The Hound of the Baskervilles

Mortimer brings out a manuscript. Holmes immediately guesses its date as roughly 1730; Mortimer says it is from 1742. It was given to him by his friend and patient Sir Charles Baskerville before his tragic death three months earlier. Mortimer reads it aloud. Written by an ancestor of Sir Charles, it tells of a mysterious hound and how it came to haunt the estate.

During the English Civil War, referred to as the “Great Rebellion,” the manor was owned by Hugo Baskerville, an evil-minded drunkard who kidnapped a lovely maiden and imprisoned her in his mansion. While he and 13 guests celebrated with a drunken supper, the young woman escaped across the nighttime moorlands. Enraged, Hugo set the hounds on her and chased after them on horseback. His guests followed on their mounts.

They came upon a shepherd who said he saw the maiden pursued by hounds, but also Hugo riding past, “and there ran mute behind him such a hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels” (5). Shortly thereafter, Hugo’s terrified horse, its saddle empty, galloped past. The guests located the hounds, who were huddled in fear. Three of the bravest guests continued onward and found the maiden lying dead of fear at the base of two great stones placed by an ancient people. Beside her laid Hugo, and upon him was the gigantic hound, tearing at his throat. Screaming in terror, the pursuers raced away; one died of fright, and the other two lived out their lives as ruined men.

The writer declares that Hugo’s descendants have been plagued by the hound ever since, and that many have suffered deaths “sudden, bloody, and mysterious” (5). He warns his sons never to cross the moor at night.

Holmes yawns and says the story sounds like a fairy tale. Mortimer pulls out a newspaper report on the death of Sir Charles. The report says that Charles made a fortune in South Africa and brought his wealth back to restore the manor and benefit the local villages. Mortimer and his two house servants, a married couple named the Barrymores, agree that Sir Charles was lately in ill health, and that it is likely his heart gave out.

On the day of his death, Sir Charles went for his usual evening walk down a pathway lined with hedges to a gate that opened onto the moor. From there, his footprints continue down the path but only his toe-prints are visible. A Romani living nearby claims to have heard screams, but Sir Charles’s body showed no evidence of violence, save for a grimace of sheer horror on his face. Such expressions sometimes occur in the deaths of heart patients, and the coroner’s inquest found heart disease. Sir Charles’s next of kin is Henry Baskerville, who has been living in North America.

Holmes shows great interest in the case. Mortimer admits he has been reluctant to discuss certain evidence that might drive away Henry. He confides that Sir Charles had become haunted by the story of the great hound. One night, he and Sir Charles saw a large animal crossing the driveway. Mortimer suggested to Sir Charles that he spend some time in London, away from the moor and his fears, but he died the night before he was to leave. Mortimer examined the body, which was facing down and clutching at the ground.

Mortimer saw no other signs of people. A short distance away, though, he identified animal signs: “They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!” (8)

Holmes questions Mortimer and learns that the pathway gate to the moor was padlocked but low enough for a person to jump over. Sir Charles’s cigar ash fell twice at the gate, indicating that the man had stood there awhile. Mortimer spoke to sober-minded neighbors who agree that a large animal, “luminous, ghastly, and spectral” (9), dwells on the moor.

Holmes is skeptical. He asks why Mortimer has come to him if he believes in the monster stories. Mortimer says Sir Henry Baskerville, last of the Baskervilles, will arrive shortly from Canada, and Mortimer, as estate executor, does not know what to tell him. Sir Henry is the son of one of Sir Charles’s deceased brothers. Another brother, Rodger, said to be the image of Hugo, got into trouble with the law and ran off to Central America, where he died in 1876. Without Sir Henry, the vast wealth of Baskerville will become idle and fail to benefit the countryside.

Holmes asks Mortimer to bring Sir Henry to him on the following day. He asks a final question about whether any witnesses to the spectral hound have seen it since Sir Charles’s death. Mortimer says he has not heard any such reports.

Watson departs for his club to give Holmes several hours to ponder. He returns in the evening and finds their sitting room filled with tobacco smoke. Holmes has been puffing on his pipe and drinking coffee while studying a large map of the region around Baskerville Hall that includes a scattering of nearby buildings and residences.

Holmes says Sir Charles must have been waiting at the gate for someone or something, that his tiptoe footprints are signs of a man running, and that he was so frightened that, though screaming for help, he ran away from his house, and then his weak heart burst and he died: “The thing takes shape, Watson. It becomes coherent” (12).

Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer arrive at Holmes’s apartments at ten a.m. Sir Henry is short and powerfully built, with a “pugnacious” outdoorsy face but a gentlemanly air. He tells Holmes of a note he received at his hotel, which puzzles him because he decided on the hotel at the last moment, and only Dr Mortimer knew of it. The message, made mostly of pasted-on letters, reads: “As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor” (12).

Holmes opens yesterday’s London Times and quickly finds in the lead article every word in the warning note except for “moor,” which in the note is written in ink. The others are duly impressed; Holmes explains that typefaces are of great interest to him, and he recognized the Times’s at once.

