บทที่ บทที่ 14 · The Hound of the Baskervilles

. We’re not likely to forget him.”

I gazed with interest and some surprise upon the portrait.

“Dear me!” said Holmes, “he seems a quiet, meek-mannered man

enough, but I dare say that there was a lurking devil in his

eyes. I had pictured him as a more robust and ruffianly person.”

“There’s no doubt about the authenticity, for the name and the

date, 1647, are on the back of the canvas.”

Holmes said little more, but the picture of the old roysterer

seemed to have a fascination for him, and his eyes were

continually fixed upon it during supper. It was not until later,

when Sir Henry had gone to his room, that I was able to follow

the trend of his thoughts. He led me back into the

banqueting-hall, his bedroom candle in his hand, and he held it

up against the time-stained portrait on the wall.

“Do you see anything there?”

I looked at the broad plumed hat, the curling love-locks, the

white lace collar, and the straight, severe face which was framed

between them. It was not a brutal countenance, but it was prim,

hard, and stern, with a firm-set, thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly

intolerant eye.

“Is it like anyone you know?”

“There is something of Sir Henry about the jaw.”

“Just a suggestion, perhaps. But wait an instant!” He stood upon

a chair, and, holding up the light in his left hand, he curved

his right arm over the broad hat and round the long ringlets.

“Good heavens!” I cried in amazement.

The face of Stapleton had sprung out of the canvas.

“Ha, you see it now. My eyes have been trained to examine faces

and not their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal

investigator that he should see through a disguise.”

“But this is marvellous. It might be his portrait.”

“Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears

to be both physical and spiritual. A study of family portraits is

enough to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. The

fellow is a Baskerville—that is evident.”

“With designs upon the succession.”

“Exactly. This chance of the picture has supplied us with one of

our most obvious missing links. We have him, Watson, we have him,

and I dare swear that before tomorrow night he will be fluttering

in our net as helpless as one of his own butterflies. A pin, a

cork, and a card, and we add him to the Baker Street collection!”

He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away

from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has

always boded ill to somebody.

I was up betimes in the morning, but Holmes was afoot earlier

still, for I saw him as I dressed, coming up the drive.

“Yes, we should have a full day today,” he remarked, and he

rubbed his hands with the joy of action. “The nets are all in

place, and the drag is about to begin. We’ll know before the day

is out whether we have caught our big, lean-jawed pike, or

whether he has got through the meshes.”

“Have you been on the moor already?”

“I have sent a report from Grimpen to Princetown as to the death

of Selden. I think I can promise that none of you will be

troubled in the matter. And I have also communicated with my

faithful Cartwright, who would certainly have pined away at the

door of my hut, as a dog does at his master’s grave, if I had not

set his mind at rest about my safety.”

“What is the next move?”

“To see Sir Henry. Ah, here he is!”

“Good-morning, Holmes,” said the baronet. “You look like a

general who is planning a battle with his chief of the staff.”

“That is the exact situation. Watson was asking for orders.”

“And so do I.”

“Very good. You are engaged, as I understand, to dine with our

friends the Stapletons tonight.”

“I hope that you will come also. They are very hospitable people,

and I am sure that they would be very glad to see you.”

“I fear that Watson and I must go to London.”

“To London?”

“Yes, I think that we should be more useful there at the present

juncture.”

The baronet’s face perceptibly lengthened.

“I hoped that you were going to see me through this business. The

Hall and the moor are not very pleasant places when one is

alone.”

“My dear fellow, you must trust me implicitly and do exactly what

I tell you. You can tell your friends that we should have been

happy to have come with you, but that urgent business required us

to be in town. We hope very soon to return to Devonshire. Will

you remember to give them that message?”

“If you insist upon it.”

“There is no alternative, I assure you.”

I saw by the baronet’s clouded brow that he was deeply hurt by

what he regarded as our desertion.

“When do you desire to go?” he asked coldly.

“Immediately after breakfast. We will drive in to Coombe Tracey,

but Watson will leave his things as a pledge that he will come

back to you. Watson, you will send a note to Stapleton to tell

him that you regret that you cannot come.”

“I have a good mind to go to London with you,” said the baronet.

“Why should I stay here alone?”

“Because it is your post of duty. Because you gave me your word

that you would do as you were told, and I tell you to stay.”

“All right, then, I’ll stay.”

“One more direction! I wish you to drive to Merripit House. Send

back your trap, however, and let them know that you intend to

walk home.”

“To walk across the moor?”

“Yes.”

“But that is the very thing which you have so often cautioned me

not to do.”

