So far I have been able to quote from the reports which I have forwarded
during these early days to Sherlock Holmes. Now, however, I have arrived at a
point in my narrative where I am compelled to abandon this method and to
trust once more to my recollections, aided by the diary which I kept at the
time. A few extracts from the latter will carry me on to those scenes which are
indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory. I proceed, then, from the
morning which followed our abortive chase of the convict and our other
strange experiences upon the moor.
October 16th. A dull and foggy day with a drizzle of rain. The house is banked
in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the dreary curves of
the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the sides of the hills, and the distant
boulders gleaming where the light strikes upon their wet faces. It is
melancholy outside and in. The baronet is in a black reaction after the
excitements of the night. I am conscious myself of a weight at my heart and a
feeling of impending danger—ever present danger, which is the more terrible
because I am unable to define it.
And have I not cause for such a feeling? Consider the long sequence of
incidents which have all pointed to some sinister influence which is at work
around us. There is the death of the last occupant of the Hall, fulfilling so
exactly the conditions of the family legend, and there are the repeated reports
from peasants of the appearance of a strange creature upon the moor. Twice I
have with my own ears heard the sound which resembled the distant baying of
a hound. It is incredible, impossible, that it should really be outside the
ordinary laws of nature. A spectral hound which leaves material footmarks and
fills the air with its howling is surely not to be thought of. Stapleton may fall
in with such a superstition, and Mortimer also, but if I have one quality upon
earth it is common sense, and nothing will persuade me to believe in such a
thing. To do so would be to descend to the level of these poor peasants, who
are not content with a mere fiend dog but must needs describe him with hellfire shooting from his mouth and eyes. Holmes would not listen to such
fancies, and I am his agent. But facts are facts, and I have twice heard this
crying upon the moor. Suppose that there were really some huge hound loose
upon it; that would go far to explain everything. But where could such a hound
lie concealed, where did it get its food, where did it come from, how was it
that no one saw it by day? It must be confessed that the natural explanation
offers almost as many difficulties as the other. And always, apart from the
hound, there is the fact of the human agency in London, the man in the cab,
and the letter which warned Sir Henry against the moor. This at least was real,
but it might have been the work of a protecting friend as easily as of an enemy.
Where is that friend or enemy now? Has he remained in London, or has he
followed us down here? Could he—could he be the stranger whom I saw upon
the tor?
It is true that I have had only the one glance at him, and yet there are some
things to which I am ready to swear. He is no one whom I have seen down
here, and I have now met all the neighbours. The figure was far taller than that
of Stapleton, far thinner than that of Frankland. Barrymore it might possibly
have been, but we had left him behind us, and I am certain that he could not have followed us. A stranger then is still dogging us, just as a stranger dogged
us in London. We have never shaken him off. If I could lay my hands upon
that man, then at last we might find ourselves at the end of all our difficulties.
To this one purpose I must now devote all my energies.
My first impulse was to tell Sir Henry all my plans. My second and wisest one
is to play my own game and speak as little as possible to anyone. He is silent
and distrait. His nerves have been strangely shaken by that sound upon the
moor. I will say nothing to add to his anxieties, but I will take my own steps to
attain my own end.
We had a small scene this morning after breakfast. Barrymore asked leave to
speak with Sir Henry, and they were closeted in his study some little time.
Sitting in the billiard-room I more than once heard the sound of voices raised,
and I had a pretty good idea what the point was which was under discussion.
After a time the baronet opened his door and called for me. "Barrymore
considers that he has a grievance," he said. "He thinks that it was unfair on our
part to hunt his brother-in-law down when he, of his own free will, had told us
the secret."
The butler was standing very pale but very collected before us.
"I may have spoken too warmly, sir," said he, "and if I have, I am sure that I
beg your pardon. At the same time, I was very much surprised when I heard
you two gentlemen come back this morning and learned that you had been
chasing Selden. The poor fellow has enough to fight against without my
putting more upon his track."
