Sherlock Holmes (33 page)

‘Why should I not go?'

‘There seems to be danger.'

‘Do you mean danger from this family fiend or do you mean danger from human beings?'

‘Well, that is what we have to find out.'

‘Whichever it is, my answer is fixed. There is no devil in hell, Mr Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me from going to the home of my own people, and you may take that to be my final answer.' His dark brows knitted and his face flushed to a dusky red as he spoke. It was evident that the fiery temper of the Baskervilles was not extinct in this their last representative.
‘Meanwhile,' said he, ‘I have hardly had time to think over all that you have told me. It's a big thing for a man to have to understand and to decide at one sitting. I should like to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my mind. Now, look here, Mr Holmes, it's half-past eleven now, and I am going back right away to my hotel. Suppose you and your friend, Dr Watson, come round and lunch with us at two? I'll be able to tell you more clearly then how this thing strikes me.'

‘Is that convenient to you, Watson?'

‘Perfectly.'

‘Then you may expect us. Shall I have a cab called?'

‘I'd prefer to walk, for this affair has flurried me rather.'

‘I'll join you in a walk, with pleasure,' said his companion.

‘Then we meet again at two o'clock. Au revoir, and good morning!'

We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the bang of the front door. In an instant Holmes had changed from the languid dreamer to the man of action.

‘Your hat and boots, Watson, quick! Not a moment to lose!' He rushed into his room in his dressing-gown, and was back again in a few seconds in a frock-coat. We hurried together down the stairs and into the street. Dr Mortimer and Baskerville were still visible about two hundred yards ahead of us in the direction of Oxford Street.

‘Shall I run on and stop them?'

‘Not for the world, my dear Watson. I am perfectly satisfied with your company, if you will tolerate mine. Our friends are wise, for it is certainly a very fine morning for a walk.'

He quickened his pace until we had decreased the distance which divided us by about half. Then, still keeping a hundred yards behind, we followed into Oxford Street and so down Regent Street. Once our friends stopped and stared into a shop window, upon which Holmes did the same. An instant afterwards he gave a little cry of satisfaction, and, following the direction of his eager eyes, I saw that a hansom cab with a man inside which had halted on the other side of the street was now walking slowly onwards again.

‘There's our man, Watson! Come along! We'll have a good look at him, if we can do no more.'

At that instant I was aware of a bushy black beard and a pair of piercing eyes turned upon us through the side window of the cab.
Instantly the trapdoor at the top flew up, something was screamed to the driver, and the cab flew madly off down Regent Street. Holmes looked eagerly round for another, but no empty one was in sight. Then he dashed in wild pursuit amid the stream of the traffic, but the start was too great, and already the cab was out of sight.

‘There now!' said Holmes, bitterly, as he emerged panting and white with vexation from the tide of vehicles. ‘Was ever such bad luck and such bad management, too? Watson, Watson, if you are an honest man you will record this also and set it against my successes!'

‘Who was the man?'

‘I have not an idea.'

‘A spy?'

‘Well, it was evident from what we have heard that Baskerville has been very closely shadowed by someone since he has been in town. How else could it be known so quickly that it was the Northumberland Hotel which he had chosen? If they had followed him the first day, I argued that they would follow him also the second. You may have observed that I twice strolled over to the window while Dr Mortimer was reading his legend.'

‘Yes, I remember.'

‘I was looking out for loiterers in the street, but I saw none. We are dealing with a clever man, Watson. This matter cuts very deep, and though I have not finally made up my mind whether it is a benevolent or a malevolent agency which is in touch with us, I am conscious always of power and design. When our friends left I at once followed them in the hopes of marking down their invisible attendant. So wily was he that he had not trusted himself upon foot, but he had availed himself of a cab, so that he could loiter behind or dash past them and so escape their notice. His method had the additional advantage that if they were to take a cab he was all ready to follow them. It has, however, one obvious disadvantage.'

‘It puts him in the power of the cabman.'

‘Exactly.'

‘What a pity we did not get the number!'

‘My dear Watson, clumsy as I have been, you surely do not seriously imagine that I neglected to get the number? 2704 is our man. But that is no use to us for the moment.'

‘I fail to see how you could have done more.'

‘On observing the cab I should have instantly turned and walked in the other direction. I should then at my leisure have hired a second cab, and followed the first at a respectful distance, or, better still, have driven to the Northumberland Hotel and waited there. When our unknown had followed Baskerville home we should have had the opportunity of playing his own game upon himself, and seeing where he made for. As it is, by an indiscreet eagerness, which was taken advantage of with extraordinary quickness and energy by our opponent, we have betrayed ourselves and lost our man.'

