rolled in a waterproof lay upon that very stone slab upon which Neolithic man
had once slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate. Beside it
lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water. A litter of empty
tins showed that the place had been occupied for some time, and I saw, as my
eyes became accustomed to the checkered light, a pannikin and a half-full
bottle of spirits standing in the corner. In the middle of the hut a flat stone
served the purpose of a table, and upon this stood a small cloth bundle—the
same, no doubt, which I had seen through the telescope upon the shoulder of the
boy. It contained a loaf of bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of preserved
peaches. As I set it down again, after having examined it, my heart leaped to
see that beneath it there lay a sheet of paper with writing upon it. I raised it,
and this was what I read, roughly scrawled in pencil: "Dr. Watson has gone
to Coombe Tracey."

For a minute I stood there with the paper
in my hands thinking out the meaning of this curt message. It was I, then, and
not Sir Henry, who was being dogged by this secret man. He had not followed me
himself, but he had set an agent—the boy, perhaps—upon my track, and this was
his report. Possibly I had taken no step since I had been upon the moor which
had not been observed and reported. Always there was this feeling of an unseen
force, a fine net drawn round us with infinite skill and delicacy, holding us
so lightly that it was only at some supreme moment that one realized that one
was indeed entangled in its meshes.

If there was one report there might be
others, so I looked round the hut in search of them. There was no trace,
however, of anything of the kind, nor could I discover any sign which might
indicate the character or intentions of the man who lived in this singular
place, save that he must be of Spartan habits and cared little for the comforts
of life. When I thought of the heavy rains and looked at the gaping roof I
understood how strong and immutable must be the purpose which had kept him in
that inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant enemy, or was he by chance our
guardian angel? I swore that I would not leave the hut until I knew.

Outside the sun was sinking low and the
west was blazing with scarlet and gold. Its reflection was shot back in ruddy
patches by the distant pools which lay amid the great Grimpen Mire. There were
the two towers of Baskerville Hall, and there a distant blur of smoke which
marked the village of Grimpen. Between the two, behind the hill, was the house
of the Stapletons. All was sweet and mellow and peaceful in the golden evening
light, and yet as I looked at them my soul shared none of the peace of Nature
but quivered at the vagueness and the terror of that interview which every
instant was bringing nearer. With tingling nerves but a fixed purpose, I sat in
the dark recess of the hut and waited with sombre patience for the coming of
its tenant.

And then at last I heard him. Far away
came the sharp clink of a boot striking upon a stone. Then another and yet
another, coming nearer and nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner and
cocked the pistol in my pocket, determined not to discover myself until I had
an opportunity of seeing something of the stranger. There was a long pause
which showed that he had stopped. Then once more the footsteps approached and a
shadow fell across the opening of the hut.

"It is a lovely evening, my dear
Watson," said a well-known voice. "I really think that you will be
more comfortable outside than in."

Chapter 12. Death on the Moor

For a moment or two I sat breathless,
hardly able to believe my ears. Then my senses and my voice came back to me,
while a crushing weight of responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted
from my soul. That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man
in all the world.

"Holmes!" I
cried—"Holmes!"

"Come out," said he, "and
please be careful with the revolver."

I stooped under the rude lintel, and there
he sat upon a stone outside, his gray eyes dancing with amusement as they fell
upon my astonished features. He was thin and worn, but clear and alert, his
keen face bronzed by the sun and roughened by the wind. In his tweed suit and
cloth cap he looked like any other tourist upon the moor, and he had contrived,
with that catlike love of personal cleanliness which was one of his
characteristics, that his chin should be as smooth and his linen as perfect as
if he were in Baker Street.

"I never was more glad to see anyone
in my life," said I as I wrung him by the hand.

"Or more astonished, eh?"

"Well, I must confess to it."

"The surprise was not all on one
side, I assure you. I had no idea that you had found my occasional retreat,
still less that you were inside it, until I was within twenty paces of the
door."

"My footprint, I presume?"

"No, Watson, I fear that I could not
undertake to recognize your footprint amid all the footprints of the world. If
you seriously desire to deceive me you must change your tobacconist; for when I
see the stub of a cigarette marked Bradley, Oxford Street, I know that my
friend Watson is in the neighbourhood. You will see it there beside the path.
You threw it down, no doubt, at that supreme moment when you charged into the
empty hut."

"Exactly."

"I thought as much—and knowing your
admirable tenacity I was convinced that you were sitting in ambush, a weapon
within reach, waiting for the tenant to return. So you actually thought that I
was the criminal?"

"I did not know who you were, but I
was determined to find out."

"Excellent, Watson! And how did you
localize me? You saw me, perhaps, on the night of the convict hunt, when I was
so imprudent as to allow the moon to rise behind me?"

"Yes, I saw you then."

"And have no doubt searched all the
huts until you came to this one?"

"No, your boy had been observed, and
that gave me a guide where to look."

"The old gentleman with the telescope,
no doubt. I could not make it out when first I saw the light flashing upon the
lens." He rose and peeped into the hut. "Ha, I see that Cartwright
has brought up some supplies. What's this paper? So you have been to Coombe
Tracey, have you?"

"Yes."

"To see Mrs. Laura Lyons?"

"Exactly."

"Well done! Our researches have
evidently been running on parallel lines, and when we unite our results I
expect we shall have a fairly full knowledge of the case."

"Well, I am glad from my heart that
you are here, for indeed the responsibility and the mystery were both becoming
too much for my nerves. But how in the name of wonder did you come here, and
what have you been doing? I thought that you were in Baker Street working out
that case of blackmailing."

"That was what I wished you to
think."

"Then you use me, and yet do not
trust me!" I cried with some bitterness. "I think that I have
deserved better at your hands, Holmes."

"My dear fellow, you have been
invaluable to me in this as in many other cases, and I beg that you will
forgive me if I have seemed to play a trick upon you. In truth, it was partly
for your own sake that I did it, and it was my appreciation of the danger which
you ran which led me to come down and examine the matter for myself. Had I been
with Sir Henry and you it is confident that my point of view would have been
the same as yours, and my presence would have warned our very formidable
opponents to be on their guard. As it is, I have been able to get about as I
could not possibly have done had I been living in the Hall, and I remain an
unknown factor in the business, ready to throw in all my weight at a critical
moment."

"But why keep me in the dark?"

"For you to know could not have
helped us and might possibly have led to my discovery. You would have wished to
tell me something, or in your kindness you would have brought me out some
comfort or other, and so an unnecessary risk would be run. I brought Cartwright
down with me—you remember the little chap at the express office—and he has seen
after my simple wants: a loaf of bread and a clean collar. What does man want
more? He has given me an extra pair of eyes upon a very active pair of feet,
and both have been invaluable."

"Then my reports have all been
wasted!"—My voice trembled as I recalled the pains and the pride with
which I had composed them.

Holmes took a bundle of papers from his
pocket.

"Here are your reports, my dear
fellow, and very well thumbed, I assure you. I made excellent arrangements, and
they are only delayed one day upon their way. I must compliment you exceedingly
upon the zeal and the intelligence which you have shown over an extraordinarily
difficult case."

I was still rather raw over the deception
which had been practised upon me, but the warmth of Holmes's praise drove my
anger from my mind. I felt also in my heart that he was right in what he said
and that it was really best for our purpose that I should not have known that
he was upon the moor.

"That's better," said he, seeing
the shadow rise from my face. "And now tell me the result of your visit to
Mrs. Laura Lyons—it was not difficult for me to guess that it was to see her
that you had gone, for I am already aware that she is the one person in Coombe
Tracey who might be of service to us in the matter. In fact, if you had not gone
today it is exceedingly probable that I should have gone tomorrow."

The sun had set and dusk was settling over
the moor. The air had turned chill and we withdrew into the hut for warmth.
There, sitting together in the twilight, I told Holmes of my conversation with
the lady. So interested was he that I had to repeat some of it twice before he
was satisfied.

"This is most important," said
he when I had concluded. "It fills up a gap which I had been unable to
bridge in this most complex affair. You are aware, perhaps, that a close
intimacy exists between this lady and the man Stapleton?"

"I did not know of a close
intimacy."

"There can be no doubt about the
matter. They meet, they write, there is a complete understanding between them.
Now, this puts a very powerful weapon into our hands. If I could only use it to
detach his wife—"

"His wife?"

"I am giving you some information
now, in return for all that you have given me. The lady who has passed here as
Miss Stapleton is in reality his wife."

"Good heavens, Holmes! Are you sure
of what you say? How could he have permitted Sir Henry to fall in love with
her?"

"Sir Henry's falling in love could do
no harm to anyone except Sir Henry. He took particular care that Sir Henry did
not make love to her, as you have yourself observed. I repeat that the lady is
his wife and not his sister."

"But why this elaborate
deception?"

"Because he foresaw that she would be
very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman."

All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions,
suddenly took shape and centred upon the naturalist. In that impassive
colourless man, with his straw hat and his butterfly-net, I seemed to see
something terrible—a creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling
face and a murderous heart.

"It is he, then, who is our enemy—it
is he who dogged us in London?"

