Mrs. Laura Lyons, of equivocal reputation, a long step will have been
made towards clearing one incident in this chain of mysteries. I am
certainly developing the wisdom of the serpent, for when Mortimer
pressed his questions to an inconvenient extent I asked him casually
to what type Frankland's skull belonged, and so heard nothing but
craniology for the rest of our drive. I have not lived for years with
Sherlock Holmes for nothing.
I have only one other incident to record upon this tempestuous and
melancholy day. This was my conversation with Barrymore just now,
which gives me one more strong card which I can play in due time.
Mortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and the baronet played 閏art? afterwards. The butler brought me my coffee into the library, and I
took the chance to ask him a few questions.
"Well," said I, "has this precious relation of yours departed, or is
he still lurking out yonder?"
"I don't know, sir. I hope to heaven that he has gone, for he has
brought nothing but trouble here! I've not heard of him since I left
out food for him last, and that was three days ago."
"Did you see him then?"
"No, sir, but the food was gone when next I went that way."
"Then he was certainly there?"
"So you would think, sir, unless it was the other man who took it."
I sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my lips and stared at Barrymore.
"You know that there is another man then?"
"Yes, sir; there is another man upon the moor."
"Have you seen him?"
"No, sir."
"How do you know of him then?"
"Selden told me of him, sir, a week ago or more. He's in hiding, too,
but he's not a convict as far as I can make out. I don't like it, Dr.
Watson--I tell you straight, sir, that I don't like it." He spoke
with a sudden passion of earnestness.
"Now, listen to me, Barrymore! I have no interest in this matter but
that of your master. I have come here with no object except to help
him. Tell me, frankly, what it is that you don't like."
Barrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he regretted his outburst, or
found it difficult to express his own feelings in words.
"It's all these goings-on, sir," he cried at last, waving his hand
towards the rain-lashed window which faced the moor. "There's foul
play somewhere, and there's black villainy brewing, to that I'll
swear! Very glad I should be, sir, to see Sir Henry on his way back
to London again!"
"But what is it that alarms you?"
"Look at Sir Charles's death! That was bad enough, for all that the
coroner said. Look at the noises on the moor at night. There's not a
man would cross it after sundown if he was paid for it. Look at this
stranger hiding out yonder, and watching and waiting! What's he
waiting for? What does it mean? It means no good to anyone of the
name of Baskerville, and very glad I shall be to be quit of it all on
the day that Sir Henry's new servants are ready to take over the
Hall."
"But about this stranger," said I. "Can you tell me anything about
him? What did Selden say? Did he find out where he hid, or what he
was doing?"
"He saw him once or twice, but he is a deep one, and gives nothing
away. At first he thought that he was the police, but soon he found
that he had some lay of his own. A kind of gentleman he was, as far
as he could see, but what he was doing he could not make out."
"And where did he say that he lived?"
"Among the old houses on the hillside--the stone huts where the old
folk used to live."
"But how about his food?"
"Selden found out that he has got a lad who works for him and brings
him all he needs. I dare say he goes to Coombe Tracey for what he
wants."
"Very good, Barrymore. We may talk further of this some other time."
When the butler had gone I walked over to the black window, and I
looked through a blurred pane at the driving clouds and at the
tossing outline of the wind-swept trees. It is a wild night indoors,
and what must it be in a stone hut upon the moor. What passion of
hatred can it be which leads a man to lurk in such a place at such a
time! And what deep and earnest purpose can he have which calls for
such a trial! There, in that hut upon the moor, seems to lie the very
centre of that problem which has vexed me so sorely. I swear that
another day shall not have passed before I have done all that man can
do to reach the heart of the mystery.
CHAPTER XI
The Man on the Tor
The extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter has
brought my narrative up to the 18th of October, a time when these
strange events began to move swiftly towards their terrible
conclusion. The incidents of the next few days are indelibly graven
upon my recollection, and I can tell them without reference to the
notes made at the time. I start then from the day which succeeded
that upon which I had established two facts of great importance, the
one that Mrs. Laura Lyons of Coombe Tracey had written to Sir Charles
Baskerville and made an appointment with him at the very place and
hour that he met his death, the other that the lurking man upon the
moor was to be found among the stone huts upon the hill-side. With
these two facts in my possession I felt that either my intelligence
or my courage must be deficient if I could not throw some further
light upon these dark places.
I had no opportunity to tell the baronet what I had learned about
Mrs. Lyons upon the evening before, for Dr. Mortimer remained with
him at cards until it was very late. At breakfast, however, I
informed him about my discovery, and asked him whether he would care
to accompany me to Coombe Tracey. At first he was very eager to come,
but on second thoughts it seemed to both of us that if I went alone
the results might be better. The more formal we made the visit the
less information we might obtain. I left Sir Henry behind, therefore,
not without some prickings of conscience, and drove off upon my new
quest.
