1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles

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

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

“Strange—remarkable,” I suggested.

He shook his head at my definition.

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

“Have you it there?” I asked.

He read the telegram aloud.

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

“Scott Eccles, “Post Office, Charing Cross.”

“Man or woman?” I asked.

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

“Will you see him?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holmes glanced at his watch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am.”

“We have been following you about all the morning.”

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

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

“But why do you follow me?  What do you want?”

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

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

“Dead?  Did you say he was dead?”

“Yes, sir, he is dead.”

“But how?  An accident?”

“Murder, if ever there was one upon earth.”

“Good God!  This is awful!  You don’t mean—you don’t mean that I am suspected?”

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

“So I did.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

Out came the official notebook.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this bizarre
incident to his collection of strange episodes.

“Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique,” said he.  “May I ask,
sir, what you did then?”

“I was furious.  My first idea was that I had been the victim of some absurd
practical joke.  I packed my things, banged the hall door behind me, and set
off for Esher, with my bag in my hand.  I called at Allan Brothers’, the chief
land agents in the village, and found that it was from this firm that the villa
had been rented.  It struck me that the whole proceeding could hardly be for
the purpose of making a fool of me, and that the main object must be to get out
of the rent.  It is late in March, so quarter-day is at hand.  But this theory
would not work.  The agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me that
the rent had been paid in advance.  Then I made my way to town and called at
the Spanish embassy.  The man was unknown there.  After this I went to see
Melville, at whose house I had first met Garcia, but I found that he really
knew rather less about him than I did.  Finally when I got your reply to my
wire I came out to you, since I gather that you are a person who gives advice
in difficult cases.  But now, Mr. Inspector, I understand, from what you said
when you entered the room, that you can carry the story on, and that some
tragedy had occurred.  I can assure you that every word I have said is the
truth, and that, outside of what I have told you, I know absolutely nothing
about the fate of this man.  My only desire is to help the law in every
possible way.”

“I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles—I am sure of it,” said Inspector Gregson in
a very amiable tone.  “I am bound to say that everything which you have said
agrees very closely with the facts as they have come to our notice.  For
example, there was that note which arrived during dinner.  Did you chance to
observe what became of it?”

“Yes, I did.  Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire.”

“What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?”

The country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was only redeemed
from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost hidden behind the
heavy creases of cheek and brow.  With a slow smile he drew a folded and
discoloured scrap of paper from his pocket.

“It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it.  I picked this out
unburned from the back of it.”

Holmes smiled his appreciation.

“You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single pellet of
paper.”

“I did, Mr. Holmes.  It’s my way.  Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?”

The Londoner nodded.

“The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without watermark.  It is a
quarter-sheet.  The paper is cut off in two snips with a short-bladed scissors.
It has been folded over three times and sealed with purple wax, put on
hurriedly and pressed down with some flat oval object.  It is addressed to
Mr. Garcia, Wisteria Lodge.  It says:

“Our own colours, green and white.  Green open, white shut.  Main stair, first
corridor, seventh right, green baize.  Godspeed.  D.

“It is a woman’s writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the address is
either done with another pen or by someone else.  It is thicker and bolder, as
you see.”

“A very remarkable note,” said Holmes, glancing it over.  “I must compliment
you, Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in your examination of it.  A
few trifling points might perhaps be added.  The oval seal is undoubtedly a
plain sleeve-link—what else is of such a shape?  The scissors were bent nail
scissors.  Short as the two snips are, you can distinctly see the same slight
curve in each.”

The country detective chuckled.

“I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there was a little
over,” he said.  “I’m bound to say that I make nothing of the note except that
there was something on hand, and that a woman, as usual was at the bottom of
it.”

Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation.

“I am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story,” said he.  “But
I beg to point out that I have not yet heard what has happened to Mr. Garcia,
nor what has become of his household.”

“As to Garcia,” said Gregson, “that is easily answered.  He was found dead this
morning upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from his home.  His head had been
smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some such instrument, which had
crushed rather than wounded.  It is a lonely corner, and there is no house
within a quarter of a mile of the spot.  He had apparently been struck down
first from behind, but his assailant had gone on beating him long after he was
dead.  It was a most furious assault.  There are no footsteps nor any clue to
the criminals.”

“Robbed?”

“No, there was no attempt at robbery.”

“This is very painful—very painful and terrible,” said Mr. Scott Eccles in a
querulous voice, “but it is really uncommonly hard on me.  I had nothing to do
with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion and meeting so sad an end.
How do I come to be mixed up with the case?”

“Very simply, sir,” Inspector Baynes answered.  “The only document found in the
pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that you would be with him
on the night of his death.  It was the envelope of this letter which gave us
the dead man’s name and address.  It was after nine this morning when we
reached his house and found neither you nor anyone else inside it.  I wired to
Mr. Gregson to run you down in London while I examined Wisteria Lodge.  Then I
came into town, joined Mr. Gregson, and here we are.”

“I think now,” said Gregson, rising, “we had best put this matter into an
official shape.  You will come round with us to the station, Mr. Scott Eccles,
and let us have your statement in writing.”

“Certainly, I will come at once.  But I retain your services, Mr. Holmes.  I
desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the truth.”

My friend turned to the country inspector.

“I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you,
Mr. Baynes?”

“Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.”

“You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you have
done.  Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that the man met his
death?”

“He had been there since one o’clock.  There was rain about that time, and his
death had certainly been before the rain.”

“But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes,” cried our client.  “His voice
is unmistakable.  I could swear to it that it was he who addressed me in my
bedroom at that very hour.”

“Remarkable, but by no means impossible,” said Holmes, smiling.

“You have a clue?” asked Gregson.

“On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it certainly
presents some novel and interesting features.  A further knowledge of facts is
necessary before I would venture to give a final and definite opinion.  By the
way, Mr. Baynes, did you find anything remarkable besides this note in your
examination of the house?”

The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.

“There were,” said he, “one or two very remarkable things.  Perhaps when I have
finished at the police-station you would care to come out and give me your
opinion of them.”

“I am entirely at your service,” said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the bell.  “You
will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send the boy with this
telegram.  He is to pay a five-shilling reply.”

We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left.  Holmes smoked
hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen eyes, and his head thrust
forward in the eager way characteristic of the man.

“Well, Watson,” he asked, turning suddenly upon me, “what do you make of it?”

“I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles.”

“But the crime?”

“Well, taken with the disappearance of the man’s companions, I should say that
they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled from justice.”

“That is certainly a possible point of view.  On the face of it you must admit,
however, that it is very strange that his two servants should have been in a
conspiracy against him and should have attacked him on the one night when he
had a guest.  They had him alone at their mercy every other night in the week.”

“Then why did they fly?”

“Quite so.  Why did they fly?  There is a big fact.  Another big fact is the
remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles.  Now, my dear Watson, is it
beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an explanation which would
cover both of these big facts?  If it were one which would also admit of the
mysterious note with its very curious phraseology, why, then it would be worth
accepting as a temporary hypothesis.  If the fresh facts which come to our
knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually
become a solution.”

“But what is our hypothesis?”

Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.

“You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is impossible.  There
were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and the coaxing of Scott Eccles
to Wisteria Lodge had some connection with them.”

“But what possible connection?”

“Let us take it link by link.  There is, on the face of it, something unnatural
about this strange and sudden friendship between the young Spaniard and Scott
Eccles.  It was the former who forced the pace.  He called upon Eccles at the
other end of London on the very day after he first met him, and he kept in
close touch with him until he got him down to Esher.  Now, what did he want
with Eccles?  What could Eccles supply?  I see no charm in the man.  He is not
particularly intelligent—not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted
Latin.  Why, then, was he picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met
as particularly suited to his purpose?  Has he any one outstanding quality?  I
say that he has.  He is the very type of conventional British respectability,
and the very man as a witness to impress another Briton.  You saw yourself how
neither of the inspectors dreamed of questioning his statement, extraordinary
as it was.”

“But what was he to witness?”

“Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another way.  That
is how I read the matter.”

“I see, he might have proved an alibi.”

“Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi.  We will suppose, for
argument’s sake, that the household of Wisteria Lodge are confederates in some
design.  The attempt, whatever it may be, is to come off, we will say, before
one o’clock.  By some juggling of the clocks it is quite possible that they may
have got Scott Eccles to bed earlier than he thought, but in any case it is
likely that when Garcia went out of his way to tell him that it was one it was
really not more than twelve.  If Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be
back by the hour mentioned he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation.
Here was this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of law that
the accused was in the house all the time.  It was an insurance against the
worst.”

“Yes, yes, I see that.  But how about the disappearance of the others?”

“I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any insuperable
difficulties.  Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data.  You find
yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.”

“And the message?”

“How did it run?  ‘Our own colours, green and white.’ Sounds like racing.
‘Green open, white shut.’ That is clearly a signal.  ‘Main stair, first
corridor, seventh right, green baize.’ This is an assignation.  We may find a
jealous husband at the bottom of it all.  It was clearly a dangerous quest.
She would not have said ‘Godspeed’ had it not been so.  ‘D’—that should be a
guide.”

“The man was a Spaniard.  I suggest that ‘D’ stands for Dolores, a common
female name in Spain.”

“Good, Watson, very good—but quite inadmissable.  A Spaniard would write to a
Spaniard in Spanish.  The writer of this note is certainly English.  Well, we
can only possess our soul in patience until this excellent inspector come back
for us.  Meanwhile we can thank our lucky fate which has rescued us for a few
short hours from the insufferable fatigues of idleness.”

An answer had arrived to Holmes’s telegram before our Surrey officer had
returned.  Holmes read it and was about to place it in his notebook when he
caught a glimpse of my expectant face.  He tossed it across with a laugh.

“We are moving in exalted circles,” said he.

The telegram was a list of names and addresses:

Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers; Mr. Hynes
Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James Baker Williams, Forton Old Hall;
Mr. Henderson, High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone, Nether Walsling.

“This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations,” said Holmes.
“No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already adopted some similar
plan.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that the
message received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an assignation.
Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct, and in order to keep the tryst
one has to ascend a main stair and seek the seventh door in a corridor, it is
perfectly clear that the house is a very large one.  It is equally certain that
this house cannot be more than a mile or two from Oxshott, since Garcia was
walking in that direction and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to
be back in Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi, which would
only be valid up to one o’clock.  As the number of large houses close to
Oxshott must be limited, I adopted the obvious method of sending to the agents
mentioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them.  Here they are in this
telegram, and the other end of our tangled skein must lie among them.”

It was nearly six o’clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey
village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.

Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and found comfortable quarters at
the Bull.  Finally we set out in the company of the detective on our visit to
Wisteria Lodge.  It was a cold, dark March evening, with a sharp wind and a
fine rain beating upon our faces, a fit setting for the wild common over which
our road passed and the tragic goal to which it led us.

2. The Tiger of San Pedro

A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high wooden
gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts.  The curved and shadowed
drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-black against a slate-coloured sky.
From the front window upon the left of the door there peeped a glimmer of a
feeble light.

“There’s a constable in possession,” said Baynes.  “I’ll knock at the window.”
He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on the pane.  Through
the fogged glass I dimly saw a man spring up from a chair beside the fire, and
heard a sharp cry from within the room.  An instant later a white-faced,
hard-breathing policeman had opened the door, the candle wavering in his
trembling hand.

“What’s the matter, Walters?” asked Baynes sharply.

The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and gave a long sigh of
relief.

“I am glad you have come, sir.  It has been a long evening, and I don’t think
my nerve is as good as it was.”

“Your nerve, Walters?  I should not have thought you had a nerve in your body.”

“Well, sir, it’s this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in the kitchen.
Then when you tapped at the window I thought it had come again.”

“That what had come again?”

“The devil, sir, for all I know.  It was at the window.”

“What was at the window, and when?”

“It was just about two hours ago.  The light was just fading.  I was sitting
reading in the chair.  I don’t know what made me look up, but there was a face
looking in at me through the lower pane.  Lord, sir, what a face it was!  I’ll
see it in my dreams.”

“Tut, tut, Walters.  This is not talk for a police-constable.”

“I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, and there’s no use to deny it.  It
wasn’t black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that I know but a kind of
queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in it.  Then there was the size of
it—it was twice yours, sir.  And the look of it—the great staring goggle eyes,
and the line of white teeth like a hungry beast.  I tell you, sir, I couldn’t
move a finger, nor get my breath, till it whisked away and was gone.  Out I ran
and through the shrubbery, but thank God there was no one there.”

“If I didn’t know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a black mark
against you for this.  If it were the devil himself a constable on duty should
never thank God that he could not lay his hands upon him.  I suppose the whole
thing is not a vision and a touch of nerves?”

“That, at least, is very easily settled,” said Holmes, lighting his little
pocket lantern.  “Yes,” he reported, after a short examination of the grass
bed, “a number twelve shoe, I should say.  If he was all on the same scale as
his foot he must certainly have been a giant.”

“What became of him?”

“He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the road.”

“Well,” said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, “whoever he may
have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he’s gone for the present, and we
have more immediate things to attend to.  Now, Mr. Holmes, with your
permission, I will show you round the house.”

The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a careful search.
Apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing with them, and all the
furniture down to the smallest details had been taken over with the house.  A
good deal of clothing with the stamp of Marx and Co., High Holborn, had been
left behind.  Telegraphic inquiries had been already made which showed that
Marx knew nothing of his customer save that he was a good payer.  Odds and
ends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them in Spanish, an old-fashioned
pinfire revolver, and a guitar were among the personal property.

“Nothing in all this,” said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand, from room to
room.  “But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to the kitchen.”

It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, with a straw
litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bed for the cook.  The table
was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates, the debris of last night’s
dinner.

“Look at this,” said Baynes.  “What do you make of it?”

He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at the back of
the dresser.  It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that it was
difficult to say what it might have been.  One could but say that it was black
and leathery and that it bore some resemblance to a dwarfish, human figure.  At
first, as I examined it, I thought that it was a mummified negro baby, and then
it seemed a very twisted and ancient monkey.  Finally I was left in doubt as to
whether it was animal or human.  A double band of white shells were strung
round the centre of it.

“Very interesting—very interesting, indeed!” said Holmes, peering at this
sinister relic.  “Anything more?”

In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his candle.  The
limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely to pieces with the
feathers still on, were littered all over it.  Holmes pointed to the wattles on
the severed head.

“A white cock,” said he.  “Most interesting!  It is really a very curious
case.”

But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last.  From under the
sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood.  Then from the
table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of charred bone.

“Something has been killed and something has been burned.  We raked all these
out of the fire.  We had a doctor in this morning.  He says that they are not
human.”

Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.

“I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and instructive
a case.  Your powers, if I may say so without offence, seem superior to your
opportunities.”

Inspector Baynes’s small eyes twinkled with pleasure.

“You’re right, Mr. Holmes.  We stagnate in the provinces.  A case of this sort
gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it.  What do you make of
these bones?”

“A lamb, I should say, or a kid.”

“And the white cock?”

“Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious.  I should say almost unique.”

“Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some very strange
ways in this house.  One of them is dead.  Did his companions follow him and
kill him?  If they did we should have them, for every port is watched.  But my
own views are different.  Yes, sir, my own views are very different.”

“You have a theory then?”

“And I’ll work it myself, Mr. Holmes.  It’s only due to my own credit to do so.
Your name is made, but I have still to make mine.  I should be glad to be able
to say afterwards that I had solved it without your help.”

Holmes laughed good-humoredly.

“Well, well, Inspector,” said he.  “Do you follow your path and I will follow
mine.  My results are always very much at your service if you care to apply to
me for them.  I think that I have seen all that I wish in this house, and that
my time may be more profitably employed elsewhere.  Au revoir and good luck!”

I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost upon anyone
but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent.  As impassive as ever to the casual
observer, there were none the less a subdued eagerness and suggestion of
tension in his brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the
game was afoot.  After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked no
questions.  Sufficient for me to share the sport and lend my humble help to the
capture without distracting that intent brain with needless interruption.  All
would come round to me in due time.

I waited, therefore—but to my ever-deepening disappointment I waited in vain.
Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward.  One morning he spent in
town, and I learned from a casual reference that he had visited the British
Museum.  Save for this one excursion, he spent his days in long and often
solitary walks, or in chatting with a number of village gossips whose
acquaintance he had cultivated.

“I’m sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you,” he
remarked.  “It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon the hedges
and the catkins on the hazels once again.  With a spud, a tin box, and an
elementary book on botany, there are instructive days to be spent.”  He prowled
about with this equipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which he
would bring back of an evening.

Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes.  His fat, red face
wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he greeted my
companion.  He said little about the case, but from that little we gathered
that he also was not dissatisfied at the course of events.  I must admit,
however, that I was somewhat surprised when, some five days after the crime, I
opened my morning paper to find in large letters:

THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY

A SOLUTION

ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN

Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the headlines.

“By Jove!” he cried.  “You don’t mean that Baynes has got him?”

“Apparently,” said I as I read the following report:

“Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring district when it was
learned late last night that an arrest had been effected in connection with the
Oxshott murder.  It will be remembered that Mr. Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was
found dead on Oxshott Common, his body showing signs of extreme violence, and
that on the same night his servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show
their participation in the crime.  It was suggested, but never proved, that the
deceased gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their
abstraction was the motive of the crime.  Every effort was made by Inspector
Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding place of the
fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had not gone far but
were lurking in some retreat which had been already prepared.  It was certain
from the first, however, that they would eventually be detected, as the cook,
from the evidence of one or two tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him
through the window, was a man of most remarkable appearance—being a huge and
hideous mulatto, with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid type.  This
man has been seen since the crime, for he was detected and pursued by Constable
Walters on the same evening, when he had the audacity to revisit Wisteria
Lodge.  Inspector Baynes, considering that such a visit must have some purpose
in view and was likely, therefore, to be repeated, abandoned the house but left
an ambuscade in the shrubbery.  The man walked into the trap and was captured
last night after a struggle in which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the
savage.  We understand that when the prisoner is brought before the magistrates
a remand will be applied for by the police, and that great developments are
hoped from his capture.”

“Really we must see Baynes at once,” cried Holmes, picking up his hat.  “We
will just catch him before he starts.”  We hurried down the village street and
found, as we had expected, that the inspector was just leaving his lodgings.

“You’ve seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, holding one out to us.

“Yes, Baynes, I’ve seen it.  Pray don’t think it a liberty if I give you a word
of friendly warning.”

“Of warning, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced that you
are on the right lines.  I don’t want you to commit yourself too far unless you
are sure.”

“You’re very kind, Mr. Holmes.”

“I assure you I speak for your good.”

It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over one of
Mr. Baynes’s tiny eyes.

“We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes.  That’s what I am doing.”

“Oh, very good,” said Holmes.  “Don’t blame me.”

“No, sir; I believe you mean well by me.  But we all have our own systems,
Mr. Holmes.  You have yours, and maybe I have mine.”

“Let us say no more about it.”

“You’re welcome always to my news.  This fellow is a perfect savage, as strong
as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil.  He chewed Downing’s thumb nearly
off before they could master him.  He hardly speaks a word of English, and we
can get nothing out of him but grunts.”

“And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?”

“I didn’t say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn’t say so.  We all have our little ways.
You try yours and I will try mine.  That’s the agreement.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together.  “I can’t make the
man out.  He seems to be riding for a fall.  Well, as he says, we must each try
our own way and see what comes of it.  But there’s something in Inspector
Baynes which I can’t quite understand.”

“Just sit down in that chair, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes when we had
returned to our apartment at the Bull.  “I want to put you in touch with the
situation, as I may need your help to-night.  Let me show you the evolution of
this case so far as I have been able to follow it.  Simple as it has been in
its leading features, it has none the less presented surprising difficulties in
the way of an arrest.  There are gaps in that direction which we have still to
fill.

“We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the evening of
his death.  We may put aside this idea of Baynes’s that Garcia’s servants were
concerned in the matter.  The proof of this lies in the fact that it was he who
had arranged for the presence of Scott Eccles, which could only have been done
for the purpose of an alibi.  It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and
apparently a criminal enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he
met his death.  I say ‘criminal’ because only a man with a criminal enterprise
desires to establish an alibi.  Who, then, is most likely to have taken his
life?  Surely the person against whom the criminal enterprise was directed.  So
far it seems to me that we are on safe ground.

“We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia’s household.  They
were all confederates in the same unknown crime.  If it came off when Garcia
returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by the Englishman’s
evidence, and all would be well.  But the attempt was a dangerous one, and if
Garcia did not return by a certain hour it was probable that his own life had
been sacrificed.  It had been arranged, therefore, that in such a case his two
subordinates were to make for some prearranged spot where they could escape
investigation and be in a position afterwards to renew their attempt.  That
would fully explain the facts, would it not?”

The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me.  I wondered,
as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.

“But why should one servant return?”

“We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious, something
which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind.  That would explain
his persistence, would it not?”

“Well, what is the next step?”

“The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner.  It indicates a
confederate at the other end.  Now, where was the other end?  I have already
shown you that it could only lie in some large house, and that the number of
large houses is limited.  My first days in this village were devoted to a
series of walks in which in the intervals of my botanical researches I made a
reconnaissance of all the large houses and an examination of the family history
of the occupants.  One house, and only one, riveted my attention.  It is the
famous old Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of
Oxshott, and less than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy.  The other
mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from
romance.  But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, was by all accounts a curious man
to whom curious adventures might befall.  I concentrated my attention,
therefore, upon him and his household.

“A singular set of people, Watson—the man himself the most singular of them
all.  I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to read in his
dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of my true business.
He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-gray hair, great bunched black
eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of an emperor—a fierce, masterful man,
with a red-hot spirit behind his parchment face.  He is either a foreigner or
has lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as
whipcord.  His friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner,
chocolate brown, wily, suave, and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of
speech.  You see, Watson, we have come already upon two sets of foreigners—one
at Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable—so our gaps are beginning to close.

“These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the
household; but there is one other person who for our immediate purpose may be
even more important.  Henderson has two children—girls of eleven and thirteen.
Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an Englishwoman of forty or thereabouts.
There is also one confidential manservant.  This little group forms the real
family, for they travel about together, and Henderson is a great traveller,
always on the move.  It is only within the last weeks that he has returned,
after a year’s absence, to High Gable.  I may add that he is enormously rich,
and whatever his whims may be he can very easily satisfy them.  For the rest,
his house is full of butlers, footmen, maidservants, and the usual overfed,
underworked staff of a large English country house.

“So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own
observation.  There are no better instruments than discharged servants with a
grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one.  I call it luck, but it would
not have come my way had I not been looking out for it.  As Baynes remarks, we
all have our systems.  It was my system which enabled me to find John Warner,
late gardener of High Gable, sacked in a moment of temper by his imperious
employer.  He in turn had friends among the indoor servants who unite in their
fear and dislike of their master.  So I had my key to the secrets of the
establishment.

“Curious people, Watson!  I don’t pretend to understand it all yet, but very
curious people anyway.  It’s a double-winged house, and the servants live on
one side, the family on the other.  There’s no link between the two save for
Henderson’s own servant, who serves the family’s meals.  Everything is carried
to a certain door, which forms the one connection.  Governess and children
hardly go out at all, except into the garden.  Henderson never by any chance
walks alone.  His dark secretary is like his shadow.  The gossip among the
servants is that their master is terribly afraid of something.  ‘Sold his soul
to the devil in exchange for money,’ says Warner, ‘and expects his creditor to
come up and claim his own.’ Where they came from, or who they are, nobody has
an idea.  They are very violent.  Twice Henderson has lashed at folk with his
dog-whip, and only his long purse and heavy compensation have kept him out of
the courts.

“Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information.  We may
take it that the letter came out of this strange household and was an
invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had already been planned.
Who wrote the note?  It was someone within the citadel, and it was a woman.
Who then but Miss Burnet, the governess?  All our reasoning seems to point that
way.  At any rate, we may take it as a hypothesis and see what consequences it
would entail.  I may add that Miss Burnet’s age and character make it certain
that my first idea that there might be a love interest in our story is out of
the question.

