“Oh, those are the lights of Lafter Hall. Nice old place; used to be one of the greater houses of the moor. It still is, I suppose, but old Mr. Frankland has been negligent in its upkeep. All he cares about is suing people. Go nowhere near him, gentlemen, or you will find yourself slapped with a subpoena before you can say John Bull. Oh, and just over there is the Serpent’s Maw—the old hollow where your ancestor, Hugo Baskerville, is said to have met his fate.”
“I remember it!” Sir Henry cried. “With the two standing stones? I used to play there, when I was a child.”
A few moments later, Mortimer said, “We’re coming up to Merripit House, now. They and I are your closest neighbors. The Stapletons live there. Oh, you’ll love them. Jack is a naturalist and his sister Beryl is… well… just wonderful.”
But any further fawning upon the graces of Beryl Stapleton was arrested as our carriage lurched to the right, nearly hurling us all out the left window. Mortimer was first to recover and took the opportunity to apologize, on behalf of Dartmoor. “Ah, fairly rough bend just there. Sorry, gentlemen, yet it is imperative we turn northeast, for to continue forward would drive us into the Great Grimpen Mire. Very dangerous there. Easy to get lost in the mists, you know. Easy to stumble into a peat bog and those that do… it’s the last we see of them.”
I looked out the window and beheld the Grimpen Mire—the corroded soul of Dartmoor. Thick mists grew in slow, creeping tendrils across its surface. There were a few trees, but they were stunted and sometimes leaned at precarious angles as the stagnant water overtook the soil beneath them. Reeds like broken fingers jutted from the low-hanging fog. Oh, and that mist! So thick that little tentacles of it seemed to seep into our carriage, through every crack.
That is when I began to fear. I remembered Holmes’s words: how this was not the domain of man and man knew it. It was true. Above it all, gathering all its disparate, distasteful physical features into a cohesive whole was…
Malevolence. Dartmoor hated us; nothing could be plainer.
It was then I saw the first light, hovering in the mist. Do you know that soft, inconstant glow around a burning candle? Not the flame itself, but the halo that surrounds it? It was as if one of those simply forgot the formality of needing a source and showed up on its own. Even as I gaped at the first light, a second appeared, just off to the left and behind it.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Ah!” said Mortimer. “One of our most famous local phenomena. They are called will-o’-the-wisps, I believe.”
“Yes,” I said. “Very nice. But what are they?”
“Stapleton says they are luminous methane, escaping from the peat. The locals have a different story. They say the wisps mark where some unfortunate fellow has drowned in the mire. They say the lonely dead are signaling to us, hoping to lure the living to join in their doom.”
And that was it. I could take no more. Dartmoor had taken it a step too far. I harrumphed my displeasure and said, “No. This will not do. Driver, stop the carriage!”
“What?” said Sir Henry. “No, do not stop this carriage. Watson, what are you on about?”
“Someone needs to get out there and teach Dartmoor it can’t just go about impersonating Halloween all the time!”
“The modern festival of Halloween actually takes its roots here, so the similarities should not be surprising,” helpful-tour-guide-Mortimer informed us, then shuddered a bit and added, “It’s probably no coincidence they picked October, either.”
“I don’t care,” I told him. “I promise you that somewhere on this vehicle is a shovel, kept handy for when a wheel gets stuck in a rut. We must stop the carriage and find it, so I may restore sanity to Dartmoor.”
“You’re gonna restore sanity?” Sir Henry asked.
“I shall.”
“With a shovel?”
Yet it was not to him that I directed my answer. Outside our window, more wisps had gathered, bobbing along with us capriciously. Merrily. Mockingly. I pointed my finger at the nearest one and declared, “I’m going to dig you up, you little bastard!”
“Dr. Watson! Language!” cried Mortimer.
“The hell you are,” Henry growled.
“Sir Henry! Language!”
