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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. 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.
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. 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. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered. I confess at these words a shudder passed through me. Holmes leaned forward in his excitement and his eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from them when he was keenly interested.
The walk in the centre is about eight feet across. Mortimer—and this is important—the marks which you saw were on the path and not on the grass? Sir Charles had evidently stood there for five or ten minutes. This is a colleague, Watson, after our own heart.
But the marks? I could discern no others. 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. Holmes, without disclosing these facts to the world, and I have already given my reasons for not wishing to do so.
Holmes, there have come to my ears several incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of Nature. 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. Holmes shrugged his shoulders. Yet you must admit that the footmark is material. But now, Dr. Mortimer, tell me this.
If you hold these views, why have you come to consult me at all? 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. 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 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? 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.
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. 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? 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.
Holmes stopped him at the head of the stair. Holmes returned to his seat with that quiet look of inward satisfaction which meant that he had a congenial task before him. But this is splendid, really unique from some points of view. 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. 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. He laughed at my bewildered expression. 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? Where do you think that I have been? 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.
I flatter myself that I could find my way about. He unrolled one section and held it over his knee. That is Baskerville Hall in the middle. 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. 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. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one. 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? There are points of distinction about it. That change in the footprints, for example. What do you make of that? Why should a man walk on tiptoe down the alley? There are indications that the man was crazed with fear before ever he began to run. 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.
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? 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?
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. 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.
Sherlock Holmes, that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this morning I should have come on my own account. Do I understand you to say that you have yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in London?
Only a joke, as like as not. It was this letter, if you can call it a letter, which reached me this morning. He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it.
It was of common quality, greyish in colour. Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements. 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:. Holmes, what in thunder is the meaning of that, and who it is that takes so much interest in my affairs?
You must allow that there is nothing supernatural about this, at any rate? Permit me to give you an extract from it. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air of professional interest, and Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark eyes upon me. 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. Mortimer, gazing at my friend in amazement.
How did you do it? The differences are 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. Have you read anything else in this message, Mr. 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. 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? 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. 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. He was carefully examining the foolscap, upon which the words were pasted, holding it only an inch or two from his eyes.
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? You have nothing else to report to us before we go into this matter? Sir Henry smiled. But I hope that to lose one of your boots is not part of the ordinary routine of life over here. You will find it when you return to the hotel. What is the use of troubling Mr. Holmes with trifles of this kind? You have lost one of your boots, you say?
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. That was why I put them out.
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 is time that you kept your promise and gave me a full account of what we are all driving at. 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. I suppose that fits into its place.
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. 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.
It was evident that the fiery temper of the Baskervilles was not extinct in this their last representative. I should like to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my mind. Now, look here, Mr.
Suppose you and your friend, Dr. Watson, come round and lunch with us at two. 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. Not a moment to lose! We hurried together down the stairs and into the street.
Mortimer and Baskerville were still visible about two hundred yards ahead of us in the direction of Oxford Street. 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. Come along! 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. Watson, Watson, if you are an honest man you will record this also and set it against my successes! 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.
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. But that is no use to us for the moment. 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. We must see what further cards we have in our hands and play them with decision.
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. I have some recollection, Wilson, that you had among your boys a lad named Cartwright, who showed some ability during the investigation. 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. Now, Cartwright, there are the names of twenty-three hotels here, all in the immediate neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Do you see? Here are twenty-three shillings. You will say that an important telegram has miscarried and that you are looking for it.
You understand? Here is a copy of the Times. It is this page. You could easily recognize it, could you not?
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. 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.
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. Johnson, the coal-owner, a very active gentleman, not older than yourself. Oldmore, too; I seem to remember the name. Excuse my curiosity, but often in calling upon one friend one finds another. Her husband was once mayor of Gloucester.
She always comes to us when she is in town. 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. 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. I can take a joke with the best, Mr. 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? Well, well, Mr. It seems the very maddest, queerest thing that ever happened to me. This case of yours is very complex, Sir Henry. 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. 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? Have you among your neighbours or acquaintances on Dartmoor any man with a black, full beard? Address to Mr. Barrymore, Baskerville Hall. What is the nearest telegraph-office? Barrymore to be delivered into his own hand. Mortimer, who is this Barrymore, anyhow? 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.
The residue all went to Sir Henry. Holmes raised his eyebrows in surprise. The total value of the estate was close on to a million. It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate game. And one more question, Dr. Supposing that anything happened to our young friend here—you will forgive the unpleasant hypothesis!
James Desmond is an elderly clergyman in Westmoreland. These details are all of great interest. Have you met Mr. James Desmond? 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. 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.
Holmes, I have not. But in any case I feel that the money should go with the title and estate. 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. 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. 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.
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. Holmes laid his hand upon my arm. 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. 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 suppose that by Saturday all might be ready? 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.
Mortimer remarked. 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. 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. Visited twenty-three hotels as directed, but sorry to report unable to trace cut sheet of Times.
There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you. We must cast round for another scent. 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 came here straight from the Yard to ask you to your face what you had against me. The man looked surprised and a little embarrassed. You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?
Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned? Copyright notice These books are published in Australia and are out of copyright here.
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