We had been sauntering slowly down Regent Street during this conversation, and Dr Mortimer, with his companion, had long vanished in front of us.

‘There is no object in our following them,' said Holmes. ‘The shadow has departed and will not return. We must see what further cards we have in our hands, and play them with decision. Could you swear to that man's face within the cab?'

‘I could swear only to the beard.'

‘And so could I – from which I gather that in all probability it was a false one. A clever man upon so delicate an errand has no use for a beard save to conceal his features. Come in here, Watson!'

He turned into one of the district messenger offices, where he was warmly greeted by the manager.

‘Ah, Wilson, I see you have not forgotten the little case in which I had the good fortune to help you?'

‘No, sir, indeed I have not. You saved my good name, and perhaps my life.'

‘My dear fellow, you exaggerate. I have some recollection, Wilson, that you had among your boys a lad named Cartwright, who showed some ability during the investigation.'

‘Yes, sir, he is still with us.'

‘Could you ring him up? Thank you! And I should be glad to have change of this five-pound note.'

A lad of fourteen, with a bright, keen face, had obeyed the summons of the manager. He stood now gazing with great reverence at the famous detective.

‘Let me have the Hotel Directory,' said Holmes. ‘Thank you! Now, Cartwright, there are the names of twenty-three hotels here, all in the immediate neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Do you see?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You will visit each of these in turn.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You will begin in each case by giving the outside porter one shilling. Here are twenty-three shillings.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You will tell him that you want to see the waste paper of yesterday. You will say that an important telegram has miscarried, and that you are looking for it. You understand?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘But what you are really looking for is the centre page of
The Times
with some holes cut in it with scissors. Here is a copy of
The Times.
It is this page. You could easily recognize it, could you not?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘In each case the outside porter will send for the hall porter, to whom also you will give a shilling. Here are twenty-three shillings. You will then learn in possibly twenty cases out of the twenty-three that the waste of the day before has been burned or removed. In the three other cases you will be shown a heap of paper, and will look for this page of
The Times
among it. The odds are enormously against your finding it. There are ten shillings over in case of emergencies. Let me have a report by wire at Baker Street before evening. And now, Watson, it only remains for us to find out by wire the identity of the cabman, No. 2704, and then we will drop into one of the Bond Street picture-galleries and fill in the time until we are due at the hotel.'

Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of detaching his mind at will. For two hours the strange business in which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas, from our leaving the gallery until we found ourselves at the Northumberland Hotel.

‘Sir Henry Baskerville is upstairs expecting you,' said the clerk. ‘He asked me to show you up at once when you came.'

‘Have you any objection to my looking at your register?' said Holmes.

‘Not in the least.'

The book showed that two names had been added after that of Baskerville. One was Theophilus Johnson and family, of Newcastle; the other Mrs Oldmore and maid, of High Lodge, Alton.

‘Surely that must be the same Johnson whom I used to know,' said Holmes to the porter. ‘A lawyer, is he not, grey-headed, and walks with a limp?'

‘No, sir, this is Mr Johnson the coal-owner, a very active gentleman, not older than yourself.'

‘Surely you are mistaken about his trade?'

‘No, sir; he used this hotel for many years, and he is very well known to us.'

‘Ah, that settles it. Mrs Oldmore, too; I seem to remember the name. Excuse my curiosity, but often in calling upon one friend one finds another.'

‘She is an invalid lady, sir. Her husband was once Mayor of Gloucester. She always comes to us when she is in town.'

‘Thank you; I am afraid I cannot claim her acquaintance. We have established a most important fact by these questions, Watson,' he continued, in a low voice, as we went upstairs together. ‘We know now that the people who are so interested in our friend have not settled down in his own hotel. That means that while they are, as we have seen, very anxious to watch him, they are equally anxious that he should not see them. Now, this is a most suggestive fact.'

‘What does it suggest?'

‘It suggests – halloa, my dear fellow, what on earth is the matter?'

As we came round the top of the stairs we had run up against Sir Henry Baskerville himself. His face was flushed with anger, and he held an old and dusty boot in one of his hands. So furious was he that he was hardly articulate, and when he did speak it was in a much broader and more Western dialect than any which we had heard from him in the morning.

‘Seems to me they are playing me for a sucker in this hotel,' he cried. ‘They'll find they've started in to monkey with the wrong man unless they are careful. By thunder, if that chap can't find my missing boot there will be trouble. I can take a joke with the best, Mr Holmes, but they've got a bit over the mark this time.'