“I must!” said I. “Ghosts… Ha! An easily broken hypothesis! All I need to do is dig up the peat beneath one of those wisps and, if I do not find human bones, we’ll know this local poppycock for what it is!”
“You can’t dig in a bog,” Sir Henry said. “It’s like digging in lamb stew—the stuff closes in as fast as you scoop it out.”
“I don’t care! I need to get out there and… er… not find a skeleton!”
I lunged for the door, but Sir Henry pushed me bodily back into my seat, saying, “You couldn’t find one even if you were digging right over it! Any fool who goes stumbling around Grimpen Mire in the dark ain’t fixin’ to find a skeleton, he’s fixin’ to become one! Now, sit down!”
He was right, of course. I threw my arms across my chest and frowned out the window at the misty strangeness of the mire. The carriage bumped along. Soon we were clear of the peat bogs and the wisps began to fade from view. Before they were gone entirely, I promised myself, “I shall find you out. I’ll know what you are, before I leave this place.”
But I don’t think they heard me.
In another five minutes or so, the carriage lurched to a halt. Through the right window, we could see a cozy little cottage, some distance away, with a candle burning in its front window.
“Well, this is me, gentlemen,” Mortimer announced. “May I call on you tomorrow, Sir Henry?”
“Sure,” he replied.
The walk to Mortimer’s door was no more than twenty yards. Still, I think he, Sir Henry, the driver and myself all held our breaths. Would Mortimer reach the safety of his hearth? Or would the Notting Hill Murderer, the hell-hound, or a gang of rogue wisps drag him screaming, into the darkness? Presently, a little sliver of light glowed forth as he opened his door and stepped inside.
Lucky.
“We are not doing that,” I told Sir Henry. “We are driving right up to the Hall—so close I can jump out of this carriage and through the front door.”
Sir Henry chuckled at the sentiment, but he didn’t disagree with it. The carriage lurched forward. About a mile further on, we finally reached Baskerville Hall.
And things got worse.
The coachman did pull up as close as he could, but there was a granite walk stretching down from the front of the house. For the occasion of Sir Henry’s arrival, the Barrymores had lit the walk with a line of torches on either side. Or… they’d tried to. The poor torches, abused by the October wind, guttered and flickered. They did cast a feeble light down on the walk, but the granite of which the walkway and the house had been constructed was so dark as to defy all attempts at illumination. About the only thing that did light up were the reflective golden eyes of the hundred or so owls who had taken up residence in the eaves of Baskerville Hall. They gazed hatefully down at us, resenting the intrusion.
Yes. Angry owls. Because… why not?
Despite our misgivings and the air of avian disapproval, Sir Henry and I marched to the great doors of Baskerville Hall and knocked.
And things got worse.
I mean, they seemed better for a moment. We were greeted by the butler, John Barrymore—a strikingly handsome fellow with an easy charm. He welcomed Sir Henry and me inside and gave every outward sign that he was glad we’d come. All this was fine, except for the painting behind him.
He was in it.
It was clearly from the era of the First Civil War—some 240 years previous. But never mind; John Barrymore was in it. If the embossed frame was to be believed, it was a portrait of the hall’s founder, Sir Hugo Baskerville. And yes—he was the main subject of the piece. He wore a cavalier hat and one of those ridiculous moustaches that were popular in those days. His expression was that of an insufferable ass—a sneer designed to say, �
��I am a very rich and powerful fellow. You are not. Let us both strive to keep it just so, shall we?” Behind him, with her hand on his shoulder, stood his long-suffering wife, Olivia Baskerville. Her blonde hair was piled high, held with a gold and pearl comb. Yet none of this was as interesting to me as the figure of their servant, who lurked in the shadows behind them. It was Barrymore. Exactly him. The man himself—in flesh and blood—stood in front of me. Yet the very same face stared out from a picture that must have been over two centuries old. Such was my shock that it took me a moment to realize that the actual John Barrymore was smiling and reaching out towards me.