"So I read the riddle."

"And the warning—it must have come
from her!"

"Exactly."

The shape of some monstrous villainy, half
seen, half guessed, loomed through the darkness which had girt me so long.

"But are you sure of this, Holmes?
How do you know that the woman is his wife?"

"Because he so far forgot himself as
to tell you a true piece of autobiography upon the occasion when he first met
you, and I dare say he has many a time regretted it since. He was once a
schoolmaster in the north of England. Now, there is no one more easy to trace
than a schoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies by which one may identify
any man who has been in the profession. A little investigation showed me that a
school had come to grief under atrocious circumstances, and that the man who
had owned it—the name was different—had disappeared with his wife. The
descriptions agreed. When I learned that the missing man was devoted to
entomology the identification was complete."

The darkness was rising, but much was
still hidden by the shadows.

"If this woman is in truth his wife,
where does Mrs. Laura Lyons come in?" I asked.

"That is one of the points upon which
your own researches have shed a light. Your interview with the lady has cleared
the situation very much. I did not know about a projected divorce between
herself and her husband. In that case, regarding Stapleton as an unmarried man,
she counted no doubt upon becoming his wife."

"And when she is undeceived?"

"Why, then we may find the lady of
service. It must be our first duty to see her—both of us—tomorrow. Don't you
think, Watson, that you are away from your charge rather long? Your place
should be at Baskerville Hall."

The last red streaks had faded away in the
west and night had settled upon the moor. A few faint stars were gleaming in a
violet sky.

"One last question, Holmes," I
said as I rose. "Surely there is no need of secrecy between you and me.
What is the meaning of it all? What is he after?"

Holmes's voice sank as he answered:

"It is murder, Watson—refined,
cold-blooded, deliberate murder. Do not ask me for particulars. My nets are
closing upon him, even as his are upon Sir Henry, and with your help he is
already almost at my mercy. There is but one danger which can threaten us. It
is that he should strike before we are ready to do so. Another day—two at the
most—and I have my case complete, but until then guard your charge as closely
as ever a fond mother watched her ailing child. Your mission today has
justified itself, and yet I could almost wish that you had not left his side.
Hark!"

A terrible scream—a prolonged yell of
horror and anguish—burst out of the silence of the moor. That frightful cry
turned the blood to ice in my veins.

"Oh, my God!" I gasped.
"What is it? What does it mean?"

Holmes had sprung to his feet, and I saw
his dark, athletic outline at the door of the hut, his shoulders stooping, his
head thrust forward, his face peering into the darkness.

"Hush!" he whispered.
"Hush!"

The cry had been loud on account of its
vehemence, but it had pealed out from somewhere far off on the shadowy plain.
Now it burst upon our ears, nearer, louder, more urgent than before.

"Where is it?" Holmes whispered;
and I knew from the thrill of his voice that he, the man of iron, was shaken to
the soul. "Where is it, Watson?"

"There, I think." I pointed into
the darkness.

"No, there!"

Again the agonized cry swept through the
silent night, louder and much nearer than ever. And a new sound mingled with it,
a deep, muttered rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling like the
low, constant murmur of the sea.

"The hound!" cried Holmes.
"Come, Watson, come! Great heavens, if we are too late!"

He had started running swiftly over the
moor, and I had followed at his heels. But now from somewhere among the broken
ground immediately in front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then
a dull, heavy thud. We halted and listened. Not another sound broke the heavy
silence of the windless night.

I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead
like a man distracted. He stamped his feet upon the ground.

"He has beaten us, Watson. We are too
late."

"No, no, surely not!"

"Fool that I was to hold my hand. And
you, Watson, see what comes of abandoning your charge! But, by Heaven, if the
worst has happened we'll avenge him!"

Blindly we ran through the gloom,
blundering against boulders, forcing our way through gorse bushes, panting up
hills and rushing down slopes, heading always in the direction whence those
dreadful sounds had come. At every rise Holmes looked eagerly round him, but
the shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its dreary face.

"Can you see anything?"

"Nothing."

"But, hark, what is that?"

A low moan had fallen upon our ears. There
it was again upon our left! On that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer
cliff which overlooked a stone-strewn slope. On its jagged face was
spread-eagled some dark, irregular object. As we ran towards it the vague
outline hardened into a definite shape. It was a prostrate man face downward
upon the ground, the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the shoulders
rounded and the body hunched together as if in the act of throwing a
somersault. So grotesque was the attitude that I could not for the instant
realize that that moan had been the passing of his soul. Not a whisper, not a
rustle, rose now from the dark figure over which we stooped. Holmes laid his
hand upon him and held it up again with an exclamation of horror. The gleam of
the match which he struck shone upon his clotted fingers and upon the ghastly
pool which widened slowly from the crushed skull of the victim. And it shone
upon something else which turned our hearts sick and faint within us—the body
of Sir Henry Baskerville!

There was no chance of either of us
forgetting that peculiar ruddy tweed suit—the very one which he had worn on the
first morning that we had seen him in Baker Street. We caught the one clear
glimpse of it, and then the match flickered and went out, even as the hope had gone
out of our souls. Holmes groaned, and his face glimmered white through the
darkness.

"The brute! The brute!" I cried
with clenched hands. "Oh Holmes, I shall never forgive myself for having
left him to his fate."

"I am more to blame than you, Watson.
In order to have my case well rounded and complete, I have thrown away the life
of my client. It is the greatest blow which has befallen me in my career. But
how could I know—how could I know—that he would risk his life alone upon the
moor in the face of all my warnings?"

"That we should have heard his
screams—my God, those screams!—and yet have been unable to save him! Where is
this brute of a hound which drove him to his death? It may be lurking among
these rocks at this instant. And Stapleton, where is he? He shall answer for
this deed."

"He shall. I will see to that. Uncle
and nephew have been murdered—the one frightened to death by the very sight of
a beast which he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in his
wild flight to escape from it. But now we have to prove the connection between
the man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we cannot even swear to the
existence of the latter, since Sir Henry has evidently died from the fall. But,
by heavens, cunning as he is, the fellow shall be in my power before another
day is past!"

We stood with bitter hearts on either side
of the mangled body, overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which
had brought all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then as the
moon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor friend had
fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy moor, half silver and
half gloom. Far away, miles off, in the direction of Grimpen, a single steady
yellow light was shining. It could only come from the lonely abode of the
Stapletons. With a bitter curse I shook my fist at it as I gazed.

"Why should we not seize him at
once?"

"Our case is not complete. The fellow
is wary and cunning to the last degree. It is not what we know, but what we can
prove. If we make one false move the villain may escape us yet."

"What can we do?"

"There will be plenty for us to do
tomorrow. Tonight we can only perform the last offices to our poor
friend."

Together we made our way down the
precipitous slope and approached the body, black and clear against the silvered
stones. The agony of those contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and
blurred my eyes with tears.

"We must send for help, Holmes! We
cannot carry him all the way to the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?"

He had uttered a cry and bent over the
body. Now he was dancing and laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my
stern, self-contained friend? These were hidden fires, indeed!

"A beard! A beard! The man has a
beard!"

"A beard?"

"It is not the baronet—it is—why, it
is my neighbour, the convict!"

With feverish haste we had turned the body
over, and that dripping beard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There
could be no doubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was indeed
the same face which had glared upon me in the light of the candle from over the
rock—the face of Selden, the criminal.

Then in an instant it was all clear to me.
I remembered how the baronet had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to
Barrymore. Barrymore had passed it on in order to help Selden in his escape.
Boots, shirt, cap—it was all Sir Henry's. The tragedy was still black enough,
but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of his country. I told
Holmes how the matter stood, my heart bubbling over with thankfulness and joy.

"Then the clothes have been the poor
devil's death," said he. "It is clear enough that the hound has been
laid on from some article of Sir Henry's—the boot which was abstracted in the
hotel, in all probability—and so ran this man down. There is one very singular
thing, however: How came Selden, in the darkness, to know that the hound was on
his trail?"

"He heard him."

"To hear a hound upon the moor would
not work a hard man like this convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he
would risk recapture by screaming wildly for help. By his cries he must have
run a long way after he knew the animal was on his track. How did he
know?"

"A greater mystery to me is why this
hound, presuming that all our conjectures are correct—"

"I presume nothing."

"Well, then, why this hound should be
loose tonight. I suppose that it does not always run loose upon the moor.
Stapleton would not let it go unless he had reason to think that Sir Henry
would be there."

"My difficulty is the more formidable
of the two, for I think that we shall very shortly get an explanation of yours,
while mine may remain forever a mystery. The question now is, what shall we do
with this poor wretch's body? We cannot leave it here to the foxes and the ravens."

"I suggest that we put it in one of
the huts until we can communicate with the police."

"Exactly. I have no doubt that you
and I could carry it so far. Halloa, Watson, what's this? It's the man himself,
by all that's wonderful and audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions—not a
word, or my plans crumble to the ground."

A figure was approaching us over the moor,
and I saw the dull red glow of a cigar. The moon shone upon him, and I could
distinguish the dapper shape and jaunty walk of the naturalist. He stopped when
he saw us, and then came on again.

