The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle

  “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 tonight.”

  “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.”

  “That seems the most reasonable theory,” said Stapleton, and he gave a sigh which I took to indicate his relief. “What do you think about it, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

  My friend bowed his compliments.

  “You are quick at identification,” said he.

  “We have been expecting you in these parts since Dr. Watson came down. You are in time to see a tragedy.”

  “Yes, indeed. I have no doubt that my friend’s explanation will cover the facts. I will take an unpleasant remembrance back to London with me tomorrow.”

  “Oh, you return tomorrow?”

  “That is my intention.”

  “ ‘Who—who’s this?’ he stammered.”

  Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1902

  “I hope your visit has cast some light upon those occurrences which have puzzled us?”

  Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “One cannot always have the success for which one hopes. An investigator needs facts, and not legends or rumours. It has not been a satisfactory case.”

  My friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner. Stapleton still looked hard at him. Then he turned to me.

  “I would suggest carrying this poor fellow to my house, but it would give my sister such a fright that I do not feel justified in doing it. I think that if we put something over his face181 he will be safe until morning.”

  And so it was arranged. Resisting Stapleton’s offer of hospitality, Holmes and I set off to Baskerville Hall, leaving the naturalist to return alone. Looking back we saw the figure moving slowly away over the broad moor, and behind him that one black smudge on the silvered slope which showed where the man was lying who had come so horribly to his end.182

  “We’re at close grips at last,” said Holmes, as we walked together across the moor. “What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled himself together in the face of what must have been a paralysing shock when he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his plot. I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again, that we have never had a foeman more worthy of our steel.”

  “I am sorry that he has seen you.”

  “And so was I at first. But there was no getting out of it.”

  “What effect do you think it will have upon his plans, now that he knows you are here?”

  “It may cause him to be more cautious, or it may drive him to desperate measures at once. Like most clever criminals, he may be too confident in his own cleverness and imagine that he has completely deceived us.”

  “Why should we not arrest him at once?”

  “My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action. Your instinct is always to do something energetic. But supposing, for argument’s sake, that we had him arrested tonight, what on earth the better off should we be for that? We could prove nothing against him. There’s the devilish cunning of it! If he were acting through a human agent we could get some evidence, but if we were to drag this great dog to the light of day it would not help us in putting a rope round the neck of its master.”

  “Surely we have a case.”

  “Not a shadow of one—only surmise and conjecture. We should be laughed out of court if we came with such a story and such evidence.”

  “There is Sir Charles’s death.”

  “Found dead without a mark upon him. You and I know that he died of sheer fright, and we know also what frightened him; but how are we to get twelve stolid jurymen to know it? What signs are there of a hound? Where are the marks of its fangs. Of course, we know that a hound does not bite a dead body, and that Sir Charles was dead before ever the brute overtook him. But we have to prove all this, and we are not in a position to do it.”

  “Well, then, tonight?”

  “We are not much better off tonight. Again, there was no direct connection between the hound and the man’s death. We never saw the hound. We heard it; but we could not prove that it was running upon this man’s trail. There is a complete absence of motive. No, my dear fellow; we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we have no case at present, and that it is worth our while to run any risk in order to establish one.”

  “And how do you propose to do so?”

  “I have great hopes of what Mrs. Laura Lyons may do for us when the position of affairs is made clear to her. And I have my own plan as well. Sufficient for tomorrow is the evil thereof;183 but I hope before the day is past to have the upper hand at last.”

  I could draw nothing further from him, and he walked, lost in thought, as far as the Baskerville gates.

  “Are you coming up?”

  “Yes; I see no reason for further concealment. But one last word, Watson. Say nothing of the hound to Sir Henry. Let him think that Selden’s death was as Stapleton would have us believe. He will have a better nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo tomorrow, when he is engaged, if I remember your report aright, to dine with these people.”

  “And so am I.”

  “Then you must excuse yourself, and he must go alone. That will be easily arranged. And now, if we are too late for dinner, I think that we are both ready for our suppers.”