“This time you may do it with safety. If I had not every

confidence in your nerve and courage I would not suggest it, but

it is essential that you should do it.”

“Then I will do it.”

“And as you value your life do not go across the moor in any

direction save along the straight path which leads from Merripit

House to the Grimpen Road, and is your natural way home.”

“I will do just what you say.”

“Very good. I should be glad to get away as soon after breakfast

as possible, so as to reach London in the afternoon.”

I was much astounded by this programme, though I remembered that

Holmes had said to Stapleton on the night before that his visit

would terminate next day. It had not crossed my mind however,

that he would wish me to go with him, nor could I understand how

we could both be absent at a moment which he himself declared to

be critical. There was nothing for it, however, but implicit

obedience; so we bade good-bye to our rueful friend, and a couple

of hours afterwards we were at the station of Coombe Tracey and

had dispatched the trap upon its return journey. A small boy was

waiting upon the platform.

“Any orders, sir?”

“You will take this train to town, Cartwright. The moment you

arrive you will send a wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, in my name,

to say that if he finds the pocketbook which I have dropped he is

to send it by registered post to Baker Street.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And ask at the station office if there is a message for me.”

The boy returned with a telegram, which Holmes handed to me. It

ran:

Wire received. Coming down with unsigned warrant. Arrive

five-forty. Lestrade.

“That is in answer to mine of this morning. He is the best of the

professionals, I think, and we may need his assistance. Now,

Watson, I think that we cannot employ our time better than by

calling upon your acquaintance, Mrs. Laura Lyons.”

His plan of campaign was beginning to be evident. He would use

the baronet in order to convince the Stapletons that we were

really gone, while we should actually return at the instant when

we were likely to be needed. That telegram from London, if

mentioned by Sir Henry to the Stapletons, must remove the last

suspicions from their minds. Already I seemed to see our nets

drawing closer around that lean-jawed pike.

Mrs. Laura Lyons was in her office, and Sherlock Holmes opened

his interview with a frankness and directness which considerably

amazed her.

“I am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of

the late Sir Charles Baskerville,” said he. “My friend here, Dr.

Watson, has informed me of what you have communicated, and also

of what you have withheld in connection with that matter.”

“What have I withheld?” she asked defiantly.

“You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be at the gate

at ten o’clock. We know that that was the place and hour of his

death. You have withheld what the connection is between these

events.”

“There is no connection.”

“In that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary

one. But I think that we shall succeed in establishing a

connection, after all. I wish to be perfectly frank with you,

Mrs. Lyons. We regard this case as one of murder, and the

evidence may implicate not only your friend Mr. Stapleton but his

wife as well.”

The lady sprang from her chair.

“His wife!” she cried.

“The fact is no longer a secret. The person who has passed for

his sister is really his wife.”

Mrs. Lyons had resumed her seat. Her hands were grasping the arms

of her chair, and I saw that the pink nails had turned white with

the pressure of her grip.

“His wife!” she said again. “His wife! He is not a married man.”

Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“Prove it to me! Prove it to me! And if you can do so—!”

The fierce flash of her eyes said more than any words.

“I have come prepared to do so,” said Holmes, drawing several

papers from his pocket. “Here is a photograph of the couple taken

in York four years ago. It is indorsed ‘Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,’

but you will have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also,

if you know her by sight. Here are three written descriptions by

trustworthy witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur, who at that time

kept St. Oliver’s private school. Read them and see if you can

doubt the identity of these people.”

She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set, rigid

face of a desperate woman.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said, “this man had offered me marriage on

condition that I could get a divorce from my husband. He has lied

to me, the villain, in every conceivable way. Not one word of

truth has he ever told me. And why—why? I imagined that all was

for my own sake. But now I see that I was never anything but a

tool in his hands. Why should I preserve faith with him who never

kept any with me? Why should I try to shield him from the

consequences of his own wicked acts? Ask me what you like, and

there is nothing which I shall hold back. One thing I swear to

you, and that is that when I wrote the letter I never dreamed of

any harm to the old gentleman, who had been my kindest friend.”

“I entirely believe you, madam,” said Sherlock Holmes. “The

recital of these events must be very painful to you, and perhaps

it will make it easier if I tell you what occurred, and you can

check me if I make any material mistake. The sending of this

letter was suggested to you by Stapleton?”

“He dictated it.”

“I presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive

help from Sir Charles for the legal expenses connected with your

divorce?”

“Exactly.”

“And then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from

keeping the appointment?”

