The Hound of the Baskervilles: Part Nine

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“I'm Hugh Bonneville, and welcome to the Hound of the Baskerville's Part 9.”

Last time, Holmes began to set his trap for Stapleton, with Sir Henry Baskerville as the bait.

As night fell, the great detective camped out on the foggy moars with Watson and Lestrade in tow. But as the brave Baronet approached their position, they found themselves face-to-face with the mythical beast that had struck fear into generations of the Baskerville family. From the Noiser podcast network, this is the final part of the Hound of the Baskerville's. [music]

“With long bounds, the huge black creature was leaping down the track, following hard upon the footsteps of our friend.”

So paralyzed worry by the apparition that we allowed him to pass before we had recovered our nerve.

Then Holmes and I both fired together, and the creature gave a hideous howl which showed that one at least had hit him. He did not pause, however, but bounded onward. Far away on the path, we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight. His hands raised in horror, clearing helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the Hound had blown all our fears to the winds, if he was vulnerable he was mortal.

“And if we could wound him, we could kill him.”

Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night.

I am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as much as I outpaced the little professional. In front of us, as we flew up the track, we heard scream after scream from Sir Henry and the deep roar of the Hound. I was in time to see the beast spring upon its victim, hurl him to the ground and worry at his throat. But the next instant Holmes had emptied five barrels of his revolver into the creature's flank. With a last howl of agony and a vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back, four feet pouring furiously, and then fell limp upon its side.

I stooped, panting, and pressed my pistol to the dreadful shimmering head, but it was useless to press the trigger. The giant Hound was dead. So Henry lay in sensible where he had fallen. We tore away his collar and Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when we saw that there was no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in time. Already, our friends, eyelids, shivered, and he made a feeble effort to move.

The strad thrust his brandy flask between the barrened teeth and two frightened eyes were looking up at us.

"What was it? What in heaven's name was it?"

“"It's dead, whatever it is," said Holmes.”

"We've laid the family ghost once and forever." In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound, and it was not a pure mastiff, but it appeared to be a combination of the two, gaunt, savage, and as large as a small lioness. Even now, in the stillness of death, the huge jaws seem to be dripping with a blueish flame, and the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire.

I placed my hand upon the glowing muscle, and as I held them up, my own fingers smoldered and gleamed in the darkness.

"Fossless," I said.

“"A cunning preparation of it," said Holmes, sniffing at the dead animal.”

"There is no smell which might have interfered with his power of scent. We owe you a deep apology, Sahenry, for having exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not for such a creature as this, and the fog gave us little time to receive him.

"You have saved my life. Having first endangered it. Are you strong enough to stand?"

"Give me another mouthful of that brandy, and I shall be ready for anything." "So, now if you will help me up, what do you propose to do? To leave you here, you are not fit for further adventures tonight.

“If you will wait one or other of us will go back with you to the hall.”

He tried to stagger to his feet, but he was still ghastly pale and trembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock where he sat shivering with his face buried in his hands. "We must leave you now," said Holmes. "The rest of our work must be done, and every moment is of importance. We have our case, and now we only want our man." "It's a thousand to one against our finding him at the house," he continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path.

Those shots must have told him that the game was up. We were some distance off, and this fog may have didn't them. He followed the hound to call him off of that. You may be certain, "No, no, he's gone by this time. But will search the house and make sure?" The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried from room to room, to the amazement of a dodgering old man's servant who met us in the passage. There was no light save in the dining room, but Holmes caught up the lamp and left no corner of the house unexplored.

No sign could we see of the man whom we were chasing. On the upper floor, however, one of the bedroom doors was locked. "There's someone in here," cried Lestroy. "I can hear a movement open this door. A faint moaning and rustling came from within. Holmes struck the door just over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flew open." Pistol in hand, we all three rushed into the room, but there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant villain whom we expected to see. Instead, we were faced by an object so strange and so unexpected that we stood for a moment staring at it in amazement.

The room had been fashioned into a small museum, and the walls were lined by a number of glass-topped cases, full of that collection of butterflies and moths, the formation of which had been the relaxation of this complex and dangerous man. In the center of this room there was an upright beam, which had been placed at some period as a support for the old worm eaten bulk of timber, which spanned the roof. To this post, a figure was tied. So, swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been used to secure it,

that one could not for the moment tell whether it was that of a man or a woman. One towel passed round the throat and was secured at the back of the pillar, another covered the lower part of the face and over it to dark eyes. Eyes full of grief and shame and a dreadful questioning stared back at us. In a minute, we had torn off the gag and swathed the bonds and Mrs. Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us.

