The Hound of the Baskervilles
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