‘Still looking for your boot?'

‘Yes, sir, and mean to find it.'

‘But surely, you said that it was a new brown boot?'

‘So it was, sir. And now it's an old black one.'

‘What! you don't mean to say –?'

‘That's just what I do mean to say. I only had three pairs in the world – the new brown, the old black, and the patent leathers, which I am wearing. Last night they took one of my brown ones, and today they have sneaked one of the black. Well, have you got it? Speak out, man, and don't stand staring!'

An agitated German waiter had appeared upon the scene.

‘No, sir; I have made inquiry all over the hotel, but I can hear no word of it.'

‘Well, either, that boot comes back before sundown, or I'll see the manager and tell him that I go right straight out of this hotel.'

‘It shall be found, sir – I promise you that if you will have a little patience it will be found.'

‘Mind it is, for it's the last thing of mine that I'll lose in this den
of thieves. Well, well, Mr Holmes, you'll excuse my troubling you about such a trifle –'

‘I think it's well worth troubling about.'

‘Why, you look very serious over it.'

‘How do you explain it?'

‘I just don't attempt to explain it. It seems the very maddest, queerest thing that ever happened to me.'

‘The queerest, perhaps,' said Holmes, thoughtfully.

‘What do you make of it yourself?'

‘Well, I don't profess to understand it yet. This case of yours is very complex, Sir Henry. When taken in conjunction with your uncle's death I am not sure that of all the five hundred cases of capital importance which I have handled there is one which cuts so deep. But we hold several threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or other of them guides us to the truth. We may waste time in following the wrong one, but sooner or later, we must come upon the right.'

We had a pleasant luncheon in which little was said of the business which had brought us together. It was in the private sitting-room to which we afterwards repaired that Holmes asked Baskerville what were his intentions.

‘To go to Baskerville Hall.'

‘And when?'

‘At the end of the week.'

‘On the whole,' said Holmes, ‘I think that your decision is a wise one. I have ample evidence that you are being dogged in London, and amid the millions of this great city it is difficult to discover who these people are or what their object can be. If their intentions are evil they might do you a mischief, and we should be powerless to prevent it. You did not know, Dr Mortimer, that you were followed this morning from my house?'

Dr Mortimer started violently. ‘Followed! By whom?'

‘That, unfortunately, is what I cannot tell you. Have you among your neighbours or acquaintances on Dartmoor any man with a black, full beard?'

‘No – or, let me see – why, yes. Barrymore, Sir Charles's butler, is a man with a full, black beard.'

‘Ha! Where is Barrymore?'

‘He is in charge of the Hall.'

‘We had best ascertain if he is really there, or if by any possibility he might be in London.'

‘How can you do that?'

‘Give me a telegraph form. “Is all ready for Sir Henry?” That will do. Address to Mr Barrymore, Baskerville Hall. Which is the nearest telegraph office? Grimpen. Very good, we will send a second wire to the postmaster, Grimpen: “Telegram to Mr Barrymore, to be delivered into his own hand. If absent, please return wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel.” That should let us know before evening whether Barrymore is at his post in Devonshire or not.'

‘That's so,' said Baskerville. ‘By the way, Dr Mortimer, who is this Barrymore, anyhow?'

‘He is the son of the old caretaker, who is dead. They have looked after the Hall for four generations now. So far as I know, he and his wife are as respectable a couple as any in the county.'

‘At the same time,' said Baskerville, ‘it's clear enough that so long as there are none of the family at the Hall these people have a mighty fine home and nothing to do.'

‘That is true.'

‘Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir Charles's will?' asked Holmes.

‘He and his wife had five hundred pounds each.'

‘Ha! Did they know that they would receive this?'

‘Yes; Sir Charles was very fond of talking about the provisions of his will.'

‘That is very interesting.'

‘I hope,' said Dr Mortimer, ‘that you do not look with suspicious eyes upon everyone who received a legacy from Sir Charles, for I also had a thousand pounds left to me.'

‘Indeed! And anyone else?'

‘There were many insignificant sums to individuals and a large number of public charities. The residue all went to Sir Henry.'

‘And how much was the residue?'

‘Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.'

Holmes raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘I had no idea that so gigantic a sum was involved,' said he.

‘Sir Charles had the reputation of being rich, but we did not
know how very rich he was until we came to examine his securities. The total value of the estate was close on to a million.'

‘Dear me! It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate game. And one more question, Dr Mortimer. Supposing that anything happened to our young friend here – you will forgive the unpleasant hypothesis! – who would inherit the estate?'