“If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate of Garcia.
What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of his death?  If he met
it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might be sealed.  Still, in her heart,
she must retain bitterness and hatred against those who had killed him and
would presumably help so far as she could to have revenge upon them.  Could we
see her, then and try to use her?  That was my first thought.  But now we come
to a sinister fact.  Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the
night of the murder.  From that evening she has utterly vanished.  Is she
alive?  Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend whom she
had summoned?  Or is she merely a prisoner?  There is the point which we still
have to decide.

“You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson.  There is nothing
upon which we can apply for a warrant.  Our whole scheme might seem fantastic
if laid before a magistrate.  The woman’s disappearance counts for nothing,
since in that extraordinary household any member of it might be invisible for a
week.  And yet she may at the present moment be in danger of her life.  All I
can do is to watch the house and leave my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates.
We can’t let such a situation continue.  If the law can do nothing we must take
the risk ourselves.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I know which is her room.  It is accessible from the top of an outhouse.  My
suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we can strike at the very
heart of the mystery.”

It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect.  The old house with its
atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown
dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting ourselves legally in
a false position all combined to damp my ardour.  But there was something in
the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any
adventure which he might recommend.  One knew that thus, and only thus, could a
solution be found.  I clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast.

But it was not destined that our investigation should have so adventurous an
ending.  It was about five o’clock, and the shadows of the March evening were
beginning to fall, when an excited rustic rushed into our room.

“They’ve gone, Mr. Holmes.  They went by the last train.  The lady broke away,
and I’ve got her in a cab downstairs.”

“Excellent, Warner!” cried Holmes, springing to his feet.  “Watson, the gaps
are closing rapidly.”

In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion.  She bore upon
her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent tragedy.  Her head
hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised it and turned her dull eyes
upon us I saw that her pupils were dark dots in the centre of the broad gray
iris.  She was drugged with opium.

“I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes,” said our emissary,
the discharged gardener.  “When the carriage came out I followed it to the
station.  She was like one walking in her sleep, but when they tried to get her
into the train she came to life and struggled.  They pushed her into the
carriage.  She fought her way out again.  I took her part, got her into a cab,
and here we are.  I shan’t forget the face at the carriage window as I led her
away.  I’d have a short life if he had his way—the black-eyed, scowling, yellow
devil.”

We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups of the
strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug.  Baynes had
been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained to him.

“Why, sir, you’ve got me the very evidence I want,” said the inspector warmly,
shaking my friend by the hand.  “I was on the same scent as you from the
first.”

“What!  You were after Henderson?”

“Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable I was
up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below.  It was just who
would get his evidence first.”

“Then why did you arrest the mulatto?”

Baynes chuckled.

“I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected, and
that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was in any
danger.  I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our eyes were off
him.  I knew he would be likely to clear off then and give us a chance of
getting at Miss Burnet.”

Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector’s shoulder.

“You will rise high in your profession.  You have instinct and intuition,” said
he.

Baynes flushed with pleasure.

“I’ve had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week.  Wherever
the High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight.  But he must have been hard
put to it when Miss Burnet broke away.  However, your man picked her up, and it
all ends well.  We can’t arrest without her evidence, that is clear, so the
sooner we get a statement the better.”

“Every minute she gets stronger,” said Holmes, glancing at the governess.  “But
tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?”

“Henderson,” the inspector answered, “is Don Murillo, once called the Tiger of
San Pedro.”

The Tiger of San Pedro!  The whole history of the man came back to me in a
flash.  He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty tyrant that had
ever governed any country with a pretence to civilization.  Strong, fearless,
and energetic, he had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious
vices upon a cowering people for ten or twelve years.  His name was a terror
through all Central America.  At the end of that time there was a universal
rising against him.  But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first
whisper of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship
which was manned by devoted adherents.  It was an empty palace which was
stormed by the insurgents next day.  The dictator, his two children, his
secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them.  From that moment he had
vanished from the world, and his identity had been a frequent subject for
comment in the European press.

“Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro,” said Baynes.  “If you look it
up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and white, same as in the
note, Mr. Holmes.  Henderson he called himself, but I traced him back, Paris
and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where his ship came in in ’86.  They’ve been
looking for him all the time for their revenge, but it is only now that they
have begun to find him out.”

“They discovered him a year ago,” said Miss Burnet, who had sat up and was now
intently following the conversation.  “Once already his life has been
attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him.  Now, again, it is the noble,
chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goes safe.  But another
will come, and yet another, until some day justice will be done; that is as
certain as the rise of to-morrow’s sun.”  Her thin hands clenched, and her worn
face blanched with the passion of her hatred.

“But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?” asked Holmes.  “How can an
English lady join in such a murderous affair?”

“I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which justice can
be gained.  What does the law of England care for the rivers of blood shed
years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload of treasure which this man has
stolen?  To you they are like crimes committed in some other planet.  But we
know.  We have learned the truth in sorrow and in suffering.  To us there is no
fiend in hell like Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still
cry for vengeance.”

“No doubt,” said Holmes, “he was as you say.  I have heard that he was
atrocious.  But how are you affected?”

“I will tell you it all.  This villain’s policy was to murder, on one pretext
or another, every man who showed such promise that he might in time come to be
a dangerous rival.  My husband—yes, my real name is Signora Victor Durando—was
the San Pedro minister in London.  He met me and married me there.  A nobler
man never lived upon earth.  Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence,
recalled him on some pretext, and had him shot.  With a premonition of his fate
he had refused to take me with him.  His estates were confiscated, and I was
left with a pittance and a broken heart.

“Then came the downfall of the tyrant.  He escaped as you have just described.
But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and dearest had suffered
torture and death at his hands, would not let the matter rest.  They banded
themselves into a society which should never be dissolved until the work was
done.  It was my part after we had discovered in the transformed Henderson the
fallen despot, to attach myself to his household and keep the others in touch
with his movements.  This I was able to do by securing the position of
governess in his family.  He little knew that the woman who faced him at every
meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour’s notice into
eternity.  I smiled on him, did my duty to his children, and bided my time.  An
attempt was made in Paris and failed.  We zig-zagged swiftly here and there
over Europe to throw off the pursuers and finally returned to this house, which
he had taken upon his first arrival in England.

“But here also the ministers of justice were waiting.  Knowing that he would
return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest dignitary in San
Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of humble station, all three
fired with the same reasons for revenge.  He could do little during the day,
for Murillo took every precaution and never went out save with his satellite
Lucas, or Lopez as he was known in the days of his greatness.  At night,
however, he slept alone, and the avenger might find him.  On a certain evening,
which had been prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the man
was forever on the alert and continually changed his room.  I was to see that
the doors were open and the signal of a green or white light in a window which
faced the drive was to give notice if all was safe or if the attempt had better
be postponed.

“But everything went wrong with us.  In some way I had excited the suspicion of
Lopez, the secretary.  He crept up behind me and sprang upon me just as I had
finished the note.  He and his master dragged me to my room and held judgment
upon me as a convicted traitress.  Then and there they would have plunged their
knives into me could they have seen how to escape the consequences of the deed.
Finally, after much debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous.
But they determined to get rid forever of Garcia.  They had gagged me, and
Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address.  I swear that he
might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean to Garcia.  Lopez
addressed the note which I had written, sealed it with his sleeve-link, and
sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose.  How they murdered him I do not know,
save that it was Murillo’s hand who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to
guard me.  I believe he must have waited among the gorse bushes through which
the path winds and struck him down as he passed.  At first they were of a mind
to let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they
argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity would at
once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further attacks.  With the
death of Garcia, the pursuit might cease, since such a death might frighten
others from the task.

“All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge of what
they had done.  I have no doubt that there were times when my life hung in the
balance.  I was confined to my room, terrorized by the most horrible threats,
cruelly ill-used to break my spirit—see this stab on my shoulder and the
bruises from end to end of my arms—and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the
one occasion when I tried to call from the window.  For five days this cruel
imprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul together.
This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I
knew that I had been drugged.  In a sort of dream I remember being half-led,
half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the train.
Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly realize that my
liberty lay in my own hands.  I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had
it not been for the help of this good man, who led me to the cab, I should
never had broken away.  Now, thank God, I am beyond their power forever.”

We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement.  It was Holmes who
broke the silence.

“Our difficulties are not over,” he remarked, shaking his head.  “Our police
work ends, but our legal work begins.”

“Exactly,” said I.  “A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of
self-defence.  There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only
on this one that they can be tried.”

“Come, come,” said Baynes cheerily, “I think better of the law than that.
Self-defence is one thing.  To entice a man in cold blood with the object of
murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear from him.  No, no, we
shall all be justified when we see the tenants of High Gable at the next
Guildford Assizes.”

It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to elapse
before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts.  Wily and bold, he
and his companion threw their pursuer off their track by entering a
lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the back-gate into Curzon
Square.  From that day they were seen no more in England.  Some six months
afterwards the Marquess of Montalva and Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both
murdered in their rooms at the Hotel Escurial at Madrid.  The crime was
ascribed to Nihilism, and the murderers were never arrested.  Inspector Baynes
visited us at Baker Street with a printed description of the dark face of the
secretary, and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the
tufted brows of his master.  We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had
come at last.

“A chaotic case, my dear Watson,” said Holmes over an evening pipe.  “It will
not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is dear to your
heart.  It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons,
and is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend,
Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming
mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation.  It is remarkable only
for the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy
collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials and so
been guided along the crooked and winding path.  Is there any point which is
not quite clear to you?”

“The object of the mulatto cook’s return?”

“I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it.  The man
was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and this was his
fetish.  When his companion and he had fled to some prearranged retreat—already
occupied, no doubt by a confederate—the companion had persuaded him to leave so
compromising an article of furniture.  But the mulatto’s heart was with it, and
he was driven back to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the window,
he found policeman Walters in possession.  He waited three days longer, and
then his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more.  Inspector
Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimized the incident before me,
had really recognized its importance and had left a trap into which the
creature walked.  Any other point, Watson?”

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

Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book.

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

“‘The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without certain
sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods.  In extreme cases
these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed by cannibalism.  The
more usual victims are a white cock, which is plucked in pieces alive, or a
black goat, whose throat is cut and body burned.’

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



Document 0020028 ends.


In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental
qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as
possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while
offering a fair field for his talents.  It is, however, unfortunately
impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal, and a
chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which
are essential to his statement and so give a false impression of the problem,
or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with.
With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a
strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August.  Baker Street was like an oven, and the
glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house across the road
was painful to the eye.  It was hard to believe that these were the same walls
which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter.  Our blinds were
half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a
letter which he had received by the morning post.  For myself, my term of
service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a
thermometer at ninety was no hardship.  But the morning paper was
uninteresting.  Parliament had risen.  Everybody was out of town, and I yearned
for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea.  A depleted bank
account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither
the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him.  He loved to
lie in the very center of five millions of people, with his filaments
stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or
suspicion of unsolved crime.  Appreciation of nature found no place among his
many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer
of the town to track down his brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed aside the
barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fell into a brown study.  Suddenly
my companion’s voice broke in upon my thoughts:

“You are right, Watson,” said he.  “It does seem a most preposterous way of
settling a dispute.”

“Most preposterous!” I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he had echoed
the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank
amazement.

“What is this, Holmes?” I cried.  “This is beyond anything which I could have
imagined.”

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

“You remember,” said he, “that some little time ago when I read you the passage
in one of Poe’s sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken
thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter as a mere
tour-de-force of the author.  On my remarking that I was constantly in the
habit of doing the same thing you expressed incredulity.”

“Oh, no!”

“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your
eyebrows.  So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of
thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and
eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with
you.”

But I was still far from satisfied.  “In the example which you read to me,”
said I, “the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the man whom he
observed.  If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at
the stars, and so on.  But I have been seated quietly in my chair, and what
clues can I have given you?”

“You do yourself an injustice.  The features are given to man as the means by
which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants.”

“Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my features?”

“Your features and especially your eyes.  Perhaps you cannot yourself recall
how your reverie commenced?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Then I will tell you.  After throwing down your paper, which was the action
which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a vacant
expression.  Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly framed picture of
General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of
thought had been started.  But it did not lead very far.  Your eyes flashed
across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon the top
of your books.  Then you glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was
obvious.  You were thinking that if the portrait were framed it would just
cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon’s picture there.”

“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.

“So far I could hardly have gone astray.  But now your thoughts went back to
Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the character in
his features.  Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you continued to look
across, and your face was thoughtful.  You were recalling the incidents of
Beecher’s career.  I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking
of the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the
Civil War, for I remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the
way in which he was received by the more turbulent of our people.  You felt so
strongly about it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking
of that also.  When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the
picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when I
observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands clenched I was
positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both
sides in that desperate struggle.  But then, again, your face grew sadder, you
shook your head.  You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless
waste of life.  Your hand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered
on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of
settling international questions had forced itself upon your mind.  At this
point I agreed with you that it was preposterous and was glad to find that all
my deductions had been correct.”

“Absolutely!” said I.  “And now that you have explained it, I confess that I am
as amazed as before.”

“It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you.  I should not have
intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity the other
day.  But I have in my hands here a little problem which may prove to be more
difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading.  Have you
observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of
a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?”

“No, I saw nothing.”

“Ah! then you must have overlooked it.  Just toss it over to me.  Here it is,
under the financial column.  Perhaps you would be good enough to read it
aloud.”

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the paragraph
indicated.  It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”

“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim
of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke unless some
more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident.  At two
o’clock yesterday afternoon a small packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed
in by the postman.  A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse
salt.  On emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to find two human ears,
apparently quite freshly severed.  The box had been sent by parcel post from
Belfast upon the morning before.  There is no indication as to the sender, and
the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of
fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or
correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the
post.  Some years ago, however, when she resided at Penge, she let apartments
in her house to three young medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid
of on account of their noisy and irregular habits.  The police are of opinion
that this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these youths,
who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her by sending her these relics
of the dissecting-rooms.  Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact
that one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of
Miss Cushing’s belief, from Belfast.  In the meantime, the matter is being
actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective
officers, being in charge of the case.”

“So much for the Daily Chronicle,” said Holmes as I finished reading.  “Now for
our friend Lestrade.  I had a note from him this morning, in which he says:

“I think that this case is very much in your line.  We have every hope of
clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to
work upon.  We have, of course, wired to the Belfast post-office, but a large
number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no means of
identifying this particular one, or of remembering the sender.  The box is a
half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way.  The
medical student theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you
should have a few hours to spare I should be very happy to see you out here.  I
shall be either at the house or in the police-station all day.

“What say you, Watson?  Can you rise superior to the heat and run down to
Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?”

“I was longing for something to do.”

“You shall have it then.  Ring for our boots and tell them to order a cab.
I’ll be back in a moment when I have changed my dressing-gown and filled my
cigar-case.”

A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far less
oppressive in Croydon than in town.  Holmes had sent on a wire, so that
Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at
the station.  A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss
Cushing resided.

It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim, with
whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping at the doors.
Halfway down, Lestrade stopped and tapped at a door, which was opened by a
small servant girl.  Miss Cushing was sitting in the front room, into which we
were ushered.  She was a placid-faced woman, with large, gentle eyes, and
grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side.  A worked
antimacassar lay upon her lap and a basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool
beside her.

“They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things,” said she as Lestrade
entered.  “I wish that you would take them away altogether.”

“So I shall, Miss Cushing.  I only kept them here until my friend, Mr. Holmes,
should have seen them in your presence.”

“Why in my presence, sir?”

“In case he wished to ask any questions.”

“What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing whatever
about it?”

“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way.  “I have no doubt that you
have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.”

“Indeed I have, sir.  I am a quiet woman and live a retired life.  It is
something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the police in my
house.  I won’t have those things in here, Mr. Lestrade.  If you wish to see
them you must go to the outhouse.”

It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the house.  Lestrade
went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a piece of brown paper and
some string.  There was a bench at the end of the path, and we all sat down
while Homes examined one by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.

“The string is exceedingly interesting,” he remarked, holding it up to the
light and sniffing at it.  “What do you make of this string, Lestrade?”

“It has been tarred.”

“Precisely.  It is a piece of tarred twine.  You have also, no doubt, remarked
that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as can be seen by the
double fray on each side.  This is of importance.”

“I cannot see the importance,” said Lestrade.

“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this
knot is of a peculiar character.”

“It is very neatly tied.  I had already made a note of that effect,” said
Lestrade complacently.

“So much for the string, then,” said Holmes, smiling, “now for the box wrapper.
Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee.  What, did you not observe it?  I
think there can be no doubt of it.  Address printed in rather straggling
characters: ‘Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed
pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink.  The word ‘Croydon’ has been
originally spelled with an ‘i’, which has been changed to ‘y’.  The parcel was
directed, then, by a man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited
education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon.  So far, so good!  The box
is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb
marks at the left bottom corner.  It is filled with rough salt of the quality
used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes.  And
embedded in it are these very singular enclosures.”

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knee he
examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward on each side of
him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager
face of our companion.  Finally he returned them to the box once more and sat
for a while in deep meditation.

“You have observed, of course,” said he at last, “that the ears are not a
pair.”

“Yes, I have noticed that.  But if this were the practical joke of some
students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them to send two
odd ears as a pair.”

“Precisely.  But this is not a practical joke.”

“You are sure of it?”

“The presumption is strongly against it.  Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are
injected with preservative fluid.  These ears bear no signs of this.  They are
fresh, too.  They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly
happen if a student had done it.  Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be
the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly
not rough salt.  I repeat that there is no practical joke here, but that we are
investigating a serious crime.”

A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion’s words and saw the
stern gravity which had hardened his features.  This brutal preliminary seemed
to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror in the background.
Lestrade, however, shook his head like a man who is only half convinced.

“There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,” said he, “but there are
much stronger reasons against the other.  We know that this woman has led a
most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years.
She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time.  Why on
earth, then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt, especially
as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she understands quite as little of
the matter as we do?”

“That is the problem which we have to solve,” Holmes answered, “and for my part
I shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is correct, and that a
double murder has been committed.  One of these ears is a woman’s, small,
finely formed, and pierced for an earring.  The other is a man’s, sun-burned,
discoloured, and also pierced for an earring.  These two people are presumably
dead, or we should have heard their story before now.  To-day is Friday.  The
packet was posted on Thursday morning.  The tragedy, then, occurred on
Wednesday or Tuesday, or earlier.  If the two people were murdered, who but
their murderer would have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing?  We may
take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want.  But he must
have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this packet.  What reason
then?  It must have been to tell her that the deed was done! or to pain her,
perhaps.  But in that case she knows who it is.  Does she know?  I doubt it.
If she knew, why should she call the police in?  She might have buried the
ears, and no one would have been the wiser.  That is what she would have done
if she had wished to shield the criminal.  But if she does not wish to shield
him she would give his name.  There is a tangle here which needs straightening
out.”  He had been talking in a high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the
garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the
house.

“I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing,” said he.

“In that case I may leave you here,” said Lestrade, “for I have another small
business on hand.  I think that I have nothing further to learn from Miss
Cushing.  You will find me at the police-station.”

“We shall look in on our way to the train,” answered Holmes.  A moment later he
and I were back in the front room, where the impassive lady was still quietly
working away at her antimacassar.  She put it down on her lap as we entered and
looked at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.

“I am convinced, sir,” she said, “that this matter is a mistake, and that the
parcel was never meant for me at all.  I have said this several times to the
gentlemen from Scotland Yard, but he simply laughs at me.  I have not an enemy
in the world, as far as I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick?”

“I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing,” said Holmes, taking a
seat beside her.  “I think that it is more than probable—” He paused, and I was
surprised, on glancing round to see that he was staring with singular
intentness at the lady’s profile.  Surprise and satisfaction were both for an
instant to be read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to find
out the cause of his silence he had become as demure as ever.  I stared hard
myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her
placid features; but I could see nothing which could account for my companion’s
evident excitement.

“There were one or two questions—”

“Oh, I am weary of questions!” cried Miss Cushing impatiently.

“You have two sisters, I believe.”

“How could you know that?”

“I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you have a portrait
group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is undoubtedly
yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you that there could be no
doubt of the relationship.”

“Yes, you are quite right.  Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary.”

“And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of your younger
sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a steward by his uniform.  I
observe that she was unmarried at the time.”

“You are very quick at observing.”

“That is my trade.”

“Well, you are quite right.  But she was married to Mr. Browner a few days
afterwards.  He was on the South American line when that was taken, but he was
so fond of her that he couldn’t abide to leave her for so long, and he got into
the Liverpool and London boats.”

“Ah, the Conqueror, perhaps?”

“No, the May Day, when last I heard.  Jim came down here to see me once.  That
was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he would always take drink when
he was ashore, and a little drink would send him stark, staring mad.  Ah! it
was a bad day that ever he took a glass in his hand again.  First he dropped
me, then he quarrelled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing we
don’t know how things are going with them.”

It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which she felt very
deeply.  Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was shy at first, but
ended by becoming extremely communicative.  She told us many details about her
brother-in-law the steward, and then wandering off on the subject of her former
lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of their
delinquencies, with their names and those of their hospitals.  Holmes listened
attentively to everything, throwing in a question from time to time.

“About your second sister, Sarah,” said he.  “I wonder, since you are both
maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.”

“Ah! you don’t know Sarah’s temper or you would wonder no more.  I tried it
when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago, when we had
to part.  I don’t want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always
meddlesome and hard to please, was Sarah.”

“You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations.”

“Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time.  Why, she went up there to
live in order to be near them.  And now she has no word hard enough for Jim
Browner.  The last six months that she was here she would speak of nothing but
his drinking and his ways.  He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given
her a bit of his mind, and that was the start of it.”

“Thank you, Miss Cushing,” said Holmes, rising and bowing.  “Your sister Sarah
lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wallington?  Good-bye, and I am very
sorry that you should have been troubled over a case with which, as you say,
you have nothing whatever to do.”

There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.

“How far to Wallington?” he asked.

“Only about a mile, sir.”

“Very good.  Jump in, Watson.  We must strike while the iron is hot.  Simple as
the case is, there have been one or two very instructive details in connection
with it.  Just pull up at a telegraph office as you pass, cabby.”

Holmes sent off a short wire and for the rest of the drive lay back in the cab,
with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face.  Our drive
pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted.
My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the
door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny hat,
appeared on the step.

“Is Miss Cushing at home?” asked Holmes.

“Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill,” said he.  “She has been suffering since
yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity.  As her medical adviser, I
cannot possibly take the responsibility of allowing anyone to see her.  I
should recommend you to call again in ten days.”  He drew on his gloves, closed
the door, and marched off down the street.

“Well, if we can’t we can’t,” said Holmes, cheerfully.

“Perhaps she could not or would not have told you much.”

“I did not wish her to tell me anything.  I only wanted to look at her.
However, I think that I have got all that I want.  Drive us to some decent
hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and afterwards we shall drop down
upon friend Lestrade at the police-station.”

We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would talk about
nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had purchased his
own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas, at a Jew
broker’s in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings.  This led him to
Paganini, and we sat for an hour over a bottle of claret while he told me
anecdote after anecdote of that extraordinary man.  The afternoon was far
advanced and the hot glare had softened into a mellow glow before we found
ourselves at the police-station.  Lestrade was waiting for us at the door.

“A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes,” said he.

“Ha!  It is the answer!”  He tore it open, glanced his eyes over it, and
crumpled it into his pocket.  “That’s all right,” said he.

“Have you found out anything?”

“I have found out everything!”

“What!”  Lestrade stared at him in amazement.  “You are joking.”

“I was never more serious in my life.  A shocking crime has been committed, and
I think I have now laid bare every detail of it.”

“And the criminal?”

Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting cards and
threw it over to Lestrade.