  172 Sidney Paget does not depict this “cloth cap” as a fore-and-aft, or deerstalker, the iconic hat associated with Holmes and depicted by Paget in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” but rather as a hat that a modern reader might term a “driving cap.” Jay Finley Christ, in “The Pipe and the Cap,” states that the typical tourist wore the deerstalker. “It was as distinctive as was the Baedeker in his fist. It was by no means a proprietary of Mr. Sherlock Holmes—if, indeed, in those days, he ever wore one.”

  173 Noting the absence of shaving gear, C. Alan Bradley and William A. S. Sarjeant point to this as one of the strongest pieces of evidence for their thesis that Holmes was a woman. But Watson never mentions a Sherlockian beard, and Ron Miller, in “Will the Real Sherlock Holmes Please Stand Up?,” suggests that his jaw was hairless, revealing American Indian ancestry.

  174 No sign of Bradley has been found, but J. C. Wimbush, in “Watson’s Tobacconist,” notes R. H. Hoar & Co., Ltd., which (until 1890) occupied the corner of a store at No. 6, Prince’s Street—running north from Oxford Street just west of Regent Circus. Baedeker lists Amber & Co., at 238 and 536 Oxford Street, and the London Dictionary and Guidebook for 1879 by Charles Dickens the Younger lists “Benson, W., 135 Oxford-st.”

  175 The “perhaps” seems to indicate that Holmes had not received Watson’s previous letter.

  176 In the Doubleday edition and other American editions, the word is “confident,” clearly a typographical error.

  177 Trevor H. Hall, in The Late Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Other Literary Studies, points out the deceit practised by Holmes, in perpetuating the myth that “in his more intense moments [Holmes] would permit himself no food” (“The Norwood Builder”): “Watson’s inspection of the interior of the hut revealed a good deal more than a loaf of bread. We must presume that only the demands of friendship and the dominating personality of the great detective prevented Watson from succumbing to the extreme temptation of answering Holmes’s question with a simple statement of the facts.” Hall points out the “pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits,” “a tinned tongue, and two tins of preserved peaches.” There was also “a litter of empty tins,” which undoubtedly contained other portable comestibles.

  178 “When [Laura Lyons] heard of [Sir Charles’s] death,
she should have been terribly upset,” writes Dorothyanne Evans (see note 155, above). If she had no connection to the death, Evans argues, she could hardly have failed to notice the coincidence of the time set for her meeting with Sir Charles and the time of his death and would have voiced her suspicions. Her silence leads Evans to contend that it was Laura Lyons who suggested to Stapleton the plot with the hound. “Laura realises that Holmes is hot on the trail when he comes to interview her telling her that Stapleton was involved in the murder. She convincingly deceives Holmes into thinking she is the innocent party, at the same time cunningly finding out how much Holmes knows about Stapleton and then admitting that he manipulated her into doing his villainy.” While Holmes correctly deduces that Stapleton had an accomplice to help look after the hound, Evans concludes, Holmes was in error in identifying Anthony, Stapleton’s butler, as that accomplice—it was in fact Stapleton’s mistress Laura Lyons.

  179 Another example of the phrenological point of view—see note 23, above.

  180 “But what on earth,” asks Harald Curjel, in “The Dartmoor Campaign,” “[were Stapleton] and the hound doing on Black Tor ‘miles off’ from Merripit House on the night of Selden’s death?” Curjel argues that Stapleton would not loose the hound without reason to think that his intended victim would be present. While Stapleton had suggested that Sir Henry visit him, “surely it would have been vain clutching at a straw to hope that his guest would come, unaccompanied and at night, to Merripit House, let alone to the slopes of Black Tor.” Notwithstanding Holmes’s assurance that an explanation would be forthcoming, the question remains unanswered.

  181 And this will keep away “the foxes and the ravens” about which Holmes worries?

  182 The American editions end Chapter XII at this point, and the remaining material appears at the beginning of Chapter XIII.

