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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2852 ***




THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes


by A. Conan Doyle




My dear Robinson,


    It was to your account of a West-Country legend that this tale owes its
inception. For this and for your help in the details all thanks.



Yours most truly,        

A. Conan Doyle.    



Hindhead,

    Haslemere.



Contents


 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
 Chapter 15 A Retrospection




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, grey 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 antennæ 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 realised 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 dyspnœa 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, greyish 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, grey-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 grey, 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 grey 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 daïs 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 grey 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 realise
      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 grey 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 grey 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
      grey, 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 lean-jawed, between thirty and
      forty years of age, dressed in a grey 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 grey
      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, agonised, 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 grey 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 grey 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 grey 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 grey 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
      _tête-à-tête_. 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_ 16_th_.—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 grey 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_ 17_th_.—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 deluge—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 grey 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
      écarté 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 realised 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, grey-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, 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 grey
      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 grey.

      “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 grey 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 grey 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 realised 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 grey 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 localise 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 agonised 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
      realise 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.

      “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.”




Chapter 13.
Fixing the Nets


      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, lean-jawed 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 lean-jawed 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 realise 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 _débris_.

      “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. Carére, 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. Carére 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 _outré_ 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

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2852 ***