“He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other

man should find the money for such an object, and that though he

was a poor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing

the obstacles which divided us.”

“He appears to be a very consistent character. And then you heard

nothing until you read the reports of the death in the paper?”

“No.”

“And he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with

Sir Charles?”

“He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and

that I should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He

frightened me into remaining silent.”

“Quite so. But you had your suspicions?”

She hesitated and looked down.

“I knew him,” she said. “But if he had kept faith with me I

should always have done so with him.”

“I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape,” said

Sherlock Holmes. “You have had him in your power and he knew it,

and yet you are alive. You have been walking for some months very

near to the edge of a precipice. We must wish you good-morning

now, Mrs. Lyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly

hear from us again.”

“Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty

thins away in front of us,” said Holmes as we stood waiting for

the arrival of the express from town. “I shall soon be in the

position of being able to put into a single connected narrative

one of the most singular and sensational crimes of modern times.

Students of criminology will remember the analogous incidents in

Godno, in Little Russia, in the year ’66, and of course there are

the Anderson murders in North Carolina, but this case possesses

some features which are entirely its own. Even now we have no

clear case against this very wily man. But I shall be very much

surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this

night.”

The London express came roaring into the station, and a small,

wiry bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. We

all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way

in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a

good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I

could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner

used then to excite in the practical man.

“Anything good?” he asked.

“The biggest thing for years,” said Holmes. “We have two hours

before we need think of starting. I think we might employ it in

getting some dinner and then, Lestrade, we will take the London

fog out of your throat by giving you a breath of the pure night

air of Dartmoor. Never been there? Ah, well, I don’t suppose you

will forget your first visit.”

Chapter 14. The Hound of the Baskervilles

One of Sherlock Holmes’s defects—if, indeed, one may call it a

defect—was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full

plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment.

Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which

loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly

also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take

any chances. The result, however, was very trying for those who

were acting as his agents and assistants. I had often suffered

under it, but never more so than during that long drive in the

darkness. The great ordeal was in front of us; at last we were

about to make our final effort, and yet Holmes had said nothing,

and I could only surmise what his course of action would be. My

nerves thrilled with anticipation when at last the cold wind upon

our faces and the dark, void spaces on either side of the narrow

road told me that we were back upon the moor once again. Every

stride of the horses and every turn of the wheels was taking us

nearer to our supreme adventure.

Our conversation was hampered by the presence of the driver of

the hired wagonette, so that we were forced to talk of trivial

matters when our nerves were tense with emotion and anticipation.

It was a relief to me, after that unnatural restraint, when we at

last passed Frankland’s house and knew that we were drawing near

to the Hall and to the scene of action. We did not drive up to

the door but got down near the gate of the avenue. The wagonette

was paid off and ordered to return to Coombe Tracey forthwith,

while we started to walk to Merripit House.

“Are you armed, Lestrade?”

The little detective smiled. “As long as I have my trousers I

have a hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket I have

something in it.”

“Good! My friend and I are also ready for emergencies.”

“You’re mighty close about this affair, Mr. Holmes. What’s the

game now?”

“A waiting game.”

“My word, it does not seem a very cheerful place,” said the

detective with a shiver, glancing round him at the gloomy slopes

of the hill and at the huge lake of fog which lay over the

Grimpen Mire. “I see the lights of a house ahead of us.”

“That is Merripit House and the end of our journey. I must

request you to walk on tiptoe and not to talk above a whisper.”

We moved cautiously along the track as if we were bound for the

house, but Holmes halted us when we were about two hundred yards

from it.

“This will do,” said he. “These rocks upon the right make an

admirable screen.”

“We are to wait here?”

“Yes, we shall make our little ambush here. Get into this hollow,

Lestrade. You have been inside the house, have you not, Watson?

Can you tell the position of the rooms? What are those latticed

windows at this end?”

“I think they are the kitchen windows.”

“And the one beyond, which shines so brightly?”

“That is certainly the dining-room.”

“The blinds are up. You know the lie of the land best. Creep

forward quietly and see what they are doing—but for heaven’s sake

don’t let them know that they are watched!”

I tiptoed down the path and stooped behind the low wall which

surrounded the stunted orchard. Creeping in its shadow I reached

a point whence I could look straight through the uncurtained

window.

There were only two men in the room, Sir Henry and Stapleton.

They sat with their profiles towards me on either side of the

round table. Both of them were smoking cigars, and coffee and

wine were in front of them. Stapleton was talking with animation,

but the baronet looked pale and distrait. Perhaps the thought of

that lonely walk across the ill-omened moor was weighing heavily

upon his mind.