“That is the name,” he said.  “You cannot effect an arrest until to-morrow
night at the earliest.  I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all
in connection with the case, as I choose to be only associated with those
crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.  Come on, Watson.”  We
strode off together to the station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a
delighted face at the card which Holmes had thrown him.

“The case,” said Sherlock Holmes as we chatted over our cigars that night in
our rooms at Baker Street, “is one where, as in the investigations which you
have chronicled under the names of ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and of ‘The Sign of
Four,’ we have been compelled to reason backward from effects to causes.  I
have written to Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details which are now
wanting, and which he will only get after he had secured his man.  That he may
be safely trusted to do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is
as tenacious as a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and
indeed, it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland
Yard.”

“Your case is not complete, then?” I asked.

“It is fairly complete in essentials.  We know who the author of the revolting
business is, although one of the victims still escapes us.  Of course, you have
formed your own conclusions.”

“I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool boat, is the man
whom you suspect?”

“Oh! it is more than a suspicion.”

“And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications.”

“On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear.  Let me run over the
principal steps.  We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely
blank mind, which is always an advantage.  We had formed no theories.  We were
simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations.  What did
we see first?  A very placid and respectable lady, who seemed quite innocent of
any secret, and a portrait which showed me that she had two younger sisters.
It instantly flashed across my mind that the box might have been meant for one
of these.  I set the idea aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at
our leisure.  Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw the very
singular contents of the little yellow box.

“The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard ship, and at
once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our investigation.  When I observed
that the knot was one which is popular with sailors, that the parcel had been
posted at a port, and that the male ear was pierced for an earring which is so
much more common among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that all the
actors in the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes.

“When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that it was to
Miss S. Cushing.  Now, the oldest sister would, of course, be Miss Cushing, and
although her initial was ‘S’ it might belong to one of the others as well.  In
that case we should have to commence our investigation from a fresh basis
altogether.  I therefore went into the house with the intention of clearing up
this point.  I was about to assure Miss Cushing that I was convinced that a
mistake had been made when you may remember that I came suddenly to a stop.
The fact was that I had just seen something which filled me with surprise and
at the same time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.

“As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part of the body
which varies so much as the human ear.  Each ear is as a rule quite distinctive
and differs from all other ones.  In last year’s Anthropological Journal you
will find two short monographs from my pen upon the subject.  I had, therefore,
examined the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert and had carefully noted
their anatomical peculiarities.  Imagine my surprise, then, when on looking at
Miss Cushing I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear
which I had just inspected.  The matter was entirely beyond coincidence.  There
was the same shortening of the pinna, the same broad curve of the upper lobe,
the same convolution of the inner cartilage.  In all essentials it was the same
ear.

“In the first place, her sister’s name was Sarah, and her address had until
recently been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the mistake had
occurred and for whom the packet was meant.  Then we heard of this steward,
married to the third sister, and learned that he had at one time been so
intimate with Miss Sarah that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near
the Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them.  This quarrel had put
a stop to all communications for some months, so that if Browner had occasion
to address a packet to Miss Sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so to her old
address.

“And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully.  We had
learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of strong
passions—you remember that he threw up what must have been a very superior
berth in order to be nearer to his wife—subject, too, to occasional fits of
hard drinking.  We had reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and
that a man—presumably a seafaring man—had been murdered at the same time.
Jealousy, of course, at once suggests itself as the motive for the crime.  And
why should these proofs of the deed be sent to Miss Sarah Cushing?  Probably
because during her residence in Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about
the events which led to the tragedy.  You will observe that this line of boats
call at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that, presuming that Browner had
committed the deed and had embarked at once upon his steamer, the May Day,
Belfast would be the first place at which he could post his terrible packet.

“A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although I thought
it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it before going further.
An unsuccessful lover might have killed Mr. and Mrs. Browner, and the male ear
might have belonged to the husband.  There were many grave objections to this
theory, but it was conceivable.  I therefore sent off a telegram to my friend
Algar, of the Liverpool force, and asked him to find out if Mrs. Browner were
at home, and if Browner had departed in the May Day.  Then we went on to
Wallington to visit Miss Sarah.

“I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear had been
reproduced in her.  Then, of course, she might give us very important
information, but I was not sanguine that she would.  She must have heard of the
business the day before, since all Croydon was ringing with it, and she alone
could have understood for whom the packet was meant.  If she had been willing
to help justice she would probably have communicated with the police already.
However, it was clearly our duty to see her, so we went.  We found that the
news of the arrival of the packet—for her illness dated from that time—had such
an effect upon her as to bring on brain fever.  It was clearer than ever that
she understood its full significance, but equally clear that we should have to
wait some time for any assistance from her.

“However, we were really independent of her help.  Our answers were waiting for
us at the police-station, where I had directed Algar to send them.  Nothing
could be more conclusive.  Mrs. Browner’s house had been closed for more than
three days, and the neighbours were of opinion that she had gone south to see
her relatives.  It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that Browner
had left aboard of the May Day, and I calculate that she is due in the Thames
tomorrow night.  When he arrives he will be met by the obtuse but resolute
Lestrade, and I have no doubt that we shall have all our details filled in.”

Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations.  Two days later he
received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from the detective, and
a typewritten document, which covered several pages of foolscap.

“Lestrade has got him all right,” said Holmes, glancing up at me.  “Perhaps it
would interest you to hear what he says.

“My dear Mr. Holmes:

In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our
theories” [“the ‘we’ is rather fine, Watson, is it not?”] “I went down to the
Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the S.S. May Day, belonging to the
Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet Company.  On inquiry, I found that
there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner and that he had acted
during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been
compelled to relieve him of his duties.  On descending to his berth, I found
him seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands, rocking himself to
and fro.  He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy—something
like Aldrige, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair.  He jumped up when he
heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of river
police, who were round the corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and
he held out his hands quietly enough for the darbies.  We brought him along to
the cells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be something
incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife such as most sailors have, we got
nothing for our trouble.  However, we find that we shall want no more evidence,
for on being brought before the inspector at the station he asked leave to make
a statement, which was, of course, taken down, just as he made it, by our
shorthand man.  We had three copies typewritten, one of which I enclose.  The
affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but
I am obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation.  With kind regards,

“Yours very truly, “G. Lestrade.

“Hum!  The investigation really was a very simple one,” remarked Holmes, “but I
don’t think it struck him in that light when he first called us in.  However,
let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself.  This is his statement as
made before Inspector Montgomery at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the
advantage of being verbatim.”

“‘Have I anything to say?  Yes, I have a deal to say.  I have to make a clean
breast of it all.  You can hang me, or you can leave me alone.  I don’t care a
plug which you do.  I tell you I’ve not shut an eye in sleep since I did it,
and I don’t believe I ever will again until I get past all waking.  Sometimes
it’s his face, but most generally it’s hers.  I’m never without one or the
other before me.  He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind o’
surprise upon her face.  Ay, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when
she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her
before.

“‘But it was Sarah’s fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a blight on
her and set the blood rotting in her veins!  It’s not that I want to clear
myself.  I know that I went back to drink, like the beast that I was.  But she
would have forgiven me; she would have stuck as close to me as a rope to a
block if that woman had never darkened our door.  For Sarah Cushing loved
me—that’s the root of the business—she loved me until all her love turned to
poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife’s footmark in the
mud than I did of her whole body and soul.

“‘There were three sisters altogether.  The old one was just a good woman, the
second was a devil, and the third was an angel.  Sarah was thirty-three, and
Mary was twenty-nine when I married.  We were just as happy as the day was long
when we set up house together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman
than my Mary.  And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a
month, and one thing led to another, until she was just one of ourselves.

“‘I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money by, and
all was as bright as a new dollar.  My God, whoever would have thought that it
could have come to this?  Whoever would have dreamed it?

“‘I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if the ship
were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and in this way I
saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah.  She was a fine tall woman, black and
quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her
eye like a spark from a flint.  But when little Mary was there I had never a
thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God’s mercy.

“‘It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or to coax
me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought anything of that.  But one
evening my eyes were opened.  I had come up from the ship and found my wife
out, but Sarah at home.  “Where’s Mary?” I asked.  “Oh, she has gone to pay
some accounts.”  I was impatient and paced up and down the room.  “Can’t you be
happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?” says she.  “It’s a bad compliment to
me that you can’t be contented with my society for so short a time.”  “That’s
all right, my lass,” said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way,
but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a
fever.  I looked into her eyes and I read it all there.  There was no need for
her to speak, nor for me either.  I frowned and drew my hand away.  Then she
stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me
on the shoulder.  “Steady old Jim!” said she, and with a kind o’ mocking laugh,
she ran out of the room.

“‘Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul, and she is
a woman who can hate, too.  I was a fool to let her go on biding with us—a
besotted fool—but I never said a word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her.
Things went on much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was
a bit of a change in Mary herself.  She had always been so trusting and so
innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had
been and what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had
in my pockets, and a thousand such follies.  Day by day she grew queerer and
more irritable, and we had ceaseless rows about nothing.  I was fairly puzzled
by it all.  Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just inseparable.  I
can see now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife’s mind
against me, but I was such a blind beetle that I could not understand it at the
time.  Then I broke my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I
should not have done it if Mary had been the same as ever.  She had some reason
to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began to be wider and
wider.  And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things became a thousand
times blacker.

“‘It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was to see
us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends wherever he went.
He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and curled, who had seen half the
world and could talk of what he had seen.  He was good company, I won’t deny
it, and he had wonderful polite ways with him for a sailor man, so that I think
there must have been a time when he knew more of the poop than the forecastle.
For a month he was in and out of my house, and never once did it cross my mind
that harm might come of his soft, tricky ways.  And then at last something made
me suspect, and from that day my peace was gone forever.

“‘It was only a little thing, too.  I had come into the parlour unexpected, and
as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife’s face.  But as
she saw who it was it faded again, and she turned away with a look of
disappointment.  That was enough for me.  There was no one but Alec Fairbairn
whose step she could have mistaken for mine.  If I could have seen him then I
should have killed him, for I have always been like a madman when my temper
gets loose.  Mary saw the devil’s light in my eyes, and she ran forward with
her hands on my sleeve.  “Don’t, Jim, don’t!” says she.  “Where’s Sarah?” I
asked.  “In the kitchen,” says she.  “Sarah,” says I as I went in, “this man
Fairbairn is never to darken my door again.”  “Why not?” says she.  “Because I
order it.”  “Oh!” says she, “if my friends are not good enough for this house,
then I am not good enough for it either.”  “You can do what you like,” says I,
“but if Fairbairn shows his face here again I’ll send you one of his ears for a
keepsake.”  She was frightened by my face, I think, for she never answered a
word, and the same evening she left my house.

“‘Well, I don’t know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman,
or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging
her to misbehave.  Anyway, she took a house just two streets off and let
lodgings to sailors.  Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to
have tea with her sister and him.  How often she went I don’t know, but I
followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the
back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was.  I swore to my wife that
I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with
me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper.  There was no
trace of love between us any longer.  I could see that she hated me and feared
me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, then she despised me as well.

“‘Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so she went
back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and things jogged on
much the same as ever at home.  And then came this week and all the misery and
ruin.

“’It was in this way.  We had gone on the May Day for a round voyage of seven
days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our plates, so that we had to
put back into port for twelve hours.  I left the ship and came home, thinking
what a surprise it would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be
glad to see me so soon.  The thought was in my head as I turned into my own
street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the
side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me
as I stood watching them from the footpath.

“‘I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that from that moment I was not my
own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look back on it.  I had been
drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly turned my brain.
There’s something throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but that
morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.

“’Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab.  I had a heavy oak stick
in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got
cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen.  They
pulled up soon at the railway station.  There was a good crowd round the
booking-office, so I got quite close to them without being seen.  They took
tickets for New Brighton.  So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them.
When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never more than a
hundred yards from them.  At last I saw them hire a boat and start for a row,
for it was a very hot day, and they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler
on the water.

“‘It was just as if they had been given into my hands.  There was a bit of a
haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards.  I hired a boat for
myself, and I pulled after them.  I could see the blur of their craft, but they
were going nearly as fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the
shore before I caught them up.  The haze was like a curtain all round us, and
there were we three in the middle of it.  My God, shall I ever forget their
faces when they saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them?  She
screamed out.  He swore like a madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must
have seen death in my eyes.  I got past it and got one in with my stick that
crushed his head like an egg.  I would have spared her, perhaps, for all my
madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out to him, and calling him
“Alec.”  I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him.  I was like a wild
beast then that had tasted blood.  If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she
should have joined them.  I pulled out my knife, and—well, there!  I’ve said
enough.  It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel
when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about.  Then
I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had
sunk.  I knew very well that the owner would think that they had lost their
bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea.  I cleaned myself up, got
back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had
passed.  That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent
it from Belfast.

“‘There you have the whole truth of it.  You can hang me, or do what you like
with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been punished already.  I cannot
shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at me—staring at me as they
stared when my boat broke through the haze.  I killed them quick, but they are
killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or
dead before morning.  You won’t put me alone into a cell, sir?  For pity’s sake
don’t, and may you be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now.’

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the
paper.  “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear?
It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is
unthinkable.  But what end?  There is the great standing perennial problem to
which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

“Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for
uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should
interfere in the matter.  I really have other things to engage me.”  So spoke
Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was
arranging and indexing some of his recent material.

But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex.  She held
her ground firmly.

“You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year,” she said—“Mr. Fairdale
Hobbs.”

“Ah, yes—a simple matter.”

“But he would never cease talking of it—your kindness, sir, and the way in
which you brought light into the darkness.  I remembered his words when I was
in doubt and darkness myself.  I know you could if you only would.”

Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him justice,
upon the side of kindliness.  The two forces made him lay down his gum-brush
with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair.

“Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then.  You don’t object to
tobacco, I take it?  Thank you, Watson—the matches!  You are uneasy, as I
understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms and you cannot see
him.  Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger you often would not
see me for weeks on end.”

“No doubt, sir; but this is different.  It frightens me, Mr. Holmes.  I can’t
sleep for fright.  To hear his quick step moving here and moving there from
early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of
him—it’s more than I can stand.  My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but
he is out at his work all day, while I get no rest from it.  What is he hiding
for?  What has he done?  Except for the girl, I am all alone in the house with
him, and it’s more than my nerves can stand.”

Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman’s
shoulder.  He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished.  The
scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothed into their
usual commonplace.  She sat down in the chair which he had indicated.

“If I take it up I must understand every detail,” said he.  “Take time to
consider.  The smallest point may be the most essential.  You say that the man
came ten days ago and paid you for a fortnight’s board and lodging?”

“He asked my terms, sir.  I said fifty shillings a week.  There is a small
sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of the house.”

“Well?”

“He said, ‘I’ll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms.’
I’m a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the money meant much to
me.  He took out a ten-pound note, and he held it out to me then and there.
‘You can have the same every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the
terms,’ he said.  ‘If not, I’ll have no more to do with you.’

“What were the terms?”

“Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house.  That was all
right.  Lodgers often have them.  Also, that he was to be left entirely to
himself and never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed.”

“Nothing wonderful in that, surely?”

“Not in reason, sir.  But this is out of all reason.  He has been there for ten
days, and neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl has once set eyes upon him.
We can hear that quick step of his pacing up and down, up and down, night,
morning, and noon; but except on that first night he had never once gone out of
the house.”

“Oh, he went out the first night, did he?”

“Yes, sir, and returned very late—after we were all in bed.  He told me after
he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not to bar the door.  I
heard him come up the stair after midnight.”

“But his meals?”

“It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang, leave his
meal upon a chair, outside his door.  Then he rings again when he has finished,
and we take it down from the same chair.  If he wants anything else he prints
it on a slip of paper and leaves it.”

“Prints it?”

“Yes, sir; prints it in pencil.  Just the word, nothing more.  Here’s the one I
brought to show you—soap.  Here’s another—match.  This is one he left the first
morning—daily gazette.  I leave that paper with his breakfast every morning.”

“Dear me, Watson,” said Homes, staring with great curiosity at the slips of
foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, “this is certainly a little
unusual.  Seclusion I can understand; but why print?  Printing is a clumsy
process.  Why not write?  What would it suggest, Watson?”

“That he desired to conceal his handwriting.”

“But why?  What can it matter to him that his landlady should have a word of
his writing?  Still, it may be as you say.  Then, again, why such laconic
messages?”

“I cannot imagine.”

“It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation.  The words are written
with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pattern.  You will
observe that the paper is torn away at the side here after the printing was
done, so that the ‘s’ of ‘soap’ is partly gone.  Suggestive, Watson, is it
not?”

“Of caution?”

“Exactly.  There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint, something which
might give a clue to the person’s identity.  Now.  Mrs. Warren, you say that
the man was of middle size, dark, and bearded.  What age would he be?”

“Youngish, sir—not over thirty.”

“Well, can you give me no further indications?”

“He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner by his
accent.”

“And he was well dressed?”

“Very smartly dressed, sir—quite the gentleman.  Dark clothes—nothing you would
note.”

“He gave no name?”

“No, sir.”

“And has had no letters or callers?”

“None.”

“But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?”

“No, sir; he looks after himself entirely.”

“Dear me! that is certainly remarkable.  What about his luggage?”

“He had one big brown bag with him—nothing else.”

“Well, we don’t seem to have much material to help us.  Do you say nothing has
come out of that room—absolutely nothing?”

The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out two burnt
matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.

“They were on his tray this morning.  I brought them because I had heard that
you can read great things out of small ones.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“There is nothing here,” said he.  “The matches have, of course, been used to
light cigarettes.  That is obvious from the shortness of the burnt end.  Half
the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar.  But, dear me! this
cigarette stub is certainly remarkable.  The gentleman was bearded and
moustached, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t understand that.  I should say that only a clean-shaven man could have
smoked this.  Why, Watson, even your modest moustache would have been singed.”

“A holder?” I suggested.

“No, no; the end is matted.  I suppose there could not be two people in your
rooms, Mrs. Warren?”

“No, sir.  He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life in one.”

“Well, I think we must wait for a little more material.  After all, you have
nothing to complain of.  You have received your rent, and he is not a
troublesome lodger, though he is certainly an unusual one.  He pays you well,
and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no direct business of yours.  We have
no excuse for an intrusion upon his privacy until we have some reason to think
that there is a guilty reason for it.  I’ve taken up the matter, and I won’t
lose sight of it.  Report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my
assistance if it should be needed.

“There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson,” he remarked
when the landlady had left us.  “It may, of course, be trivial—individual
eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface.  The
first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that the person now in
the rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them.”

“Why should you think so?”

“Well, apart from this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that the only time
the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms?  He came
back—or someone came back—when all witnesses were out of the way.  We have no
proof that the person who came back was the person who went out.  Then, again,
the man who took the rooms spoke English well.  This other, however, prints
‘match’ when it should have been ‘matches.’ I can imagine that the word was
taken out of a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural.  The
laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English.  Yes,
Watson, there are good reasons to suspect that there has been a substitution of
lodgers.”

“But for what possible end?”

“Ah! there lies our problem.  There is one rather obvious line of
investigation.”  He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the
agony columns of the various London journals.  “Dear me!” said he, turning over
the pages, “what a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings!  What a rag-bag of
singular happenings!  But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was
given to a student of the unusual!  This person is alone and cannot be
approached by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is
desired.  How is any news or any message to reach him from without?  Obviously
by advertisement through a newspaper.  There seems no other way, and
fortunately we need concern ourselves with the one paper only.  Here are the
Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight.  ‘Lady with a black boa at
Prince’s Skating Club’—that we may pass.  ‘Surely Jimmy will not break his
mother’s heart’—that appears to be irrelevant.  ‘If the lady who fainted on
Brixton bus’—she does not interest me.  ‘Every day my heart longs—’ Bleat,
Watson—unmitigated bleat!  Ah, this is a little more possible.  Listen to this:
‘Be patient.  Will find some sure means of communications.  Meanwhile, this
column.  G.’ That is two days after Mrs. Warren’s lodger arrived.  It sounds
plausible, does it not?  The mysterious one could understand English, even if
he could not print it.  Let us see if we can pick up the trace again.  Yes,
here we are—three days later.  ‘Am making successful arrangements.  Patience
and prudence.  The clouds will pass.  G.’ Nothing for a week after that.  Then
comes something much more definite: ‘The path is clearing.  If I find chance
signal message remember code agreed— One A, two B, and so on.  You will hear
soon.  G.’ That was in yesterday’s paper, and there is nothing in to-day’s.
It’s all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren’s lodger.  If we wait a little,
Watson, I don’t doubt that the affair will grow more intelligible.”

So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearthrug
with his back to the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face.

“How’s this, Watson?” he cried, picking up the paper from the table.  “‘High
red house with white stone facings.  Third floor.  Second window left.  After
dusk.  G.’ That is definite enough.  I think after breakfast we must make a
little reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren’s neighbourhood.  Ah, Mrs. Warren! what
news do you bring us this morning?”

Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy which told
of some new and momentous development.

“It’s a police matter, Mr. Holmes!” she cried.  “I’ll have no more of it!  He
shall pack out of there with his baggage.  I would have gone straight up and
told him so, only I thought it was but fair to you to take your opinion first.
But I’m at the end of my patience, and when it comes to knocking my old man
about—”

“Knocking Mr. Warren about?”

“Using him roughly, anyway.”

“But who used him roughly?”

“Ah! that’s what we want to know!  It was this morning, sir.  Mr. Warren is a
timekeeper at Morton and Waylight’s, in Tottenham Court Road.  He has to be out
of the house before seven.  Well, this morning he had not gone ten paces down
the road when two men came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and
bundled him into a cab that was beside the curb.  They drove him an hour, and
then opened the door and shot him out.  He lay in the roadway so shaken in his
wits that he never saw what became of the cab.  When he picked himself up he
found he was on Hampstead Heath; so he took a bus home, and there he lies now
on his sofa, while I came straight round to tell you what had happened.”

“Most interesting,” said Holmes.  “Did he observe the appearance of these
men—did he hear them talk?”

“No; he is clean dazed.  He just knows that he was lifted up as if by magic and
dropped as if by magic.  Two at least were in it, and maybe three.”

“And you connect this attack with your lodger?”

“Well, we’ve lived there fifteen years and no such happenings ever came before.
I’ve had enough of him.  Money’s not everything.  I’ll have him out of my house
before the day is done.”

“Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren.  Do nothing rash.  I begin to think that this affair
may be very much more important than appeared at first sight.  It is clear now
that some danger is threatening your lodger.  It is equally clear that his
enemies, lying in wait for him near your door, mistook your husband for him in
the foggy morning light.  On discovering their mistake they released him.  What
they would have done had it not been a mistake, we can only conjecture.”

“Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.”

“I don’t see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door.  I always
hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the tray.”

“He has to take the tray in.  Surely we could conceal ourselves and see him do
it.”

The landlady thought for a moment.

“Well, sir, there’s the box-room opposite.  I could arrange a looking-glass,
maybe, and if you were behind the door—”

“Excellent!” said Holmes.  “When does he lunch?”

“About one, sir.”

“Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time.  For the present, Mrs. Warren,
good-bye.”

At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren’s house—a
high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a narrow thoroughfare at
the northeast side of the British Museum.  Standing as it does near the corner
of the street, it commands a view down Howe Street, with its more pretentious
houses.  Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, a row of residential
flats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye.

“See, Watson!” said he.  “‘High red house with stone facings.’ There is the
signal station all right.  We know the place, and we know the code; so surely
our task should be simple.  There’s a ‘to let’ card in that window.  It is
evidently an empty flat to which the confederate has access.  Well,
Mrs. Warren, what now?”

“I have it all ready for you.  If you will both come up and leave your boots
below on the landing, I’ll put you there now.”

It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged.  The mirror was so
placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door opposite.
We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant
tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung.  Presently the
landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed
door, and then, treading heavily, departed.  Crouching together in the angle of
the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror.  Suddenly, as the landlady’s
footsteps died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved,
and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray from the chair.  An instant
later it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful,
horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the box-room.  Then the door
crashed to, the key turned once more, and all was silence.  Holmes twitched my
sleeve, and together we stole down the stair.