“Dr. Watson? Your coat… may I take it?” he repeated.
“Oh! Er… yes, thank you.”
“My wife has prepared a late supper, if you will follow me.”
But Sir Henry drew a deep sigh and said, “You know, Barrymore, I just can’t. It’s been a long trip and—if Dr. Watson doesn’t mind—I think I need some shut-eye.”
“I agree entirely,” I said.
“Very good, sirs,” said Barrymore with a nod. “I’ll bring a plate up to your rooms in case you are hungry in the night. Your chambers have been prepared for you, Sir Henry…” here he paused to gesture towards the east wing, “…and a comfortable guest chamber for Dr. Watson.”
He gestured to the west wing. The exact opposite side of the big, empty house.
“No, no, no! I must be close to Sir Henry! My job is to protect him.”
“Ah… Well the guest quarters are traditionally in the west—”
“Well change it!” I insisted, which was a damned impropriety, in a baronet’s house, with the baronet standing next to me.
Luckily, the baronet agreed. “There’s gotta be a closer room, Barrymore. The other Baskervilles must have had families, right? Watson can have one of their rooms.”
Barrymore tapped his fingertips together guiltily and said, “Well yes, of course, but none of those rooms have been prepared. It’s just Eliza and myself tonight, sirs, but if you give me… say… an hour and a half…”
“No, no. That’s all right, Barrymore,” Sir Henry sighed, then turned to me and, with an exhausted shrug, said, “It’s only for tonight, Watson. It’ll be fine.”
“Will it?” I genuinely wondered.
The matter decided, Barrymore rang for his wife, Eliza. She wasted no time in appearing and introducing herself to Sir Henry. Have you ever seen someone so fat that they seem almost spherical? Well, Eliza Barrymore was like that, only… cubic. She was short and so stoutly built that she seemed equal in all dimensions.
I allowed Eliza Barrymore to lead me to the west wing, while John Barrymore disappeared with his new master towards the east. The house was cavernous, and smelled of dust and disuse. A few hallways and staircases later, we arrived at the room where I might, at last, be allowed to slumber.
And things got worse.
Again, they seemed better at first. I began undressing myself and puttered into the dressing room that adjoined my chamber. As I filled a glass from the jug that had been left for me, my stockinged foot came down on a deep scratch in the floorboards. A moment later, I found another, just beside it. Parallel fissures, much like… claw marks? With horror, I realized where I was: the dressing room of the second bedroom from the end, third floor, west wing. The room from the letter. The room where the hound had slain lecherous old Winthrop Baskerville. My gaze flew to the wall. There they were—the crisscrossing scrapes, where Winthrop had torn at the wall in his fright. The marks were numerous and deep; I winced to think of the damage he must have done to his fingers. But he’d had other concerns, I supposed.
A sudden horror overtook me. This was not a room; it was a trap! The Barrymores! It was they who planned to take the life of Sir Henry, but first they would remove his protector! It was they who had sent me here—here, to the murder room to feed the hound! I reeled back, searching for a way to save myself. The plan I concocted was… well, I am sure it was more a product of my exhaustion than any great feat of reasoning. I rushed back to the bedroom and lit all four candles, arranging them in a line in front of the dressing-room door. I somehow hoped that this barrier—not so much of flame, but of light—would protect me. After that, there was naught to do but huddle on the bed, with the blankets pulled up around my chin. There I stayed for quite some time, eyes glued to the door, ears straining at every sound, waiting for signs of danger. I heard the wind against the stone walls. The creak of ancient floorboards. Somewhere in those labyrinthine halls, I was sure I heard a woman weeping.
I think I slept very little that night.
5
DESPITE MY UNINSPIRED ANTI-HELL-HOUND COUNTER-measures, I survived my first night at Baskerville Hall. I found Sir Henry taking breakfast in the great hall—a lone man at a preposterously large table in a preposterously large room. The effect of isolation was only worsened by an array of white stripes on the dark marble floor, which met just beneath Sir Henry’s chair. It was as if they were all pointing at him, laughing, “Look! There’s only one person in this empty hall! One!”