As I watched them Stapleton rose and left the room, while Sir

Henry filled his glass again and leaned back in his chair,

puffing at his cigar. I heard the creak of a door and the crisp

sound of boots upon gravel. The steps passed along the path on

the other side of the wall under which I crouched. Looking over,

I saw the naturalist pause at the door of an out-house in the

corner of the orchard. A key turned in a lock, and as he passed

in there was a curious scuffling noise from within. He was only a

minute or so inside, and then I heard the key turn once more and

he passed me and reentered the house. I saw him rejoin his guest,

and I crept quietly back to where my companions were waiting to

tell them what I had seen.

“You say, Watson, that the lady is not there?” Holmes asked when

I had finished my report.

“No.”

“Where can she be, then, since there is no light in any other

room except the kitchen?”

“I cannot think where she is.”

I have said that over the great Grimpen Mire there hung a dense,

white fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction and banked

itself up like a wall on that side of us, low but thick and well

defined. The moon shone on it, and it looked like a great

shimmering ice-field, with the heads of the distant tors as rocks

borne upon its surface. Holmes’s face was turned towards it, and

he muttered impatiently as he watched its sluggish drift.

“It’s moving towards us, Watson.”

“Is that serious?”

“Very serious, indeed—the one thing upon earth which could have

disarranged my plans. He can’t be very long, now. It is already

ten o’clock. Our success and even his life may depend upon his

coming out before the fog is over the path.”

The night was clear and fine above us. The stars shone cold and

bright, while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft,

uncertain light. Before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its

serrated roof and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the

silver-spangled sky. Broad bars of golden light from the lower

windows stretched across the orchard and the moor. One of them

was suddenly shut off. The servants had left the kitchen. There

only remained the lamp in the dining-room where the two men, the

murderous host and the unconscious guest, still chatted over

their cigars.

Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one-half of

the moor was drifting closer and closer to the house. Already the

first thin wisps of it were curling across the golden square of

the lighted window. The farther wall of the orchard was already

invisible, and the trees were standing out of a swirl of white

vapour. As we watched it the fog-wreaths came crawling round both

corners of the house and rolled slowly into one dense bank on

which the upper floor and the roof floated like a strange ship

upon a shadowy sea. Holmes struck his hand passionately upon the

rock in front of us and stamped his feet in his impatience.

“If he isn’t out in a quarter of an hour the path will be

covered. In half an hour we won’t be able to see our hands in

front of us.”

“Shall we move farther back upon higher ground?”

“Yes, I think it would be as well.”

So as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell back before it until we

were half a mile from the house, and still that dense white sea,

with the moon silvering its upper edge, swept slowly and

inexorably on.

“We are going too far,” said Holmes. “We dare not take the chance

of his being overtaken before he can reach us. At all costs we

must hold our ground where we are.” He dropped on his knees and

clapped his ear to the ground. “Thank God, I think that I hear

him coming.”

A sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor. Crouching

among the stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped bank in

front of us. The steps grew louder, and through the fog, as

through a curtain, there stepped the man whom we were awaiting.

He looked round him in surprise as he emerged into the clear,

starlit night. Then he came swiftly along the path, passed close

to where we lay, and went on up the long slope behind us. As he

walked he glanced continually over either shoulder, like a man

who is ill at ease.

“Hist!” cried Holmes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking

pistol. “Look out! It’s coming!”

There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the

heart of that crawling bank. The cloud was within fifty yards of

where we lay, and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what

horror was about to break from the heart of it. I was at Holmes’s

elbow, and I glanced for an instant at his face. It was pale and

exultant, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. But

suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his

lips parted in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade gave a

yell of terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I

sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind

paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from

the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black

hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire

burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering

glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in

flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered

brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be

conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us

out of the wall of fog.

With long bounds the huge black creature was leaping down the

track, following hard upon the footsteps of our friend. So

paralyzed were we by the apparition that we allowed him to pass

before we had recovered our nerve. Then Holmes and I both fired

together, and the creature gave a hideous howl, which showed that

one at least had hit him. He did not pause, however, but bounded

onward. Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his

face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring

helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But

that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the

winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound

him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran

that night. I am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as

much as I outpaced the little professional. In front of us as we

flew up the track we heard scream after scream from Sir Henry and

the deep roar of the hound. I was in time to see the beast spring

upon its victim, hurl him to the ground, and worry at his throat.