“I will call again in the evening,” said he to the expectant landlady.  “I
think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters.”

“My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,” said he, speaking from the
depths of his easy-chair.  “There has been a substitution of lodgers.  What I
did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson.”

“She saw us.”

“Well, she saw something to alarm her.  That is certain.  The general sequence
of events is pretty clear, is it not?  A couple seek refuge in London from a
very terrible and instant danger.  The measure of that danger is the rigour of
their precautions.  The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to
leave the woman in absolute safety while he does it.  It is not an easy
problem, but he solved it in an original fashion, and so effectively that her
presence was not even known to the landlady who supplies her with food.  The
printed messages, as is now evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered
by her writing.  The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their
enemies to her.  Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse
to the agony column of a paper.  So far all is clear.”

“But what is at the root of it?”

“Ah, yes, Watson—severely practical, as usual!  What is at the root of it all?
Mrs. Warren’s whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and assumes a more sinister
aspect as we proceed.  This much we can say: that it is no ordinary love
escapade.  You saw the woman’s face at the sign of danger.  We have heard, too,
of the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the lodger.
These alarms, and the desperate need for secrecy, argue that the matter is one
of life or death.  The attack upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy,
whoever they are, are themselves not aware of the substitution of the female
lodger for the male.  It is very curious and complex, Watson.”

“Why should you go further in it?  What have you to gain from it?”

“What, indeed?  It is art for art’s sake, Watson.  I suppose when you doctored
you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?”

“For my education, Holmes.”

“Education never ends, Watson.  It is a series of lessons with the greatest for
the last.  This is an instructive case.  There is neither money nor credit in
it, and yet one would wish to tidy it up.  When dusk comes we should find
ourselves one stage advanced in our investigation.”

When we returned to Mrs. Warren’s rooms, the gloom of a London winter evening
had thickened into one gray curtain, a dead monotone of colour, broken only by
the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred haloes of the
gas-lamps.  As we peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodging-house,
one more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity.

“Someone is moving in that room,” said Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt and eager
face thrust forward to the window-pane.  “Yes, I can see his shadow.  There he
is again!  He has a candle in his hand.  Now he is peering across.  He wants to
be sure that she is on the lookout.  Now he begins to flash.  Take the message
also, Watson, that we may check each other.  A single flash—that is A, surely.
Now, then.  How many did you make it?  Twenty.  So did I.  That should mean T.
AT—that’s intelligible enough.  Another T.  Surely this is the beginning of a
second word.  Now, then—TENTA.  Dead stop.  That can’t be all, Watson?  ATTENTA
gives no sense.  Nor is it any better as three words AT, TEN, TA, unless
T. A. are a person’s initials.  There it goes again!  What’s that?  ATTE—why,
it is the same message over again.  Curious, Watson, very curious.  Now he is
off once more!  AT—why he is repeating it for the third time.  ATTENTA three
times!  How often will he repeat it?  No, that seems to be the finish.  He has
withdrawn from the window.  What do you make of it, Watson?”

“A cipher message, Holmes.”

My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension.  “And not a very obscure
cipher, Watson,” said he.  “Why, of course, it is Italian!  The A means that it
is addressed to a woman.  ‘Beware!  Beware!  Beware!’ How’s that, Watson?

“I believe you have hit it.”

“Not a doubt of it.  It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated to make it
more so.  But beware of what?  Wait a bit, he is coming to the window once
more.”

Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of the small
flame across the window as the signals were renewed.  They came more rapidly
than before—so rapid that it was hard to follow them.

“PERICOLO—pericolo—eh, what’s that, Watson?  ‘Danger,’ isn’t it?  Yes, by Jove,
it’s a danger signal.  There he goes again!  PERI.  Halloa, what on earth—”

The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window had
disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty building,
with its tiers of shining casements.  That last warning cry had been suddenly
cut short.  How, and by whom?  The same thought occurred on the instant to us
both.  Holmes sprang up from where he crouched by the window.

“This is serious, Watson,” he cried.  “There is some devilry going forward!
Why should such a message stop in such a way?  I should put Scotland Yard in
touch with this business—and yet, it is too pressing for us to leave.”

“Shall I go for the police?”

“We must define the situation a little more clearly.  It may bear some more
innocent interpretation.  Come, Watson, let us go across ourselves and see what
we can make of it.”  As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at
the building which we had left.  There, dimly outlined at the top window, I
could see the shadow of a head, a woman’s head, gazing tensely, rigidly, out
into the night, waiting with breathless suspense for the renewal of that
interrupted message.  At the doorway of the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in
a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing.  He started as the
hall-light fell upon our faces.

“Holmes!” he cried.

“Why, Gregson!” said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland Yard
detective.  “Journeys end with lovers’ meetings.  What brings you here?”

“The same reasons that bring you, I expect,” said Gregson.  “How you got on to
it I can’t imagine.”

“Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle.  I’ve been taking the
signals.”

“Signals?”

“Yes, from that window.  They broke off in the middle.  We came over to see the
reason.  But since it is safe in your hands I see no object in continuing this
business.”

“Wait a bit!” cried Gregson eagerly.  “I’ll do you this justice, Mr. Holmes,
that I was never in a case yet that I didn’t feel stronger for having you on my
side.  There’s only the one exit to these flats, so we have him safe.”

“Who is he?”

“Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes.  You must give us best
this time.”  He struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on which a cabman,
his whip in his hand, sauntered over from a four-wheeler which stood on the far
side of the street.  “May I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” he said to
the cabman.  “This is Mr. Leverton, of Pinkerton’s American Agency.”

“The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?” said Holmes.  “Sir, I am pleased to
meet you.”

The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-shaven, hatchet
face, flushed up at the words of commendation.  “I am on the trail of my life
now, Mr. Holmes,” said he.  “If I can get Gorgiano—”

“What!  Gorgiano of the Red Circle?”

“Oh, he has a European fame, has he?  Well, we’ve learned all about him in
America.  We KNOW he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet we have nothing
positive we can take him on.  I tracked him over from New York, and I’ve been
close to him for a week in London, waiting some excuse to get my hand on his
collar.  Mr. Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big tenement house, and
there’s only one door, so he can’t slip us.  There’s three folk come out since
he went in, but I’ll swear he wasn’t one of them.”

“Mr. Holmes talks of signals,” said Gregson.  “I expect, as usual, he knows a
good deal that we don’t.”

In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had appeared to us.
The American struck his hands together with vexation.

“He’s on to us!” he cried.

“Why do you think so?”

“Well, it figures out that way, does it not?  Here he is, sending out messages
to an accomplice—there are several of his gang in London.  Then suddenly, just
as by your own account he was telling them that there was danger, he broke
short off.  What could it mean except that from the window he had suddenly
either caught sight of us in the street, or in some way come to understand how
close the danger was, and that he must act right away if he was to avoid it?
What do you suggest, Mr. Holmes?”

“That we go up at once and see for ourselves.”

“But we have no warrant for his arrest.”

“He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,” said Gregson.
“That is good enough for the moment.  When we have him by the heels we can see
if New York can’t help us to keep him.  I’ll take the responsibility of
arresting him now.”

Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in
that of courage.  Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer
with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would
have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard.  The Pinkerton man had
tried to push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back.  London
dangers were the privilege of the London force.

The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing ajar.
Gregson pushed it open.  Within all was absolute silence and darkness.  I
struck a match and lit the detective’s lantern.  As I did so, and as the
flicker steadied into a flame, we all gave a gasp of surprise.  On the deal
boards of the carpetless floor there was outlined a fresh track of blood.  The
red steps pointed towards us and led away from an inner room, the door of which
was closed.  Gregson flung it open and held his light full blaze in front of
him, while we all peered eagerly over his shoulders.

In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the figure of an
enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely horrible in its
contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in
a broad wet circle upon the white woodwork.  His knees were drawn up, his hands
thrown out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat
there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body.
Giant as he was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that
terrific blow.  Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged
dagger lay upon the floor, and near it a black kid glove.

“By George! it’s Black Gorgiano himself!” cried the American detective.
“Someone has got ahead of us this time.”

“Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson.  “Why, whatever
are you doing?”

Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it backward and
forward across the window-panes.  Then he peered into the darkness, blew the
candle out, and threw it on the floor.

“I rather think that will be helpful,” said he.  He came over and stood in deep
thought while the two professionals were examining the body.  “You say that
three people came out from the flat while you were waiting downstairs,” said he
at last.  “Did you observe them closely?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle size?”

“Yes; he was the last to pass me.”

“That is your man, I fancy.  I can give you his description, and we have a very
excellent outline of his footmark.  That should be enough for you.”

“Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London.”

“Perhaps not.  That is why I thought it best to summon this lady to your aid.”

We all turned round at the words.  There, framed in the doorway, was a tall and
beautiful woman—the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury.  Slowly she advanced, her
face pale and drawn with a frightful apprehension, her eyes fixed and staring,
her terrified gaze riveted upon the dark figure on the floor.

“You have killed him!” she muttered.  “Oh, Dio mio, you have killed him!”  Then
I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she sprang into the air with a
cry of joy.  Round and round the room she danced, her hands clapping, her dark
eyes gleaming with delighted wonder, and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations
pouring from her lips.  It was terrible and amazing to see such a woman so
convulsed with joy at such a sight.  Suddenly she stopped and gazed at us all
with a questioning stare.

“But you!  You are police, are you not?  You have killed Giuseppe Gorgiano.  Is
it not so?”

“We are police, madam.”

She looked round into the shadows of the room.

“But where, then, is Gennaro?” she asked.  “He is my husband, Gennaro Lucca.  I
am Emilia Lucca, and we are both from New York.  Where is Gennaro?  He called
me this moment from this window, and I ran with all my speed.”

“It was I who called,” said Holmes.

“You!  How could you call?”

“Your cipher was not difficult, madam.  Your presence here was desirable.  I
knew that I had only to flash ‘Vieni’ and you would surely come.”

The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.

“I do not understand how you know these things,” she said.  “Giuseppe
Gorgiano—how did he—” She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up with pride
and delight.  “Now I see it!  My Gennaro!  My splendid, beautiful Gennaro, who
has guarded me safe from all harm, he did it, with his own strong hand he
killed the monster!  Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are!  What woman could ever
be worthy of such a man?”

“Well, Mrs. Lucca,” said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon the lady’s
sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill hooligan, “I am
not very clear yet who you are or what you are; but you’ve said enough to make
it very clear that we shall want you at the Yard.”

“One moment, Gregson,” said Holmes.  “I rather fancy that this lady may be as
anxious to give us information as we can be to get it.  You understand, madam,
that your husband will be arrested and tried for the death of the man who lies
before us?  What you say may be used in evidence.  But if you think that he has
acted from motives which are not criminal, and which he would wish to have
known, then you cannot serve him better than by telling us the whole story.”

“Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,” said the lady.  “He was a devil
and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would punish my
husband for having killed him.”

“In that case,” said Holmes, “my suggestion is that we lock this door, leave
things as we found them, go with this lady to her room, and form our opinion
after we have heard what it is that she has to say to us.”

Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small sitting-room of
Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable narrative of those sinister events,
the ending of which we had chanced to witness.  She spoke in rapid and fluent
but very unconventional English, which, for the sake of clearness, I will make
grammatical.

“I was born in Posilippo, near Naples,” said she, “and was the daughter of
Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the deputy of that part.
Gennaro was in my father’s employment, and I came to love him, as any woman
must.  He had neither money nor position—nothing but his beauty and strength
and energy—so my father forbade the match.  We fled together, were married at
Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to America.
This was four years ago, and we have been in New York ever since.

“Fortune was very good to us at first.  Gennaro was able to do a service to an
Italian gentleman—he saved him from some ruffians in the place called the
Bowery, and so made a powerful friend.  His name was Tito Castalotte, and he
was the senior partner of the great firm of Castalotte and Zamba, who are the
chief fruit importers of New York.  Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new
friend Castalotte has all power within the firm, which employs more than three
hundred men.  He took my husband into his employment, made him head of a
department, and showed his good-will towards him in every way.  Signor
Castalotte was a bachelor, and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his
son, and both my husband and I loved him as if he were our father.  We had
taken and furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and our whole future seemed
assured when that black cloud appeared which was soon to overspread our sky.

“One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a fellow-countryman
back with him.  His name was Gorgiano, and he had come also from Posilippo.  He
was a huge man, as you can testify, for you have looked upon his corpse.  Not
only was his body that of a giant but everything about him was grotesque,
gigantic, and terrifying.  His voice was like thunder in our little house.
There was scarce room for the whirl of his great arms as he talked.  His
thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated and monstrous.  He
talked, or rather roared, with such energy that others could but sit and
listen, cowed with the mighty stream of words.  His eyes blazed at you and held
you at his mercy.  He was a terrible and wonderful man.  I thank God that he is
dead!

“He came again and again.  Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more happy than
I was in his presence.  My poor husband would sit pale and listless, listening
to the endless raving upon politics and upon social questions which made up our
visitor’s conversation.  Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well,
could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there before.  At
first I thought that it was dislike.  And then, gradually, I understood that it
was more than dislike.  It was fear—a deep, secret, shrinking fear.  That
night—the night that I read his terror—I put my arms round him and I implored
him by his love for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from me,
and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.

“He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened.  My poor Gennaro,
in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed against him and his mind
was driven half mad by the injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society,
the Red Circle, which was allied to the old Carbonari.  The oaths and secrets
of this brotherhood were frightful, but once within its rule no escape was
possible.  When we had fled to America Gennaro thought that he had cast it all
off forever.  What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very
man who had initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned
the name of ‘Death’ in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in
murder!  He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he had
already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home.  All this
Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which he had received that very day, a
Red Circle drawn upon the head of it telling him that a lodge would be held
upon a certain date, and that his presence at it was required and ordered.

“That was bad enough, but worse was to come.  I had noticed for some time that
when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the evening, he spoke much
to me; and even when his words were to my husband those terrible, glaring,
wild-beast eyes of his were always turned upon me.  One night his secret came
out.  I had awakened what he called ‘love’ within him—the love of a brute—a
savage.  Gennaro had not yet returned when he came.  He pushed his way in,
seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear’s embrace, covered me with
kisses, and implored me to come away with him.  I was struggling and screaming
when Gennaro entered and attacked him.  He struck Gennaro senseless and fled
from the house which he was never more to enter.  It was a deadly enemy that we
made that night.

“A few days later came the meeting.  Gennaro returned from it with a face which
told me that something dreadful had occurred.  It was worse than we could have
imagined possible.  The funds of the society were raised by blackmailing rich
Italians and threatening them with violence should they refuse the money.  It
seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and benefactor, had been approached.  He
had refused to yield to threats, and he had handed the notices to the police.
It was resolved now that such an example should be made of them as would
prevent any other victim from rebelling.  At the meeting it was arranged that
he and his house should be blown up with dynamite.  There was a drawing of lots
as to who should carry out the deed.  Gennaro saw our enemy’s cruel face
smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag.  No doubt it had been
prearranged in some fashion, for it was the fatal disc with the Red Circle upon
it, the mandate for murder, which lay upon his palm.  He was to kill his best
friend, or he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades.
It was part of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared or hated
by injuring not only their own persons but those whom they loved, and it was
the knowledge of this which hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro’s head and
drove him nearly crazy with apprehension.

“All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each strengthening
each for the troubles that lay before us.  The very next evening had been fixed
for the attempt.  By midday my husband and I were on our way to London, but not
before he had given our benefactor full warning of this danger, and had also
left such information for the police as would safeguard his life for the
future.

“The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves.  We were sure that our enemies
would be behind us like our own shadows.  Gorgiano had his private reasons for
vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless, cunning, and untiring he could
be.  Both Italy and America are full of stories of his dreadful powers.  If
ever they were exerted it would be now.  My darling made use of the few clear
days which our start had given us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a
fashion that no possible danger could reach me.  For his own part, he wished to
be free that he might communicate both with the American and with the Italian
police.  I do not myself know where he lived, or how.  All that I learned was
through the columns of a newspaper.  But once as I looked through my window, I
saw two Italians watching the house, and I understood that in some way Gorgiano
had found our retreat.  Finally Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he
would signal to me from a certain window, but when the signals came they were
nothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted.  It is very clear to me
now that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him, and that, thank God! he was
ready for him when he came.  And now, gentleman, I would ask you whether we
have anything to fear from the law, or whether any judge upon earth would
condemn my Gennaro for what he has done?”

“Well, Mr. Gregson,” said the American, looking across at the official, “I
don’t know what your British point of view may be, but I guess that in New York
this lady’s husband will receive a pretty general vote of thanks.”

“She will have to come with me and see the chief,” Gregson answered.  “If what
she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband has much to fear.
But what I can’t make head or tail of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth YOU got
yourself mixed up in the matter.”

“Education, Gregson, education.  Still seeking knowledge at the old university.
Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic and grotesque to add to
your collection.  By the way, it is not eight o’clock, and a Wagner night at
Covent Garden!  If we hurry, we might be in time for the second act.”



Document 0020037 ends.


Chapter 1. Mr. Sherlock Holmes

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

“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”

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

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

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

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

“Good!” said Holmes.  “Excellent!”

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

“Why so?”

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

“Perfectly sound!” said Holmes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then I was right.”

“To that extent.”

“But that was all.”

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

“You may be right.”

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

“Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does stand for ‘Charing Cross Hospital,’
what further inferences may we draw?”

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

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

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

“It certainly seems probable.”

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

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

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

“Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon.  House-surgeon,
from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital.  Winner of the Jackson prize for
Comparative Pathology, with essay entitled ‘Is Disease a Reversion?’
Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathological Society.  Author of ‘Some
Freaks of Atavism’ (Lancet 1882).  ‘Do We Progress?’ (Journal of Psychology,
March, 1883).  Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High
Barrow.”

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

“And the dog?”

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

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

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

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

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

“A presentation, I see,” said Holmes.

“Yes, sir.”

“From Charing Cross Hospital?”

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

“Dear, dear, that’s bad!” said Holmes, shaking his head.

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

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

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

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

“Mister, sir, Mister—a humble M.R.C.S.”

“And a man of precise mind, evidently.”

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

“No, this is my friend Dr. Watson.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then had you not better consult him?”

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

“Just a little,” said Holmes.  “I think, Dr. Mortimer, you would do wisely if
without more ado you would kindly tell me plainly what the exact nature of the
problem is in which you demand my assistance.”

Chapter 2. The Curse of the Baskervilles

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

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

“It is an old manuscript.”

“Early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery.”

“How can you say that, sir?”

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

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

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

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

“It appears to be a statement of some sort.”

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

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

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

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

“Of the origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles there have been many
statements, yet as I come in a direct line from Hugo Baskerville, and as I had
the story from my father, who also had it from his, I have set it down with all
belief that it occurred even as is here set forth.  And I would have you
believe, my sons, that the same Justice which punishes sin may also most
graciously forgive it, and that no ban is so heavy but that by prayer and
repentance it may be removed.  Learn then from this story not to fear the
fruits of the past, but rather to be circumspect in the future, that those foul
passions whereby our family has suffered so grievously may not again be loosed
to our undoing.

“Know then that in the time of the Great Rebellion (the history of which by the
learned Lord Clarendon I most earnestly commend to your attention) this Manor
of Baskerville was held by Hugo of that name, nor can it be gainsaid that he
was a most wild, profane, and godless man.  This, in truth, his neighbours
might have pardoned, seeing that saints have never flourished in those parts,
but there was in him a certain wanton and cruel humour which made his name a
by-word through the West.  It chanced that this Hugo came to love (if, indeed,
so dark a passion may be known under so bright a name) the daughter of a yeoman
who held lands near the Baskerville estate.  But the young maiden, being
discreet and of good repute, would ever avoid him, for she feared his evil
name.  So it came to pass that one Michaelmas this Hugo, with five or six of
his idle and wicked companions, stole down upon the farm and carried off the
maiden, her father and brothers being from home, as he well knew.  When they
had brought her to the Hall the maiden was placed in an upper chamber, while
Hugo and his friends sat down to a long carouse, as was their nightly custom.
Now, the poor lass upstairs was like to have her wits turned at the singing and
shouting and terrible oaths which came up to her from below, for they say that
the words used by Hugo Baskerville, when he was in wine, were such as might
blast the man who said them.  At last in the stress of her fear she did that
which might have daunted the bravest or most active man, for by the aid of the
growth of ivy which covered (and still covers) the south wall she came down
from under the eaves, and so homeward across the moor, there being three
leagues betwixt the Hall and her father’s farm.

“It chanced that some little time later Hugo left his guests to carry food and
drink—with other worse things, perchance—to his captive, and so found the cage
empty and the bird escaped.  Then, as it would seem, he became as one that hath
a devil, for, rushing down the stairs into the dining-hall, he sprang upon the
great table, flagons and trenchers flying before him, and he cried aloud before
all the company that he would that very night render his body and soul to the
Powers of Evil if he might but overtake the wench.  And while the revellers
stood aghast at the fury of the man, one more wicked or, it may be, more
drunken than the rest, cried out that they should put the hounds upon her.
Whereat Hugo ran from the house, crying to his grooms that they should saddle
his mare and unkennel the pack, and giving the hounds a kerchief of the maid’s,
he swung them to the line, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the moor.

“Now, for some space the revellers stood agape, unable to understand all that
had been done in such haste.  But anon their bemused wits awoke to the nature
of the deed which was like to be done upon the moorlands.  Everything was now
in an uproar, some calling for their pistols, some for their horses, and some
for another flask of wine.  But at length some sense came back to their crazed
minds, and the whole of them, thirteen in number, took horse and started in
pursuit.  The moon shone clear above them, and they rode swiftly abreast,
taking that course which the maid must needs have taken if she were to reach
her own home.

“They had gone a mile or two when they passed one of the night shepherds upon
the moorlands, and they cried to him to know if he had seen the hunt.  And the
man, as the story goes, was so crazed with fear that he could scarce speak, but
at last he said that he had indeed seen the unhappy maiden, with the hounds
upon her track.  ‘But I have seen more than that,’ said he, ‘for Hugo
Baskerville passed me upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a
hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels.’ So the drunken squires
cursed the shepherd and rode onward.  But soon their skins turned cold, for
there came a galloping across the moor, and the black mare, dabbled with white
froth, went past with trailing bridle and empty saddle.  Then the revellers
rode close together, for a great fear was on them, but they still followed over
the moor, though each, had he been alone, would have been right glad to have
turned his horse’s head.  Riding slowly in this fashion they came at last upon
the hounds.  These, though known for their valour and their breed, were
whimpering in a cluster at the head of a deep dip or goyal, as we call it, upon
the moor, some slinking away and some, with starting hackles and staring eyes,
gazing down the narrow valley before them.  “The company had come to a halt,
more sober men, as you may guess, than when they started.  The most of them
would by no means advance, but three of them, the boldest, or it may be the
most drunken, rode forward down the goyal.  Now, it opened into a broad space
in which stood two of those great stones, still to be seen there, which were
set by certain forgotten peoples in the days of old.  The moon was shining
bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the unhappy maid where
she had fallen, dead of fear and of fatigue.  But it was not the sight of her
body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville lying near her, which
raised the hair upon the heads of these three dare-devil roysterers, but it was
that, standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing,
a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever
mortal eye has rested upon.  And even as they looked the thing tore the throat
out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping
jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still
screaming, across the moor.  One, it is said, died that very night of what he
had seen, and the other twain were but broken men for the rest of their days.

“Such is the tale, my sons, of the coming of the hound which is said to have
plagued the family so sorely ever since.  If I have set it down it is because
that which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at
and guessed.  Nor can it be denied that many of the family have been unhappy in
their deaths, which have been sudden, bloody, and mysterious.  Yet may we
shelter ourselves in the infinite goodness of Providence, which would not
forever punish the innocent beyond that third or fourth generation which is
threatened in Holy Writ.  To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you,
and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those
dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.