"Why, Dr. Watson, that's not you, is
it? You are the last man that I should have expected to see out on the moor at
this time of night. But, dear me, what's this? Somebody hurt? Not—don't tell me
that it is our friend Sir Henry!" He hurried past me and stooped over the
dead man. I heard a sharp intake of his breath and the cigar fell from his
fingers.

"Who—who's this?" he stammered.

"It is Selden, the man who escaped
from Princetown."

Stapleton turned a ghastly face upon us,
but by a supreme effort he had overcome his amazement and his disappointment.
He looked sharply from Holmes to me. "Dear me! What a very shocking
affair! How did he die?"

"He appears to have broken his neck
by falling over these rocks. My friend and I were strolling on the moor when we
heard a cry."

"I heard a cry also. That was what
brought me out. I was uneasy about Sir Henry."

"Why about Sir Henry in
particular?" I could not help asking.

"Because I had suggested that he
should come over. When he did not come I was surprised, and I naturally became
alarmed for his safety when I heard cries upon the moor. By the way"—his
eyes darted again from my face to Holmes's—"did you hear anything else
besides a cry?"

"No," said Holmes; "did
you?"

"No."

"What do you mean, then?"

"Oh, you know the stories that the
peasants tell about a phantom hound, and so on. It is said to be heard at night
upon the moor. I was wondering if there were any evidence of such a sound
tonight."

"We heard nothing of the kind,"
said I.

"And what is your theory of this poor
fellow's death?"

"I have no doubt that anxiety and
exposure have driven him off his head. He has rushed about the moor in a crazy
state and eventually fallen over here and broken his neck."

"That seems the most reasonable
theory," said Stapleton, and he gave a sigh which I took to indicate his
relief. "What do you think about it, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

My friend bowed his compliments. "You
are quick at identification," said he.

"We have been expecting you in these
parts since Dr. Watson came down. You are in time to see a tragedy."

"Yes, indeed. I have no doubt that my
friend's explanation will cover the facts. I will take an unpleasant
remembrance back to London with me tomorrow."

"Oh, you return tomorrow?"

"That is my intention."

"I hope your visit has cast some
light upon those occurrences which have puzzled us?"

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

"One cannot always have the success
for which one hopes. An investigator needs facts and not legends or rumours. It
has not been a satisfactory case."

My friend spoke in his frankest and most
unconcerned manner. Stapleton still looked hard at him. Then he turned to me.

"I would suggest carrying this poor
fellow to my house, but it would give my sister such a fright that I do not
feel justified in doing it. I think that if we put something over his face he
will be safe until morning."

And so it was arranged. Resisting
Stapleton's offer of hospitality, Holmes and I set off to Baskerville Hall,
leaving the naturalist to return alone. Looking back we saw the figure moving
slowly away over the broad moor, and behind him that one black smudge on the
silvered slope which showed where the man was lying who had come so horribly to
his end.

Chapter 13. Fixing the Nets

"We're at close grips at last,"
said Holmes as we walked together across the moor. "What a nerve the
fellow has! How he pulled himself together in the face of what must have been a
paralyzing shock when he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his
plot. I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again, that we have
never had a foeman more worthy of our steel."

"I am sorry that he has seen
you."

"And so was I at first. But there was
no getting out of it."

"What effect do you think it will
have upon his plans now that he knows you are here?"

"It may cause him to be more
cautious, or it may drive him to desperate measures at once. Like most clever
criminals, he may be too confident in his own cleverness and imagine that he
has completely deceived us."

"Why should we not arrest him at
once?"

"My dear Watson, you were born to be
a man of action. Your instinct is always to do something energetic. But
supposing, for argument's sake, that we had him arrested tonight, what on earth
the better off should we be for that? We could prove nothing against him.
There's the devilish cunning of it! If he were acting through a human agent we
could get some evidence, but if we were to drag this great dog to the light of
day it would not help us in putting a rope round the neck of its master."

"Surely we have a case."

"Not a shadow of one—only surmise and
conjecture. We should be laughed out of court if we came with such a story and
such evidence."

"There is Sir Charles's death."

"Found dead without a mark upon him.
You and I know that he died of sheer fright, and we know also what frightened
him, but how are we to get twelve stolid jurymen to know it? What signs are
there of a hound? Where are the marks of its fangs? Of course we know that a
hound does not bite a dead body and that Sir Charles was dead before ever the
brute overtook him. But we have to prove all this, and we are not in a position
to do it."

"Well, then, tonight?"

"We are not much better off tonight.
Again, there was no direct connection between the hound and the man's death. We
never saw the hound. We heard it, but we could not prove that it was running
upon this man's trail. There is a complete absence of motive. No, my dear
fellow; we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we have no case at
present, and that it is worth our while to run any risk in order to establish
one."

"And how do you propose to do
so?"

"I have great hopes of what Mrs.
Laura Lyons may do for us when the position of affairs is made clear to her.
And I have my own plan as well. Sufficient for tomorrow is the evil thereof;
but I hope before the day is past to have the upper hand at last."

I could draw nothing further from him, and
he walked, lost in thought, as far as the Baskerville gates.

"Are you coming up?"

"Yes; I see no reason for further
concealment. But one last word, Watson. Say nothing of the hound to Sir Henry.
Let him think that Selden's death was as Stapleton would have us believe. He
will have a better nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo tomorrow,
when he is engaged, if I remember your report aright, to dine with these
people."

"And so am I."

"Then you must excuse yourself and he
must go alone. That will be easily arranged. And now, if we are too late for
dinner, I think that we are both ready for our suppers."

Sir Henry was more pleased than surprised
to see Sherlock Holmes, for he had for some days been expecting that recent
events would bring him down from London. He did raise his eyebrows, however,
when he found that my friend had neither any luggage nor any explanations for
its absence. Between us we soon supplied his wants, and then over a belated
supper we explained to the baronet as much of our experience as it seemed
desirable that he should know. But first I had the unpleasant duty of breaking
the news to Barrymore and his wife. To him it may have been an unmitigated
relief, but she wept bitterly in her apron. To all the world he was the man of
violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little
wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil
indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

"I've been moping in the house all
day since Watson went off in the morning," said the baronet. "I guess
I should have some credit, for I have kept my promise. If I hadn't sworn not to
go about alone I might have had a more lively evening, for I had a message from
Stapleton asking me over there."

"I have no doubt that you would have
had a more lively evening," said Holmes drily. "By the way, I don't
suppose you appreciate that we have been mourning over you as having broken
your neck?"

Sir Henry opened his eyes. "How was
that?"

"This poor wretch was dressed in your
clothes. I fear your servant who gave them to him may get into trouble with the
police."

"That is unlikely. There was no mark
on any of them, as far as I know."

"That's lucky for him—in fact, it's
lucky for all of you, since you are all on the wrong side of the law in this
matter. I am not sure that as a conscientious detective my first duty is not to
arrest the whole household. Watson's reports are most incriminating
documents."

"But how about the case?" asked
the baronet. "Have you made anything out of the tangle? I don't know that
Watson and I are much the wiser since we came down."

"I think that I shall be in a
position to make the situation rather more clear to you before long. It has
been an exceedingly difficult and most complicated business. There are several
points upon which we still want light—but it is coming all the same."

"We've had one experience, as Watson
has no doubt told you. We heard the hound on the moor, so I can swear that it
is not all empty superstition. I had something to do with dogs when I was out
West, and I know one when I hear one. If you can muzzle that one and put him on
a chain I'll be ready to swear you are the greatest detective of all
time."

"I think I will muzzle him and chain
him all right if you will give me your help."

"Whatever you tell me to do I will
do."

"Very good; and I will ask you also
to do it blindly, without always asking the reason."

"Just as you like."

"If you will do this I think the
chances are that our little problem will soon be solved. I have no doubt—"

He stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up
over my head into the air. The lamp beat upon his face, and so intent was it
and so still that it might have been that of a clear-cut classical statue, a
personification of alertness and expectation.

"What is it?" we both cried.

I could see as he looked down that he was
repressing some internal emotion. His features were still composed, but his
eyes shone with amused exultation.

"Excuse the admiration of a
connoisseur," said he as he waved his hand towards the line of portraits
which covered the opposite wall. "Watson won't allow that I know anything
of art but that is mere jealousy because our views upon the subject differ.
Now, these are a really very fine series of portraits."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you say
so," said Sir Henry, glancing with some surprise at my friend. "I
don't pretend to know much about these things, and I'd be a better judge of a
horse or a steer than of a picture. I didn't know that you found time for such
things."

"I know what is good when I see it,
and I see it now. That's a Kneller, I'll swear, that lady in the blue silk over
yonder, and the stout gentleman with the wig ought to be a Reynolds. They are
all family portraits, I presume?"

"Every one."

"Do you know the names?"

"Barrymore has been coaching me in
them, and I think I can say my lessons fairly well."

"Who is the gentleman with the
telescope?"

"That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville,
who served under Rodney in the West Indies. The man with the blue coat and the
roll of paper is Sir William Baskerville, who was Chairman of Committees of the
House of Commons under Pitt."

