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"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.

CARTWRlGHT.

"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.