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

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

“Well?” said he.

“Do you not find it interesting?”

“To a collector of fairy tales.”

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

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

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

“The recent sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville, whose name has been
mentioned as the probable Liberal candidate for Mid-Devon at the next election,
has cast a gloom over the county.  Though Sir Charles had resided at
Baskerville Hall for a comparatively short period his amiability of character
and extreme generosity had won the affection and respect of all who had been
brought into contact with him.  In these days of nouveaux riches it is
refreshing to find a case where the scion of an old county family which has
fallen upon evil days is able to make his own fortune and to bring it back with
him to restore the fallen grandeur of his line.  Sir Charles, as is well known,
made large sums of money in South African speculation.  More wise than those
who go on until the wheel turns against them, he realized his gains and
returned to England with them.  It is only two years since he took up his
residence at Baskerville Hall, and it is common talk how large were those
schemes of reconstruction and improvement which have been interrupted by his
death.  Being himself childless, it was his openly expressed desire that the
whole countryside should, within his own lifetime, profit by his good fortune,
and many will have personal reasons for bewailing his untimely end.  His
generous donations to local and county charities have been frequently
chronicled in these columns.

“The circumstances connected with the death of Sir Charles cannot be said to
have been entirely cleared up by the inquest, but at least enough has been done
to dispose of those rumours to which local superstition has given rise.  There
is no reason whatever to suspect foul play, or to imagine that death could be
from any but natural causes.  Sir Charles was a widower, and a man who may be
said to have been in some ways of an eccentric habit of mind.  In spite of his
considerable wealth he was simple in his personal tastes, and his indoor
servants at Baskerville Hall consisted of a married couple named Barrymore, the
husband acting as butler and the wife as housekeeper.  Their evidence,
corroborated by that of several friends, tends to show that Sir Charles’s
health has for some time been impaired, and points especially to some affection
of the heart, manifesting itself in changes of colour, breathlessness, and
acute attacks of nervous depression.  Dr. James Mortimer, the friend and
medical attendant of the deceased, has given evidence to the same effect.

“The facts of the case are simple.  Sir Charles Baskerville was in the habit
every night before going to bed of walking down the famous yew alley of
Baskerville Hall.  The evidence of the Barrymores shows that this had been his
custom.  On the fourth of May Sir Charles had declared his intention of
starting next day for London, and had ordered Barrymore to prepare his luggage.
That night he went out as usual for his nocturnal walk, in the course of which
he was in the habit of smoking a cigar.  He never returned.  At twelve o’clock
Barrymore, finding the hall door still open, became alarmed, and, lighting a
lantern, went in search of his master.  The day had been wet, and Sir Charles’s
footmarks were easily traced down the alley.  Halfway down this walk there is a
gate which leads out on to the moor.  There were indications that Sir Charles
had stood for some little time here.  He then proceeded down the alley, and it
was at the far end of it that his body was discovered.  One fact which has not
been explained is the statement of Barrymore that his master’s footprints
altered their character from the time that he passed the moor-gate, and that he
appeared from thence onward to have been walking upon his toes.  One Murphy, a
gipsy horse-dealer, was on the moor at no great distance at the time, but he
appears by his own confession to have been the worse for drink.  He declares
that he heard cries but is unable to state from what direction they came.  No
signs of violence were to be discovered upon Sir Charles’s person, and though
the doctor’s evidence pointed to an almost incredible facial distortion—so
great that Dr. Mortimer refused at first to believe that it was indeed his
friend and patient who lay before him—it was explained that that is a symptom
which is not unusual in cases of dyspnoea and death from cardiac exhaustion.
This explanation was borne out by the post-mortem examination, which showed
long-standing organic disease, and the coroner’s jury returned a verdict in
accordance with the medical evidence.  It is well that this is so, for it is
obviously of the utmost importance that Sir Charles’s heir should settle at the
Hall and continue the good work which has been so sadly interrupted.  Had the
prosaic finding of the coroner not finally put an end to the romantic stories
which have been whispered in connection with the affair, it might have been
difficult to find a tenant for Baskerville Hall.  It is understood that the
next of kin is Mr. Henry Baskerville, if he be still alive, the son of Sir
Charles Baskerville’s younger brother.  The young man when last heard of was in
America, and inquiries are being instituted with a view to informing him of his
good fortune.”

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

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

“It does.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Footprints?”

“Footprints.”

“A man’s or a woman’s?”

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

“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”

Chapter 3. The Problem

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

“You saw this?”

“As clearly as I see you.”

“And you said nothing?”

“What was the use?”

“How was it that no one else saw it?”

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

“There are many sheep-dogs on the moor?”

“No doubt, but this was no sheep-dog.”

“You say it was large?”

“Enormous.”

“But it had not approached the body?”

“No.”

“What sort of night was it?’

“Damp and raw.”

“But not actually raining?”

“No.”

“What is the alley like?”

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

“Is there anything between the hedges and the walk?”

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

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

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

“Is there any other opening?”

“None.”

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

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

“Had Sir Charles reached this?”

“No; he lay about fifty yards from it.”

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

“No marks could show on the grass.”

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

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

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

“Closed and padlocked.”

“How high was it?”

“About four feet high.”

“Then anyone could have got over it?”

“Yes.”

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

“None in particular.”

“Good heaven!  Did no one examine?”

“Yes, I examined, myself.”

“And found nothing?”

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

“How do you know that?”

“Because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Why do you hesitate?”

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

“You mean that the thing is supernatural?”

“I did not positively say so.”

“No, but you evidently think it.”

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

“For example?”

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

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

“I do not know what to believe.”

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

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

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

“I did not say that I desired you to do it.”

“Then, how can I assist you?”

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

“He being the heir?”

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

“There is no other claimant, I presume?”

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

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

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

Holmes considered for a little time.

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

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

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

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

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

“And then?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Three people did.”

“Did any see it after?”

“I have not heard of any.”

“Thank you.  Good-morning.”

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

“Going out, Watson?”

“Unless I can help you.”

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

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

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

“Caught cold, Watson?” said he.

“No, it’s this poisonous atmosphere.”

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

“Thick!  It is intolerable.”

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

“My dear Holmes!”

“Am I right?”

“Certainly, but how?”

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

“Well, it is rather obvious.”

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

“A fixture also.”

“On the contrary, I have been to Devonshire.”

“In spirit?”

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

“A large-scale map, I presume?”

“Very large.”

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

“With a wood round it?”

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

“It must be a wild place.”

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

“Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation.”

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

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

“What do you make of it?”

“It is very bewildering.”

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

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

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

“What then?”

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

“Running from what?”

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

“How can you say that?”

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

“You think that he was waiting for someone?”

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

“But he went out every evening.”

“I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every evening.  On the
contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the moor.  That night he waited
there.  It was the night before he made his departure for London.  The thing
takes shape, Watson.  It becomes coherent.  Might I ask you to hand me my
violin, and we will postpone all further thought upon this business until we
have had the advantage of meeting Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskerville in the
morning.”

Chapter 4. Sir Henry Baskerville

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

“This is Sir Henry Baskerville,” said Dr. Mortimer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But Dr. Mortimer was no doubt already stopping there?”

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

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

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

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

The word “moor” only was printed in ink.

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

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

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

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

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

“It is here in the corner.”

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

‘You may be cajoled into imagining that your own special trade or your own
industry will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but it stands to reason
that such legislation must in the long run keep away wealth from the country,
diminish the value of our imports, and lower the general conditions of life in
this island.’

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

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

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

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

“No, I confess that I see no connection.”

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

“By thunder, you’re right!  Well, if that isn’t smart!” cried Sir Henry.

“If any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that ‘keep away’ and
‘from the’ are cut out in one piece.”

“Well, now—so it is!”

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

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

“Most certainly.”

“But how?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Gum,” said Holmes.

“With gum on to the paper.  But I want to know why the word ‘moor’ should have
been written?”

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

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

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

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

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

“How in the world can you say that?”

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

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

“Well?”

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

“Why, no, Mr. Holmes.  I think not.”

“You have not observed anyone follow or watch you?”

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

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

“Well, it depends upon what you think worth reporting.”

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

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

“You have lost one of your boots?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Precisely.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Why should I not go?”

“There seems to be danger.”

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

“Well, that is what we have to find out.”

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

“Is that convenient to you, Watson?”

“Perfectly.”

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

“I’d prefer to walk, for this affair has flurried me rather.”

“I’ll join you in a walk, with pleasure,” said his companion.

“Then we meet again at two o’clock.  Au revoir, and good-morning!”

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

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

“Shall I run on and stop them?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Who was the man?”

“I have not an idea.”

“A spy?”

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

“Yes, I remember.”

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

“It puts him in the power of the cabman.”

“Exactly.”

“What a pity we did not get the number!”

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

“I fail to see how you could have done more.”

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

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

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

“I could swear only to the beard.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, sir, he is still with us.”

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

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

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

“Yes, sir.”

“You will visit each of these in turn.”

“Yes, sir.”

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

“Yes, sir.”

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

“Yes, sir.”

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

“Yes, sir.”

“In each case the outside porter will send for the hall porter, to whom also
you will give a shilling.  Here are twenty-three shillings.  You will then
learn in possibly twenty cases out of the twenty-three that the waste of the
day before has been burned or removed.  In the three other cases you will be
shown a heap of paper and you will look for this page of the Times among it.
The odds are enormously against your finding it.  There are ten shillings over
in case of emergencies.  Let me have a report by wire at Baker Street before
evening.  And now, Watson, it only remains for us to find out by wire the
identity of the cabman, No. 2704, and then we will drop into one of the Bond
Street picture galleries and fill in the time until we are due at the hotel.”

Chapter 5. Three Broken Threads

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

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

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

“Not in the least.”

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

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

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

“Surely you are mistaken about his trade?”

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

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

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

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

“What does it suggest?”

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

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

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

“Still looking for your boot?”

“Yes, sir, and mean to find it.”

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

“So it was, sir.  And now it’s an old black one.”

“What! you don’t mean to say—?”

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

An agitated German waiter had appeared upon the scene.

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

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

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

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

“I think it’s well worth troubling about.”

“Why, you look very serious over it.”

“How do you explain it?”

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

“The queerest perhaps—” said Holmes thoughtfully.

“What do you make of it yourself?”

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

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

“To go to Baskerville Hall.”

“And when?”

“At the end of the week.”

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

Dr. Mortimer started violently.  “Followed!  By whom?”

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

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

“Ha!  Where is Barrymore?”

“He is in charge of the Hall.”

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

“How can you do that?”

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

“That’s so,” said Baskerville.  “By the way, Dr. Mortimer, who is this
Barrymore, anyhow?”

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

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

“That is true.”

“Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir Charles’s will?” asked Holmes.

“He and his wife had five hundred pounds each.”

“Ha!  Did they know that they would receive this?”

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

“That is very interesting.”

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

“Indeed!  And anyone else?”

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

“And how much was the residue?”

“Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And this man of simple tastes would be the heir to Sir Charles’s thousands.”

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

“And have you made your will, Sir Henry?”

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

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

“Dr. Mortimer returns with me.”

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

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

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

“Whom would you recommend, then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Would that suit Dr. Watson?”

“Perfectly.”

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

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

“My missing boot!” he cried.

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

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

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

“There was certainly no boot in it then.”

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

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

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

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

The second:

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

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

“We have still the cabman who drove the spy.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sherlock Holmes made a note of it.

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

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

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

“Yes, he did.”

“When did he say this?”

“When he left me.”

“Did he say anything more?”

“He mentioned his name.”

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

“His name,” said the cabman, “was Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

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

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

“Yes, sir, that was the gentleman’s name.”

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

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

“This very door,” said Holmes.

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

“I know,” said Holmes.

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

“I see.  And you saw no more of him?”

“Not after he went into the station.”

“And how would you describe Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

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

“Colour of his eyes?”

“No, I can’t say that.”

“Nothing more that you can remember?”

“No, sir; nothing.”

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

“Good-night, sir, and thank you!”

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

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

“About what?”

“About sending you.  It’s an ugly business, Watson, an ugly dangerous business,
and the more I see of it the less I like it.  Yes, my dear fellow, you may
laugh, but I give you my word that I shall be very glad to have you back safe
and sound in Baker Street once more.”

Chapter 6. Baskerville Hall

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

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

“What sort of facts?” I asked.

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

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

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

“I will do my best.”

“You have arms, I suppose?”

“Yes, I thought it as well to take them.”

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

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

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

“You have always kept together, I presume?”

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

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

“But we had no trouble of any kind.”

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

“No, sir, it is gone forever.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Halloa!” cried Dr. Mortimer, “what is this?”

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

“What is this, Perkins?” asked Dr. Mortimer.

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

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

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

“Who is he, then?”

“It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.”

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

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

“Baskerville Hall,” said he.

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

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

“Was it here?” he asked in a low voice.

“No, no, the yew alley is on the other side.”

The young heir glanced round with a gloomy face.

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

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

“Welcome, Sir Henry!  Welcome to Baskerville Hall!”

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

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

“Surely you will stay and have some dinner?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it ready?”

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

“What new conditions?”

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

“Do you mean that your wife and you wish to leave?”

“Only when it is quite convenient to you, sir.”

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

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

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

“But what do you intend to do?”

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

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

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

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

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

And yet it was not quite the last.  I found myself weary and yet wakeful,
tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep which would not
come.  Far away a chiming clock struck out the quarters of the hours, but
otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house.  And then suddenly, in the
very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and
unmistakable.  It was the sob of a woman, the muffled, strangling gasp of one
who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow.  I sat up in bed and listened
intently.  The noise could not have been far away and was certainly in the
house.  For half an hour I waited with every nerve on the alert, but there came
no other sound save the chiming clock and the rustle of the ivy on the wall.

Chapter 7. The Stapletons of Merripit House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who delivered it?”

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

“Yes, father, I delivered it.”

“Into his own hands?” I asked.

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

“Did you see Mr. Barrymore?”

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

“If you didn’t see him, how do you know he was in the loft?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He is very well, thank you.”

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

“I do not think that it is likely.”

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

“I have heard it.”

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

“But how?”

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

“How did you know that?”

“My friend Mortimer told me.”

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

“Have you any better explanation?”

“I have not come to any conclusion.”

“Has Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

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

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

“I am afraid that I cannot answer that question.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You know it well, then?”

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

“Is it hard to know?”

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

“It would be a rare place for a gallop.”

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

“Yes, they seem more fertile than the rest.”

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

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

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

“And you say you can penetrate it?”

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

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

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

“I shall try my luck some day.”

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

“Halloa!” I cried.  “What is that?”

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

“Queer place, the moor!” said he.

“But what is it?”

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

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

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

“Bogs make queer noises sometimes.  It’s the mud settling, or the water rising,
or something.”

“No, no, that was a living voice.”

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

“No, I never did.”

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

“It’s the weirdest, strangest thing that ever I heard in my life.”

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

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

“What are they?  Sheep-pens?”

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

“But it is quite a town.  When was it inhabited?”

“Neolithic man—no date.”

“What did he do?”

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

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

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

“Go back!” she said.  “Go straight back to London, instantly.”

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

“Why should I go back?” I asked.

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

“But I have only just come.”

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

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

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

“Well, Jack, you are very hot.”

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

“You have introduced yourselves, I can see.”

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

“Why, who do you think this is?”

“I imagine that it must be Sir Henry Baskerville.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, no, I am never dull,” said she quickly.

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

“I am sure that he would be delighted.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But what is the danger?”

“You know the story of the hound?”

“I do not believe in such nonsense.”

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

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

“I cannot say anything definite, for I do not know anything definite.”

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

“My brother is very anxious to have the Hall inhabited, for he thinks it is for
the good of the poor folk upon the moor.  He would be very angry if he knew
that I have said anything which might induce Sir Henry to go away.  But I have
done my duty now and I will say no more.  I must go back, or he will miss me
and suspect that I have seen you.  Good-bye!”  She turned and had disappeared
in a few minutes among the scattered boulders, while I, with my soul full of
vague fears, pursued my way to Baskerville Hall.

Chapter 8. First Report of Dr. Watson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barrymore looked surprised, and considered for a little time.

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

“Did you answer it yourself?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barrymore was crouching at the window with the candle held against the glass.
His profile was half turned towards me, and his face seemed to be rigid with
expectation as he stared out into the blackness of the moor.  For some minutes
he stood watching intently.  Then he gave a deep groan and with an impatient
gesture he put out the light.  Instantly I made my way back to my room, and
very shortly came the stealthy steps passing once more upon their return
journey.  Long afterwards when I had fallen into a light sleep I heard a key
turn somewhere in a lock, but I could not tell whence the sound came.  What it
all means I cannot guess, but there is some secret business going on in this
house of gloom which sooner or later we shall get to the bottom of.  I do not
trouble you with my theories, for you asked me to furnish you only with facts.
I have had a long talk with Sir Henry this morning, and we have made a plan of
campaign founded upon my observations of last night.  I will not speak about it
just now, but it should make my next report interesting reading.

Chapter 9. The Light upon the Moor [Second Report of Dr. Watson]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then we shall do it together.”

“But surely he would hear us.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, I am.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I was on that hill.”

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

“Yes, I did.”

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

“I can’t say that he ever did.”

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

“I should say not.”

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

“Did he say so?”

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

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

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

“Did he give any explanation of his conduct?”

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

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

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

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

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

“What are you doing here, Barrymore?”

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

“On the second floor?”

“Yes, sir, all the windows.”

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

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

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

“And why were you holding a candle to the window?”

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

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

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

“There it is!” I cried.

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

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

The man’s face became openly defiant.  “It is my business, and not yours.  I
will not tell.”

“Then you leave my employment right away.”

“Very good, sir.  If I must I must.”

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

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

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

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

“Speak out, then!  What does it mean?”

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

“Then your brother is—”

“The escaped convict, sir—Selden, the criminal.”

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

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

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

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

“Is this true, Barrymore?”

“Yes, Sir Henry.  Every word of it.”

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

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

“I wonder he dares,” said Sir Henry.

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

“Very likely.  How far do you think it is?”

“Out by the Cleft Tor, I think.”

“Not more than a mile or two off.”

“Hardly that.”

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

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

“I will come,” said I.

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

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

“Are you armed?” I asked.

“I have a hunting-crop.”

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

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

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

“My God, what’s that, Watson?”

“I don’t know.  It’s a sound they have on the moor.  I heard it once before.”

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

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

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

“What do they call this sound?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The folk on the countryside.”

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

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

I hesitated but could not escape the question.

“They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles.”

He groaned and was silent for a few moments.

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

“It was hard to say whence it came.”

“It rose and fell with the wind.  Isn’t that the direction of the great Grimpen
Mire?”

“Yes, it is.”

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

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

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

“No, no.”

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

It was as cold as a block of marble.

“You’ll be all right tomorrow.”

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

“Shall we turn back?”

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

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

“What shall we do now?” whispered Sir Henry.

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

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

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

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

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

I wished to go in that direction and to search the tor, but it was some
distance away.  The baronet’s nerves were still quivering from that cry, which
recalled the dark story of his family, and he was not in the mood for fresh
adventures.  He had not seen this lonely man upon the tor and could not feel
the thrill which his strange presence and his commanding attitude had given to
me.  “A warder, no doubt,” said he.  “The moor has been thick with them since
this fellow escaped.”  Well, perhaps his explanation may be the right one, but
I should like to have some further proof of it.  Today we mean to communicate
to the Princetown people where they should look for their missing man, but it
is hard lines that we have not actually had the triumph of bringing him back as
our own prisoner.  Such are the adventures of last night, and you must
acknowledge, my dear Holmes, that I have done you very well in the matter of a
report.  Much of what I tell you is no doubt quite irrelevant, but still I feel
that it is best that I should let you have all the facts and leave you to
select for yourself those which will be of most service to you in helping you
to your conclusions.  We are certainly making some progress.  So far as the
Barrymores go we have found the motive of their actions, and that has cleared
up the situation very much.  But the moor with its mysteries and its strange
inhabitants remains as inscrutable as ever.  Perhaps in my next I may be able
to throw some light upon this also.  Best of all would it be if you could come
down to us.  In any case you will hear from me again in the course of the next
few days.

Chapter 10. Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I didn’t think you would have taken advantage of it, Sir Henry—indeed I
didn’t.”

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

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

“What do you say, Watson?”

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

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

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

“That is true,” said Sir Henry.  “Well, Barrymore—”

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

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

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

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

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

“No, sir, I don’t know that.”

“What then?”

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

“To meet a woman!  He?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the woman’s name?”

“I can’t give you the name, sir, but I can give you the initials.  Her initials
were L. L.”

“How do you know this, Barrymore?”

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

“Well?”

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

“Have you got that slip?”

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

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

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

“And you have no idea who L. L. is?”

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

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

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

“You thought it might injure his reputation?”

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

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

“It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hardly any, I think.”

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

He thought for a few minutes.

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

“Who is she?” I asked.

“She is Frankland’s daughter.”

“What!  Old Frankland the crank?”

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

“How does she live?”

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

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

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

Mortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and the baronet played ecarte afterwards.
The butler brought me my coffee into the library, and I took the chance to ask
him a few questions.

“Well,” said I, “has this precious relation of yours departed, or is he still
lurking out yonder?”

“I don’t know, sir.  I hope to heaven that he has gone, for he has brought
nothing but trouble here!  I’ve not heard of him since I left out food for him
last, and that was three days ago.”

“Did you see him then?”

“No, sir, but the food was gone when next I went that way.”

“Then he was certainly there?”

“So you would think, sir, unless it was the other man who took it.”

I sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my lips and stared at Barrymore.

“You know that there is another man then?”

“Yes, sir; there is another man upon the moor.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No, sir.”

“How do you know of him then?”

“Selden told me of him, sir, a week ago or more.  He’s in hiding, too, but he’s
not a convict as far as I can make out.  I don’t like it, Dr. Watson—I tell you
straight, sir, that I don’t like it.”  He spoke with a sudden passion of
earnestness.

“Now, listen to me, Barrymore!  I have no interest in this matter but that of
your master.  I have come here with no object except to help him.  Tell me,
frankly, what it is that you don’t like.”

Barrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he regretted his outburst or found it
difficult to express his own feelings in words.

“It’s all these goings-on, sir,” he cried at last, waving his hand towards the
rain-lashed window which faced the moor.  “There’s foul play somewhere, and
there’s black villainy brewing, to that I’ll swear!  Very glad I should be,
sir, to see Sir Henry on his way back to London again!”

“But what is it that alarms you?”

“Look at Sir Charles’s death!  That was bad enough, for all that the coroner
said.  Look at the noises on the moor at night.  There’s not a man would cross
it after sundown if he was paid for it.  Look at this stranger hiding out
yonder, and watching and waiting!  What’s he waiting for?  What does it mean?
It means no good to anyone of the name of Baskerville, and very glad I shall be
to be quit of it all on the day that Sir Henry’s new servants are ready to take
over the Hall.”

“But about this stranger,” said I.  “Can you tell me anything about him?  What
did Selden say?  Did he find out where he hid, or what he was doing?”

“He saw him once or twice, but he is a deep one and gives nothing away.  At
first he thought that he was the police, but soon he found that he had some lay
of his own.  A kind of gentleman he was, as far as he could see, but what he
was doing he could not make out.”

“And where did he say that he lived?”

“Among the old houses on the hillside—the stone huts where the old folk used to
live.”

“But how about his food?”

“Selden found out that he has got a lad who works for him and brings all he
needs.  I dare say he goes to Coombe Tracey for what he wants.”

“Very good, Barrymore.  We may talk further of this some other time.”  When the
butler had gone I walked over to the black window, and I looked through a
blurred pane at the driving clouds and at the tossing outline of the wind-swept
trees.  It is a wild night indoors, and what must it be in a stone hut upon the
moor.  What passion of hatred can it be which leads a man to lurk in such a
place at such a time!  And what deep and earnest purpose can he have which
calls for such a trial!  There, in that hut upon the moor, seems to lie the
very centre of that problem which has vexed me so sorely.  I swear that another
day shall not have passed before I have done all that man can do to reach the
heart of the mystery.