The brooch cried homes. Here, the strut, your brandy bottle, put her in the chair. She has faded from ill usage and exhaustion.

She opened her eyes again. Is he safe? She asked. Have he escaped? He cannot escape us, madam.

“No, no, I did not mean my husband. So, Henry, is he safe? Yes. And the hound?”

It is dead. She gave a long sigh of satisfaction. Oh, thank God. Thank God. Oh, this villain, see how he has treated me. She shot her arms out from her sleeves and we saw with horror that they were all mottled with bruises.

But this is nothing. Nothing. It is my mind and soul that he has tortured and defiled.

I could endure it all ill usage, solitude, a life of deception. Everything, as long as I could still cling to the hope that I had his love. But now I know that in this, also, I have been his dupe and his tool. She broke into passionate sobbing as she spoke. You bear him, no good will, madam, said homes. Tell us then where we shall find him.

“If you have ever aged him in evil, help us now and so atone.”

There is but one place where he can have fled, she answered. There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the Maya. It was there that he kept his hound and there also, he had made preparations so that he might have a refuge. That is where he would fly. The fog bank lay like white wool against the window.

Homes held the lamp towards it. See, said he. No one could find his way into the Grimpen Maya tonight. She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamed with fierce merriment.

“He may find his way in, but never out she cried.”

How can he see that guiding ones tonight? We planted them together here and I, to mark the pathway through the Maya. Oh, if I could only have blocked them out today, then indeed, you would have had him at your mercy.

The story is full of incredible spectacle.

There are a lot of civilizations like the Maya and the Aztecs. There are all kinds of changes in everything. The Black Toth, the California Gold Rush, Chernobyl, the Fall of Berlin Mower. You know this story. But do you ever know more about it?

My name is David Nathan, and I am from a short story about it. Every week we sit in the first row in the arena of the Gladiators. In the sea, on Black Beard's Pirates ship. In the Kaloran city of Peter. With worldwide entertainment experts, the ones who gave us a book in the world.

From the 13-year-old podcast network, Neuza. Such as a short story, where they came across the podcast and follow us on every day of the new episode. It was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog had lifted. Meanwhile, we left Lestrade in possession of the house, while Holmes and I went back with the baronette to basketball hall. The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld from him.

But he took the blow bravely when he learned the truth about the woman whom he had loved. But the shock of the night's adventures had shattered his nerves. And before morning, he laid hilarious in a high fever under the care of Dr. Mortimer. The two of them were destined to travel together around the world before Sahenri had become once more. The hailed hearty man that he had been before he became master of that ill-omondestate.

And now I come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular narrative, in which I have tried to make the reader share those dark fears and vague semises,

On the morning after the death of the Hound, the fog had lifted and we were guided by Mrs. Stapleton to the point where they had found a pathway through the bog.

“It helped us to realize the horror of this woman's life, when we saw the eagerness and joy with which he laid us on her husband's track.”

We left her standing upon the thin peninsula of firm Petey Soil, which tapered out into the widespread bog. From the end of it, the small wand planted here and there showed where the path zigzagged from tough to tough to rushes among those green scumbed pits and foul quagmires, which barred the way to the stranger. Rank reads and lush, slimy waterplans sent an odor of decay and a heavy, mayors-matic vapor onto our faces. While a false step plunged us more than once thigh deep into the dark, quivering mayor, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet.

Its tenacious grip clucked at our heels as we walked, and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in which it held us.

“Once only we saw a trace that someone had passed that perilous way before us, from a mid-a-tuffed of cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime, some dark thing was projecting.”

Holmes sank to his waist as he stepped from the path to seize it, and had we not been there to drag him out he could never have set his foot upon firm land again.

He held an old black boot in the air. Liars Toronto was printed on the leather inside. "It is worth a mud bath," said he, "it is our friend Sahenry's missing boot." Throne there by Stapleton in his flight, exactly. He retained it in his hand after using it to set the hound upon the track, he fled when he knew the game was up still clutching it, and he held it away at this point of his flight. We know at least that he came so far in safety.

But more than that, we were never destined to know, though there was much which we might surmise.

There was no chance of finding footsteps in the Maya for the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon them, but as we at last reached firmer ground beyond the Marass, we all looked eagerly for them. But no slightest sign of them ever met our eyes. If the earth told a true story, then Stapleton never reached that island of refuge towards which he struggled through the fog upon that last night. Somewhere in the heart of the Great Grimpen Maya, down in the foul slime of the huge Marass which had sucked him in, this cold and cruel hearted man is forever buried.

