the sense of adventure. Throwing aside my cigarette, I closed my hand
upon the butt of my revolver and, walking swiftly up to the door, I
looked in. The place was empty.
But there were ample signs that I had not come upon a false scent.
This was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets rolled in a
waterproof lay upon that very stone slab upon which Neolithic man had
once slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate.
Beside it lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water.
A litter of empty tins showed that the place had been occupied for
some time, and I saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the checkered
light, a pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the
corner. In the middle of the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a
table, and upon this stood a small cloth bundle--the same, no doubt,
which I had seen through the telescope upon the shoulder of the boy.
It contained a loaf of bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of
preserved peaches. As I set it down again, after having examined it,
my heart leaped to see that beneath it there lay a sheet of paper
with writing upon it. I raised it, and this was what I read, roughly
scrawled in pencil:--
Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe Tracey.
For a minute I stood there with the paper in my hands thinking out
the meaning of this curt message. It was I, then, and not Sir Henry,
who was being dogged by this secret man. He had not followed me
himself, but he had set an agent--the boy, perhaps--upon my track,
and this was his report. Possibly I had taken no step since I had
been upon the moor which had not been observed and reported. Always
there was this feeling of an unseen force, a fine net drawn round us
with infinite skill and delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was
only at some supreme moment that one realized that one was indeed
entangled in its meshes.
If there was one report there might be others, so I looked round the
hut in search of them. There was no trace, however, of anything of
the kind, nor could I discover any sign which might indicate the
character or intentions of the man who lived in this singular place,
save that he must be of Spartan habits and cared little for the
comforts of life. When I thought of the heavy rains and looked at the
gaping roof I understood how strong and immutable must be the purpose
which had kept him in that inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant
enemy, or was he by chance our guardian angel? I swore that I would
not leave the hut until I knew.
Outside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with scarlet
and gold. Its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches by the
distant pools which lay amid the great Grimpen Mire. There were the
two towers of Baskerville Hall, and there a distant blur of smoke
which marked the village of Grimpen. Between the two, behind the
hill, was the house of the Stapletons. All was sweet and mellow and
peaceful in the golden evening light, and yet as I looked at them my
soul shared none of the peace of nature but quivered at the vagueness
and the terror of that interview which every instant was bringing
nearer. With tingling nerves, but a fixed purpose, I sat in the dark
recess of the hut and waited with sombre patience for the coming of
its tenant.
And then at last I heard him. Far away came the sharp clink of a boot
striking upon a stone. Then another and yet another, coming nearer
and nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner, and cocked the
pistol in my pocket, determined not to discover myself until I had an
opportunity of seeing something of the stranger. There was a long
pause which showed that he had stopped. Then once more the footsteps
approached and a shadow fell across the opening of the hut.
"It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson," said a well-known voice. "I
really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in."
CHAPTER XII
Death on the Moor
For a moment or two I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears.
Then my senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight
of responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul.
That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man in
all the world.
"Holmes!" I cried--"Holmes!"
"Come out," said he, "and please be careful with the revolver."
I stooped under the rude lintel, and there he sat upon a stone
outside, his gray eyes dancing with amusement as they fell upon my
astonished features. He was thin and worn, but clear and alert, his
keen face bronzed by the sun and roughened by the wind. In his tweed
suit and cloth cap he looked like any other tourist upon the moor,
and he had contrived, with that cat-like love of personal cleanliness
which was one of his characteristics, that his chin should be as
smooth and his linen as perfect as if he were in Baker Street.
"I never was more glad to see anyone in my life," said I, as I wrung
him by the hand.
"Or more astonished, eh?"
"Well, I must confess to it."
"The surprise was not all on one side, I assure you. I had no idea
that you had found my occasional retreat, still less that you were
inside it, until I was within twenty paces of the door."
"My footprint, I presume?"
"No, Watson; I fear that I could not undertake to recognize your
footprint amid all the footprints of the world. If you seriously
desire to deceive me you must change your tobacconist; for when I see
the stub of a cigarette marked Bradley, Oxford Street, I know that my
friend Watson is in the neighbourhood. You will see it there beside
the path. You threw it down, no doubt, at that supreme moment when
you charged into the empty hut."
"Exactly."
"I thought as much--and knowing your admirable tenacity I was
convinced that you were sitting in ambush, a weapon within reach,
waiting for the tenant to return. So you actually thought that I was
the criminal?"
"I did not know who you were, but I was determined to find out."
"Excellent, Watson! And how did you localize me? You saw me, perhaps,
on the night of the convict hunt, when I was so imprudent as to allow
the moon to rise behind me?"
"Yes, I saw you then."
"And have no doubt searched all the huts until you came to this one?"
"No, your boy had been observed, and that gave me a guide where to
look."
