The Hound of the Baskervilles

Part One · The Curse of the Baskervilles

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the most celebrated detective in London, was seated at the breakfast table in his rooms at 221B Baker Street, with his back to his friend Dr. Watson, when he remarked, "Well, Watson, what do you make of it?" A visitor had called the previous evening while they were out, and had forgotten his walking stick, a handsome piece of wood with a silver band engraved with the words "To James Mortimer, from his friends of the C.C.H." Holmes had been examining it in the reflection of a polished coffee pot. From the scratches, the inscription and the tooth marks of a small dog, he deduced that its owner was a young country doctor, amiable, unambitious and absent-minded, who possessed a curly-haired spaniel. At that moment the doorbell rang, and in walked Dr. Mortimer himself, a tall, thin young man with gold spectacles, accompanied by his curly-haired spaniel. He had come, he announced, about a family curse.

Dr. Mortimer unfolded an ancient manuscript and read it aloud. More than two centuries earlier, it related, the lord of Baskerville Hall, in the desolate moorland of Devonshire, was a wicked and profane man named Hugo Baskerville. One night he abducted a farmer's daughter and imprisoned her in an upstairs chamber, but she descended the ivy on the wall and fled homeward across the moor. Hugo swore that he would surrender his soul to the powers of evil if he could overtake her, and he galloped after her into the darkness, accompanied by his hounds. His terrified companions followed, and in a moonlit hollow they discovered the girl, who had perished of fear and exhaustion, and beside her, Hugo. Standing over him was a gigantic black creature, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that mortal eyes had ever beheld. Ever since, the manuscript warned, the family had been tormented by the hound, and its descendants must never cross the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.

Holmes yawned and dismissed it as a fairy tale, so Dr. Mortimer produced a newspaper, which reported that only three months earlier, Sir Charles Baskerville, the generous elderly master of the Hall, had been discovered dead at the end of the long avenue of yew trees behind the house, beside the gate that opened onto the moor. Because he had suffered from a weak heart, the coroner had concluded that he died of natural causes. But there were particulars that the newspapers had not printed. Sir Charles had been obsessed with the legend, and his face, when he was found, was so distorted with horror that Dr. Mortimer could scarcely recognize it. Moreover, on the ground nearby, at some distance from the body, the doctor had noticed footprints. Holmes inquired whether they were a man's or a woman's, and Dr. Mortimer hesitated before he answered in a whisper: "Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" For once, Sherlock Holmes leaned forward, and his eyes gleamed with excitement.

Part Two · A Stranger in London

The heir to Baskerville Hall was Sir Charles's nephew, Sir Henry Baskerville, a sturdy, good-humored young man who had been farming in Canada, and who had recently arrived in London. That very morning, he informed Holmes, he had received an extraordinary letter at his hotel. The words had been snipped from a newspaper and pasted onto the page, all except one, which was written in ink: "As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor." Holmes immediately identified the newspaper from the style of its print. Then Sir Henry mentioned a smaller mystery: somebody had stolen one of his boots from the hotel corridor, a brand new brown boot that he had never worn. Holmes considered that remarkably significant. As Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer strolled away down Baker Street, Holmes and Watson followed at a distance, and they noticed a cab creeping along behind the two men, carrying a mysterious passenger with a bushy black beard.

The moment Holmes sprinted toward it, the cab accelerated into the traffic and escaped. Holmes traced the driver, who reported that his bearded passenger had announced, as he departed, that he was the detective Sherlock Holmes. Holmes laughed in genuine admiration, because he had encountered a worthy opponent. Meanwhile a second boot disappeared from Sir Henry's hotel, an old black one this time, and the first one was mysteriously returned. Sir Henry was indignant, but Holmes was thoughtful. In spite of every warning, the courageous young baronet was determined to take possession of Baskerville Hall, and Holmes claimed to be too preoccupied with an urgent case in London to accompany him. So he dispatched Watson instead, with strict instructions to report every detail, to keep his revolver ready, and never, under any circumstances, to permit Sir Henry to wander across the moor alone at night, in those hours of darkness that the old manuscript had warned against.

Part Three · On the Moor

The moor was even wilder than Watson had imagined, with endless rolling brown hills, scattered granite boulders and the crumbling stone huts of prehistoric people, and with jagged rocky peaks called tors on the summits. At the station, soldiers were patrolling the roads, because a dangerous convict named Selden had escaped from the great prison at Princetown and was believed to be concealed somewhere on the moor. Baskerville Hall was a gloomy, ivy-covered mansion with dark towers, maintained by a bearded butler named Barrymore and his wife. On the first night, Watson was awakened by the sound of a woman sobbing, and in the morning he observed that Mrs. Barrymore's eyes were red and swollen. Later, out walking, he encountered a neighbor, a slim, clean-shaven naturalist named Stapleton, who carried a butterfly net and lived at Merripit House with his beautiful sister, Beryl. Stapleton seemed remarkably curious about Holmes, and inquired whether the famous detective intended to visit.

