"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 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 country-side
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 to-morrow, 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
shirtcuff 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 arm-chair 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 farm-houses, 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 IV
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