"The old gentleman with the telescope, no doubt. I could not make it
out when first I saw the light flashing upon the lens." He rose and
peeped into the hut. "Ha, I see that Cartwright has brought up some
supplies. What's this paper? So you have been to Coombe Tracey, have
you?"
"Yes."
"To see Mrs. Laura Lyons?"
"Exactly."
"Well done! Our researches have evidently been running on parallel
lines, and when we unite our results I expect we shall have a fairly
full knowledge of the case."
"Well, I am glad from my heart that you are here, for indeed the
responsibility and the mystery were both becoming too much for my
nerves. But how in the name of wonder did you come here, and what
have you been doing? I thought that you were in Baker Street working
out that case of blackmailing."
"That was what I wished you to think."
"Then you use me, and yet do not trust me!" I cried with some
bitterness. "I think that I have deserved better at your hands,
Holmes."
"My dear fellow, you have been invaluable to me in this as in many
other cases, and I beg that you will forgive me if I have seemed to
play a trick upon you. In truth, it was partly for your own sake that
I did it, and it was my appreciation of the danger which you ran
which led me to come down and examine the matter for myself. Had I
been with Sir Henry and you it is confident that my point of view
would have been the same as yours, and my presence would have warned
our very formidable opponents to be on their guard. As it is, I have
been able to get about as I could not possibly have done had I been
living in the Hall, and I remain an unknown factor in the business,
ready to throw in all my weight at a critical moment."
"But why keep me in the dark?"
"For you to know could not have helped us, and might possibly have
led to my discovery. You would have wished to tell me something, or
in your kindness you would have brought me out some comfort or other,
and so an unnecessary risk would be run. I brought Cartwright down
with me--you remember the little chap at the express office--and he
has seen after my simple wants: a loaf of bread and a clean collar.
What does man want more? He has given me an extra pair of eyes upon a
very active pair of feet, and both have been invaluable."
"Then my reports have all been wasted!"--My voice trembled as I
recalled the pains and the pride with which I had composed them.
Holmes took a bundle of papers from his pocket.
"Here are your reports, my dear fellow, and very well thumbed, I
assure you. I made excellent arrangements, and they are only delayed
one day upon their way. I must compliment you exceedingly upon the
zeal and the intelligence which you have shown over an
extraordinarily difficult case."
I was still rather raw over the deception which had been practised
upon me, but the warmth of Holmes's praise drove my anger from my
mind. I felt also in my heart that he was right in what he said and
that it was really best for our purpose that I should not have known
that he was upon the moor.
"That's better," said he, seeing the shadow rise from my face. "And
now tell me the result of your visit to Mrs. Laura Lyons--it was not
difficult for me to guess that it was to see her that you had gone,
for I am already aware that she is the one person in Coombe Tracey
who might be of service to us in the matter. In fact, if you had not
gone to-day it is exceedingly probable that I should have gone
to-morrow."
The sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor. The air had
turned chill and we withdrew into the hut for warmth. There, sitting
together in the twilight, I told Holmes of my conversation with the
lady. So interested was he that I had to repeat some of it twice
before he was satisfied.
"This is most important," said he when I had concluded. "It fills up
a gap which I had been unable to bridge, in this most complex affair.
You are aware, perhaps, that a close intimacy exists between this
lady and the man Stapleton?"
"I did not know of a close intimacy."
"There can be no doubt about the matter. They meet, they write, there
is a complete understanding between them. Now, this puts a very
powerful weapon into our hands. If I could only use it to detach his
wife--"
"His wife?"
"I am giving you some information now, in return for all that you
have given me. The lady who has passed here as Miss Stapleton is in
reality his wife."
"Good heavens, Holmes! Are you sure of what you say? How could he
have permitted Sir Henry to fall in love with her?"
"Sir Henry's falling in love could do no harm to anyone except Sir
Henry. He took particular care that Sir Henry did not make love to
her, as you have yourself observed. I repeat that the lady is his
wife and not his sister."
"But why this elaborate deception?"
"Because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in
the character of a free woman."
All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape
and centred upon the naturalist. In that impassive, colourless man,
with his straw hat and his butterfly-net, I seemed to see something
terrible--a creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling
face and a murderous heart.
"It is he, then, who is our enemy--it is he who dogged us in London?"
"So I read the riddle."
"And the warning--it must have come from her!"
"Exactly."
The shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed, loomed
through the darkness which had girt me so long.
"But are you sure of this, Holmes? How do you know that the woman is
his wife?"
"Because he so far forgot himself as to tell you a true piece of
autobiography upon the occasion when he first met you, and I dare say
he has many a time regretted it since. He was once a schoolmaster in
the north of England. Now, there is no one more easy to trace than a
schoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies by which one may identify
any man who has been in the profession. A little investigation showed
me that a school had come to grief under atrocious circumstances, and
that the man who had owned it--the name was different--had
disappeared with his wife. The descriptions agreed. When I learned
that the missing man was devoted to entomology the identification was
complete."