Chapter 11. The Man on the Tor

The extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter has brought my
narrative up to the eighteenth of October, a time when these strange events
began to move swiftly towards their terrible conclusion.  The incidents of the
next few days are indelibly graven upon my recollection, and I can tell them
without reference to the notes made at the time.  I start them from the day
which succeeded that upon which I had established two facts of great
importance, the one that Mrs. Laura Lyons of Coombe Tracey had written to Sir
Charles Baskerville and made an appointment with him at the very place and hour
that he met his death, the other that the lurking man upon the moor was to be
found among the stone huts upon the hillside.  With these two facts in my
possession I felt that either my intelligence or my courage must be deficient
if I could not throw some further light upon these dark places.

I had no opportunity to tell the baronet what I had learned about Mrs. Lyons
upon the evening before, for Dr. Mortimer remained with him at cards until it
was very late.  At breakfast, however, I informed him about my discovery and
asked him whether he would care to accompany me to Coombe Tracey.  At first he
was very eager to come, but on second thoughts it seemed to both of us that if
I went alone the results might be better.  The more formal we made the visit
the less information we might obtain.  I left Sir Henry behind, therefore, not
without some prickings of conscience, and drove off upon my new quest.

When I reached Coombe Tracey I told Perkins to put up the horses, and I made
inquiries for the lady whom I had come to interrogate.  I had no difficulty in
finding her rooms, which were central and well appointed.  A maid showed me in
without ceremony, and as I entered the sitting-room a lady, who was sitting
before a Remington typewriter, sprang up with a pleasant smile of welcome.  Her
face fell, however, when she saw that I was a stranger, and she sat down again
and asked me the object of my visit.

The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty.  Her eyes
and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks, though
considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom of the brunette,
the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the sulphur rose.  Admiration was,
I repeat, the first impression.  But the second was criticism.  There was
something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness of expression, some
hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness of lip which marred its perfect
beauty.  But these, of course, are afterthoughts.  At the moment I was simply
conscious that I was in the presence of a very handsome woman, and that she was
asking me the reasons for my visit.  I had not quite understood until that
instant how delicate my mission was.

“I have the pleasure,” said I, “of knowing your father.”

It was a clumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it.  “There is nothing
in common between my father and me,” she said.  “I owe him nothing, and his
friends are not mine.  If it were not for the late Sir Charles Baskerville and
some other kind hearts I might have starved for all that my father cared.”

“It was about the late Sir Charles Baskerville that I have come here to see
you.”

The freckles started out on the lady’s face.

“What can I tell you about him?” she asked, and her fingers played nervously
over the stops of her typewriter.

“You knew him, did you not?”

“I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness.  If I am able to
support myself it is largely due to the interest which he took in my unhappy
situation.”

“Did you correspond with him?”

The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.

“What is the object of these questions?” she asked sharply.

“The object is to avoid a public scandal.  It is better that I should ask them
here than that the matter should pass outside our control.”

She was silent and her face was still very pale.  At last she looked up with
something reckless and defiant in her manner.

“Well, I’ll answer,” she said.  “What are your questions?”

“Did you correspond with Sir Charles?”

“I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy and his
generosity.”

“Have you the dates of those letters?”

“No.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“Yes, once or twice, when he came into Coombe Tracey.  He was a very retiring
man, and he preferred to do good by stealth.”

“But if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he know enough about
your affairs to be able to help you, as you say that he has done?”

She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.

“There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to help me.
One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour and intimate friend of Sir Charles’s.  He
was exceedingly kind, and it was through him that Sir Charles learned about my
affairs.”

I knew already that Sir Charles Baskerville had made Stapleton his almoner upon
several occasions, so the lady’s statement bore the impress of truth upon it.

“Did you ever write to Sir Charles asking him to meet you?” I continued.

Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again.  “Really, sir, this is a very
extraordinary question.”

“I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat it.”

“Then I answer, certainly not.”

“Not on the very day of Sir Charles’s death?”

The flush had faded in an instant, and a deathly face was before me.  Her dry
lips could not speak the “No” which I saw rather than heard.

“Surely your memory deceives you,” said I.  “I could even quote a passage of
your letter.  It ran ‘Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn this letter,
and be at the gate by ten o’clock.’”

I thought that she had fainted, but she recovered herself by a supreme effort.

“Is there no such thing as a gentleman?” she gasped.

“You do Sir Charles an injustice.  He did burn the letter.  But sometimes a
letter may be legible even when burned.  You acknowledge now that you wrote
it?”

“Yes, I did write it,” she cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent of words.
“I did write it.  Why should I deny it?  I have no reason to be ashamed of it.
I wished him to help me.  I believed that if I had an interview I could gain
his help, so I asked him to meet me.”

“But why at such an hour?”

“Because I had only just learned that he was going to London next day and might
be away for months.  There were reasons why I could not get there earlier.”

“But why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the house?”

“Do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor’s house?”

“Well, what happened when you did get there?”

“I never went.”

“Mrs. Lyons!”

“No, I swear it to you on all I hold sacred.  I never went.  Something
intervened to prevent my going.”

“What was that?”

“That is a private matter.  I cannot tell it.”

“You acknowledge then that you made an appointment with Sir Charles at the very
hour and place at which he met his death, but you deny that you kept the
appointment.”

“That is the truth.”

Again and again I cross-questioned her, but I could never get past that point.

“Mrs. Lyons,” said I as I rose from this long and inconclusive interview, “you
are taking a very great responsibility and putting yourself in a very false
position by not making an absolutely clean breast of all that you know.  If I
have to call in the aid of the police you will find how seriously you are
compromised.  If your position is innocent, why did you in the first instance
deny having written to Sir Charles upon that date?”

“Because I feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from it and that I
might find myself involved in a scandal.”

“And why were you so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy your letter?”

“If you have read the letter you will know.”

“I did not say that I had read all the letter.”

“You quoted some of it.”

“I quoted the postscript.  The letter had, as I said, been burned and it was
not all legible.  I ask you once again why it was that you were so pressing
that Sir Charles should destroy this letter which he received on the day of his
death.”

“The matter is a very private one.”

“The more reason why you should avoid a public investigation.”

“I will tell you, then.  If you have heard anything of my unhappy history you
will know that I made a rash marriage and had reason to regret it.”

“I have heard so much.”

“My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I abhor.  The
law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the possibility that he may
force me to live with him.  At the time that I wrote this letter to Sir Charles
I had learned that there was a prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain
expenses could be met.  It meant everything to me—peace of mind, happiness,
self-respect—everything.  I knew Sir Charles’s generosity, and I thought that
if he heard the story from my own lips he would help me.”

“Then how is it that you did not go?”

“Because I received help in the interval from another source.”

“Why then, did you not write to Sir Charles and explain this?”

“So I should have done had I not seen his death in the paper next morning.”

The woman’s story hung coherently together, and all my questions were unable to
shake it.  I could only check it by finding if she had, indeed, instituted
divorce proceedings against her husband at or about the time of the tragedy.

It was unlikely that she would dare to say that she had not been to Baskerville
Hall if she really had been, for a trap would be necessary to take her there,
and could not have returned to Coombe Tracey until the early hours of the
morning.  Such an excursion could not be kept secret.  The probability was,
therefore, that she was telling the truth, or, at least, a part of the truth.
I came away baffled and disheartened.  Once again I had reached that dead wall
which seemed to be built across every path by which I tried to get at the
object of my mission.  And yet the more I thought of the lady’s face and of her
manner the more I felt that something was being held back from me.  Why should
she turn so pale?  Why should she fight against every admission until it was
forced from her?  Why should she have been so reticent at the time of the
tragedy?  Surely the explanation of all this could not be as innocent as she
would have me believe.  For the moment I could proceed no farther in that
direction, but must turn back to that other clue which was to be sought for
among the stone huts upon the moor.

And that was a most vague direction.  I realized it as I drove back and noted
how hill after hill showed traces of the ancient people.  Barrymore’s only
indication had been that the stranger lived in one of these abandoned huts, and
many hundreds of them are scattered throughout the length and breadth of the
moor.  But I had my own experience for a guide since it had shown me the man
himself standing upon the summit of the Black Tor.  That, then, should be the
centre of my search.  From there I should explore every hut upon the moor until
I lighted upon the right one.  If this man were inside it I should find out
from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if necessary, who he was and why
he had dogged us so long.  He might slip away from us in the crowd of Regent
Street, but it would puzzle him to do so upon the lonely moor.  On the other
hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant should not be within it I must
remain there, however long the vigil, until he returned.  Holmes had missed him
in London.  It would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run him to earth
where my master had failed.

Luck had been against us again and again in this inquiry, but now at last it
came to my aid.  And the messenger of good fortune was none other than
Mr. Frankland, who was standing, gray-whiskered and red-faced, outside the gate
of his garden, which opened on to the highroad along which I travelled.

“Good-day, Dr. Watson,” cried he with unwonted good humour, “you must really
give your horses a rest and come in to have a glass of wine and to congratulate
me.”

My feelings towards him were very far from being friendly after what I had
heard of his treatment of his daughter, but I was anxious to send Perkins and
the wagonette home, and the opportunity was a good one.  I alighted and sent a
message to Sir Henry that I should walk over in time for dinner.  Then I
followed Frankland into his dining-room.

“It is a great day for me, sir—one of the red-letter days of my life,” he cried
with many chuckles.  “I have brought off a double event.  I mean to teach them
in these parts that law is law, and that there is a man here who does not fear
to invoke it.  I have established a right of way through the centre of old
Middleton’s park, slap across it, sir, within a hundred yards of his own front
door.  What do you think of that?  We’ll teach these magnates that they cannot
ride roughshod over the rights of the commoners, confound them!  And I’ve
closed the wood where the Fernworthy folk used to picnic.  These infernal
people seem to think that there are no rights of property, and that they can
swarm where they like with their papers and their bottles.  Both cases decided,
Dr. Watson, and both in my favour.  I haven’t had such a day since I had Sir
John Morland for trespass because he shot in his own warren.”

“How on earth did you do that?”

“Look it up in the books, sir.  It will repay reading—Frankland v. Morland,
Court of Queen’s Bench.  It cost me 200 pounds, but I got my verdict.”  “Did it
do you any good?”

“None, sir, none.  I am proud to say that I had no interest in the matter.  I
act entirely from a sense of public duty.  I have no doubt, for example, that
the Fernworthy people will burn me in effigy tonight.  I told the police last
time they did it that they should stop these disgraceful exhibitions.  The
County Constabulary is in a scandalous state, sir, and it has not afforded me
the protection to which I am entitled.  The case of Frankland v. Regina will
bring the matter before the attention of the public.  I told them that they
would have occasion to regret their treatment of me, and already my words have
come true.”

“How so?” I asked.

The old man put on a very knowing expression.  “Because I could tell them what
they are dying to know; but nothing would induce me to help the rascals in any
way.”

I had been casting round for some excuse by which I could get away from his
gossip, but now I began to wish to hear more of it.  I had seen enough of the
contrary nature of the old sinner to understand that any strong sign of
interest would be the surest way to stop his confidences.

“Some poaching case, no doubt?” said I with an indifferent manner.

“Ha, ha, my boy, a very much more important matter than that!  What about the
convict on the moor?”

I stared.  “You don’t mean that you know where he is?” said I.

“I may not know exactly where he is, but I am quite sure that I could help the
police to lay their hands on him.  Has it never struck you that the way to
catch that man was to find out where he got his food and so trace it to him?”

He certainly seemed to be getting uncomfortably near the truth.  “No doubt,”
said I; “but how do you know that he is anywhere upon the moor?”

“I know it because I have seen with my own eyes the messenger who takes him his
food.”

My heart sank for Barrymore.  It was a serious thing to be in the power of this
spiteful old busybody.  But his next remark took a weight from my mind.

“You’ll be surprised to hear that his food is taken to him by a child.  I see
him every day through my telescope upon the roof.  He passes along the same
path at the same hour, and to whom should he be going except to the convict?”

Here was luck indeed!  And yet I suppressed all appearance of interest.  A
child!  Barrymore had said that our unknown was supplied by a boy.  It was on
his track, and not upon the convict’s, that Frankland had stumbled.  If I could
get his knowledge it might save me a long and weary hunt.  But incredulity and
indifference were evidently my strongest cards.

“I should say that it was much more likely that it was the son of one of the
moorland shepherds taking out his father’s dinner.”

The least appearance of opposition struck fire out of the old autocrat.  His
eyes looked malignantly at me, and his gray whiskers bristled like those of an
angry cat.

“Indeed, sir!” said he, pointing out over the wide-stretching moor.  “Do you
see that Black Tor over yonder?  Well, do you see the low hill beyond with the
thornbush upon it?  It is the stoniest part of the whole moor.  Is that a place
where a shepherd would be likely to take his station?  Your suggestion, sir, is
a most absurd one.”

I meekly answered that I had spoken without knowing all the facts.  My
submission pleased him and led him to further confidences.

“You may be sure, sir, that I have very good grounds before I come to an
opinion.  I have seen the boy again and again with his bundle.  Every day, and
sometimes twice a day, I have been able—but wait a moment, Dr. Watson.  Do my
eyes deceive me, or is there at the present moment something moving upon that
hillside?”

It was several miles off, but I could distinctly see a small dark dot against
the dull green and gray.

“Come, sir, come!” cried Frankland, rushing upstairs.  “You will see with your
own eyes and judge for yourself.”

The telescope, a formidable instrument mounted upon a tripod, stood upon the
flat leads of the house.  Frankland clapped his eye to it and gave a cry of
satisfaction.

“Quick, Dr. Watson, quick, before he passes over the hill!”

There he was, sure enough, a small urchin with a little bundle upon his
shoulder, toiling slowly up the hill.  When he reached the crest I saw the
ragged uncouth figure outlined for an instant against the cold blue sky.  He
looked round him with a furtive and stealthy air, as one who dreads pursuit.
Then he vanished over the hill.

“Well!  Am I right?”

“Certainly, there is a boy who seems to have some secret errand.”

“And what the errand is even a county constable could guess.  But not one word
shall they have from me, and I bind you to secrecy also, Dr. Watson.  Not a
word!  You understand!”

“Just as you wish.”

“They have treated me shamefully—shamefully.  When the facts come out in
Frankland v. Regina I venture to think that a thrill of indignation will run
through the country.  Nothing would induce me to help the police in any way.
For all they cared it might have been me, instead of my effigy, which these
rascals burned at the stake.  Surely you are not going!  You will help me to
empty the decanter in honour of this great occasion!”

But I resisted all his solicitations and succeeded in dissuading him from his
announced intention of walking home with me.  I kept the road as long as his
eye was on me, and then I struck off across the moor and made for the stony
hill over which the boy had disappeared.  Everything was working in my favour,
and I swore that it should not be through lack of energy or perseverance that I
should miss the chance which fortune had thrown in my way.

The sun was already sinking when I reached the summit of the hill, and the long
slopes beneath me were all golden-green on one side and gray shadow on the
other.  A haze lay low upon the farthest sky-line, out of which jutted the
fantastic shapes of Belliver and Vixen Tor.  Over the wide expanse there was no
sound and no movement.  One great gray bird, a gull or curlew, soared aloft in
the blue heaven.  He and I seemed to be the only living things between the huge
arch of the sky and the desert beneath it.  The barren scene, the sense of
loneliness, and the mystery and urgency of my task all struck a chill into my
heart.  The boy was nowhere to be seen.  But down beneath me in a cleft of the
hills there was a circle of the old stone huts, and in the middle of them there
was one which retained sufficient roof to act as a screen against the weather.
My heart leaped within me as I saw it.  This must be the burrow where the
stranger lurked.  At last my foot was on the threshold of his hiding place—his
secret was within my grasp.

As I approached the hut, walking as warily as Stapleton would do when with
poised net he drew near the settled butterfly, I satisfied myself that the
place had indeed been used as a habitation.  A vague pathway among the boulders
led to the dilapidated opening which served as a door.  All was silent within.
The unknown might be lurking there, or he might be prowling on the moor.  My
nerves tingled with the sense of adventure.  Throwing aside my cigarette, I
closed my hand upon the butt of my revolver and, walking swiftly up to the
door, I looked in.  The place was empty.

But there were ample signs that I had not come upon a false scent.  This was
certainly where the man lived.  Some blankets rolled in a waterproof lay upon
that very stone slab upon which Neolithic man had once slumbered.  The ashes of
a fire were heaped in a rude grate.  Beside it lay some cooking utensils and a
bucket half-full of water.  A litter of empty tins showed that the place had
been occupied for some time, and I saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the
checkered light, a pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the
corner.  In the middle of the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a table,
and upon this stood a small cloth bundle—the same, no doubt, which I had seen
through the telescope upon the shoulder of the boy.  It contained a loaf of
bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of preserved peaches.  As I set it down
again, after having examined it, my heart leaped to see that beneath it there
lay a sheet of paper with writing upon it.  I raised it, and this was what I
read, roughly scrawled in pencil: “Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe Tracey.”

For a minute I stood there with the paper in my hands thinking out the meaning
of this curt message.  It was I, then, and not Sir Henry, who was being dogged
by this secret man.  He had not followed me himself, but he had set an
agent—the boy, perhaps—upon my track, and this was his report.  Possibly I had
taken no step since I had been upon the moor which had not been observed and
reported.  Always there was this feeling of an unseen force, a fine net drawn
round us with infinite skill and delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was
only at some supreme moment that one realized that one was indeed entangled in
its meshes.

If there was one report there might be others, so I looked round the hut in
search of them.  There was no trace, however, of anything of the kind, nor
could I discover any sign which might indicate the character or intentions of
the man who lived in this singular place, save that he must be of Spartan
habits and cared little for the comforts of life.  When I thought of the heavy
rains and looked at the gaping roof I understood how strong and immutable must
be the purpose which had kept him in that inhospitable abode.  Was he our
malignant enemy, or was he by chance our guardian angel?  I swore that I would
not leave the hut until I knew.

Outside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with scarlet and gold.
Its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches by the distant pools which lay
amid the great Grimpen Mire.  There were the two towers of Baskerville Hall,
and there a distant blur of smoke which marked the village of Grimpen.  Between
the two, behind the hill, was the house of the Stapletons.  All was sweet and
mellow and peaceful in the golden evening light, and yet as I looked at them my
soul shared none of the peace of Nature but quivered at the vagueness and the
terror of that interview which every instant was bringing nearer.  With
tingling nerves but a fixed purpose, I sat in the dark recess of the hut and
waited with sombre patience for the coming of its tenant.

And then at last I heard him.  Far away came the sharp clink of a boot striking
upon a stone.  Then another and yet another, coming nearer and nearer.  I
shrank back into the darkest corner and cocked the pistol in my pocket,
determined not to discover myself until I had an opportunity of seeing
something of the stranger.  There was a long pause which showed that he had
stopped.  Then once more the footsteps approached and a shadow fell across the
opening of the hut.

“It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson,” said a well-known voice.  “I really
think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.”

Chapter 12. Death on the Moor

For a moment or two I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears.  Then my
senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight of responsibility
seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul.  That cold, incisive, ironical
voice could belong to but one man in all the world.

“Holmes!” I cried—“Holmes!”

“Come out,” said he, “and please be careful with the revolver.”

I stooped under the rude lintel, and there he sat upon a stone outside, his
gray eyes dancing with amusement as they fell upon my astonished features.  He
was thin and worn, but clear and alert, his keen face bronzed by the sun and
roughened by the wind.  In his tweed suit and cloth cap he looked like any
other tourist upon the moor, and he had contrived, with that catlike love of
personal cleanliness which was one of his characteristics, that his chin should
be as smooth and his linen as perfect as if he were in Baker Street.

“I never was more glad to see anyone in my life,” said I as I wrung him by the
hand.

“Or more astonished, eh?”

“Well, I must confess to it.”

“The surprise was not all on one side, I assure you.  I had no idea that you
had found my occasional retreat, still less that you were inside it, until I
was within twenty paces of the door.”

“My footprint, I presume?”

“No, Watson, I fear that I could not undertake to recognize your footprint amid
all the footprints of the world.  If you seriously desire to deceive me you
must change your tobacconist; for when I see the stub of a cigarette marked
Bradley, Oxford Street, I know that my friend Watson is in the neighbourhood.
You will see it there beside the path.  You threw it down, no doubt, at that
supreme moment when you charged into the empty hut.”

“Exactly.”

“I thought as much—and knowing your admirable tenacity I was convinced that you
were sitting in ambush, a weapon within reach, waiting for the tenant to
return.  So you actually thought that I was the criminal?”

“I did not know who you were, but I was determined to find out.”

“Excellent, Watson!  And how did you localize me?  You saw me, perhaps, on the
night of the convict hunt, when I was so imprudent as to allow the moon to rise
behind me?”

“Yes, I saw you then.”

“And have no doubt searched all the huts until you came to this one?”

“No, your boy had been observed, and that gave me a guide where to look.”

“The old gentleman with the telescope, no doubt.  I could not make it out when
first I saw the light flashing upon the lens.”  He rose and peeped into the
hut.  “Ha, I see that Cartwright has brought up some supplies.  What’s this
paper?  So you have been to Coombe Tracey, have you?”

“Yes.”

“To see Mrs. Laura Lyons?”

“Exactly.”

“Well done!  Our researches have evidently been running on parallel lines, and
when we unite our results I expect we shall have a fairly full knowledge of the
case.”

“Well, I am glad from my heart that you are here, for indeed the responsibility
and the mystery were both becoming too much for my nerves.  But how in the name
of wonder did you come here, and what have you been doing?  I thought that you
were in Baker Street working out that case of blackmailing.”

“That was what I wished you to think.”

“Then you use me, and yet do not trust me!” I cried with some bitterness.  “I
think that I have deserved better at your hands, Holmes.”

“My dear fellow, you have been invaluable to me in this as in many other cases,
and I beg that you will forgive me if I have seemed to play a trick upon you.
In truth, it was partly for your own sake that I did it, and it was my
appreciation of the danger which you ran which led me to come down and examine
the matter for myself.  Had I been with Sir Henry and you it is confident that
my point of view would have been the same as yours, and my presence would have
warned our very formidable opponents to be on their guard.  As it is, I have
been able to get about as I could not possibly have done had I been living in
the Hall, and I remain an unknown factor in the business, ready to throw in all
my weight at a critical moment.”

“But why keep me in the dark?”

“For you to know could not have helped us and might possibly have led to my
discovery.  You would have wished to tell me something, or in your kindness you
would have brought me out some comfort or other, and so an unnecessary risk
would be run.  I brought Cartwright down with me—you remember the little chap
at the express office—and he has seen after my simple wants: a loaf of bread
and a clean collar.  What does man want more?  He has given me an extra pair of
eyes upon a very active pair of feet, and both have been invaluable.”

“Then my reports have all been wasted!”—My voice trembled as I recalled the
pains and the pride with which I had composed them.

Holmes took a bundle of papers from his pocket.

“Here are your reports, my dear fellow, and very well thumbed, I assure you.  I
made excellent arrangements, and they are only delayed one day upon their way.
I must compliment you exceedingly upon the zeal and the intelligence which you
have shown over an extraordinarily difficult case.”

I was still rather raw over the deception which had been practised upon me, but
the warmth of Holmes’s praise drove my anger from my mind.  I felt also in my
heart that he was right in what he said and that it was really best for our
purpose that I should not have known that he was upon the moor.

“That’s better,” said he, seeing the shadow rise from my face.  “And now tell
me the result of your visit to Mrs. Laura Lyons—it was not difficult for me to
guess that it was to see her that you had gone, for I am already aware that she
is the one person in Coombe Tracey who might be of service to us in the matter.
In fact, if you had not gone today it is exceedingly probable that I should
have gone tomorrow.”

The sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor.  The air had turned chill
and we withdrew into the hut for warmth.  There, sitting together in the
twilight, I told Holmes of my conversation with the lady.  So interested was he
that I had to repeat some of it twice before he was satisfied.

“This is most important,” said he when I had concluded.  “It fills up a gap
which I had been unable to bridge in this most complex affair.  You are aware,
perhaps, that a close intimacy exists between this lady and the man Stapleton?”

“I did not know of a close intimacy.”

“There can be no doubt about the matter.  They meet, they write, there is a
complete understanding between them.  Now, this puts a very powerful weapon
into our hands.  If I could only use it to detach his wife—”

“His wife?”

“I am giving you some information now, in return for all that you have given
me.  The lady who has passed here as Miss Stapleton is in reality his wife.”

“Good heavens, Holmes!  Are you sure of what you say?  How could he have
permitted Sir Henry to fall in love with her?”

“Sir Henry’s falling in love could do no harm to anyone except Sir Henry.  He
took particular care that Sir Henry did not make love to her, as you have
yourself observed.  I repeat that the lady is his wife and not his sister.”

“But why this elaborate deception?”

“Because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the
character of a free woman.”

All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape and centred
upon the naturalist.  In that impassive colourless man, with his straw hat and
his butterfly-net, I seemed to see something terrible—a creature of infinite
patience and craft, with a smiling face and a murderous heart.

“It is he, then, who is our enemy—it is he who dogged us in London?”

“So I read the riddle.”

“And the warning—it must have come from her!”

“Exactly.”

The shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed, loomed through
the darkness which had girt me so long.

“But are you sure of this, Holmes?  How do you know that the woman is his
wife?”

“Because he so far forgot himself as to tell you a true piece of autobiography
upon the occasion when he first met you, and I dare say he has many a time
regretted it since.  He was once a schoolmaster in the north of England.  Now,
there is no one more easy to trace than a schoolmaster.  There are scholastic
agencies by which one may identify any man who has been in the profession.  A
little investigation showed me that a school had come to grief under atrocious
circumstances, and that the man who had owned it—the name was different—had
disappeared with his wife.  The descriptions agreed.  When I learned that the
missing man was devoted to entomology the identification was complete.”

The darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the shadows.

“If this woman is in truth his wife, where does Mrs. Laura Lyons come in?” I
asked.

“That is one of the points upon which your own researches have shed a light.
Your interview with the lady has cleared the situation very much.  I did not
know about a projected divorce between herself and her husband.  In that case,
regarding Stapleton as an unmarried man, she counted no doubt upon becoming his
wife.”

“And when she is undeceived?”

“Why, then we may find the lady of service.  It must be our first duty to see
her—both of us—tomorrow.  Don’t you think, Watson, that you are away from your
charge rather long?  Your place should be at Baskerville Hall.”

The last red streaks had faded away in the west and night had settled upon the
moor.  A few faint stars were gleaming in a violet sky.

“One last question, Holmes,” I said as I rose.  “Surely there is no need of
secrecy between you and me.  What is the meaning of it all?  What is he after?”

Holmes’s voice sank as he answered: “It is murder, Watson—refined,
cold-blooded, deliberate murder.  Do not ask me for particulars.  My nets are
closing upon him, even as his are upon Sir Henry, and with your help he is
already almost at my mercy.  There is but one danger which can threaten us.  It
is that he should strike before we are ready to do so.  Another day—two at the
most—and I have my case complete, but until then guard your charge as closely
as ever a fond mother watched her ailing child.  Your mission today has
justified itself, and yet I could almost wish that you had not left his side.
Hark!”

A terrible scream—a prolonged yell of horror and anguish—burst out of the
silence of the moor.  That frightful cry turned the blood to ice in my veins.

“Oh, my God!” I gasped.  “What is it?  What does it mean?”

Holmes had sprung to his feet, and I saw his dark, athletic outline at the door
of the hut, his shoulders stooping, his head thrust forward, his face peering
into the darkness.

“Hush!” he whispered.  “Hush!”

The cry had been loud on account of its vehemence, but it had pealed out from
somewhere far off on the shadowy plain.  Now it burst upon our ears, nearer,
louder, more urgent than before.

“Where is it?” Holmes whispered; and I knew from the thrill of his voice that
he, the man of iron, was shaken to the soul.  “Where is it, Watson?”

“There, I think.”  I pointed into the darkness.

“No, there!”

Again the agonized cry swept through the silent night, louder and much nearer
than ever.  And a new sound mingled with it, a deep, muttered rumble, musical
and yet menacing, rising and falling like the low, constant murmur of the sea.

“The hound!” cried Holmes.  “Come, Watson, come!  Great heavens, if we are too
late!”

He had started running swiftly over the moor, and I had followed at his heels.
But now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately in front of us there
came one last despairing yell, and then a dull, heavy thud.  We halted and
listened.  Not another sound broke the heavy silence of the windless night.

I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted.  He stamped
his feet upon the ground.

“He has beaten us, Watson.  We are too late.”

“No, no, surely not!”

“Fool that I was to hold my hand.  And you, Watson, see what comes of
abandoning your charge!  But, by Heaven, if the worst has happened we’ll avenge
him!”

Blindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders, forcing our way
through gorse bushes, panting up hills and rushing down slopes, heading always
in the direction whence those dreadful sounds had come.  At every rise Holmes
looked eagerly round him, but the shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing
moved upon its dreary face.

“Can you see anything?”

“Nothing.”

“But, hark, what is that?”

A low moan had fallen upon our ears.  There it was again upon our left!  On
that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which overlooked a
stone-strewn slope.  On its jagged face was spread-eagled some dark, irregular
object.  As we ran towards it the vague outline hardened into a definite shape.
It was a prostrate man face downward upon the ground, the head doubled under
him at a horrible angle, the shoulders rounded and the body hunched together as
if in the act of throwing a somersault.  So grotesque was the attitude that I
could not for the instant realize that that moan had been the passing of his
soul.  Not a whisper, not a rustle, rose now from the dark figure over which we
stooped.  Holmes laid his hand upon him and held it up again with an
exclamation of horror.  The gleam of the match which he struck shone upon his
clotted fingers and upon the ghastly pool which widened slowly from the crushed
skull of the victim.  And it shone upon something else which turned our hearts
sick and faint within us—the body of Sir Henry Baskerville!

There was no chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar ruddy tweed
suit—the very one which he had worn on the first morning that we had seen him
in Baker Street.  We caught the one clear glimpse of it, and then the match
flickered and went out, even as the hope had gone out of our souls.  Holmes
groaned, and his face glimmered white through the darkness.

“The brute!  The brute!” I cried with clenched hands.  “Oh Holmes, I shall
never forgive myself for having left him to his fate.”

“I am more to blame than you, Watson.  In order to have my case well rounded
and complete, I have thrown away the life of my client.  It is the greatest
blow which has befallen me in my career.  But how could I know—how could I
know—that he would risk his life alone upon the moor in the face of all my
warnings?”

“That we should have heard his screams—my God, those screams!—and yet have been
unable to save him!  Where is this brute of a hound which drove him to his
death?  It may be lurking among these rocks at this instant.  And Stapleton,
where is he?  He shall answer for this deed.”

“He shall.  I will see to that.  Uncle and nephew have been murdered—the one
frightened to death by the very sight of a beast which he thought to be
supernatural, the other driven to his end in his wild flight to escape from it.
But now we have to prove the connection between the man and the beast.  Save
from what we heard, we cannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since
Sir Henry has evidently died from the fall.  But, by heavens, cunning as he is,
the fellow shall be in my power before another day is past!”

We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body, overwhelmed by
this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought all our long and weary
labours to so piteous an end.  Then as the moon rose we climbed to the top of
the rocks over which our poor friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed
out over the shadowy moor, half silver and half gloom.  Far away, miles off, in
the direction of Grimpen, a single steady yellow light was shining.  It could
only come from the lonely abode of the Stapletons.  With a bitter curse I shook
my fist at it as I gazed.

“Why should we not seize him at once?”

“Our case is not complete.  The fellow is wary and cunning to the last degree.
It is not what we know, but what we can prove.  If we make one false move the
villain may escape us yet.”

“What can we do?”

“There will be plenty for us to do tomorrow.  Tonight we can only perform the
last offices to our poor friend.”

Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached the body,
black and clear against the silvered stones.  The agony of those contorted
limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my eyes with tears.

“We must send for help, Holmes!  We cannot carry him all the way to the Hall.
Good heavens, are you mad?”

He had uttered a cry and bent over the body.  Now he was dancing and laughing
and wringing my hand.  Could this be my stern, self-contained friend?  These
were hidden fires, indeed!

“A beard!  A beard!  The man has a beard!”

“A beard?”

“It is not the baronet—it is—why, it is my neighbour, the convict!”

With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping beard was
pointing up to the cold, clear moon.  There could be no doubt about the
beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes.  It was indeed the same face which
had glared upon me in the light of the candle from over the rock—the face of
Selden, the criminal.

Then in an instant it was all clear to me.  I remembered how the baronet had
told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to Barrymore.  Barrymore had passed
it on in order to help Selden in his escape.  Boots, shirt, cap—it was all Sir
Henry’s.  The tragedy was still black enough, but this man had at least
deserved death by the laws of his country.  I told Holmes how the matter stood,
my heart bubbling over with thankfulness and joy.

“Then the clothes have been the poor devil’s death,” said he.  “It is clear
enough that the hound has been laid on from some article of Sir Henry’s—the
boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all probability—and so ran this man
down.  There is one very singular thing, however: How came Selden, in the
darkness, to know that the hound was on his trail?”

“He heard him.”

“To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like this convict into
such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture by screaming wildly for
help.  By his cries he must have run a long way after he knew the animal was on
his track.  How did he know?”

“A greater mystery to me is why this hound, presuming that all our conjectures
are correct—”

“I presume nothing.”

“Well, then, why this hound should be loose tonight.  I suppose that it does
not always run loose upon the moor.  Stapleton would not let it go unless he
had reason to think that Sir Henry would be there.”

“My difficulty is the more formidable of the two, for I think that we shall
very shortly get an explanation of yours, while mine may remain forever a
mystery.  The question now is, what shall we do with this poor wretch’s body?
We cannot leave it here to the foxes and the ravens.”

“I suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can communicate with the
police.”

“Exactly.  I have no doubt that you and I could carry it so far.  Halloa,
Watson, what’s this?  It’s the man himself, by all that’s wonderful and
audacious!  Not a word to show your suspicions—not a word, or my plans crumble
to the ground.”

A figure was approaching us over the moor, and I saw the dull red glow of a
cigar.  The moon shone upon him, and I could distinguish the dapper shape and
jaunty walk of the naturalist.  He stopped when he saw us, and then came on
again.

“Why, Dr. Watson, that’s not you, is it?  You are the last man that I should
have expected to see out on the moor at this time of night.  But, dear me,
what’s this?  Somebody hurt?  Not—don’t tell me that it is our friend Sir
Henry!”  He hurried past me and stooped over the dead man.  I heard a sharp
intake of his breath and the cigar fell from his fingers.

“Who—who’s this?” he stammered.

“It is Selden, the man who escaped from Princetown.”

Stapleton turned a ghastly face upon us, but by a supreme effort he had
overcome his amazement and his disappointment.  He looked sharply from Holmes
to me.  “Dear me!  What a very shocking affair!  How did he die?”

“He appears to have broken his neck by falling over these rocks.  My friend and
I were strolling on the moor when we heard a cry.”

“I heard a cry also.  That was what brought me out.  I was uneasy about Sir
Henry.”

“Why about Sir Henry in particular?” I could not help asking.

“Because I had suggested that he should come over.  When he did not come I was
surprised, and I naturally became alarmed for his safety when I heard cries
upon the moor.  By the way”—his eyes darted again from my face to Holmes’s—“did
you hear anything else besides a cry?”

“No,” said Holmes; “did you?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“Oh, you know the stories that the peasants tell about a phantom hound, and so
on.  It is said to be heard at night upon the moor.  I was wondering if there
were any evidence of such a sound tonight.”

“We heard nothing of the kind,” said I.

“And what is your theory of this poor fellow’s death?”

“I have no doubt that anxiety and exposure have driven him off his head.  He
has rushed about the moor in a crazy state and eventually fallen over here and
broken his neck.”

“That seems the most reasonable theory,” said Stapleton, and he gave a sigh
which I took to indicate his relief.  “What do you think about it, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes?”

My friend bowed his compliments.  “You are quick at identification,” said he.

“We have been expecting you in these parts since Dr. Watson came down.  You are
in time to see a tragedy.”

“Yes, indeed.  I have no doubt that my friend’s explanation will cover the
facts.  I will take an unpleasant remembrance back to London with me tomorrow.”

“Oh, you return tomorrow?”

“That is my intention.”

“I hope your visit has cast some light upon those occurrences which have
puzzled us?”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“One cannot always have the success for which one hopes.  An investigator needs
facts and not legends or rumours.  It has not been a satisfactory case.”

My friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner.  Stapleton still
looked hard at him.  Then he turned to me.

“I would suggest carrying this poor fellow to my house, but it would give my
sister such a fright that I do not feel justified in doing it.  I think that if
we put something over his face he will be safe until morning.”

And so it was arranged.  Resisting Stapleton’s offer of hospitality, Holmes and
I set off to Baskerville Hall, leaving the naturalist to return alone.  Looking
back we saw the figure moving slowly away over the broad moor, and behind him
that one black smudge on the silvered slope which showed where the man was
lying who had come so horribly to his end.

Chapter 13. Fixing the Nets

“We’re at close grips at last,” said Holmes as we walked together across the
moor.  “What a nerve the fellow has!  How he pulled himself together in the
face of what must have been a paralyzing shock when he found that the wrong man
had fallen a victim to his plot.  I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you
now again, that we have never had a foeman more worthy of our steel.”

“I am sorry that he has seen you.”

“And so was I at first.  But there was no getting out of it.”

“What effect do you think it will have upon his plans now that he knows you are
here?”

“It may cause him to be more cautious, or it may drive him to desperate
measures at once.  Like most clever criminals, he may be too confident in his
own cleverness and imagine that he has completely deceived us.”

“Why should we not arrest him at once?”

“My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action.  Your instinct is always
to do something energetic.  But supposing, for argument’s sake, that we had him
arrested tonight, what on earth the better off should we be for that?  We could
prove nothing against him.  There’s the devilish cunning of it!  If he were
acting through a human agent we could get some evidence, but if we were to drag
this great dog to the light of day it would not help us in putting a rope round
the neck of its master.”

“Surely we have a case.”

“Not a shadow of one—only surmise and conjecture.  We should be laughed out of
court if we came with such a story and such evidence.”

“There is Sir Charles’s death.”

“Found dead without a mark upon him.  You and I know that he died of sheer
fright, and we know also what frightened him, but how are we to get twelve
stolid jurymen to know it?  What signs are there of a hound?  Where are the
marks of its fangs?  Of course we know that a hound does not bite a dead body
and that Sir Charles was dead before ever the brute overtook him.  But we have
to prove all this, and we are not in a position to do it.”

“Well, then, tonight?”

“We are not much better off tonight.  Again, there was no direct connection
between the hound and the man’s death.  We never saw the hound.  We heard it,
but we could not prove that it was running upon this man’s trail.  There is a
complete absence of motive.  No, my dear fellow; we must reconcile ourselves to
the fact that we have no case at present, and that it is worth our while to run
any risk in order to establish one.”

“And how do you propose to do so?”

“I have great hopes of what Mrs. Laura Lyons may do for us when the position of
affairs is made clear to her.  And I have my own plan as well.  Sufficient for
tomorrow is the evil thereof; but I hope before the day is past to have the
upper hand at last.”

I could draw nothing further from him, and he walked, lost in thought, as far
as the Baskerville gates.

“Are you coming up?”

“Yes; I see no reason for further concealment.  But one last word, Watson.  Say
nothing of the hound to Sir Henry.  Let him think that Selden’s death was as
Stapleton would have us believe.  He will have a better nerve for the ordeal
which he will have to undergo tomorrow, when he is engaged, if I remember your
report aright, to dine with these people.”

“And so am I.”

“Then you must excuse yourself and he must go alone.  That will be easily
arranged.  And now, if we are too late for dinner, I think that we are both
ready for our suppers.”

Sir Henry was more pleased than surprised to see Sherlock Holmes, for he had
for some days been expecting that recent events would bring him down from
London.  He did raise his eyebrows, however, when he found that my friend had
neither any luggage nor any explanations for its absence.  Between us we soon
supplied his wants, and then over a belated supper we explained to the baronet
as much of our experience as it seemed desirable that he should know.  But
first I had the unpleasant duty of breaking the news to Barrymore and his wife.
To him it may have been an unmitigated relief, but she wept bitterly in her
apron.  To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half
demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood,
the child who had clung to her hand.  Evil indeed is the man who has not one
woman to mourn him.

“I’ve been moping in the house all day since Watson went off in the morning,”
said the baronet.  “I guess I should have some credit, for I have kept my
promise.  If I hadn’t sworn not to go about alone I might have had a more
lively evening, for I had a message from Stapleton asking me over there.”

“I have no doubt that you would have had a more lively evening,” said Holmes
drily.  “By the way, I don’t suppose you appreciate that we have been mourning
over you as having broken your neck?”

Sir Henry opened his eyes.  “How was that?”

“This poor wretch was dressed in your clothes.  I fear your servant who gave
them to him may get into trouble with the police.”

“That is unlikely.  There was no mark on any of them, as far as I know.”

“That’s lucky for him—in fact, it’s lucky for all of you, since you are all on
the wrong side of the law in this matter.  I am not sure that as a
conscientious detective my first duty is not to arrest the whole household.
Watson’s reports are most incriminating documents.”

“But how about the case?” asked the baronet.  “Have you made anything out of
the tangle?  I don’t know that Watson and I are much the wiser since we came
down.”

“I think that I shall be in a position to make the situation rather more clear
to you before long.  It has been an exceedingly difficult and most complicated
business.  There are several points upon which we still want light—but it is
coming all the same.”

“We’ve had one experience, as Watson has no doubt told you.  We heard the hound
on the moor, so I can swear that it is not all empty superstition.  I had
something to do with dogs when I was out West, and I know one when I hear one.
If you can muzzle that one and put him on a chain I’ll be ready to swear you
are the greatest detective of all time.”

“I think I will muzzle him and chain him all right if you will give me your
help.”

“Whatever you tell me to do I will do.”

“Very good; and I will ask you also to do it blindly, without always asking the
reason.”

“Just as you like.”

“If you will do this I think the chances are that our little problem will soon
be solved.  I have no doubt—”

He stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up over my head into the air.  The lamp
beat upon his face, and so intent was it and so still that it might have been
that of a clear-cut classical statue, a personification of alertness and
expectation.

“What is it?” we both cried.

I could see as he looked down that he was repressing some internal emotion.
His features were still composed, but his eyes shone with amused exultation.

“Excuse the admiration of a connoisseur,” said he as he waved his hand towards
the line of portraits which covered the opposite wall.  “Watson won’t allow
that I know anything of art but that is mere jealousy because our views upon
the subject differ.  Now, these are a really very fine series of portraits.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you say so,” said Sir Henry, glancing with some
surprise at my friend.  “I don’t pretend to know much about these things, and
I’d be a better judge of a horse or a steer than of a picture.  I didn’t know
that you found time for such things.”

“I know what is good when I see it, and I see it now.  That’s a Kneller, I’ll
swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder, and the stout gentleman with the
wig ought to be a Reynolds.  They are all family portraits, I presume?”

“Every one.”

“Do you know the names?”

“Barrymore has been coaching me in them, and I think I can say my lessons
fairly well.”

“Who is the gentleman with the telescope?”

“That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville, who served under Rodney in the West Indies.
The man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is Sir William Baskerville,
who was Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons under Pitt.”

“And this Cavalier opposite to me—the one with the black velvet and the lace?”

“Ah, you have a right to know about him.  That is the cause of all the
mischief, the wicked Hugo, who started the Hound of the Baskervilles.  We’re
not likely to forget him.”

I gazed with interest and some surprise upon the portrait.

“Dear me!” said Holmes, “he seems a quiet, meek-mannered man enough, but I dare
say that there was a lurking devil in his eyes.  I had pictured him as a more
robust and ruffianly person.”

“There’s no doubt about the authenticity, for the name and the date, 1647, are
on the back of the canvas.”

Holmes said little more, but the picture of the old roysterer seemed to have a
fascination for him, and his eyes were continually fixed upon it during supper.
It was not until later, when Sir Henry had gone to his room, that I was able to
follow the trend of his thoughts.  He led me back into the banqueting-hall, his
bedroom candle in his hand, and he held it up against the time-stained portrait
on the wall.

“Do you see anything there?”

I looked at the broad plumed hat, the curling love-locks, the white lace
collar, and the straight, severe face which was framed between them.  It was
not a brutal countenance, but it was prim, hard, and stern, with a firm-set,
thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly intolerant eye.

“Is it like anyone you know?”

“There is something of Sir Henry about the jaw.”

“Just a suggestion, perhaps.  But wait an instant!”  He stood upon a chair,
and, holding up the light in his left hand, he curved his right arm over the
broad hat and round the long ringlets.

“Good heavens!” I cried in amazement.

The face of Stapleton had sprung out of the canvas.

“Ha, you see it now.  My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not their
trimmings.  It is the first quality of a criminal investigator that he should
see through a disguise.”

“But this is marvellous.  It might be his portrait.”

“Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be both
physical and spiritual.  A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man
to the doctrine of reincarnation.  The fellow is a Baskerville—that is
evident.”

“With designs upon the succession.”

“Exactly.  This chance of the picture has supplied us with one of our most
obvious missing links.  We have him, Watson, we have him, and I dare swear that
before tomorrow night he will be fluttering in our net as helpless as one of
his own butterflies.  A pin, a cork, and a card, and we add him to the Baker
Street collection!”  He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he
turned away from the picture.  I have not heard him laugh often, and it has
always boded ill to somebody.

I was up betimes in the morning, but Holmes was afoot earlier still, for I saw
him as I dressed, coming up the drive.

“Yes, we should have a full day today,” he remarked, and he rubbed his hands
with the joy of action.  “The nets are all in place, and the drag is about to
begin.  We’ll know before the day is out whether we have caught our big,
leanjawed pike, or whether he has got through the meshes.”

“Have you been on the moor already?”

“I have sent a report from Grimpen to Princetown as to the death of Selden.  I
think I can promise that none of you will be troubled in the matter.  And I
have also communicated with my faithful Cartwright, who would certainly have
pined away at the door of my hut, as a dog does at his master’s grave, if I had
not set his mind at rest about my safety.”

“What is the next move?”

“To see Sir Henry.  Ah, here he is!”

“Good-morning, Holmes,” said the baronet.  “You look like a general who is
planning a battle with his chief of the staff.”

“That is the exact situation.  Watson was asking for orders.”

“And so do I.”

“Very good.  You are engaged, as I understand, to dine with our friends the
Stapletons tonight.”

“I hope that you will come also.  They are very hospitable people, and I am
sure that they would be very glad to see you.”

“I fear that Watson and I must go to London.”

“To London?”

“Yes, I think that we should be more useful there at the present juncture.”

The baronet’s face perceptibly lengthened.

“I hoped that you were going to see me through this business.  The Hall and the
moor are not very pleasant places when one is alone.”

“My dear fellow, you must trust me implicitly and do exactly what I tell you.
You can tell your friends that we should have been happy to have come with you,
but that urgent business required us to be in town.  We hope very soon to
return to Devonshire.  Will you remember to give them that message?”

“If you insist upon it.”

“There is no alternative, I assure you.”

I saw by the baronet’s clouded brow that he was deeply hurt by what he regarded
as our desertion.

“When do you desire to go?” he asked coldly.