  183 Compare the New Testament: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew, 6:34). In neither context is the speaker really expecting “evil”—the English Standard Version of the Bible renders the full passage as “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

  CHAPTER

  XIII

  FIXING THE NETS

  SIR HENRY WAS more pleased than surprised to see Sherlock Holmes, for he had for some days been expecting that recent events would bring him down from London. He did raise his eyebrows, however, when he found that my friend had neither any luggage nor any explanations for its absence. Between us we soon supplied his wants, and then over a belated supper we explained to the baronet as much of our experience as it seemed desirable that he should know. But first I had the unpleasant duty of breaking the news of Selden’s death to Barrymore and his wife. To him it may have been an unmitigated relief, but she wept bitterly in her apron. To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand.

  Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

  “I’ve been moping in the house all day since Watson went off in the morning,” said the baronet. “I guess I should have some credit, for I have kept my promise. If I hadn’t sworn not to go about alone I might have had a more lively evening, for I had a message from Stapleton asking me over there.”

  Scene from The Hound of the Baskervilles (United States: Twentieth-Century Fox, 1939), starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson.

  “I have no doubt that you would have had a more lively evening,” said Holmes, dryly. “By the way, I don’t suppose you appreciate that we have been mourning over you as having broken your neck?”

  Sir Henry opened his eyes. “How was that?”

  “This poor wretch was dressed in your clothes. I fear your servant who gave them to him may get into trouble with the police.”

  “That is unlikely. There was no mark on any of them, so far as I know.”

  “That’s lucky for him—in fact, it’s lucky for all of you, since you are all on the wrong side of the law in this matter. I am not sure that as a conscientious detective my first duty is not to arrest the whole household. Watson’s reports are most incriminating documents.”

  “But how about the case?” asked the baronet. “Have you made anything out of the tangle? I don’t know that Watson and I are much the wiser since we came down.”

  “I think that I shall be in a position to make the situation rather more clear to you before long. It has been an exceedingly difficult and most complicated business. There are several points upon which we still want light—but it is coming, all the same.”

  “We’ve had one experience, as Watson has no doubt told you. We heard the hound on the moor, so I can swear that it is not all empty superstition. I had something to do with dogs when I was out West, and I know one when I hear one. If you can muzzle that one and put him on a chain I’ll be ready to swear you are the greatest detective of all time.”

  “I think I will muzzle him and chain him all right if you will give me your help.”

  “Whatever you tell me to do I will do.”

  “Very good; and I will ask you also to do it blindly, without always asking the reason.”

  “Just as you like.”

  “If you will do this I think the chances are that our little problem will soon be solved. I have no doubt—”

  He stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up over my head into the air. The lamp beat upon his face, and so intent was it and so still that it might have been that of a clear-cut classical statue, a personification of alertness and expectation.

  “What is it?” we both cried.

  I could see as he looked down that he was repressing some internal emotion. His features were still composed, but his eyes shone with amused exultation.

  “Excuse the admiration of a connoisseur,” said he, as he waved his hand towards the line of portraits which covered the opposite wall. “Watson won’t allow that I know anything of art, but that is mere jealousy, because our views upon the subject differ. Now, these are a really very fine series of portraits.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you say so,” said Sir Henry, glancing with some surprise at my friend. “I don’t pretend to know much about these things, and I’d be a better judge of a horse or steer than of a picture. I didn’t know that you found time for such things.”

  “I know what is good when I see it, and I see it now. That’s a Kneller,184 I’ll swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder, and the stout gentleman with the wig ought to be a Reynolds.185 They are all family portraits, I presume?”

  “He stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up over my head into the air.”

  Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1902

  “Every one.”

  “Do you know the names?”

  “Barrymore has been coaching me in them, and I think I can say my lessons fairly well.”

  “Who is the gentleman with the telescope?”

  “That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville, who served under Rodney186 in the West Indies. The man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is Sir William Baskerville, who was Chairman of Committees187 of the House of Commons under Pitt.”188

  “And this Cavalier189 opposite to me—the one with the black velvet and the lace?”

  “Ah, you have a right to know about him. That is the cause of all the mischief, the wicked Hugo, who started the Hound of the Baskervilles. We’re not likely to forget him.”

  I gazed with interest and some surprise upon the portrait.190

  “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 f
or 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,191 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 throw-back,192 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!”