Judging from the shortness of the edge snips, the words were clipped by nail scissors. The newspaper would be obtained by someone in the educated classes. The rough handwriting of the note’s address is meant to hide the sender’s identity. Pen ink gave the sender some trouble, which suggests the note was written at a hotel, where ink bottles often run dry. The sender prepared the note in a hurry, perhaps from a fear of being discovered. Holmes believes the sender can be identified after a search of waste baskets at nearby hotels.

The detective pauses at something else in the message, but he offers no explanation. Sir Henry says, “I seem to have walked right into the thick of a dime novel” (14). Holmes asks if anything else odd has happened to him since he arrived. Sir Henry says he went clothes shopping; among his purchases was a pair of boots, which he left outside his hotel door to be varnished, but in the morning only one boot remained.

Dr Mortimer repeats to Sir Henry the story about the great hound and its connection to Sir Charles. The young man recognizes the tale as a favorite among his relatives, but he insists that nothing will stop him from taking up residence at Baskerville Hall. Still, he needs to think about how to deal with the situation. He invites Holmes and Watson to lunch at the hotel, where they can discuss the matter further. They accept.

As soon as the two visitors leave, Holmes grabs his coat, and he and Watson follow Dr Mortimer and Sir Henry at a discreet distance. Holmes notices a horse-drawn cab following the clients. A man with a thick black beard and “piercing eyes” stares at them from the cab and signals the driver to hurry away.

Holmes gives chase on foot but soon gives up. He reasons that Sir Henry has been followed since his arrival in London. He and Watson promptly flushed out the spy, but they should have taken a cab themselves instead of hunting on foot. Holmes did, however, manage to get the cab’s number.

They enter a messenger office and hire a boy, Cartwright, to check the wastepaper at local hotels for a scissored-up copy of yesterday’s Times. Holmes gives the boy his copy of the paper, plus money to guarantee the assistance of porters at each hotel. Holmes says that, while the odds of finding the cut-up page are small, Cartwright is to telegram him of the results.

Holmes next sends a message requesting the name of the spy’s cab driver. He and Watson then head to an art gallery.

To pass the time while they wait for their lunch appointment, Holmes and Watson spend two hours at the art gallery. Holmes focuses entirely on the art and discusses it with his friend as if neither had a care in the world. At two p.m., they arrive at the hotel, where Holmes glances at the register and asks about the two guests who signed in since Sir Henry, as if thinking one might be an acquaintance. The clerk assures him that both are regular lodgers.

Upstairs, they meet an angry Sir Henry, who has lost yet another boot but from a different pair. Holmes says it is an interesting and possibly relevant mystery “We hold several threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or other of them guides us to the truth” (18).

In Sir Henry’s rooms after lunch, Holmes agrees with the young man’s decision to travel at once to Baskerville Hall. He informs Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer that they were followed after they left Holmes’s flat, and that such people are hard to keep track of in a big city. He describes the bearded spy; Dr Mortimer says Barrymore, Sir Charles’s butler, has a full, dark beard. They have Dr Mortimer send a telegram to Barrymore, asking if all is prepared for Sir Henry, and stipulating that the message will be returned to them if Barrymore is absent from the manor.

Holmes asks Dr. Mortimer if Barrymore received any money from Sir Charles upon his death. Dr. Mortimer says he did, but so did Mortimer himself and many others. Aside from charities, the remainder of the estate—the very large sum of 740,000 pounds—belongs to Sir Henry. Holmes asks to whom the estate falls if Sir Henry perishes before he can change the will. Dr. Mortimer says it goes to a distant cousin, the elderly cleric James Desmond, who already has refused donations from Sir Charles.

Holmes is busy with multiple cases; he suggests that, for now, Dr Watson accompany Sir Henry for added protection. As Holmes and Watson rise to leave, Sir Henry discovers his missing new boot under a cabinet. He and Dr. Mortimer searched the room carefully earlier in the day.

That evening, Holmes and Watson receive two messages: one from Sir Henry, who confirms that Barrymore is at the manor, and one from Cartwright, who has checked all 23 hotels and found no scissored newspapers in the trash. In answer to the cab query, the driver himself calls Holmes’s flat. Holmes offers him money to describe the man who spied on him that morning. The cabbie says the fare described himself as a detective named Sherlock Holmes. Holmes laughs and says to Watson that he has been outsmarted by a worthy foe. The cabbie adds that, while they were following two gentlemen back from Baker Street to the hotel, the fare suddenly told him to hurry to Waterloo Station, where he disembarked, told the cabbie his name, and disappeared into the crowd.

Holmes says their opponent must have recognized him and, reasoning that the detective would interview the cabbie, gave himself Holmes’s name as a taunt. Holmes concludes that “we have got a foeman who is worthy of our steel,” and that the case is an “ugly dangerous business” (21).