Many traces we found of him in the bog-gurt island where he had hid his savage ally. A huge driving wheel and a shaft half filled with rubbish showed the position of an abandoned mine. Beside it, with a crumbling remains of the cottages of the miners, driven away no doubt by the foul wreak of the surrounding swamp. In one of these, a staple and chain with a quantity of nord bones showed where the animal had been confined. A skeleton with a tangle of brown hair adhering to it lay among the debris.

"A dog," said Holmes, "by jove, a curly-heard spaniel. Poor Mortimer will never see his pet again."

“Well, I do not know that this place contains any secret which we have not already fathomed. He could hide his hand, but he could not hush its voice, and hence came those cries which even in daylight were not pleasant to hear.”

On an emergency he could keep the hound in the outhouse at Medipit, but it was always a risk, and it was only on the Supreme Day, which he regarded as the end of all his efforts that he dared do it. This paste in the tin is no doubt the luminous mixture with which the creature was dorked. It was suggested, of course, by the story of the family hellhound, and by the desire to frighten old suchiles to death. No wonder the poor devil of a convict ran and screamed even as our friend did, and as we ourselves might have done, when he saw such a creature bounding through the darkness of the more upon his track.

It was a cunning device for, apart from the chance of driving your victim to his death, what peasant would venture to inquire too closely into such a creature should he get sight of it as many have done upon the more.

He swept his long arm towards the huge mottled expanse of green spot bog, which stretched away until it merged into the russet slopes of the more.

It was the end of November, and Holmes and I sat upon a raw and foggy night on either side of a blazing fire in our sitting room in Baker Street. Since the tragic upshot of our visit to Devonshire, he had been engaged in two affairs of the utmost importance, in the first of which he had exposed the atrocious conduct of Colonel upward, in connection with the famous card scandal of the non-parail club. While in the second, he had defended the unfortunate Madame Montponsier from the charge of murder, which hung over her in connection with the death of her stepdaughter, Mamsel Carrer, the young lady who, as it will be remembered, was found six months later alive and married in New York.

“My friend was in excellent spirits over the success, which had attended a succession of difficult and important cases, so that I was able to induce him to discuss the details of the basketball mystery.”

I had waited patiently for the opportunity, for I was aware that he would never permit cases to overlap, and that his clear and logical mind would not be drawn from its present work to dwell upon memories of the past. So Henry and Dr. Mortimer were, however, in London, on their way to that long voyage which had been recommended for the restoration of his shattered nerves. They had called upon us that very afternoon, so that it was natural that the subject should come up for discussion. The whole course of events, said Holmes, from the point of view of the man who called himself Stapleton, was simple and direct. Although to us, who had no means in the beginning of knowing the motives of his actions and could only learn part of the facts, it all appeared exceedingly complex.

I have had the advantage of two conversations with Mrs. Stapleton, and the case has now been so entirely cleared up that I am not aware that there is anything which has remained a secret to us.

You will find a few notes upon the matter under the heading B in my indexed list of cases. Perhaps you would kindly give me a sketch of the course of events from memory. Certainly, though I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts in my mind, intense mental concentration has a curious way of blocking out what has passed.

“The barrister, who has his case at his fingers ends, and is able to argue with an expert upon his own subject, finds that a week or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head once more.”

So each of my cases displaces the last, and Manzel Carrier has blurred my recollection of basketball hall.

Tomorrow, some other little problem may be submitted to my notice, which will in turn disposes the fair French lady and the infamous upward.

So far as the case of the Hound does, however, I will give you the course of events as nearly as I can, and you will suggest anything which I may have forgotten. My inquiries show beyond all question that the family portrait did not lie, and that this fellow was indeed a basketball.

“He was a son of that Roger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who fled with a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said to have died unmarried.”

He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had one child, this fellow, whose real name is the same as his father's. He married Beiril Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa Rica, and having perloined a considerable sum of public money, he changed his name to Vunderler, and fled to England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire. His reason for attempting this special line of business was that he had struck up an acquaintance with a consumptive tutor upon the voyage home, and that he had used this man's ability to make the undertaking a success.

Fraser, the tutor, died, however, and the school which had begun well sank from disrepute into infamy. The vandalers found it convenient to change their name to Stapleton, and he brought the remains of his fortune, his schemes for the future, and his taste for entomology to the south of England. I learned at the British Museum that he was a recognized authority upon the subject,

We now come to that portion of his life which is proved to be of such intense interest to us. The fellow had evidently made inquiry and found that only two lives intervened between him and a valuable estate.