“Immediately after breakfast.  We will drive in to Coombe Tracey, but Watson
will leave his things as a pledge that he will come back to you.  Watson, you
will send a note to Stapleton to tell him that you regret that you cannot
come.”

“I have a good mind to go to London with you,” said the baronet.  “Why should I
stay here alone?”

“Because it is your post of duty.  Because you gave me your word that you would
do as you were told, and I tell you to stay.”

“All right, then, I’ll stay.”

“One more direction! I wish you to drive to Merripit House.  Send back your
trap, however, and let them know that you intend to walk home.”

“To walk across the moor?”

“Yes.”

“But that is the very thing which you have so often cautioned me not to do.”

“This time you may do it with safety.  If I had not every confidence in your
nerve and courage I would not suggest it, but it is essential that you should
do it.”

“Then I will do it.”

“And as you value your life do not go across the moor in any direction save
along the straight path which leads from Merripit House to the Grimpen Road,
and is your natural way home.”

“I will do just what you say.”

“Very good.  I should be glad to get away as soon after breakfast as possible,
so as to reach London in the afternoon.”

I was much astounded by this programme, though I remembered that Holmes had
said to Stapleton on the night before that his visit would terminate next day.
It had not crossed my mind however, that he would wish me to go with him, nor
could I understand how we could both be absent at a moment which he himself
declared to be critical.  There was nothing for it, however, but implicit
obedience; so we bade good-bye to our rueful friend, and a couple of hours
afterwards we were at the station of Coombe Tracey and had dispatched the trap
upon its return journey.  A small boy was waiting upon the platform.

“Any orders, sir?”

“You will take this train to town, Cartwright.  The moment you arrive you will
send a wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, in my name, to say that if he finds the
pocketbook which I have dropped he is to send it by registered post to Baker
Street.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And ask at the station office if there is a message for me.”

The boy returned with a telegram, which Holmes handed to me.  It ran:

Wire received.  Coming down with unsigned warrant.  Arrive five-forty.
Lestrade.

“That is in answer to mine of this morning.  He is the best of the
professionals, I think, and we may need his assistance.  Now, Watson, I think
that we cannot employ our time better than by calling upon your acquaintance,
Mrs. Laura Lyons.”

His plan of campaign was beginning to be evident.  He would use the baronet in
order to convince the Stapletons that we were really gone, while we should
actually return at the instant when we were likely to be needed.  That telegram
from London, if mentioned by Sir Henry to the Stapletons, must remove the last
suspicions from their minds.  Already I seemed to see our nets drawing closer
around that leanjawed pike.

Mrs. Laura Lyons was in her office, and Sherlock Holmes opened his interview
with a frankness and directness which considerably amazed her.

“I am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of the late Sir
Charles Baskerville,” said he.  “My friend here, Dr. Watson, has informed me of
what you have communicated, and also of what you have withheld in connection
with that matter.”

“What have I withheld?” she asked defiantly.

“You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be at the gate at ten
o’clock.  We know that that was the place and hour of his death.  You have
withheld what the connection is between these events.”

“There is no connection.”

“In that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary one.  But I think
that we shall succeed in establishing a connection, after all.  I wish to be
perfectly frank with you, Mrs. Lyons.  We regard this case as one of murder,
and the evidence may implicate not only your friend Mr. Stapleton but his wife
as well.”

The lady sprang from her chair.

“His wife!” she cried.

“The fact is no longer a secret.  The person who has passed for his sister is
really his wife.”

Mrs. Lyons had resumed her seat.  Her hands were grasping the arms of her
chair, and I saw that the pink nails had turned white with the pressure of her
grip.

“His wife!” she said again.  “His wife!  He is not a married man.”

Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“Prove it to me!  Prove it to me!  And if you can do so—!”

The fierce flash of her eyes said more than any words.

“I have come prepared to do so,” said Holmes, drawing several papers from his
pocket.  “Here is a photograph of the couple taken in York four years ago.  It
is indorsed ‘Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,’ but you will have no difficulty in
recognizing him, and her also, if you know her by sight.  Here are three
written descriptions by trustworthy witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur, who at
that time kept St. Oliver’s private school.  Read them and see if you can doubt
the identity of these people.”

She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set, rigid face of a
desperate woman.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said, “this man had offered me marriage on condition that I
could get a divorce from my husband.  He has lied to me, the villain, in every
conceivable way.  Not one word of truth has he ever told me.  And why—why?  I
imagined that all was for my own sake.  But now I see that I was never anything
but a tool in his hands.  Why should I preserve faith with him who never kept
any with me?  Why should I try to shield him from the consequences of his own
wicked acts?  Ask me what you like, and there is nothing which I shall hold
back.  One thing I swear to you, and that is that when I wrote the letter I
never dreamed of any harm to the old gentleman, who had been my kindest
friend.”

“I entirely believe you, madam,” said Sherlock Holmes.  “The recital of these
events must be very painful to you, and perhaps it will make it easier if I
tell you what occurred, and you can check me if I make any material mistake.
The sending of this letter was suggested to you by Stapleton?”

“He dictated it.”

“I presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive help from Sir
Charles for the legal expenses connected with your divorce?”

“Exactly.”

“And then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from keeping the
appointment?”

“He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other man should find
the money for such an object, and that though he was a poor man himself he
would devote his last penny to removing the obstacles which divided us.”

“He appears to be a very consistent character.  And then you heard nothing
until you read the reports of the death in the paper?”

“No.”

“And he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with Sir Charles?”

“He did.  He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that I should
certainly be suspected if the facts came out.  He frightened me into remaining
silent.”

“Quite so.  But you had your suspicions?”

She hesitated and looked down.

“I knew him,” she said.  “But if he had kept faith with me I should always have
done so with him.”

“I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape,” said Sherlock
Holmes.  “You have had him in your power and he knew it, and yet you are alive.
You have been walking for some months very near to the edge of a precipice.  We
must wish you good-morning now, Mrs. Lyons, and it is probable that you will
very shortly hear from us again.”

“Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty thins away in
front of us,” said Holmes as we stood waiting for the arrival of the express
from town.  “I shall soon be in the position of being able to put into a single
connected narrative one of the most singular and sensational crimes of modern
times.  Students of criminology will remember the analogous incidents in Godno,
in Little Russia, in the year ’66, and of course there are the Anderson murders
in North Carolina, but this case possesses some features which are entirely its
own.  Even now we have no clear case against this very wily man.  But I shall
be very much surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this
night.”

The London express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry bulldog of
a man had sprung from a first-class carriage.  We all three shook hands, and I
saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion
that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked
together.  I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner
used then to excite in the practical man.

“Anything good?” he asked.

“The biggest thing for years,” said Holmes.  “We have two hours before we need
think of starting.  I think we might employ it in getting some dinner and then,
Lestrade, we will take the London fog out of your throat by giving you a breath
of the pure night air of Dartmoor.  Never been there?  Ah, well, I don’t
suppose you will forget your first visit.”

Chapter 14. The Hound of the Baskervilles

One of Sherlock Holmes’s defects—if, indeed, one may call it a defect—was that
he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person
until the instant of their fulfilment.  Partly it came no doubt from his own
masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around
him.  Partly also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take
any chances.  The result, however, was very trying for those who were acting as
his agents and assistants.  I had often suffered under it, but never more so
than during that long drive in the darkness.  The great ordeal was in front of
us; at last we were about to make our final effort, and yet Holmes had said
nothing, and I could only surmise what his course of action would be.  My
nerves thrilled with anticipation when at last the cold wind upon our faces and
the dark, void spaces on either side of the narrow road told me that we were
back upon the moor once again.  Every stride of the horses and every turn of
the wheels was taking us nearer to our supreme adventure.

Our conversation was hampered by the presence of the driver of the hired
wagonette, so that we were forced to talk of trivial matters when our nerves
were tense with emotion and anticipation.  It was a relief to me, after that
unnatural restraint, when we at last passed Frankland’s house and knew that we
were drawing near to the Hall and to the scene of action.  We did not drive up
to the door but got down near the gate of the avenue.  The wagonette was paid
off and ordered to return to Coombe Tracey forthwith, while we started to walk
to Merripit House.

“Are you armed, Lestrade?”

The little detective smiled.  “As long as I have my trousers I have a
hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket I have something in it.”

“Good!  My friend and I are also ready for emergencies.”

“You’re mighty close about this affair, Mr. Holmes.  What’s the game now?”

“A waiting game.”

“My word, it does not seem a very cheerful place,” said the detective with a
shiver, glancing round him at the gloomy slopes of the hill and at the huge
lake of fog which lay over the Grimpen Mire.  “I see the lights of a house
ahead of us.”

“That is Merripit House and the end of our journey.  I must request you to walk
on tiptoe and not to talk above a whisper.”

We moved cautiously along the track as if we were bound for the house, but
Holmes halted us when we were about two hundred yards from it.

“This will do,” said he.  “These rocks upon the right make an admirable
screen.”

“We are to wait here?”

“Yes, we shall make our little ambush here.  Get into this hollow, Lestrade.
You have been inside the house, have you not, Watson?  Can you tell the
position of the rooms?  What are those latticed windows at this end?”

“I think they are the kitchen windows.”

“And the one beyond, which shines so brightly?”

“That is certainly the dining-room.”

“The blinds are up.  You know the lie of the land best.  Creep forward quietly
and see what they are doing—but for heaven’s sake don’t let them know that they
are watched!”

I tiptoed down the path and stooped behind the low wall which surrounded the
stunted orchard.  Creeping in its shadow I reached a point whence I could look
straight through the uncurtained window.

There were only two men in the room, Sir Henry and Stapleton.  They sat with
their profiles towards me on either side of the round table.  Both of them were
smoking cigars, and coffee and wine were in front of them.  Stapleton was
talking with animation, but the baronet looked pale and distrait.  Perhaps the
thought of that lonely walk across the ill-omened moor was weighing heavily
upon his mind.

As I watched them Stapleton rose and left the room, while Sir Henry filled his
glass again and leaned back in his chair, puffing at his cigar.  I heard the
creak of a door and the crisp sound of boots upon gravel.  The steps passed
along the path on the other side of the wall under which I crouched.  Looking
over, I saw the naturalist pause at the door of an out-house in the corner of
the orchard.  A key turned in a lock, and as he passed in there was a curious
scuffling noise from within.  He was only a minute or so inside, and then I
heard the key turn once more and he passed me and reentered the house.  I saw
him rejoin his guest, and I crept quietly back to where my companions were
waiting to tell them what I had seen.

“You say, Watson, that the lady is not there?” Holmes asked when I had finished
my report.

“No.”

“Where can she be, then, since there is no light in any other room except the
kitchen?”

“I cannot think where she is.”

I have said that over the great Grimpen Mire there hung a dense, white fog.  It
was drifting slowly in our direction and banked itself up like a wall on that
side of us, low but thick and well defined.  The moon shone on it, and it
looked like a great shimmering ice-field, with the heads of the distant tors as
rocks borne upon its surface.  Holmes’s face was turned towards it, and he
muttered impatiently as he watched its sluggish drift.

“It’s moving towards us, Watson.”

“Is that serious?”

“Very serious, indeed—the one thing upon earth which could have disarranged my
plans.  He can’t be very long, now.  It is already ten o’clock.  Our success
and even his life may depend upon his coming out before the fog is over the
path.”

The night was clear and fine above us.  The stars shone cold and bright, while
a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain light.  Before us lay
the dark bulk of the house, its serrated roof and bristling chimneys hard
outlined against the silver-spangled sky.  Broad bars of golden light from the
lower windows stretched across the orchard and the moor.  One of them was
suddenly shut off.  The servants had left the kitchen.  There only remained the
lamp in the dining-room where the two men, the murderous host and the
unconscious guest, still chatted over their cigars.

Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one-half of the moor was
drifting closer and closer to the house.  Already the first thin wisps of it
were curling across the golden square of the lighted window.  The farther wall
of the orchard was already invisible, and the trees were standing out of a
swirl of white vapour.  As we watched it the fog-wreaths came crawling round
both corners of the house and rolled slowly into one dense bank on which the
upper floor and the roof floated like a strange ship upon a shadowy sea.
Holmes struck his hand passionately upon the rock in front of us and stamped
his feet in his impatience.

“If he isn’t out in a quarter of an hour the path will be covered.  In half an
hour we won’t be able to see our hands in front of us.”

“Shall we move farther back upon higher ground?”

“Yes, I think it would be as well.”

So as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell back before it until we were half a
mile from the house, and still that dense white sea, with the moon silvering
its upper edge, swept slowly and inexorably on.

“We are going too far,” said Holmes.  “We dare not take the chance of his being
overtaken before he can reach us.  At all costs we must hold our ground where
we are.”  He dropped on his knees and clapped his ear to the ground.  “Thank
God, I think that I hear him coming.”

A sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor.  Crouching among the
stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped bank in front of us.  The steps
grew louder, and through the fog, as through a curtain, there stepped the man
whom we were awaiting.  He looked round him in surprise as he emerged into the
clear, starlit night.  Then he came swiftly along the path, passed close to
where we lay, and went on up the long slope behind us.  As he walked he glanced
continually over either shoulder, like a man who is ill at ease.

“Hist!” cried Holmes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking pistol.  “Look
out!  It’s coming!”

There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the heart of that
crawling bank.  The cloud was within fifty yards of where we lay, and we glared
at it, all three, uncertain what horror was about to break from the heart of
it.  I was at Holmes’s elbow, and I glanced for an instant at his face.  It was
pale and exultant, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight.  But suddenly
they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his lips parted in amazement.
At the same instant Lestrade gave a yell of terror and threw himself face
downward upon the ground.  I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my
pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us
from the shadows of the fog.  A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but
not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen.  Fire burst from its open
mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and
dewlap were outlined in flickering flame.  Never in the delirious dream of a
disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be
conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the
wall of fog.

With long bounds the huge black creature was leaping down the track, following
hard upon the footsteps of our friend.  So paralyzed were we by the apparition
that we allowed him to pass before we had recovered our nerve.  Then Holmes and
I both fired together, and the creature gave a hideous howl, which showed that
one at least had hit him.  He did not pause, however, but bounded onward.  Far
away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the
moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful
thing which was hunting him down.  But that cry of pain from the hound had
blown all our fears to the winds.  If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if
we could wound him we could kill him.  Never have I seen a man run as Holmes
ran that night.  I am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as much as I
outpaced the little professional.  In front of us as we flew up the track we
heard scream after scream from Sir Henry and the deep roar of the hound.  I was
in time to see the beast spring upon its victim, hurl him to the ground, and
worry at his throat.  But the next instant Holmes had emptied five barrels of
his revolver into the creature’s flank.  With a last howl of agony and a
vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back, four feet pawing furiously,
and then fell limp upon its side.  I stooped, panting, and pressed my pistol to
the dreadful, shimmering head, but it was useless to press the trigger.  The
giant hound was dead.

Sir Henry lay insensible where he had fallen.  We tore away his collar, and
Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when we saw that there was no sign of a
wound and that the rescue had been in time.  Already our friend’s eyelids
shivered and he made a feeble effort to move.  Lestrade thrust his brandy-flask
between the baronet’s teeth, and two frightened eyes were looking up at us.

“My God!” he whispered.  “What was it?  What, in heaven’s name, was it?”

“It’s dead, whatever it is,” said Holmes.  “We’ve laid the family ghost once
and forever.”

In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying stretched
before us.  It was not a pure bloodhound and it was not a pure mastiff; but it
appeared to be a combination of the two—gaunt, savage, and as large as a small
lioness.  Even now in the stillness of death, the huge jaws seemed to be
dripping with a bluish flame and the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed
with fire.  I placed my hand upon the glowing muzzle, and as I held them up my
own fingers smouldered and gleamed in the darkness.

“Phosphorus,” I said.

“A cunning preparation of it,” said Holmes, sniffing at the dead animal.
“There is no smell which might have interfered with his power of scent.  We owe
you a deep apology, Sir Henry, for having exposed you to this fright.  I was
prepared for a hound, but not for such a creature as this.  And the fog gave us
little time to receive him.”

“You have saved my life.”

“Having first endangered it.  Are you strong enough to stand?”

“Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall be ready for anything.
So!  Now, if you will help me up.  What do you propose to do?”

“To leave you here.  You are not fit for further adventures tonight.  If you
will wait, one or other of us will go back with you to the Hall.”

He tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly pale and trembling in
every limb.  We helped him to a rock, where he sat shivering with his face
buried in his hands.

“We must leave you now,” said Holmes.  “The rest of our work must be done, and
every moment is of importance.  We have our case, and now we only want our man.

“It’s a thousand to one against our finding him at the house,” he continued as
we retraced our steps swiftly down the path.  “Those shots must have told him
that the game was up.”

“We were some distance off, and this fog may have deadened them.”

“He followed the hound to call him off—of that you may be certain.  No, no,
he’s gone by this time!  But we’ll search the house and make sure.”

The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried from room to room to the
amazement of a doddering old manservant, who met us in the passage.  There was
no light save in the dining-room, but Holmes caught up the lamp and left no
corner of the house unexplored.  No sign could we see of the man whom we were
chasing.  On the upper floor, however, one of the bedroom doors was locked.

“There’s someone in here,” cried Lestrade.  “I can hear a movement.  Open this
door!”

A faint moaning and rustling came from within.  Holmes struck the door just
over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flew open.  Pistol in hand, we
all three rushed into the room.

But there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant villain whom we
expected to see.  Instead we were faced by an object so strange and so
unexpected that we stood for a moment staring at it in amazement.

The room had been fashioned into a small museum, and the walls were lined by a
number of glass-topped cases full of that collection of butterflies and moths
the formation of which had been the relaxation of this complex and dangerous
man.  In the centre of this room there was an upright beam, which had been
placed at some period as a support for the old worm-eaten baulk of timber which
spanned the roof.  To this post a figure was tied, so swathed and muffled in
the sheets which had been used to secure it that one could not for the moment
tell whether it was that of a man or a woman.  One towel passed round the
throat and was secured at the back of the pillar.  Another covered the lower
part of the face, and over it two dark eyes—eyes full of grief and shame and a
dreadful questioning—stared back at us.  In a minute we had torn off the gag,
unswathed the bonds, and Mrs. Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us.  As
her beautiful head fell upon her chest I saw the clear red weal of a whiplash
across her neck.

“The brute!” cried Holmes.  “Here, Lestrade, your brandy-bottle!  Put her in
the chair!  She has fainted from ill-usage and exhaustion.”

She opened her eyes again.

“Is he safe?” she asked.  “Has he escaped?”

“He cannot escape us, madam.”

“No, no, I did not mean my husband.  Sir Henry?  Is he safe?”

“Yes.”

“And the hound?”

“It is dead.”

She gave a long sigh of satisfaction.

“Thank God!  Thank God!  Oh, this villain!  See how he has treated me!”  She
shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we saw with horror that they were all
mottled with bruises.  “But this is nothing—nothing!  It is my mind and soul
that he has tortured and defiled.  I could endure it all, ill-usage, solitude,
a life of deception, everything, as long as I could still cling to the hope
that I had his love, but now I know that in this also I have been his dupe and
his tool.”  She broke into passionate sobbing as she spoke.

“You bear him no good will, madam,” said Holmes.  “Tell us then where we shall
find him.  If you have ever aided him in evil, help us now and so atone.”

“There is but one place where he can have fled,” she answered.  “There is an
old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire.  It was there that he kept
his hound and there also he had made preparations so that he might have a
refuge.  That is where he would fly.”

The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window.  Holmes held the lamp
towards it.

“See,” said he.  “No one could find his way into the Grimpen Mire tonight.”

She laughed and clapped her hands.  Her eyes and teeth gleamed with fierce
merriment.

“He may find his way in, but never out,” she cried.  “How can he see the
guiding wands tonight?  We planted them together, he and I, to mark the pathway
through the mire.  Oh, if I could only have plucked them out today.  Then
indeed you would have had him at your mercy!”

It was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog had lifted.
Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of the house while Holmes and I went
back with the baronet to Baskerville Hall.  The story of the Stapletons could
no longer be withheld from him, but he took the blow bravely when he learned
the truth about the woman whom he had loved.  But the shock of the night’s
adventures had shattered his nerves, and before morning he lay delirious in a
high fever under the care of Dr. Mortimer.  The two of them were destined to
travel together round the world before Sir Henry had become once more the hale,
hearty man that he had been before he became master of that ill-omened estate.

And now I come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular narrative, in which I
have tried to make the reader share those dark fears and vague surmises which
clouded our lives so long and ended in so tragic a manner.  On the morning
after the death of the hound the fog had lifted and we were guided by
Mrs. Stapleton to the point where they had found a pathway through the bog.  It
helped us to realize the horror of this woman’s life when we saw the eagerness
and joy with which she laid us on her husband’s track.  We left her standing
upon the thin peninsula of firm, peaty soil which tapered out into the
widespread bog.  From the end of it a small wand planted here and there showed
where the path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes among those green-scummed
pits and foul quagmires which barred the way to the stranger.  Rank reeds and
lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour
onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into
the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our
feet.  Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked, and when we sank
into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene
depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in which it held us.  Once only
we saw a trace that someone had passed that perilous way before us.  From amid
a tuft of cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing was
projecting.  Holmes sank to his waist as he stepped from the path to seize it,
and had we not been there to drag him out he could never have set his foot upon
firm land again.  He held an old black boot in the air.  “Meyers, Toronto,” was
printed on the leather inside.

“It is worth a mud bath,” said he.  “It is our friend Sir Henry’s missing
boot.”

“Thrown there by Stapleton in his flight.”

“Exactly.  He retained it in his hand after using it to set the hound upon the
track.  He fled when he knew the game was up, still clutching it.  And he
hurled it away at this point of his flight.  We know at least that he came so
far in safety.”

But more than that we were never destined to know, though there was much which
we might surmise.  There was no chance of finding footsteps in the mire, for
the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon them, but as we at last reached firmer
ground beyond the morass we all looked eagerly for them.  But no slightest sign
of them ever met our eyes.  If the earth told a true story, then Stapleton
never reached that island of refuge towards which he struggled through the fog
upon that last night.  Somewhere in the heart of the great Grimpen Mire, down
in the foul slime of the huge morass which had sucked him in, this cold and
cruel-hearted man is forever buried.

Many traces we found of him in the bog-girt island where he had hid his savage
ally.  A huge driving-wheel and a shaft half-filled with rubbish showed the
position of an abandoned mine.  Beside it were the crumbling remains of the
cottages of the miners, driven away no doubt by the foul reek of the
surrounding swamp.  In one of these a staple and chain with a quantity of
gnawed bones showed where the animal had been confined.  A skeleton with a
tangle of brown hair adhering to it lay among the debris.

“A dog!” said Holmes.  “By Jove, a curly-haired spaniel.  Poor Mortimer will
never see his pet again.  Well, I do not know that this place contains any
secret which we have not already fathomed.  He could hide his hound, but he
could not hush its voice, and hence came those cries which even in daylight
were not pleasant to hear.  On an emergency he could keep the hound in the
out-house at Merripit, but it was always a risk, and it was only on the supreme
day, which he regarded as the end of all his efforts, that he dared do it.
This paste in the tin is no doubt the luminous mixture with which the creature
was daubed.  It was suggested, of course, by the story of the family
hell-hound, and by the desire to frighten old Sir Charles to death.  No wonder
the poor devil of a convict ran and screamed, even as our friend did, and as we
ourselves might have done, when he saw such a creature bounding through the
darkness of the moor upon his track.  It was a cunning device, for, apart from
the chance of driving your victim to his death, what peasant would venture to
inquire too closely into such a creature should he get sight of it, as many
have done, upon the moor?  I said it in London, Watson, and I say it again now,
that never yet have we helped to hunt down a more dangerous man than he who is
lying yonder”—he swept his long arm towards the huge mottled expanse of
green-splotched bog which stretched away until it merged into the russet slopes
of the moor.



Document 0020018 ends.