"And this Cavalier opposite to me—the
one with the black velvet and the lace?"

"Ah, you have a right to know about
him. That is the cause of all the mischief, the wicked Hugo, who started the
Hound of the Baskervilles. We're not likely to forget him."

I gazed with interest and some surprise
upon the portrait.

"Dear me!" said Holmes, "he
seems a quiet, meek-mannered man enough, but I dare say that there was a
lurking devil in his eyes. I had pictured him as a more robust and ruffianly
person."

"There's no doubt about the
authenticity, for the name and the date, 1647, are on the back of the
canvas."

Holmes said little more, but the picture
of the old roysterer seemed to have a fascination for him, and his eyes were
continually fixed upon it during supper. It was not until later, when Sir Henry
had gone to his room, that I was able to follow the trend of his thoughts. He
led me back into the banqueting-hall, his bedroom candle in his hand, and he
held it up against the time-stained portrait on the wall.

"Do you see anything there?"

I looked at the broad plumed hat, the
curling love-locks, the white lace collar, and the straight, severe face which
was framed between them. It was not a brutal countenance, but it was prim,
hard, and stern, with a firm-set, thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly intolerant
eye.

"Is it like anyone you know?"

"There is something of Sir Henry
about the jaw."

"Just a suggestion, perhaps. But wait
an instant!" He stood upon a chair, and, holding up the light in his left
hand, he curved his right arm over the broad hat and round the long ringlets.

"Good heavens!" I cried in
amazement.

The face of Stapleton had sprung out of
the canvas.

"Ha, you see it now. My eyes have
been trained to examine faces and not their trimmings. It is the first quality
of a criminal investigator that he should see through a disguise."

"But this is marvellous. It might be
his portrait."

"Yes, it is an interesting instance
of a throwback, which appears to be both physical and spiritual. A study of
family portraits is enough to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation.
The fellow is a Baskerville—that is evident."

"With designs upon the
succession."

"Exactly. This chance of the picture
has supplied us with one of our most obvious missing links. We have him,
Watson, we have him, and I dare swear that before tomorrow night he will be
fluttering in our net as helpless as one of his own butterflies. A pin, a cork,
and a card, and we add him to the Baker Street collection!" He burst into
one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not
heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.

I was up betimes in the morning, but
Holmes was afoot earlier still, for I saw him as I dressed, coming up the
drive.

"Yes, we should have a full day
today," he remarked, and he rubbed his hands with the joy of action.
"The nets are all in place, and the drag is about to begin. We'll know
before the day is out whether we have caught our big, leanjawed pike, or
whether he has got through the meshes."

"Have you been on the moor
already?"

"I have sent a report from Grimpen to
Princetown as to the death of Selden. I think I can promise that none of you
will be troubled in the matter. And I have also communicated with my faithful
Cartwright, who would certainly have pined away at the door of my hut, as a dog
does at his master's grave, if I had not set his mind at rest about my
safety."

"What is the next move?"

"To see Sir Henry. Ah, here he
is!"

"Good-morning, Holmes," said the
baronet. "You look like a general who is planning a battle with his chief
of the staff."

"That is the exact situation. Watson
was asking for orders."

"And so do I."

"Very good. You are engaged, as I
understand, to dine with our friends the Stapletons tonight."

"I hope that you will come also. They
are very hospitable people, and I am sure that they would be very glad to see
you."

"I fear that Watson and I must go to
London."

"To London?"

"Yes, I think that we should be more
useful there at the present juncture."

The baronet's face perceptibly lengthened.

"I hoped that you were going to see
me through this business. The Hall and the moor are not very pleasant places
when one is alone."

"My dear fellow, you must trust me
implicitly and do exactly what I tell you. You can tell your friends that we
should have been happy to have come with you, but that urgent business required
us to be in town. We hope very soon to return to Devonshire. Will you remember
to give them that message?"

"If you insist upon it."

"There is no alternative, I assure
you."

I saw by the baronet's clouded brow that
he was deeply hurt by what he regarded as our desertion.

"When do you desire to go?" he
asked coldly.

"Immediately after breakfast. We will
drive in to Coombe Tracey, but Watson will leave his things as a pledge that he
will come back to you. Watson, you will send a note to Stapleton to tell him
that you regret that you cannot come."

"I have a good mind to go to London
with you," said the baronet. "Why should I stay here alone?"

"Because it is your post of duty.
Because you gave me your word that you would do as you were told, and I tell
you to stay."

"All right, then, I'll stay."

"One more direction! I wish you to
drive to Merripit House. Send back your trap, however, and let them know that
you intend to walk home."

"To walk across the moor?"

"Yes."

"But that is the very thing which you
have so often cautioned me not to do."

"This time you may do it with safety.
If I had not every confidence in your nerve and courage I would not suggest it,
but it is essential that you should do it."

"Then I will do it."

"And as you value your life do not go
across the moor in any direction save along the straight path which leads from
Merripit House to the Grimpen Road, and is your natural way home."

"I will do just what you say."

"Very good. I should be glad to get
away as soon after breakfast as possible, so as to reach London in the
afternoon."

I was much astounded by this programme,
though I remembered that Holmes had said to Stapleton on the night before that
his visit would terminate next day. It had not crossed my mind however, that he
would wish me to go with him, nor could I understand how we could both be
absent at a moment which he himself declared to be critical. There was nothing
for it, however, but implicit obedience; so we bade good-bye to our rueful
friend, and a couple of hours afterwards we were at the station of Coombe
Tracey and had dispatched the trap upon its return journey. A small boy was
waiting upon the platform.

"Any orders, sir?"

"You will take this train to town, Cartwright.
The moment you arrive you will send a wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, in my
name, to say that if he finds the pocketbook which I have dropped he is to send
it by registered post to Baker Street."

"Yes, sir."

"And ask at the station office if there
is a message for me."

The boy returned with a telegram, which
Holmes handed to me. It ran:

Wire received. Coming down with unsigned
warrant. Arrive five-forty. Lestrade.

"That is in answer to mine of this
morning. He is the best of the professionals, I think, and we may need his
assistance. Now, Watson, I think that we cannot employ our time better than by
calling upon your acquaintance, Mrs. Laura Lyons."

His plan of campaign was beginning to be
evident. He would use the baronet in order to convince the Stapletons that we
were really gone, while we should actually return at the instant when we were
likely to be needed. That telegram from London, if mentioned by Sir Henry to
the Stapletons, must remove the last suspicions from their minds. Already I seemed
to see our nets drawing closer around that leanjawed pike.

Mrs. Laura Lyons was in her office, and
Sherlock Holmes opened his interview with a frankness and directness which
considerably amazed her.

"I am investigating the circumstances
which attended the death of the late Sir Charles Baskerville," said he.
"My friend here, Dr. Watson, has informed me of what you have
communicated, and also of what you have withheld in connection with that
matter."

"What have I withheld?" she
asked defiantly.

"You have confessed that you asked
Sir Charles to be at the gate at ten o'clock. We know that that was the place
and hour of his death. You have withheld what the connection is between these
events."

"There is no connection."

"In that case the coincidence must
indeed be an extraordinary one. But I think that we shall succeed in
establishing a connection, after all. I wish to be perfectly frank with you,
Mrs. Lyons. We regard this case as one of murder, and the evidence may
implicate not only your friend Mr. Stapleton but his wife as well."

The lady sprang from her chair.

"His wife!" she cried.

"The fact is no longer a secret. The
person who has passed for his sister is really his wife."

Mrs. Lyons had resumed her seat. Her hands
were grasping the arms of her chair, and I saw that the pink nails had turned
white with the pressure of her grip.

"His wife!" she said again.
"His wife! He is not a married man."

Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

"Prove it to me! Prove it to me! And
if you can do so—!"

The fierce flash of her eyes said more
than any words.

"I have come prepared to do so,"
said Holmes, drawing several papers from his pocket. "Here is a photograph
of the couple taken in York four years ago. It is indorsed 'Mr. and Mrs.
Vandeleur,' but you will have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also,
if you know her by sight. Here are three written descriptions by trustworthy
witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur, who at that time kept St. Oliver's private
school. Read them and see if you can doubt the identity of these people."

She glanced at them, and then looked up at
us with the set, rigid face of a desperate woman.

"Mr. Holmes," she said,
"this man had offered me marriage on condition that I could get a divorce
from my husband. He has lied to me, the villain, in every conceivable way. Not
one word of truth has he ever told me. And why—why? I imagined that all was for
my own sake. But now I see that I was never anything but a tool in his hands.
Why should I preserve faith with him who never kept any with me? Why should I
try to shield him from the consequences of his own wicked acts? Ask me what you
like, and there is nothing which I shall hold back. One thing I swear to you,
and that is that when I wrote the letter I never dreamed of any harm to the old
gentleman, who had been my kindest friend."

"I entirely believe you, madam,"
said Sherlock Holmes. "The recital of these events must be very painful to
you, and perhaps it will make it easier if I tell you what occurred, and you
can check me if I make any material mistake. The sending of this letter was
suggested to you by Stapleton?"

"He dictated it."