‘Since Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charles's younger brother, died unmarried, the estate would descend to the Desmonds, who are distant cousins. James Desmond is an elderly clergyman in Westmorland.'

‘Thank you. These details are all of great interest. Have you met Mr James Desmond?'

‘Yes; he once came down to visit Sir Charles. He is a man of venerable appearance and of saintly life. I remember that he refused to accept any settlement from Sir Charles, though he pressed it upon him.'

‘And this man of simple tastes would be the heir to Sir Charles's thousands?'

‘He would be the heir to the estate, because that is entailed. He would also be the heir to the money unless it were willed otherwise by the present owner, who can, of course, do what he likes with it.'

‘And have you made your will, Sir Henry?'

‘No, Mr Holmes, I have not. I've had no time, for it was only yesterday that I learned how matters stood. But in any case I feel that the money should go with the title and estate. That was my poor uncle's idea. How is the owner going to restore the glories of the Baskervilles if he has not money enough to keep up the property? House, land, and dollars must go together.'

‘Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of one mind with you as to the advisability of your going down to Devonshire without delay. There is only one provision which I must make. You certainly must not go alone.'

‘Dr Mortimer returns with me.'

‘But Dr Mortimer has his practice to attend to, and his house is miles away from yours. With all the good will in the world, he may be unable to help you. No, Sir Henry, you must take with you someone, a trusty man, who will be always by your side.'

‘Is it possible that you could come yourself, Mr Holmes?'

‘If matters came to a crisis I should endeavour to be present in person; but you can understand that, with my extensive consulting practice and with the constant appeals which reach me from many quarters, it is impossible for me to be absent from London for an indefinite time. At the present instant one of the most revered names in England is being besmirched by a blackmailer, and only I can stop a disastrous scandal. You will see how impossible it is for me to go to Dartmoor.'

‘Whom would you recommend, then?'

Holmes laid his hand upon my arm.

‘If my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I.'

The proposition took me completely by surprise, but before I had time to answer Baskerville seized me by the hand and wrung it heartily.

‘Well, now, that is real kind of you, Dr Watson,' said he. ‘You see how it is with me, and you know just as much about the matter as I do. If you will come down to Baskerville Hall and see me through I'll never forget it.'

The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me, and I was complimented by the words of Holmes and by the eagerness with which the baronet hailed me as a companion.

‘I will come with pleasure,' said I. ‘I do not know how I could employ my time better.'

‘And you will report very carefully to me,' said Holmes. ‘When a crisis comes, as it will do, I will direct how you shall act. I suppose that by Saturday all might be ready?'

‘Would that suit Dr Watson?'

‘Perfectly.'

‘Then on Saturday, unless you hear to the contrary, we shall meet at the 10.30 train from Paddington.'

We had risen to depart when Baskerville gave a cry of triumph, and diving into one of the corners of the room he drew a brown boot from under a cabinet.

‘My missing boot!' he cried.

‘May all our difficulties vanish as easily!' said Sherlock Holmes.

‘But it is a very singular thing,' Dr Mortimer remarked. ‘I searched this room carefully before lunch.'

‘And so did I,' said Baskerville. ‘Every inch of it.'

‘There was certainly no boot in it then.'

‘In that case the waiter must have placed it there while we were lunching.'

The German was sent for, but professed to know nothing of the matter, nor could any inquiry clear it up. Another item had been added to that constant and apparently purposeless series of small mysteries which had succeeded each other so rapidly. Setting aside the whole grim story of Sir Charles's death, we had a line of inexplicable incidents all within the limits of two days, which included the receipt of the printed letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown boot, the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new brown boot. Holmes sat in silence in the cab as we drove back to Baker Street, and I knew from his drawn brows and keen face that his mind, like my own, was busy in endeavouring to frame some scheme into which all these strange and apparently disconnected episodes could be fitted. All afternoon and late into the evening he sat lost in tobacco and thought.

Just before dinner two telegrams were handed in. The first ran:

Have just heard that Barrymore is at the Hall

–
BASKERVILLE.

The second:

Visited twenty-three hotels as directed, but sorry to report unable to trace cut sheet of
Times

–
CARTWRIGHT.

‘There go two of my threads, Watson. There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you. We must cast round for another scent.'

‘We have still the cabman who drove the spy.'

‘Exactly. I have wired to get his name and address from the Official Registry. I should not be surprised if this were an answer to my question.'

The ring at the bell proved to be something even more satisfactory than an answer, however, for the door opened and a rough-looking fellow entered who was evidently the man himself.