The Victorian Mystery Megapack (173 page)

“He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have been murdered—the one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast which he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in his wild flight to escape from it. But now we have to prove the connection between the man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we cannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since Sir Henry has evidently died from the fall. But, by heavens, cunning as he is, the fellow shall be in my power before another day is past!”

We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body, overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then as the moon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy moor, half silver and half gloom. Far away, miles off, in the direction of Grimpen, a single steady yellow light was shining. It could only come from the lonely abode of the Stapletons. With a bitter curse I shook my fist at it as I gazed.

“Why should we not seize him at once?”

“Our case is not complete. The fellow is wary and cunning to the last degree. It is not what we know, but what we can prove. If we make one false move the villain may escape us yet.”

“What can we do?”

“There will be plenty for us to do tomorrow. Tonight we can only perform the last offices to our poor friend.”

Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached the body, black and clear against the silvered stones. The agony of those contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my eyes with tears.

“We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him all the way to the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?”

He had uttered a cry and bent over the body. Now he was dancing and laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my stern, self-contained friend? These were hidden fires, indeed!

“A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!”

“A beard?”

“It is not the baronet—it is—why, it is my neighbour, the convict!”

With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping beard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There could be no doubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was indeed the same face which had glared upon me in the light of the candle from over the rock—the face of Selden, the criminal.

Then in an instant it was all clear to me. I remembered how the baronet had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to Barrymore. Barrymore had passed it on in order to help Selden in his escape. Boots, shirt, cap—it was all Sir Henry’s. The tragedy was still black enough, but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of his country. I told Holmes how the matter stood, my heart bubbling over with thankfulness and joy.

“Then the clothes have been the poor devil’s death,” said he. “It is clear enough that the hound has been laid on from some article of Sir Henry’s—the boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all probability—and so ran this man down. There is one very singular thing, however: How came Selden, in the darkness, to know that the hound was on his trail?”

“He heard him.”

“To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like this convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture by screaming wildly for help. By his cries he must have run a long way after he knew the animal was on his track. How did he know?”

“A greater mystery to me is why this hound, presuming that all our conjectures are correct—”

“I presume nothing.”

“Well, then, why this hound should be loose tonight. I suppose that it does not always run loose upon the moor. Stapleton would not let it go unless he had reason to think that Sir Henry would be there.”

“My difficulty is the more formidable of the two, for I think that we shall very shortly get an explanation of yours, while mine may remain forever a mystery. The question now is, what shall we do with this poor wretch’s body? We cannot leave it here to the foxes and the ravens.”

“I suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can communicate with the police.”

“Exactly. I have no doubt that you and I could carry it so far. Halloa, Watson, what’s this? It’s the man himself, by all that’s wonderful and audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions—not a word, or my plans crumble to the ground.”

A figure was approaching us over the moor, and I saw the dull red glow of a cigar. The moon shone upon him, and I could distinguish the dapper shape and jaunty walk of the naturalist. He stopped when he saw us, and then came on again.

“Why, Dr. Watson, that’s not you, is it? You are the last man that I should have expected to see out on the moor at this time of night. But, dear me, what’s this? Somebody hurt? Not—don’t tell me that it is our friend Sir Henry!” He hurried past me and stooped over the dead man. I heard a sharp intake of his breath and the cigar fell from his fingers.

“Who—who’s this?” he stammered.

“It is Selden, the man who escaped from Princetown.”

Stapleton turned a ghastly face upon us, but by a supreme effort he had overcome his amazement and his disappointment. He looked sharply from Holmes to me. “Dear me! What a very shocking affair! How did he die?”

“He appears to have broken his neck by falling over these rocks. My friend and I were strolling on the moor when we heard a cry.”

“I heard a cry also. That was what brought me out. I was uneasy about Sir Henry.”

“Why about Sir Henry in particular?” I could not help asking.

“Because I had suggested that he should come over. When he did not come I was surprised, and I naturally became alarmed for his safety when I heard cries upon the moor. By the way”—his eyes darted again from my face to Holmes’s—“did you hear anything else besides a cry?”

“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.”

“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 face 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.

Chapter 13: Fixing the Nets

“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 paralyzing 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; 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.”

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 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.”

“I have no doubt that you would have had a more lively evening,” said Holmes drily. “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, as 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.”