When I reached Coombe Tracey I told Perkins to put up the horses, and
I made inquiries for the lady whom I had come to interrogate. I had
no difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central and well
appointed. A maid showed me in without ceremony, and as I entered the
sitting-room a lady, who was sitting before a Remington typewriter,
sprang up with a pleasant smile of welcome. Her face fell, however,
when she saw that I was a stranger, and she sat down again and asked
me the object of my visit.
The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty.
Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks,
though considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom
of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the
sulphur rose. Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the
second was criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face,
some coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some
looseness of lip which marred its perfect beauty. But these, of
course, are after-thoughts. At the moment I was simply conscious that
I was in the presence of a very handsome woman, and that she was
asking me the reasons for my visit. I had not quite understood until
that instant how delicate my mission was.
"I have the pleasure," said I, "of knowing your father." It was a
clumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it.
"There is nothing in common between my father and me," she said. "I
owe him nothing, and his friends are not mine. If it were not for the
late Sir Charles Baskerville and some other kind hearts I might have
starved for all that my father cared."
"It was about the late Sir Charles Baskerville that I have come here
to see you."
The freckles started out on the lady's face.
"What can I tell you about him?" she asked, and her fingers played
nervously over the stops of her typewriter.
"You knew him, did you not?"
"I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness. If I am
able to support myself it is largely due to the interest which he
took in my unhappy situation."
"Did you correspond with him?"
The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.
"What is the object of these questions?" she asked sharply.
"The object is to avoid a public scandal. It is better that I should
ask them here than that the matter should pass outside our control."
She was silent and her face was still very pale. At last she looked
up with something reckless and defiant in her manner.
"Well, I'll answer," she said. "What are your questions?"
"Did you correspond with Sir Charles?"
"I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy
and his generosity."
"Have you the dates of those letters?"
"No."
"Have you ever met him?"
"Yes, once or twice, when he came into Coombe Tracey. He was a very
retiring man, and he preferred to do good by stealth."
"But if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he know
enough about your affairs to be able to help you, as you say that he
has done?"
She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.
"There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to
help me. One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour and intimate friend of
Sir Charles's. He was exceedingly kind, and it was through him that
Sir Charles learned about my affairs."
I knew already that Sir Charles Baskerville had made Stapleton his
almoner upon several occasions, so the lady's statement bore the
impress of truth upon it.
"Did you ever write to Sir Charles asking him to meet you?" I
continued.
Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again.
"Really, sir, this is a very extraordinary question."
"I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat it."
"Then I answer, certainly not."
"Not on the very day of Sir Charles's death?"
The flush had faded in an instant, and a deathly face was before me.
Her dry lips could not speak the "No" which I saw rather than heard.
"Surely your memory deceives you," said I. "I could even quote a
passage of your letter. It ran 'Please, please, as you are a
gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten o'clock.'"
I thought that she had fainted, but she recovered herself by a
supreme effort.
"Is there no such thing as a gentleman?" she gasped.
"You do Sir Charles an injustice. He did burn the letter. But
sometimes a letter may be legible even when burned. You acknowledge
now that you wrote it?"
"Yes, I did write it," she cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent
of words. "I did write it. Why should I deny it? I have no reason to
be ashamed of it. I wished him to help me. I believed that if I had
an interview I could gain his help, so I asked him to meet me."
"But why at such an hour?"
"Because I had only just learned that he was going to London next day
and might be away for months. There were reasons why I could not get
there earlier."
"But why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the house?"
"Do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor's
house?"
"Well, what happened when you did get there?"
"I never went."
"Mrs. Lyons!"
"No, I swear it to you on all I hold sacred. I never went. Something
intervened to prevent my going."
"What was that?"
"That is a private matter. I cannot tell it."
"You acknowledge then that you made an appointment with Sir Charles
at the very hour and place at which he met his death, but you deny
that you kept the appointment."
"That is the truth."
Again and again I cross-questioned her, but I could never get past
that point.
"Mrs. Lyons," said I, as I rose from this long and inconclusive
interview, "you are taking a very great responsibility and putting
yourself in a very false position by not making an absolutely clean
breast of all that you know. If I have to call in the aid of the
police you will find how seriously you are compromised. If your
position is innocent, why did you in the first instance deny having
written to Sir Charles upon that date?"
"Because I feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from it
and that I might find myself involved in a scandal."
"And why were you so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy your
letter?"
"If you have read the letter you will know."
"I did not say that I had read all the letter."
"You quoted some of it."