Stapleton guided Watson across the moor and indicated a brilliant green plain, dotted with grass, which looked as though one could cross it easily. It was the great Grimpen Mire, he explained, a bottomless bog that could swallow a man or a pony in moments, and only he understood the secret paths through its center. As they watched, a long, low, mournful howl rose across the moor, swelled into a deep roar, and subsided into a melancholy moan. Stapleton remarked that the peasants believed it was the hound of the Baskervilles, calling for its prey. While Stapleton pursued a butterfly, his sister approached Watson, mistaking him for Sir Henry, and whispered urgently, "Go back straight to London, instantly." When she discovered her mistake, she implored Watson to forget her words. Watson was utterly bewildered. Why was this lady so desperate for Sir Henry to depart, and why was her brother so anxious to keep her silent?

Watson soon solved one mystery, when late one night he noticed Barrymore creeping along the corridor with a candle, holding it up to a window that overlooked the moor. Sir Henry and Watson waited and confronted him, and far away in the darkness they glimpsed a tiny answering light. Mrs. Barrymore confessed the truth: the escaped convict, Selden, was her younger brother, and they had been signaling to him so that they could leave him food and clothing. Sir Henry, who was compassionate, agreed not to betray them, and in gratitude Barrymore revealed a secret of his own. On the night Sir Charles died, he had been waiting at the gate to meet a lady whose initials were L. L. Watson located her: Laura Lyons, a young woman in the neighboring town, who admitted that she had written to Sir Charles requesting the meeting, but insisted that she had never kept the appointment, because somebody had persuaded her not to go.

There was another mystery on the moor, because one evening, pursuing the convict across the rocks, Watson saw a figure standing on a granite tor, silhouetted against the silver moon, tall, thin and motionless, gazing down across the moor like a statue. It was certainly not Selden, and it vanished before Watson could investigate. Then a boy from the village revealed that he had been delivering provisions to a stranger who was living in one of the ancient stone huts. Watson took his revolver and searched the hills methodically until he discovered the hut. Inside were a blanket, some tinned food and a scrap of paper, on which somebody had written, "Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe Tracey." The stranger had been spying on him, so Watson waited in the darkness with his revolver ready, determined to confront the man when he returned. At last footsteps approached, and a familiar voice called, "It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson. I really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in."

Part Four · The Hound

It was Sherlock Holmes, who had never been occupied in London at all, he confessed, but had been living secretly on the moor, so that their enemy would never suspect that he was observing everything. Watson's reports had been forwarded to him, and he had made use of every one. He had already identified the murderer, he explained, but he still lacked evidence that a jury would accept. As they talked, a terrible scream rang out across the moor, followed by the hound's deep, ravenous roar. They raced through the darkness and discovered a man lying dead at the foot of a cliff, wearing Sir Henry's old tweed suit. For one horrible moment they believed it was Sir Henry, until Holmes turned the body over and recognized the beard of Selden, the convict, wearing garments that Sir Henry had given to Barrymore. The hound had been trained to follow Sir Henry's scent, from the stolen boot, and it had pursued the wrong man.

At Baskerville Hall, Holmes stood studying the family portraits, and one of them, a portrait of the wicked Hugo, held his attention. He covered the long curls and the plumed hat with his arm, and suddenly Watson gasped, because the face that remained was Stapleton's. The naturalist was secretly a Baskerville, the son of Sir Charles's younger brother, and if Sir Henry died, he would inherit the Hall and the entire fortune. His beautiful "sister" was actually his wife, whom he had forced to deceive everyone, although she had tried to warn Sir Henry. Stapleton had lured Sir Charles to the gate by means of Laura Lyons's letter, and then released a monstrous dog, calculating that the old man's weak heart would fail at the sight. Now Holmes devised a trap. Sir Henry would dine at Merripit House, then walk home alone across the moor, while Holmes, Watson and a Scotland Yard detective named Lestrade lay concealed among the rocks.

It was a still, clear night, but while they waited, a dense white fog began creeping across the moor from the Grimpen Mire, rising like a wall around Merripit House, and Holmes muttered that their lives, and Sir Henry's, depended upon it. At last the door opened, and Sir Henry walked rapidly along the path, glancing nervously over his shoulder. Then, out of the fog, there sprang an enormous coal-black hound, more terrible than anything the legend had described. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed like smoldering flames, and its muzzle and throat were outlined in flickering light. It bounded past the hidden men in pursuit of Sir Henry, and Lestrade shrieked in terror. Holmes and Watson fired simultaneously, and the creature howled but raced onward, and it had knocked Sir Henry to the ground when Holmes emptied his revolver into its side. The hound collapsed and lay motionless, and its unearthly glow, Holmes discovered, came from phosphorus, a luminous chemical that Stapleton had smeared upon its face.

Inside Merripit House they discovered Mrs. Stapleton bound and gagged in an upstairs room, and she directed them toward the hiding place her husband would escape to, an island in the center of the Grimpen Mire. But the fog lay thick over the bog all night, and the secret paths were marked only by little sticks. In the morning the searchers found nothing on the island except the bones of animals the hound had been fed, and, protruding from the mud beside the path, Sir Henry's old black boot. Of Stapleton there was no trace, because somewhere in the fog the great Grimpen Mire had swallowed him. A month later, in Baker Street, on a raw and foggy November evening, Holmes explained the final details to Watson. Sir Henry had recovered, and was traveling around the world with Dr. Mortimer to restore his shattered nerves. Then Holmes dismissed the case from his mind and inquired whether his friend would care to accompany him to the opera.