"I presume that the reason he gave
was that you would receive help from Sir Charles for the legal expenses
connected with your divorce?"

"Exactly."

"And then after you had sent the
letter he dissuaded you from keeping the appointment?"

"He told me that it would hurt his
self-respect that any other man should find the money for such an object, and
that though he was a poor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing
the obstacles which divided us."

"He appears to be a very consistent
character. And then you heard nothing until you read the reports of the death
in the paper?"

"No."

"And he made you swear to say nothing
about your appointment with Sir Charles?"

"He did. He said that the death was a
very mysterious one, and that I should certainly be suspected if the facts came
out. He frightened me into remaining silent."

"Quite so. But you had your
suspicions?"

She hesitated and looked down.

"I knew him," she said.
"But if he had kept faith with me I should always have done so with
him."

"I think that on the whole you have
had a fortunate escape," said Sherlock Holmes. "You have had him in
your power and he knew it, and yet you are alive. You have been walking for some
months very near to the edge of a precipice. We must wish you good-morning now,
Mrs. Lyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly hear from us
again."

"Our case becomes rounded off, and
difficulty after difficulty thins away in front of us," said Holmes as we
stood waiting for the arrival of the express from town. "I shall soon be
in the position of being able to put into a single connected narrative one of
the most singular and sensational crimes of modern times. Students of
criminology will remember the analogous incidents in Godno, in Little Russia,
in the year '66, and of course there are the Anderson murders in North
Carolina, but this case possesses some features which are entirely its own.
Even now we have no clear case against this very wily man. But I shall be very
much surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this night."

The London express came roaring into the
station, and a small, wiry bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class
carriage. We all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way
in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since
the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn
which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in the practical man.

"Anything good?" he asked.

"The biggest thing for years,"
said Holmes. "We have two hours before we need think of starting. I think
we might employ it in getting some dinner and then, Lestrade, we will take the
London fog out of your throat by giving you a breath of the pure night air of
Dartmoor. Never been there? Ah, well, I don't suppose you will forget your
first visit."

Chapter 14. The Hound of the Baskervilles

One of Sherlock Holmes's defects—if,
indeed, one may call it a defect—was that he was exceedingly loath to
communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their
fulfilment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved
to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his
professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances. The result,
however, was very trying for those who were acting as his agents and
assistants. I had often suffered under it, but never more so than during that
long drive in the darkness. The great ordeal was in front of us; at last we
were about to make our final effort, and yet Holmes had said nothing, and I
could only surmise what his course of action would be. My nerves thrilled with
anticipation when at last the cold wind upon our faces and the dark, void
spaces on either side of the narrow road told me that we were back upon the
moor once again. Every stride of the horses and every turn of the wheels was
taking us nearer to our supreme adventure.

Our conversation was hampered by the
presence of the driver of the hired wagonette, so that we were forced to talk
of trivial matters when our nerves were tense with emotion and anticipation. It
was a relief to me, after that unnatural restraint, when we at last passed
Frankland's house and knew that we were drawing near to the Hall and to the
scene of action. We did not drive up to the door but got down near the gate of
the avenue. The wagonette was paid off and ordered to return to Coombe Tracey
forthwith, while we started to walk to Merripit House.

"Are you armed, Lestrade?"

The little detective smiled. "As long
as I have my trousers I have a hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket
I have something in it."

"Good! My friend and I are also ready
for emergencies."

"You're mighty close about this
affair, Mr. Holmes. What's the game now?"

"A waiting game."

"My word, it does not seem a very
cheerful place," said the detective with a shiver, glancing round him at
the gloomy slopes of the hill and at the huge lake of fog which lay over the
Grimpen Mire. "I see the lights of a house ahead of us."

"That is Merripit House and the end
of our journey. I must request you to walk on tiptoe and not to talk above a
whisper."

We moved cautiously along the track as if
we were bound for the house, but Holmes halted us when we were about two
hundred yards from it.

"This will do," said he.
"These rocks upon the right make an admirable screen."

"We are to wait here?"

"Yes, we shall make our little ambush
here. Get into this hollow, Lestrade. You have been inside the house, have you
not, Watson? Can you tell the position of the rooms? What are those latticed
windows at this end?"

"I think they are the kitchen
windows."

"And the one beyond, which shines so
brightly?"

"That is certainly the
dining-room."

"The blinds are up. You know the lie
of the land best. Creep forward quietly and see what they are doing—but for
heaven's sake don't let them know that they are watched!"

I tiptoed down the path and stooped behind
the low wall which surrounded the stunted orchard. Creeping in its shadow I
reached a point whence I could look straight through the uncurtained window.

There were only two men in the room, Sir
Henry and Stapleton. They sat with their profiles towards me on either side of
the round table. Both of them were smoking cigars, and coffee and wine were in
front of them. Stapleton was talking with animation, but the baronet looked
pale and distrait. Perhaps the thought of that lonely walk across the
ill-omened moor was weighing heavily upon his mind.

As I watched them Stapleton rose and left
the room, while Sir Henry filled his glass again and leaned back in his chair,
puffing at his cigar. I heard the creak of a door and the crisp sound of boots
upon gravel. The steps passed along the path on the other side of the wall
under which I crouched. Looking over, I saw the naturalist pause at the door of
an out-house in the corner of the orchard. A key turned in a lock, and as he
passed in there was a curious scuffling noise from within. He was only a minute
or so inside, and then I heard the key turn once more and he passed me and
reentered the house. I saw him rejoin his guest, and I crept quietly back to
where my companions were waiting to tell them what I had seen.

"You say, Watson, that the lady is
not there?" Holmes asked when I had finished my report.

"No."

"Where can she be, then, since there
is no light in any other room except the kitchen?"

"I cannot think where she is."

I have said that over the great Grimpen
Mire there hung a dense, white fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction and
banked itself up like a wall on that side of us, low but thick and well
defined. The moon shone on it, and it looked like a great shimmering ice-field,
with the heads of the distant tors as rocks borne upon its surface. Holmes's
face was turned towards it, and he muttered impatiently as he watched its
sluggish drift.

"It's moving towards us,
Watson."

"Is that serious?"

"Very serious, indeed—the one thing
upon earth which could have disarranged my plans. He can't be very long, now.
It is already ten o'clock. Our success and even his life may depend upon his
coming out before the fog is over the path."

The night was clear and fine above us. The
stars shone cold and bright, while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a
soft, uncertain light. Before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its serrated
roof and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky.
Broad bars of golden light from the lower windows stretched across the orchard
and the moor. One of them was suddenly shut off. The servants had left the
kitchen. There only remained the lamp in the dining-room where the two men, the
murderous host and the unconscious guest, still chatted over their cigars.

Every minute that white woolly plain which
covered one-half of the moor was drifting closer and closer to the house.
Already the first thin wisps of it were curling across the golden square of the
lighted window. The farther wall of the orchard was already invisible, and the
trees were standing out of a swirl of white vapour. As we watched it the
fog-wreaths came crawling round both corners of the house and rolled slowly
into one dense bank on which the upper floor and the roof floated like a
strange ship upon a shadowy sea. Holmes struck his hand passionately upon the
rock in front of us and stamped his feet in his impatience.

"If he isn't out in a quarter of an
hour the path will be covered. In half an hour we won't be able to see our
hands in front of us."

"Shall we move farther back upon
higher ground?"

"Yes, I think it would be as
well."

So as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell
back before it until we were half a mile from the house, and still that dense
white sea, with the moon silvering its upper edge, swept slowly and inexorably
on.

"We are going too far," said
Holmes. "We dare not take the chance of his being overtaken before he can
reach us. At all costs we must hold our ground where we are." He dropped
on his knees and clapped his ear to the ground. "Thank God, I think that I
hear him coming."

A sound of quick steps broke the silence
of the moor. Crouching among the stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped
bank in front of us. The steps grew louder, and through the fog, as through a
curtain, there stepped the man whom we were awaiting. He looked round him in
surprise as he emerged into the clear, starlit night. Then he came swiftly
along the path, passed close to where we lay, and went on up the long slope
behind us. As he walked he glanced continually over either shoulder, like a man
who is ill at ease.

"Hist!" cried Holmes, and I
heard the sharp click of a cocking pistol. "Look out! It's coming!"

There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter
from somewhere in the heart of that crawling bank. The cloud was within fifty
yards of where we lay, and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what horror
was about to break from the heart of it. I was at Holmes's elbow, and I glanced
for an instant at his face. It was pale and exultant, his eyes shining brightly
in the moonlight. But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare,
and his lips parted in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade gave a yell of
terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I sprang to my feet, my
inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which
had sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous
coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire
burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle
and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the
delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more
appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which
broke upon us out of the wall of fog.