"If you had told us of your own free will it would have been a different thing,"
said the baronet, "you only told us, or rather your wife only told us, when it
was forced from you and you could not help yourself."
"I didn't think you would have taken advantage of it, Sir Henry—indeed I
didn't."
"The man is a public danger. There are lonely houses scattered over the moor,
and he is a fellow who would stick at nothing. You only want to get a glimpse
of his face to see that. Look at Mr. Stapleton's house, for example, with no one
but himself to defend it. There's no safety for anyone until he is under lock and
key."
"He'll break into no house, sir. I give you my solemn word upon that. But he
will never trouble anyone in this country again. I assure you, Sir Henry, that in
a very few days the necessary arrangements will have been made and he will
be on his way to South America. For God's sake, sir, I beg of you not to let the
police know that he is still on the moor. They have given up the chase there,
and he can lie quiet until the ship is ready for him. You can't tell on him
without getting my wife and me into trouble. I beg you, sir, to say nothing to the police."
"What do you say, Watson?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "If he were safely out of the country it would relieve
the tax-payer of a burden."
"But how about the chance of his holding someone up before he goes?"
"He would not do anything so mad, sir. We have provided him with all that he
can want. To commit a crime would be to show where he was hiding."
"That is true," said Sir Henry. "Well, Barrymore—"
"God bless you, sir, and thank you from my heart! It would have killed my
poor wife had he been taken again."
"I guess we are aiding and abetting a felony, Watson? But, after what we have
heard I don't feel as if I could give the man up, so there is an end of it. All
right, Barrymore, you can go."
With a few broken words of gratitude the man turned, but he hesitated and
then came back.
"You've been so kind to us, sir, that I should like to do the best I can for you in
return. I know something, Sir Henry, and perhaps I should have said it before,
but it was long after the inquest that I found it out. I've never breathed a word
about it yet to mortal man. It's about poor Sir Charles's death."
The baronet and I were both upon our feet. "Do you know how he died?"
"No, sir, I don't know that."
"What then?"
"I know why he was at the gate at that hour. It was to meet a woman."
"To meet a woman! He?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the woman's name?"
"I can't give you the name, sir, but I can give you the initials. Her initials were
L. L."
"How do you know this, Barrymore?"
"Well, Sir Henry, your uncle had a letter that morning. He had usually a great
many letters, for he was a public man and well known for his kind heart, so
that everyone who was in trouble was glad to turn to him. But that morning, as
it chanced, there was only this one letter, so I took the more notice of it. It was
from Coombe Tracey, and it was addressed in a woman's hand."
"Well?"
"Well, sir, I thought no more of the matter, and never would have done had it
not been for my wife. Only a few weeks ago she was cleaning out Sir
Charles's study—it had never been touched since his death—and she found the
ashes of a burned letter in the back of the grate. The greater part of it was
charred to pieces, but one little slip, the end of a page, hung together, and the
writing could still be read, though it was gray on a black ground. It seemed to
us to be a postscript at the end of the letter and it said: 'Please, please, as you
are a gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten o clock. Beneath it
were signed the initials L. L."
"Have you got that slip?"
"No, sir, it crumbled all to bits after we moved it."
"Had Sir Charles received any other letters in the same writing?"
"Well, sir, I took no particular notice of his letters. I should not have noticed
this one, only it happened to come alone."
"And you have no idea who L. L. is?"
"No, sir. No more than you have. But I expect if we could lay our hands upon
that lady we should know more about Sir Charles's death."
"I cannot understand, Barrymore, how you came to conceal this important
information."
"Well, sir, it was immediately after that our own trouble came to us. And then
again, sir, we were both of us very fond of Sir Charles, as we well might be
considering all that he has done for us. To rake this up couldn't help our poor
master, and it's well to go carefully when there's a lady in the case. Even the
best of us—"
"You thought it might injure his reputation?"