But the next instant Holmes had emptied five barrels of his

revolver into the creature’s flank. With a last howl of agony and

a vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back, four feet

pawing furiously, and then fell limp upon its side. I stooped,

panting, and pressed my pistol to the dreadful, shimmering head,

but it was useless to press the trigger. The giant hound was

dead.

Sir Henry lay insensible where he had fallen. We tore away his

collar, and Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when we saw

that there was no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in

time. Already our friend’s eyelids shivered and he made a feeble

effort to move. Lestrade thrust his brandy-flask between the

baronet’s teeth, and two frightened eyes were looking up at us.

“My God!” he whispered. “What was it? What, in heaven’s name, was

it?”

“It’s dead, whatever it is,” said Holmes. “We’ve laid the family

ghost once and forever.”

In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was

lying stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound and it

was not a pure mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination of

the two—gaunt, savage, and as large as a small lioness. Even now

in the stillness of death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping

with a bluish flame and the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were

ringed with fire. I placed my hand upon the glowing muzzle, and

as I held them up my own fingers smouldered and gleamed in the

darkness.

“Phosphorus,” I said.

“A cunning preparation of it,” said Holmes, sniffing at the dead

animal. “There is no smell which might have interfered with his

power of scent. We owe you a deep apology, Sir Henry, for having

exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not

for such a creature as this. And the fog gave us little time to

receive him.”

“You have saved my life.”

“Having first endangered it. Are you strong enough to stand?”

“Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall be ready for

anything. So! Now, if you will help me up. What do you propose to

do?”

“To leave you here. You are not fit for further adventures

tonight. If you will wait, one or other of us will go back with

you to the Hall.”

He tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly pale

and trembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock, where he

sat shivering with his face buried in his hands.

“We must leave you now,” said Holmes. “The rest of our work must

be done, and every moment is of importance. We have our case, and

now we only want our man.

“It’s a thousand to one against our finding him at the house,” he

continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. “Those

shots must have told him that the game was up.”

“We were some distance off, and this fog may have deadened them.”

“He followed the hound to call him off—of that you may be

certain. No, no, he’s gone by this time! But we’ll search the

house and make sure.”

The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried from room to

room to the amazement of a doddering old manservant, who met us

in the passage. There was no light save in the dining-room, but

Holmes caught up the lamp and left no corner of the house

unexplored. No sign could we see of the man whom we were chasing.

On the upper floor, however, one of the bedroom doors was locked.

“There’s someone in here,” cried Lestrade. “I can hear a

movement. Open this door!”

A faint moaning and rustling came from within. Holmes struck the

door just over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flew

open. Pistol in hand, we all three rushed into the room.

But there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant

villain whom we expected to see. Instead we were faced by an

object so strange and so unexpected that we stood for a moment

staring at it in amazement.

The room had been fashioned into a small museum, and the walls

were lined by a number of glass-topped cases full of that

collection of butterflies and moths the formation of which had

been the relaxation of this complex and dangerous man. In the

centre of this room there was an upright beam, which had been

placed at some period as a support for the old worm-eaten baulk

of timber which spanned the roof. To this post a figure was tied,

so swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been used to

secure it that one could not for the moment tell whether it was

that of a man or a woman. One towel passed round the throat and

was secured at the back of the pillar. Another covered the lower

part of the face, and over it two dark eyes—eyes full of grief

and shame and a dreadful questioning—stared back at us. In a

minute we had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and Mrs.

Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us. As her beautiful

head fell upon her chest I saw the clear red weal of a whiplash

across her neck.

“The brute!” cried Holmes. “Here, Lestrade, your brandy-bottle!

Put her in the chair! She has fainted from ill-usage and

exhaustion.”

She opened her eyes again.

“Is he safe?” she asked. “Has he escaped?”

“He cannot escape us, madam.”

“No, no, I did not mean my husband. Sir Henry? Is he safe?”

“Yes.”

“And the hound?”

“It is dead.”

She gave a long sigh of satisfaction.

“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this villain! See how he has treated

me!” She shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we saw with

horror that they were all mottled with bruises. “But this is

nothing—nothing! It is my mind and soul that he has tortured and

defiled. I could endure it all, ill-usage, solitude, a life of

deception, everything, as long as I could still cling to the hope

that I had his love, but now I know that in this also I have been

his dupe and his tool.” She broke into passionate sobbing as she

spoke.

“You bear him no good will, madam,” said Holmes. “Tell us then

where we shall find him. If you have ever aided him in evil, help

us now and so atone.”

“There is but one place where he can have fled,” she answered.