With long bounds the huge black creature
was leaping down the track, following hard upon the footsteps of our friend. So
paralyzed were we by the apparition that we allowed him to pass before we had
recovered our nerve. Then Holmes and I both fired together, and the creature
gave a hideous howl, which showed that one at least had hit him. He did not
pause, however, but bounded onward. Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry
looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror,
glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that
cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was
vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never
have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night. I am reckoned fleet of foot,
but he outpaced me as much as I outpaced the little professional. In front of
us as we flew up the track we heard scream after scream from Sir Henry and the
deep roar of the hound. I was in time to see the beast spring upon its victim,
hurl him to the ground, and worry at his throat. But the next instant Holmes
had emptied five barrels of his revolver into the creature's flank. With a last
howl of agony and a vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back, four feet
pawing furiously, and then fell limp upon its side. I stooped, panting, and
pressed my pistol to the dreadful, shimmering head, but it was useless to press
the trigger. The giant hound was dead.

Sir Henry lay insensible where he had
fallen. We tore away his collar, and Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when
we saw that there was no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in time.
Already our friend's eyelids shivered and he made a feeble effort to move.
Lestrade thrust his brandy-flask between the baronet's teeth, and two
frightened eyes were looking up at us.

"My God!" he whispered.
"What was it? What, in heaven's name, was it?"

"It's dead, whatever it is,"
said Holmes. "We've laid the family ghost once and forever."

In mere size and strength it was a
terrible creature which was lying stretched before us. It was not a pure
bloodhound and it was not a pure mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination
of the two—gaunt, savage, and as large as a small lioness. Even now in the
stillness of death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and
the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire. I placed my hand upon
the glowing muzzle, and as I held them up my own fingers smouldered and gleamed
in the darkness.

"Phosphorus," I said.

"A cunning preparation of it,"
said Holmes, sniffing at the dead animal. "There is no smell which might
have interfered with his power of scent. We owe you a deep apology, Sir Henry,
for having exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not for such
a creature as this. And the fog gave us little time to receive him."

"You have saved my life."

"Having first endangered it. Are you
strong enough to stand?"

"Give me another mouthful of that
brandy and I shall be ready for anything. So! Now, if you will help me up. What
do you propose to do?"

"To leave you here. You are not fit
for further adventures tonight. If you will wait, one or other of us will go
back with you to the Hall."

He tried to stagger to his feet; but he
was still ghastly pale and trembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock,
where he sat shivering with his face buried in his hands.

"We must leave you now," said
Holmes. "The rest of our work must be done, and every moment is of
importance. We have our case, and now we only want our man.

"It's a thousand to one against our
finding him at the house," he continued as we retraced our steps swiftly
down the path. "Those shots must have told him that the game was up."

"We were some distance off, and this
fog may have deadened them."

"He followed the hound to call him
off—of that you may be certain. No, no, he's gone by this time! But we'll
search the house and make sure."

The front door was open, so we rushed in
and hurried from room to room to the amazement of a doddering old manservant,
who met us in the passage. There was no light save in the dining-room, but
Holmes caught up the lamp and left no corner of the house unexplored. No sign
could we see of the man whom we were chasing. On the upper floor, however, one
of the bedroom doors was locked.

"There's someone in here," cried
Lestrade. "I can hear a movement. Open this door!"

A faint moaning and rustling came from
within. Holmes struck the door just over the lock with the flat of his foot and
it flew open. Pistol in hand, we all three rushed into the room.

But there was no sign within it of that
desperate and defiant villain whom we expected to see. Instead we were faced by
an object so strange and so unexpected that we stood for a moment staring at it
in amazement.

The room had been fashioned into a small
museum, and the walls were lined by a number of glass-topped cases full of that
collection of butterflies and moths the formation of which had been the
relaxation of this complex and dangerous man. In the centre of this room there
was an upright beam, which had been placed at some period as a support for the
old worm-eaten baulk of timber which spanned the roof. To this post a figure
was tied, so swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been used to secure it
that one could not for the moment tell whether it was that of a man or a woman.
One towel passed round the throat and was secured at the back of the pillar.
Another covered the lower part of the face, and over it two dark eyes—eyes full
of grief and shame and a dreadful questioning—stared back at us. In a minute we
had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and Mrs. Stapleton sank upon the
floor in front of us. As her beautiful head fell upon her chest I saw the clear
red weal of a whiplash across her neck.

"The brute!" cried Holmes.
"Here, Lestrade, your brandy-bottle! Put her in the chair! She has fainted
from ill-usage and exhaustion."

She opened her eyes again.

"Is he safe?" she asked.
"Has he escaped?"

"He cannot escape us, madam."

"No, no, I did not mean my husband.
Sir Henry? Is he safe?"

"Yes."

"And the hound?"

"It is dead."

She gave a long sigh of satisfaction.

"Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this
villain! See how he has treated me!" She shot her arms out from her
sleeves, and we saw with horror that they were all mottled with bruises.
"But this is nothing—nothing! It is my mind and soul that he has tortured
and defiled. I could endure it all, ill-usage, solitude, a life of deception,
everything, as long as I could still cling to the hope that I had his love, but
now I know that in this also I have been his dupe and his tool." She broke
into passionate sobbing as she spoke.

"You bear him no good will,
madam," said Holmes. "Tell us then where we shall find him. If you
have ever aided him in evil, help us now and so atone."

"There is but one place where he can
have fled," she answered. "There is an old tin mine on an island in
the heart of the mire. It was there that he kept his hound and there also he
had made preparations so that he might have a refuge. That is where he would
fly."

The fog-bank lay like white wool against
the window. Holmes held the lamp towards it.

"See," said he. "No one
could find his way into the Grimpen Mire tonight."

She laughed and clapped her hands. Her
eyes and teeth gleamed with fierce merriment.

"He may find his way in, but never
out," she cried. "How can he see the guiding wands tonight? We
planted them together, he and I, to mark the pathway through the mire. Oh, if I
could only have plucked them out today. Then indeed you would have had him at
your mercy!"

It was evident to us that all pursuit was
in vain until the fog had lifted. Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of
the house while Holmes and I went back with the baronet to Baskerville Hall.
The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld from him, but he took
the blow bravely when he learned the truth about the woman whom he had loved.
But the shock of the night's adventures had shattered his nerves, and before
morning he lay delirious in a high fever under the care of Dr. Mortimer. The
two of them were destined to travel together round the world before Sir Henry
had become once more the hale, hearty man that he had been before he became
master of that ill-omened estate.

And now I come rapidly to the conclusion
of this singular narrative, in which I have tried to make the reader share
those dark fears and vague surmises which clouded our lives so long and ended
in so tragic a manner. On the morning after the death of the hound the fog had
lifted and we were guided by Mrs. Stapleton to the point where they had found a
pathway through the bog. It helped us to realize the horror of this woman's
life when we saw the eagerness and joy with which she laid us on her husband's
track. We left her standing upon the thin peninsula of firm, peaty soil which
tapered out into the widespread bog. From the end of it a small wand planted
here and there showed where the path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes
among those green-scummed pits and foul quagmires which barred the way to the
stranger. Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a
heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than
once thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft
undulations around our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we
walked, and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging
us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in
which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that someone had passed that perilous
way before us. From amid a tuft of cotton grass which bore it up out of the
slime some dark thing was projecting. Holmes sank to his waist as he stepped
from the path to seize it, and had we not been there to drag him out he could
never have set his foot upon firm land again. He held an old black boot in the
air. "Meyers, Toronto," was printed on the leather inside.

"It is worth a mud bath," said
he. "It is our friend Sir Henry's missing boot."

"Thrown there by Stapleton in his
flight."

"Exactly. He retained it in his hand
after using it to set the hound upon the track. He fled when he knew the game
was up, still clutching it. And he hurled it away at this point of his flight.
We know at least that he came so far in safety."

But more than that we were never destined
to know, though there was much which we might surmise. There was no chance of
finding footsteps in the mire, for the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon them,
but as we at last reached firmer ground beyond the morass we all looked eagerly
for them. But no slightest sign of them ever met our eyes. If the earth told a
true story, then Stapleton never reached that island of refuge towards which he
struggled through the fog upon that last night. Somewhere in the heart of the
great Grimpen Mire, down in the foul slime of the huge morass which had sucked
him in, this cold and cruel-hearted man is forever buried.

Many traces we found of him in the
bog-girt island where he had hid his savage ally. A huge driving-wheel and a
shaft half-filled with rubbish showed the position of an abandoned mine. Beside
it were the crumbling remains of the cottages of the miners, driven away no
doubt by the foul reek of the surrounding swamp. In one of these a staple and
chain with a quantity of gnawed bones showed where the animal had been
confined. A skeleton with a tangle of brown hair adhering to it lay among the
debris.

"A dog!" said Holmes. "By
Jove, a curly-haired spaniel. Poor Mortimer will never see his pet again. Well,
I do not know that this place contains any secret which we have not already
fathomed. He could hide his hound, but he could not hush its voice, and hence
came those cries which even in daylight were not pleasant to hear. On an
emergency he could keep the hound in the out-house at Merripit, but it was always
a risk, and it was only on the supreme day, which he regarded as the end of all
his efforts, that he dared do it. This paste in the tin is no doubt the
luminous mixture with which the creature was daubed. It was suggested, of
course, by the story of the family hell-hound, and by the desire to frighten
old Sir Charles to death. No wonder the poor devil of a convict ran and
screamed, even as our friend did, and as we ourselves might have done, when he
saw such a creature bounding through the darkness of the moor upon his track.
It was a cunning device, for, apart from the chance of driving your victim to
his death, what peasant would venture to inquire too closely into such a
creature should he get sight of it, as many have done, upon the moor? I said it
in London, Watson, and I say it again now, that never yet have we helped to
hunt down a more dangerous man than he who is lying yonder"—he swept his
long arm towards the huge mottled expanse of green-splotched bog which
stretched away until it merged into the russet slopes of the moor.

