The Hound of the Baskervilles

As they cross the moor, Holmes expresses admiration for the way Stapleton recovered from the shock of seeing the wrong man killed by the dog. Watson wants to arrest Stapleton at once, but Holmes says no evidence yet points directly to the hound as the perpetrator in the deaths of Sir Charles or Selden. He warns Watson not to mention the probable connection between Selden’s death and Stapleton’s plot against Sir Henry, as the baronet will dine with the Stapletons the next evening and will need to be calm.

At Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry welcomes Holmes. The detective warns him that he knows about the harboring of Selden, and he may have to arrest the entire household. Sir Henry, however, is more interested in the main case. Holmes says the mystery is nearly solved, but Sir Henry must follow his instructions without asking the reasons.

At dinner, Holmes asks about the portraits that hang on the walls. He notes that some are painted by famous artists. Sir Henry describes each of his ancestors depicted in the portraits. One is Hugo Baskerville; his portrait captures Holmes’s eye throughout the meal. Later, Holmes and Watson study the painting in detail, and they realize that Hugo bears a close resemblance to Stapleton. Holmes declares, “The fellow is a Baskerville—that is evident” (58). Stapleton’s motive is clear: He wants to remove all others who stand in the way of his own claim to the baronetcy.

In the morning, Holmes tells Sir Henry to attend the dinner at the Stapletons’ home, to inform them that Holmes and Watson must return to London on urgent business. Sir Henry will then walk back from Merripit House using the shortest route. Holmes assures the baronet he will be safe if he follows these instructions exactly.

Holmes and Watson travel to the Coombe Tracey train station, where Cartwright awaits. Holmes tells the boy to take the train to London and send a wire to Sir Henry asking him to retrieve a pocketbook Holmes dropped. Cartwright also gives Holmes a message from Inspector Lestrade, announcing that he is on his way to Dartmoor.

They walk to Laura Lyons’s office. Holmes bluntly informs her that Stapleton murdered Sir Charles and that Beryl is his wife. He shows photos and papers of the couple at St Oliver’s private school that prove it. Angry, Lyons says Stapleton promised to marry her and instead lied about everything. She agrees to tell them whatever they want to know. She adds that she had no intention of harming Sir Charles.

Lyons says Stapleton dictated the letter to Sir Charles seeking an audience, then later dissuaded her from going on the grounds that it really should be he who supports her. He also warned her, after Sir Charles’s death, to keep quiet about the letter, since it would make her a suspect. Holmes adds that Lyons is a loose end in Stapleton’s plans, and she is lucky to be alive.

Back at the station, they meet Lestrade.

Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade ride back to the entrance to Baskerville Hall, pay off the wagonette driver, then walk to within 200 yards of Merripit House. The nighttime moon shines on a layer of fog that moves across the moor. Watson scurries forward and, from behind a wall, peers through the house’s windows to see Sir Henry and Stapleton chatting over smokes and drinks. Beryl is not there.

Stapleton excuses himself, steps out back, unlocks a small outbuilding, and enters it. Watson hears “a curious scuffling noise from within” (62). Stapleton reemerges and goes back inside Merripit House.

Holmes wonders where Beryl could be. He worries about the fog since it may obscure the path home and foil Holmes’s plan. The thick fog wraps around the house. Soon, none of them will be able to see their own hands in front of them. The trio retreats until they are half a mile from the house.

Sir Henry finally appears and walks past, looking nervously around him. Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade hear a patter of feet. Emerging from the fog is “an enormous coal-black hound […] Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame” (63). Recovering from the shock of it, Holmes and Watson fire at the huge dog, which yelps in pain but keeps running after Sir Henry.

Holmes sprints after the beast. The animal leaps onto Sir Henry, knocking him down. It closes its jaws around the screaming baronet’s neck just as Holmes empties his gun into it. The hound rolls over, howling and kicking, and lies still. Watson puts his gun to the dog’s head, but the animal is already dead.

Sir Henry’s neck shows no wounds, but he lies insensible. Lestrade revives him with brandy. Holmes says they have slain the beast. Its eyes and muzzle glow eerily; Watson finds it is simply phosphorescent paint applied to make the creature more frightening. Holmes apologizes to Sir Henry for risking his life to save it. He had not expected so spectral a creature, and the fog nearly gave the dog deadly cover.

