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.