"Well, sir, I thought no good could come of it. But now you have been kind to
us, and I feel as if it would be treating you unfairly not to tell you all that I
know about the matter."
"Very good, Barrymore; you can go." When the butler had left us Sir Henry
turned to me. "Well, Watson, what do you think of this new light?"
"It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before."
"So I think. But if we can only trace L. L. it should clear up the whole
business. We have gained that much. We know that there is someone who has
the facts if we can only find her. What do you think we should do?"
"Let Holmes know all about it at once. It will give him the clue for which he
has been seeking. I am much mistaken if it does not bring him down."
I went at once to my room and drew up my report of the morning's conversation for Holmes. It was evident to me that he had been very busy of
late, for the notes which I had from Baker Street were few and short, with no
comments upon the information which I had supplied and hardly any reference
to my mission. No doubt his blackmailing case is absorbing all his faculties.
And yet this new factor must surely arrest his attention and renew his interest.
I wish that he were here.
October 17th. All day today the rain poured down, rustling on the ivy and
dripping from the eaves. I thought of the convict out upon the bleak, cold,
shelterless moor. Poor devil! Whatever his crimes, he has suffered something
to atone for them. And then I thought of that other one—the face in the cab,
the figure against the moon. Was he also out in that deluged—the unseen
watcher, the man of darkness? In the evening I put on my waterproof and I
walked far upon the sodden moor, full of dark imaginings, the rain beating
upon my face and the wind whistling about my ears. God help those who
wander into the great mire now, for even the firm uplands are becoming a
morass. I found the black tor upon which I had seen the solitary watcher, and
from its craggy summit I looked out myself across the melancholy downs.
Rain squalls drifted across their russet face, and the heavy, slate-coloured
clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in gray wreaths down the sides of
the fantastic hills. In the distant hollow on the left, half hidden by the mist, the
two thin towers of Baskerville Hall rose above the trees. They were the only
signs of human life which I could see, save only those prehistoric huts which
lay thickly upon the slopes of the hills. Nowhere was there any trace of that
lonely man whom I had seen on the same spot two nights before.
As I walked back I was overtaken by Dr. Mortimer driving in his dog-cart over
a rough moorland track which led from the outlying farmhouse of Foulmire.
He has been very attentive to us, and hardly a day has passed that he has not
called at the Hall to see how we were getting on. He insisted upon my
climbing into his dog-cart, and he gave me a lift homeward. I found him much
troubled over the disappearance of his little spaniel. It had wandered on to the
moor and had never come back. I gave him such consolation as I might, but I
thought of the pony on the Grimpen Mire, and I do not fancy that he will see
his little dog again.
"By the way, Mortimer," said I as we jolted along the rough road, "I suppose
there are few people living within driving distance of this whom you do not
know?"
"Hardly any, I think."
"Can you, then, tell me the name of any woman whose initials are L. L.?"
He thought for a few minutes.
"No," said he. "There are a few gipsies and labouring folk for whom I can't answer, but among the farmers or gentry there is no one whose initials are
those. Wait a bit though," he added after a pause. "There is Laura Lyons—her
initials are L. L.—but she lives in Coombe Tracey."
"Who is she?" I asked.
"She is Frankland's daughter."
"What! Old Frankland the crank?"
"Exactly. She married an artist named Lyons, who came sketching on the
moor. He proved to be a blackguard and deserted her. The fault from what I
hear may not have been entirely on one side. Her father refused to have
anything to do with her because she had married without his consent and
perhaps for one or two other reasons as well. So, between the old sinner and
the young one the girl has had a pretty bad time."
"How does she live?"
"I fancy old Frankland allows her a pittance, but it cannot be more, for his own
affairs are considerably involved. Whatever she may have deserved one could
not allow her to go hopelessly to the bad. Her story got about, and several of
the people here did something to enable her to earn an honest living. Stapleton
did for one, and Sir Charles for another. I gave a trifle myself. It was to set her
up in a typewriting business."