Chapter 15. A Retrospection

It was the end of November, and Holmes and
I sat, upon a raw and foggy night, on either side of a blazing fire in our
sitting-room in Baker Street. Since the tragic upshot of our visit to Devonshire
he had been engaged in two affairs of the utmost importance, in the first of
which he had exposed the atrocious conduct of Colonel Upwood in connection with
the famous card scandal of the Nonpareil Club, while in the second he had
defended the unfortunate Mme. Montpensier from the charge of murder which hung
over her in connection with the death of her step-daughter, Mlle. Carere, the
young lady who, as it will be remembered, was found six months later alive and
married in New York. My friend was in excellent spirits over the success which
had attended a succession of difficult and important cases, so that I was able
to induce him to discuss the details of the Baskerville mystery. I had waited
patiently for the opportunity for I was aware that he would never permit cases
to overlap, and that his clear and logical mind would not be drawn from its
present work to dwell upon memories of the past. Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer
were, however, in London, on their way to that long voyage which had been
recommended for the restoration of his shattered nerves. They had called upon
us that very afternoon, so that it was natural that the subject should come up
for discussion.

"The whole course of events,"
said Holmes, "from the point of view of the man who called himself Stapleton
was simple and direct, although to us, who had no means in the beginning of
knowing the motives of his actions and could only learn part of the facts, it
all appeared exceedingly complex. I have had the advantage of two conversations
with Mrs. Stapleton, and the case has now been so entirely cleared up that I am
not aware that there is anything which has remained a secret to us. You will
find a few notes upon the matter under the heading B in my indexed list of
cases."

"Perhaps you would kindly give me a
sketch of the course of events from memory."

"Certainly, though I cannot guarantee
that I carry all the facts in my mind. Intense mental concentration has a
curious way of blotting out what has passed. The barrister who has his case at
his fingers' ends and is able to argue with an expert upon his own subject
finds that a week or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head once
more. So each of my cases displaces the last, and Mlle. Carere has blurred my
recollection of Baskerville Hall. Tomorrow some other little problem may be
submitted to my notice which will in turn dispossess the fair French lady and
the infamous Upwood. So far as the case of the hound goes, however, I will give
you the course of events as nearly as I can, and you will suggest anything
which I may have forgotten.

"My inquiries show beyond all
question that the family portrait did not lie, and that this fellow was indeed
a Baskerville. He was a son of that Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of
Sir Charles, who fled with a sinister reputation to South America, where he was
said to have died unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had one
child, this fellow, whose real name is the same as his father's. He married
Beryl Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa Rica, and, having purloined a
considerable sum of public money, he changed his name to Vandeleur and fled to
England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire. His reason for
attempting this special line of business was that he had struck up an acquaintance
with a consumptive tutor upon the voyage home, and that he had used this man's
ability to make the undertaking a success. Fraser, the tutor, died however, and
the school which had begun well sank from disrepute into infamy. The Vandeleurs
found it convenient to change their name to Stapleton, and he brought the
remains of his fortune, his schemes for the future, and his taste for
entomology to the south of England. I learned at the British Museum that he was
a recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has
been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his Yorkshire
days, been the first to describe.

"We now come to that portion of his
life which has proved to be of such intense interest to us. The fellow had
evidently made inquiry and found that only two lives intervened between him and
a valuable estate. When he went to Devonshire his plans were, I believe,
exceedingly hazy, but that he meant mischief from the first is evident from the
way in which he took his wife with him in the character of his sister. The idea
of using her as a decoy was clearly already in his mind, though he may not have
been certain how the details of his plot were to be arranged. He meant in the
end to have the estate, and he was ready to use any tool or run any risk for
that end. His first act was to establish himself as near to his ancestral home
as he could, and his second was to cultivate a friendship with Sir Charles
Baskerville and with the neighbours.

"The baronet himself told him about
the family hound, and so prepared the way for his own death. Stapleton, as I
will continue to call him, knew that the old man's heart was weak and that a
shock would kill him. So much he had learned from Dr. Mortimer. He had heard
also that Sir Charles was superstitious and had taken this grim legend very
seriously. His ingenious mind instantly suggested a way by which the baronet
could be done to death, and yet it would be hardly possible to bring home the
guilt to the real murderer.

"Having conceived the idea he
proceeded to carry it out with considerable finesse. An ordinary schemer would
have been content to work with a savage hound. The use of artificial means to
make the creature diabolical was a flash of genius upon his part. The dog he bought
in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fulham Road. It was the
strongest and most savage in their possession. He brought it down by the North
Devon line and walked a great distance over the moor so as to get it home
without exciting any remarks. He had already on his insect hunts learned to
penetrate the Grimpen Mire, and so had found a safe hiding-place for the
creature. Here he kennelled it and waited his chance.

"But it was some time coming. The old
gentleman could not be decoyed outside of his grounds at night. Several times
Stapleton lurked about with his hound, but without avail. It was during these
fruitless quests that he, or rather his ally, was seen by peasants, and that
the legend of the demon dog received a new confirmation. He had hoped that his
wife might lure Sir Charles to his ruin, but here she proved unexpectedly
independent. She would not endeavour to entangle the old gentleman in a
sentimental attachment which might deliver him over to his enemy. Threats and
even, I am sorry to say, blows refused to move her. She would have nothing to
do with it, and for a time Stapleton was at a deadlock.

"He found a way out of his
difficulties through the chance that Sir Charles, who had conceived a
friendship for him, made him the minister of his charity in the case of this
unfortunate woman, Mrs. Laura Lyons. By representing himself as a single man he
acquired complete influence over her, and he gave her to understand that in the
event of her obtaining a divorce from her husband he would marry her. His plans
were suddenly brought to a head by his knowledge that Sir Charles was about to
leave the Hall on the advice of Dr. Mortimer, with whose opinion he himself
pretended to coincide. He must act at once, or his victim might get beyond his
power. He therefore put pressure upon Mrs. Lyons to write this letter,
imploring the old man to give her an interview on the evening before his
departure for London. He then, by a specious argument, prevented her from
going, and so had the chance for which he had waited.

"Driving back in the evening from
Coombe Tracey he was in time to get his hound, to treat it with his infernal
paint, and to bring the beast round to the gate at which he had reason to
expect that he would find the old gentleman waiting. The dog, incited by its
master, sprang over the wicket-gate and pursued the unfortunate baronet, who
fled screaming down the yew alley. In that gloomy tunnel it must indeed have
been a dreadful sight to see that huge black creature, with its flaming jaws
and blazing eyes, bounding after its victim. He fell dead at the end of the
alley from heart disease and terror. The hound had kept upon the grassy border
while the baronet had run down the path, so that no track but the man's was
visible. On seeing him lying still the creature had probably approached to
sniff at him, but finding him dead had turned away again. It was then that it
left the print which was actually observed by Dr. Mortimer. The hound was
called off and hurried away to its lair in the Grimpen Mire, and a mystery was
left which puzzled the authorities, alarmed the countryside, and finally
brought the case within the scope of our observation.

"So much for the death of Sir Charles
Baskerville. You perceive the devilish cunning of it, for really it would be
almost impossible to make a case against the real murderer. His only accomplice
was one who could never give him away, and the grotesque, inconceivable nature
of the device only served to make it more effective. Both of the women
concerned in the case, Mrs. Stapleton and Mrs. Laura Lyons, were left with a
strong suspicion against Stapleton. Mrs. Stapleton knew that he had designs
upon the old man, and also of the existence of the hound. Mrs. Lyons knew
neither of these things, but had been impressed by the death occurring at the
time of an uncancelled appointment which was only known to him. However, both
of them were under his influence, and he had nothing to fear from them. The
first half of his task was successfully accomplished but the more difficult still
remained.

"It is possible that Stapleton did
not know of the existence of an heir in Canada. In any case he would very soon
learn it from his friend Dr. Mortimer, and he was told by the latter all
details about the arrival of Henry Baskerville. Stapleton's first idea was that
this young stranger from Canada might possibly be done to death in London
without coming down to Devonshire at all. He distrusted his wife ever since she
had refused to help him in laying a trap for the old man, and he dared not leave
her long out of his sight for fear he should lose his influence over her. It
was for this reason that he took her to London with him. They lodged, I find,
at the Mexborough Private Hotel, in Craven Street, which was actually one of
those called upon by my agent in search of evidence. Here he kept his wife
imprisoned in her room while he, disguised in a beard, followed Dr. Mortimer to
Baker Street and afterwards to the station and to the Northumberland Hotel. His
wife had some inkling of his plans; but she had such a fear of her husband—a
fear founded upon brutal ill-treatment—that she dare not write to warn the man
whom she knew to be in danger. If the letter should fall into Stapleton's hands
her own life would not be safe. Eventually, as we know, she adopted the
expedient of cutting out the words which would form the message, and addressing
the letter in a disguised hand. It reached the baronet, and gave him the first
warning of his danger.