I could not fathom the reason behind this strange décor and was about to chuckle out loud at it, when something that Holmes had said occurred to me and made me pause. I counted the lines. There were three that carried straight through and two that started at the confluence and ran outwards. So… either this was just a strange coincidence of interior decoration, or the five great ley-lines of Dartmoor intersected directly beneath the master’s seat in the feasting room of Baskerville Hall. Probably the latter.
Yes, the pessimist in me decided. Definitely the latter.
It was at that moment that Sir Henry caught sight of me and cried, “Watson! Good! C’mere and join me.”
Sir Henry gestured me towards my plate. I sighed and rolled my eyes. As was proper, I had been situated at the foot of the table, with Sir Henry at the head. I wouldn’t have minded—in fact, I would have insisted on this arrangement—if it were not for the tremendous size of the table: it was forty feet long. It looked as if it were as old as the house and stout enough to serve as fine armor for any of the battleships of its age. No wonder Barrymore was in such fine physical condition. Anybody forced to buttle milk between the lord’s teacup and his guest’s would rival Pheidippides. I scooped up my place setting, piled everything onto the plate and walked the lot of it all the way down the vast wooden expanse, to sit next to Sir Henry.
“Looks like you survived your first night at Baskerville Hall,” Sir Henry beamed.
“Well yes, but it was you we were worried about, if I recall.”
“Yeah, but here I sit: hale and hardy. So, any ideas for keeping me that way?”
“A few,” I said. “I must begin by scouting our surroundings. I shall go to Grimpen, I think. I’ll send a quick letter to Holmes, then survey the other great houses hereabouts.”
“All right. I’ll tell the groom that he and the cart are at your disposal.”
“That is kind of you, Sir Henry, but I think I’d rather walk.”
“Eh?”
“I let my fears get the best of me last night,” I told him. “I must cultivate a familiarity with Dartmoor. It’s harder to fear a known thing than a mystery.”
“What should I do?” Sir Henry asked.
“Keep your head down. We still do not know who it is that wishes you ill. It may be the Barrymores or any of the other servants here.”
“But why would they?”
“You are the last heir to the Baskerville fortune. If you were to die, it would be up for grabs. I do not wish to be indelicate but I suspect that, between cash reserves, bank accounts, investments and the value of this house, it is a significant sum.”
Sir Henry paused, then said, “You know, I think it’s kinda Canadian of me to want to say, ‘Hell yeah, it is.’ What would a proper baronet say?”
“He would say he was quite comfortable.”
“Well then, I am quite comfortable. But do you think it’s safe to leave me
here? I mean, if we suspect the Barrymores—”
I tutted this concern away. “I have no reason to suspect them, apart from their proximity to Sir Charles,” I said. “Besides, anybody who sought your fortune would need to be sure they were not blamed for the murders. They are in luck, in that the local populace has a ready scapegoat to blame in the demise of any Baskerville.”
“The hound.”
“Precisely. But you are in luck, in that nobody is going to believe the hound ran into your bedchamber and shot you in the chest.”
“So, as long as I’m in my room…”
“You are safe. Do not go outside. If somebody so much as invites you into your own garden to smell the roses, you must go with me and go armed.”
Sir Henry practically growled, “You know, I ain’t—”
But he caught himself just in time and amended his statement to, “I am not accustomed to such cowardice.”
“Well said!” I cheered. “Both for bravery and for Britishness. Don’t worry, Sir Henry, I’m sure you’ll get your chance for courage. Until then, just spend some time getting accustomed to your new home.”
“It’s a strange place,” said Sir Henry. “You know, last night I thought I heard a woman crying.”
“That’s odd. I thought I heard it, too.”
“Odd? Well, if I could hear it, why shouldn’t you?”
The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles Page 16