The darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the shadows.
"If this woman is in truth his wife, where does Mrs. Laura Lyons come
in?" I asked.
"That is one of the points upon which your own researches have shed a
light. Your interview with the lady has cleared the situation very
much. I did not know about a projected divorce between herself and
her husband. In that case, regarding Stapleton as an unmarried man,
she counted no doubt upon becoming his wife."
"And when she is undeceived?"
"Why, then we may find the lady of service. It must be our first duty
to see her--both of us--to-morrow. Don't you think, Watson, that you
are away from your charge rather long? Your place should be at
Baskerville Hall."
The last red streaks had faded away in the west and night had settled
upon the moor. A few faint stars were gleaming in a violet sky.
"One last question, Holmes," I said, as I rose. "Surely there is no
need of secrecy between you and me. What is the meaning of it all?
What is he after?"
Holmes's voice sank as he answered:--
"It is murder, Watson--refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder. Do
not ask me for particulars. My nets are closing upon him, even as his
are upon Sir Henry, and with your help he is already almost at my
mercy. There is but one danger which can threaten us. It is that he
should strike before we are ready to do so. Another day--two at the
most--and I have my case complete, but until then guard your charge
as closely as ever a fond mother watched her ailing child. Your
mission to-day has justified itself, and yet I could almost wish that
you had not left his side. Hark!"
A terrible scream--a prolonged yell of horror and anguish--burst out
of the silence of the moor. That frightful cry turned the blood to
ice in my veins.
"Oh, my God!" I gasped. "What is it? What does it mean?"
Holmes had sprung to his feet, and I saw his dark, athletic outline
at the door of the hut, his shoulders stooping, his head thrust
forward, his face peering into the darkness.
"Hush!" he whispered. "Hush!"
The cry had been loud on account of its vehemence, but it had pealed
out from somewhere far off on the shadowy plain. Now it burst upon
our ears, nearer, louder, more urgent than before.
"Where is it?" Holmes whispered; and I knew from the thrill of his
voice that he, the man of iron, was shaken to the soul. "Where is it,
Watson?"
"There, I think." I pointed into the darkness.
"No, there!"
Again the agonized cry swept through the silent night, louder and
much nearer than ever. And a new sound mingled with it, a deep,
muttered rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling like
the low, constant murmur of the sea.
"The hound!" cried Holmes. "Come, Watson, come! Great heavens, if we
are too late!"
He had started running swiftly over the moor, and I had followed at
his heels. But now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately
in front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then a dull,
heavy thud. We halted and listened. Not another sound broke the heavy
silence of the windless night.
I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted. He
stamped his feet upon the ground.
"He has beaten us, Watson. We are too late."
"No, no, surely not!"
"Fool that I was to hold my hand. And you, Watson, see what comes of
abandoning your charge! But, by Heaven, if the worst has happened,
we'll avenge him!"
Blindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders,
forcing our way through gorse bushes, panting up hills and rushing
down slopes, heading always in the direction whence those dreadful
sounds had come. At every rise Holmes looked eagerly round him, but
the shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its
dreary face.
"Can you see anything?"
"Nothing."
"But, hark, what is that?"
A low moan had fallen upon our ears. There it was again upon our
left! On that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which
overlooked a stone-strewn slope. On its jagged face was spread-eagled
some dark, irregular object. As we ran towards it the vague outline
hardened into a definite shape. It was a prostrate man face downward
upon the ground, the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the
shoulders rounded and the body hunched together as if in the act of
throwing a somersault. So grotesque was the attitude that I could not
for the instant realize that that moan had been the passing of his
soul. Not a whisper, not a rustle, rose now from the dark figure over
which we stooped. Holmes laid his hand upon him, and held it up
again, with an exclamation of horror. The gleam of the match which he
struck shone upon his clotted fingers and upon the ghastly pool which
widened slowly from the crushed skull of the victim. And it shone
upon something else which turned our hearts sick and faint within
us--the body of Sir Henry Baskerville!
There was no chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar ruddy
tweed suit--the very one which he had worn on the first morning that
we had seen him in Baker Street. We caught the one clear glimpse of
it, and then the match flickered and went out, even as the hope had
gone out of our souls. Holmes groaned, and his face glimmered white
through the darkness.
"The brute! the brute!" I cried with clenched hands. "Oh Holmes, I
shall never forgive myself for having left him to his fate."
"I am more to blame than you, Watson. In order to have my case well
rounded and complete, I have thrown away the life of my client. It is
the greatest blow which has befallen me in my career. But how could I
know--how could l know--that he would risk his life alone upon the
moor in the face of all my warnings?"
"That we should have heard his screams--my God, those screams!--and
yet have been unable to save him! Where is this brute of a hound
which drove him to his death? It may be lurking among these rocks at
this instant. And Stapleton, where is he? He shall answer for this
deed."