They leave Sir Henry and hurry to Merripit House in search of Stapleton, but he is not there. Upstairs, they break into Stapleton’s collection room. It is filled with samples of butterflies. Lashed to a support beam in the center of the room is Beryl, half-faint from a beating. After they untie her, she sags to the floor and asks about Sir Henry. They assure her he is alright and the dog is dead. She calls Stapleton a villain who proved he has no love for her.

Holmes asks where Stapleton went. Beryl says he kept his dog on an island in the Grimpen Mire. He put up wands along the pathway to the island, but in this fog there is little chance he or his pursuers can find them.

Lestrade takes charge of the house while Holmes and Watson accompany Sir Henry back to the Hall. He hears the entire story and accepts the truth about Beryl, but he lapses into a fever. Dr. Mortimer tends to him.

In the morning, Beryl points Holmes and Watson to the path through the mire, and they follow it across the foul-smelling bogs, slipping now and then into dangerous thigh-high water traps. They spot Sir Henry’s missing boot—Stapleton used it to train the dog to the baronet’s scent—and Holmes, retrieving it, sinks into the bog and must be pulled free.

They reach the island and find signs of the hound at the entrance to an abandoned, trash-strewn mine but no trace of Stapleton. He must have slipped during his nighttime escape and fallen into the mire. They discover the fur and skeletal remains of another dog and conclude it is Dr. Mortimer’s missing spaniel. They also notice a tin of phosphorus paste that Stapleton used on the dog’s head.

Pointing at the bog, Holmes says, “Never yet have we helped to hunt down a more dangerous man than he who is lying yonder” (66).

By November, Holmes has solved two more cases involving a scandal and a faked murder. Sir Henry and Dr Mortimer drop by on their way to a round-the-world voyage meant to restore the baronet’s health after the terror on the moor.

That evening, as they sit in their flat, Watson asks Holmes to clear up some details about the Baskerville affair. Holmes admits that each new case tends to blur his memories of the previous one. Still, he attempts to sum up his Devonshire investigation.

He spoke at length to Beryl, who cleared up several questions. Stapleton is actually Rodger Baskerville, son of Sir Charles’s brother Rodger who left England under a cloud of disgrace. Rodger married Beryl Garcia of Costa Rica, stole a large sum of money, and returned to England, where the couple changed their name to Vandeleur and established a school around a great teacher they met. The teacher, suffering from tuberculosis, died, and the school collapsed. The Vandeleurs abandoned it, became the Stapletons, and took their remaining money to Devonshire. Ironically, a moth discovered by Rodger is given the Vandeleur name.

Hoping somehow to acquire the Baskerville estate, Stapleton befriended Sir Charles, whose tale of the ancestral hound became the source of his own death. Stapleton bought a huge dog, kenneled it at the Grimpen Mire island, and tried but failed to get his balking wife to lure Sir Charles onto the moor. He discovered Laura Lyons’s financial problem and manipulated her and events so that the baronet would die of fright.

When Stapleton learned of yet another Baskerville ahead of him, he thought to murder Sir Henry outright in London. Beryl, imprisoned in their hotel, sent Sir Henry the scissored message. When Holmes inspected the scissored message of warning, he detected the aroma of a perfume. Thereafter, his prime suspect was Stapleton and his wife.

Stapleton, meanwhile, spied on Sir Henry from a carriage, his face hidden by a false beard. Needing a sample of Sir Henry’s clothing to show to the dog, Stapleton stole the boot but realized it was new and therefore useless to him, so he stole a different boot.

While in London, Stapleton’s longtime servant, Anthony cared for the dog. As proof, Holmes saw Anthony hiking across the Grimpen Mire. Holmes stayed on the moor only as needed; the rest of the time he was at Coombes Tracey.

By the time Watson found Holmes on the moor, the detective had solved the mystery and needed only to spring his trap on Stapleton. He did not anticipate that the hound would look so gruesome, nor that the fog would cloak the beast until the last, frightening moment.

Had Stapleton succeeded in his crimes, he could have pressed his case under his real name by mail and wire from another country. He might instead have disguised himself for the short time needed to present his case to the London courts. Finally, he could have put someone forward as the real heir and, in the shadows, extracted income from that person.

Holmes ends the conversation by suggesting dinner out, followed by a visit to the opera.