"It was very essential for Stapleton
to get some article of Sir Henry's attire so that, in case he was driven to use
the dog, he might always have the means of setting him upon his track. With
characteristic promptness and audacity he set about this at once, and we cannot
doubt that the boots or chamber-maid of the hotel was well bribed to help him
in his design. By chance, however, the first boot which was procured for him
was a new one and, therefore, useless for his purpose. He then had it returned
and obtained another—a most instructive incident, since it proved conclusively
to my mind that we were dealing with a real hound, as no other supposition
could explain this anxiety to obtain an old boot and this indifference to a new
one. The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves
to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when
duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to
elucidate it.

"Then we had the visit from our
friends next morning, shadowed always by Stapleton in the cab. From his
knowledge of our rooms and of my appearance, as well as from his general
conduct, I am inclined to think that Stapleton's career of crime has been by no
means limited to this single Baskerville affair. It is suggestive that during
the last three years there have been four considerable burglaries in the west
country, for none of which was any criminal ever arrested. The last of these,
at Folkestone Court, in May, was remarkable for the cold-blooded pistolling of
the page, who surprised the masked and solitary burglar. I cannot doubt that
Stapleton recruited his waning resources in this fashion, and that for years he
has been a desperate and dangerous man.

"We had an example of his readiness
of resource that morning when he got away from us so successfully, and also of
his audacity in sending back my own name to me through the cabman. From that
moment he understood that I had taken over the case in London, and that
therefore there was no chance for him there. He returned to Dartmoor and
awaited the arrival of the baronet."

"One moment!" said I. "You
have, no doubt, described the sequence of events correctly, but there is one
point which you have left unexplained. What became of the hound when its master
was in London?"

"I have given some attention to this
matter and it is undoubtedly of importance. There can be no question that
Stapleton had a confidant, though it is unlikely that he ever placed himself in
his power by sharing all his plans with him. There was an old manservant at
Merripit House, whose name was Anthony. His connection with the Stapletons can
be traced for several years, as far back as the school-mastering days, so that
he must have been aware that his master and mistress were really husband and
wife. This man has disappeared and has escaped from the country. It is
suggestive that Anthony is not a common name in England, while Antonio is so in
all Spanish or Spanish-American countries. The man, like Mrs. Stapleton
herself, spoke good English, but with a curious lisping accent. I have myself
seen this old man cross the Grimpen Mire by the path which Stapleton had marked
out. It is very probable, therefore, that in the absence of his master it was
he who cared for the hound, though he may never have known the purpose for
which the beast was used.

"The Stapletons then went down to
Devonshire, whither they were soon followed by Sir Henry and you. One word now
as to how I stood myself at that time. It may possibly recur to your memory
that when I examined the paper upon which the printed words were fastened I
made a close inspection for the water-mark. In doing so I held it within a few
inches of my eyes, and was conscious of a faint smell of the scent known as
white jessamine. There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary
that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases
have more than once within my own experience depended upon their prompt
recognition. The scent suggested the presence of a lady, and already my
thoughts began to turn towards the Stapletons. Thus I had made certain of the
hound, and had guessed at the criminal before ever we went to the west country.

"It was my game to watch Stapleton.
It was evident, however, that I could not do this if I were with you, since he
would be keenly on his guard. I deceived everybody, therefore, yourself
included, and I came down secretly when I was supposed to be in London. My
hardships were not so great as you imagined, though such trifling details must
never interfere with the investigation of a case. I stayed for the most part at
Coombe Tracey, and only used the hut upon the moor when it was necessary to be
near the scene of action. Cartwright had come down with me, and in his disguise
as a country boy he was of great assistance to me. I was dependent upon him for
food and clean linen. When I was watching Stapleton, Cartwright was frequently
watching you, so that I was able to keep my hand upon all the strings.

"I have already told you that your
reports reached me rapidly, being forwarded instantly from Baker Street to
Coombe Tracey. They were of great service to me, and especially that one
incidentally truthful piece of biography of Stapleton's. I was able to
establish the identity of the man and the woman and knew at last exactly how I
stood. The case had been considerably complicated through the incident of the
escaped convict and the relations between him and the Barrymores. This also you
cleared up in a very effective way, though I had already come to the same
conclusions from my own observations.

"By the time that you discovered me
upon the moor I had a complete knowledge of the whole business, but I had not a
case which could go to a jury. Even Stapleton's attempt upon Sir Henry that
night which ended in the death of the unfortunate convict did not help us much
in proving murder against our man. There seemed to be no alternative but to
catch him red-handed, and to do so we had to use Sir Henry, alone and
apparently unprotected, as a bait. We did so, and at the cost of a severe shock
to our client we succeeded in completing our case and driving Stapleton to his
destruction. That Sir Henry should have been exposed to this is, I must
confess, a reproach to my management of the case, but we had no means of
foreseeing the terrible and paralyzing spectacle which the beast presented, nor
could we predict the fog which enabled him to burst upon us at such short
notice. We succeeded in our object at a cost which both the specialist and Dr.
Mortimer assure me will be a temporary one. A long journey may enable our friend
to recover not only from his shattered nerves but also from his wounded
feelings. His love for the lady was deep and sincere, and to him the saddest
part of all this black business was that he should have been deceived by her.

"It only remains to indicate the part
which she had played throughout. There can be no doubt that Stapleton exercised
an influence over her which may have been love or may have been fear, or very
possibly both, since they are by no means incompatible emotions. It was, at
least, absolutely effective. At his command she consented to pass as his
sister, though he found the limits of his power over her when he endeavoured to
make her the direct accessory to murder. She was ready to warn Sir Henry so far
as she could without implicating her husband, and again and again she tried to
do so. Stapleton himself seems to have been capable of jealousy, and when he
saw the baronet paying court to the lady, even though it was part of his own
plan, still he could not help interrupting with a passionate outburst which
revealed the fiery soul which his self-contained manner so cleverly concealed.
By encouraging the intimacy he made it certain that Sir Henry would frequently
come to Merripit House and that he would sooner or later get the opportunity
which he desired. On the day of the crisis, however, his wife turned suddenly
against him. She had learned something of the death of the convict, and she
knew that the hound was being kept in the outhouse on the evening that Sir
Henry was coming to dinner. She taxed her husband with his intended crime, and
a furious scene followed in which he showed her for the first time that she had
a rival in his love. Her fidelity turned in an instant to bitter hatred, and he
saw that she would betray him. He tied her up, therefore, that she might have
no chance of warning Sir Henry, and he hoped, no doubt, that when the whole
countryside put down the baronet's death to the curse of his family, as they
certainly would do, he could win his wife back to accept an accomplished fact
and to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I fancy that in any case he made
a miscalculation, and that, if we had not been there, his doom would none the
less have been sealed. A woman of Spanish blood does not condone such an injury
so lightly. And now, my dear Watson, without referring to my notes, I cannot
give you a more detailed account of this curious case. I do not know that
anything essential has been left unexplained."

"He could not hope to frighten Sir
Henry to death as he had done the old uncle with his bogie hound."

"The beast was savage and
half-starved. If its appearance did not frighten its victim to death, at least
it would paralyze the resistance which might be offered."

"No doubt. There only remains one
difficulty. If Stapleton came into the succession, how could he explain the
fact that he, the heir, had been living unannounced under another name so close
to the property? How could he claim it without causing suspicion and
inquiry?"

"It is a formidable difficulty, and I
fear that you ask too much when you expect me to solve it. The past and the
present are within the field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future
is a hard question to answer. Mrs. Stapleton has heard her husband discuss the
problem on several occasions. There were three possible courses. He might claim
the property from South America, establish his identity before the British
authorities there and so obtain the fortune without ever coming to England at
all, or he might adopt an elaborate disguise during the short time that he need
be in London; or, again, he might furnish an accomplice with the proofs and
papers, putting him in as heir, and retaining a claim upon some proportion of
his income. We cannot doubt from what we know of him that he would have found
some way out of the difficulty. And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks
of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we may turn our thoughts into
more pleasant channels. I have a box for 'Les Huguenots.' Have you heard the De
Reszkes? Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop
at Marcini's for a little dinner on the way?"

THE END

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IMAGE GALLERY

An article from Lippincott's Monthly Magazine from
July 1884

Sherlock Holmes in a 1904 illustration by Sidney
Paget

The first appearance of Holmes, 1887

Sherlock Holmes and Watson

Holmes and Moriarty fighting over the Reichenbach
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Sherlock Holmes pipe and hat

Illustration of The Adventure of the Golden
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A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from
The Strand Magazine, 1891 in "The Man with the Twisted Lip".

Illustration of The Adventure of Charles Augustus
Milverton

Poster for the play Sherlock Holmes (1900) by Doyle
and actor William Gillette

Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Abbey
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