He wanted to know the object of my inquiries, but I managed to satisfy his
curiosity without telling him too much, for there is no reason why we should
take anyone into our confidence. Tomorrow morning I shall find my way to
Coombe Tracey, and if I can see this Mrs. Laura Lyons, of equivocal
reputation, a long step will have been made towards clearing one incident in
this chain of mysteries. I am certainly developing the wisdom of the serpent,
for when Mortimer pressed his questions to an inconvenient extent I asked him
casually to what type Frankland's skull belonged, and so heard nothing but
craniology for the rest of our drive. I have not lived for years with Sherlock
Holmes for nothing.
I have only one other incident to record upon this tempestuous and melancholy
day. This was my conversation with Barrymore just now, which gives me one
more strong card which I can play in due time.
Mortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and the baronet played ecarte
afterwards. The butler brought me my coffee into the library, and I took the
chance to ask him a few questions.
"Well," said I, "has this precious relation of yours departed, or is he still
lurking out yonder?"
"I don't know, sir. I hope to heaven that he has gone, for he has brought
nothing but trouble here! I've not heard of him since I left out food for him last, and that was three days ago."
"Did you see him then?"
"No, sir, but the food was gone when next I went that way."
"Then he was certainly there?"
"So you would think, sir, unless it was the other man who took it."
I sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my lips and stared at Barrymore.
"You know that there is another man then?"
"Yes, sir; there is another man upon the moor."
"Have you seen him?"
"No, sir."
"How do you know of him then?"
"Selden told me of him, sir, a week ago or more. He's in hiding, too, but he's
not a convict as far as I can make out. I don't like it, Dr. Watson—I tell you
straight, sir, that I don't like it." He spoke with a sudden passion of
earnestness.
"Now, listen to me, Barrymore! I have no interest in this matter but that of
your master. I have come here with no object except to help him. Tell me,
frankly, what it is that you don't like."
Barrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he regretted his outburst or found it
difficult to express his own feelings in words.
"It's all these goings-on, sir," he cried at last, waving his hand towards the
rain-lashed window which faced the moor. "There's foul play somewhere, and
there's black villainy brewing, to that I'll swear! Very glad I should be, sir, to
see Sir Henry on his way back to London again!"
"But what is it that alarms you?"
"Look at Sir Charles's death! That was bad enough, for all that the coroner
said. Look at the noises on the moor at night. There's not a man would cross it
after sundown if he was paid for it. Look at this stranger hiding out yonder,
and watching and waiting! What's he waiting for? What does it mean? It
means no good to anyone of the name of Baskerville, and very glad I shall be
to be quit of it all on the day that Sir Henry's new servants are ready to take
over the Hall."
"But about this stranger," said I. "Can you tell me anything about him? What
did Selden say? Did he find out where he hid, or what he was doing?"
"He saw him once or twice, but he is a deep one and gives nothing away. At
first he thought that he was the police, but soon he found that he had some lay of his own. A kind of gentleman he was, as far as he could see, but what he
was doing he could not make out."
"And where did he say that he lived?"
"Among the old houses on the hillside—the stone huts where the old folk used
to live."
"But how about his food?"
"Selden found out that he has got a lad who works for him and brings all he
needs. I dare say he goes to Coombe Tracey for what he wants."
"Very good, Barrymore. We may talk further of this some other time." When
the butler had gone I walked over to the black window, and I looked through a
blurred pane at the driving clouds and at the tossing outline of the wind-swept
trees. It is a wild night indoors, and what must it be in a stone hut upon the
moor. What passion of hatred can it be which leads a man to lurk in such a
place at such a time! And what deep and earnest purpose can he have which
calls for such a trial! There, in that hut upon the moor, seems to lie the very
centre of that problem which has vexed me so sorely. I swear that another day
shall not have passed before I have done all that man can do to reach the heart
of the mystery.