“There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire.

It was there that he kept his hound and there also he had made

preparations so that he might have a refuge. That is where he

would fly.”

The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. Holmes held

the lamp towards it.

“See,” said he. “No one could find his way into the Grimpen Mire

tonight.”

She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamed

with fierce merriment.

“He may find his way in, but never out,” she cried. “How can he

see the guiding wands tonight? We planted them together, he and

I, to mark the pathway through the mire. Oh, if I could only have

plucked them out today. Then indeed you would have had him at

your mercy!”

It was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog

had lifted. Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of the house

while Holmes and I went back with the baronet to Baskerville

Hall. The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld

from him, but he took the blow bravely when he learned the truth

about the woman whom he had loved. But the shock of the night’s

adventures had shattered his nerves, and before morning he lay

delirious in a high fever under the care of Dr. Mortimer. The two

of them were destined to travel together round the world before

Sir Henry had become once more the hale, hearty man that he had

been before he became master of that ill-omened estate.

And now I come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular

narrative, in which I have tried to make the reader share those

dark fears and vague surmises which clouded our lives so long and

ended in so tragic a manner. On the morning after the death of

the hound the fog had lifted and we were guided by Mrs. Stapleton

to the point where they had found a pathway through the bog. It

helped us to realise the horror of this woman’s life when we saw

the eagerness and joy with which she laid us on her husband’s

track. We left her standing upon the thin peninsula of firm,

peaty soil which tapered out into the widespread bog. From the

end of it a small wand planted here and there showed where the

path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes among those

green-scummed pits and foul quagmires which barred the way to the

stranger. Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour

of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a

false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark,

quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around

our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked,

and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was

tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful

was the clutch in which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that

someone had passed that perilous way before us. From amid a tuft

of cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing

was projecting. Holmes sank to his waist as he stepped from the

path to seize it, and had we not been there to drag him out he

could never have set his foot upon firm land again. He held an

old black boot in the air. “Meyers, Toronto,” was printed on the

leather inside.

“It is worth a mud bath,” said he. “It is our friend Sir Henry’s

missing boot.”

“Thrown there by Stapleton in his flight.”

“Exactly. He retained it in his hand after using it to set the

hound upon the track. He fled when he knew the game was up, still

clutching it. And he hurled it away at this point of his flight.

We know at least that he came so far in safety.”

But more than that we were never destined to know, though there

was much which we might surmise. There was no chance of finding

footsteps in the mire, for the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon

them, but as we at last reached firmer ground beyond the morass

we all looked eagerly for them. But no slightest sign of them

ever met our eyes. If the earth told a true story, then Stapleton

never reached that island of refuge towards which he struggled

through the fog upon that last night. Somewhere in the heart of

the great Grimpen Mire, down in the foul slime of the huge morass

which had sucked him in, this cold and cruel-hearted man is

forever buried.

Many traces we found of him in the bog-girt island where he had

hid his savage ally. A huge driving-wheel and a shaft half-filled

with rubbish showed the position of an abandoned mine. Beside it

were the crumbling remains of the cottages of the miners, driven

away no doubt by the foul reek of the surrounding swamp. In one

of these a staple and chain with a quantity of gnawed bones

showed where the animal had been confined. A skeleton with a

tangle of brown hair adhering to it lay among the _débris_.

“A dog!” said Holmes. “By Jove, a curly-haired spaniel. Poor

Mortimer will never see his pet again. Well, I do not know that

this place contains any secret which we have not already

fathomed. He could hide his hound, but he could not hush its

voice, and hence came those cries which even in daylight were not

pleasant to hear. On an emergency he could keep the hound in the

out-house at Merripit, but it was always a risk, and it was only

on the supreme day, which he regarded as the end of all his

efforts, that he dared do it. This paste in the tin is no doubt

the luminous mixture with which the creature was daubed. It was

suggested, of course, by the story of the family hell-hound, and

by the desire to frighten old Sir Charles to death. No wonder the

poor devil of a convict ran and screamed, even as our friend did,

and as we ourselves might have done, when he saw such a creature

bounding through the darkness of the moor upon his track. It was

a cunning device, for, apart from the chance of driving your

victim to his death, what peasant would venture to inquire too

closely into such a creature should he get sight of it, as many

have done, upon the moor? I said it in London, Watson, and I say

it again now, that never yet have we helped to hunt down a more

dangerous man than he who is lying yonder”—he swept his long arm

towards the huge mottled expanse of green-splotched bog which

stretched away until it merged into the russet slopes of the

moor.