"He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have been
murdered--the one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast
which he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in
his wild flight to escape from it. But now we have to prove the
connection between the man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we
cannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since Sir Henry has
evidently died from the fall. But, by heavens, cunning as he is, the
fellow shall be in my power before another day is past!"
We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body,
overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought
all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then, as the
moon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor
friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy
moor, half silver and half gloom. Far away, miles off, in the
direction of Grimpen, a single steady yellow light was shining. It
could only come from the lonely abode of the Stapletons. With a
bitter curse I shook my fist at it as I gazed.
"Why should we not seize him at once?"
"Our case is not complete. The fellow is wary and cunning to the last
degree. It is not what we know, but what we can prove. If we make one
false move the villain may escape us yet."
"What can we do?"
"There will be plenty for us to do to-morrow. To-night we can only
perform the last offices to our poor friend."
Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached
the body, black and clear against the silvered stones. The agony of
those contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my
eyes with tears.
"We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him all the way to
the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?"
He had uttered a cry and bent over the body. Now he was dancing and
laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my stern, self-contained
friend? These were hidden fires, indeed!
"A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!"
"A beard?"
"It is not the baronet--it is--why, it is my neighbour, the convict!"
With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping
beard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There could be no
doubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was
indeed the same face which had glared upon me in the light of the
candle from over the rock--the face of Selden, the criminal.
Then in an instant it was all clear to me. I remembered how the
baronet had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to Barrymore.
Barrymore had passed it on in order to help Selden in his escape.
Boots, shirt, cap--it was all Sir Henry's. The tragedy was still
black enough, but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of
his country. I told Holmes how the matter stood, my heart bubbling
over with thankfulness and joy.
"Then the clothes have been the poor devil's death," said he. "It is
clear enough that the hound has been laid on from some article of Sir
Henry's--the boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all
probability--and so ran this man down. There is one very singular
thing, however: How came Selden, in the darkness, to know that the
hound was on his trail?"
"He heard him."
"To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like this
convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture
by screaming wildly for help. By his cries he must have run a long
way after he knew the animal was on his track. How did he know?"
"A greater mystery to me is why this hound, presuming that all our
conjectures are correct--"
"I presume nothing."
"Well, then, why this hound should be loose to-night. I suppose that
it does not always run loose upon the moor. Stapleton would not let
it go unless he had reason to think that Sir Henry would be there."
"My difficulty is the more formidable of the two, for I think that we
shall very shortly get an explanation of yours, while mine may remain
forever a mystery. The question now is, what shall we do with this
poor wretch's body? We cannot leave it here to the foxes and the
ravens."
"I suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can communicate
with the police."
"Exactly. I have no doubt that you and I could carry it so far.
Halloa, Watson, what's this? It's the man himself, by all that's
wonderful and audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions--not a
word, or my plans crumble to the ground."
A figure was approaching us over the moor, and I saw the dull red
glow of a cigar. The moon shone upon him, and I could distinguish the
dapper shape and jaunty walk of the naturalist. He stopped when he
saw us, and then came on again.
"Why, Dr. Watson, that's not you, is it? You are the last man that I
should have expected to see out on the moor at this time of night.
But, dear me, what's this? Somebody hurt? Not--don't tell me that it
is our friend Sir Henry!" He hurried past me and stooped over the
dead man. I heard a sharp intake of his breath and the cigar fell
from his fingers.
"Who--who's this?" he stammered.
"It is Selden, the man who escaped from Princetown."
Stapleton turned a ghastly face upon us, but by a supreme effort he
had overcome his amazement and his disappointment. He looked sharply
from Holmes to me.
"Dear me! What a very shocking affair! How did he die?"
"He appears to have broken his neck by falling over these rocks. My
friend and I were strolling on the moor when we heard a cry."
"I heard a cry also. That was what brought me out. I was uneasy about
Sir Henry."
"Why about Sir Henry in particular?" I could not help asking.
"Because I had suggested that he should come over. When he did not
come I was surprised, and I naturally became alarmed for his safety
when I heard cries upon the moor. By the way"--his eyes darted again
from my face to Holmes's--"did you hear anything else besides a cry?"
"No," said Holmes; "did you?"
"No."
"What do you mean, then?"
"Oh, you know the stories that the peasants tell about a phantom
hound, and so on. It is said to be heard at night upon the moor. I
was wondering if there were any evidence of such a sound to-night."
"We heard nothing of the kind," said I.
"And what is your theory of this poor fellow's death?"
"I have no doubt that anxiety and exposure have driven him off his
head. He has rushed about the moor in a crazy state and eventually
fallen over here and broken his neck."