“When he went to Davencher, his plans were, I believe, exceedingly hazy,”

but that he meant mischief from the first is evident from the way in which he took his wife with him in the character of his sister.

The idea of using her as a decry was clearly already in his mind, though he may not have been certain how the details of his plot were to be arranged. He meant, in the end, to have the estate, and he was ready to use any tool or run any risk for that end. His first act was to establish himself as near to his ancestral home as he could, and his second was to cultivate a friendship with the Charles Basketville and with the neighbors.

“The Baronet himself told him about the family-hound and so prepared the way for his own death.”

Stapleton, as I will continue to call him, knew that the old man's heart was weak and that his shock would kill him.

So much he had learned from Dr. Mortimer. He had heard also that Sir Charles was superstitious and had taken this grim legend very seriously. His ingenious mind instantly suggested a way by which the Baronet could be done to death, and yet it would be hardly possible to bring home the guilt to the real murderer. Having conceived the idea he proceeded to carry it out with considerable finesse, an ordinary schema would have been content to work with a savage hound, the use of artificial means to make the creature dire ballacle, was a flash of genius upon his part.

The dog he bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fullham Road, it was the strongest and most savage in their possession. He brought it down by the North Devon line and walked a great distance over the more so as to get it home without exciting any remarks.

“He had already on his insect hunts learned to penetrate the Grimpen Maya, and so had found a safe hiding place for the creature. Here he canald it and waited his chance.”

But it was some time coming. The old gentleman could not be decoyed outside of his grounds at night. Several times Stapleton looked about with his hound, but without avail.

It was during these fruitless quests that he, or rather his ally, was seen by peasants, and that the legend of the demon dog received a new confirmation. He had hoped that his wife might lure such a child to his ruin, but here she proved unexpectedly independent. She would not endeavour to entangle the old gentleman in a sentimental attachment, which might deliver him over to his enemy. Let's, and even, I am sorry to say, blows refused to move her. She would have nothing to do with it, and for a time Stapleton was at a deadlock.

He found a way out of his difficulties through the chance that Sir Charles, who had conceived a friendship for him, made him the minister of his charity, in the case of this unfortunate woman, Mrs. Laura Lyons. By representing himself as a single man, he acquired complete influence over her. And he gave her to understand that in the event of her obtaining a divorce from her husband, he would marry her. His plans were suddenly brought to a head by his knowledge that Sir Charles was about to leave the hall on the advice of Dr. Mortimer, with whose opinion he himself pretended to coincide. He must act at once, or his victim might get beyond his power.

He therefore put pressure upon Mrs. Lyons to write this letter, imploring the old man to give her an interview on the evening before his departure for London. He then, by a speechless argument, prevented her from going, and so had the chance for which he had waited. Driving back in the evening from Kuhm Tracy, he was in time to get his hound, to treat it with his infernal paint, and to bring the beast round to the gate at which he had reason to expect that he would find the old gentleman waiting. The dog, incited by its master, sprang over the wicked gate and pursued the unfortunate baronet, who fled screaming down the U. Alley.

He fell dead at the end of the Alley, from heart disease and terror. The hound had kept upon the grassy border, while the baronet had run down the path, so that no track but the man was visible.

“On seeing him lying still, the creature had probably approached to sniff at him, but finding him dead had turned away again. It was then that it left the print, which was actually observed by Dr. Mortimer.”

The hound was called off, and hurried away to its lair in the Grimpen Maya, and a mystery was left, which puzzled the authorities, alarmed the countryside, and finally brought the case within the scope of our observation. So much for the death of such a child's basketball. You perceive the devilish cunning of it, for really it will be almost impossible to make a case against the real murderer.

His only accomplice was one who could never give him away, and the grotesque inconceivable nature of the device only served to make it more effective.

“Both of the women concerned in the case, this is Stapleton and Mrs. Laura Lyons, were left with a strong suspicion against Stapleton.”

Mrs. Stapleton knew that he had designs upon the old man, and also of the existence of the hound. Mrs. Lyons knew neither of these things, but had been impressed by the death occurring at the time of an uncanceled appointment, which was only known to him. However, both of them were under his influence, and he had nothing to fear from them.

The first half of his task was successfully accomplished, but the more difficult still remained.

“It is possible that Stapleton did not know of the existence of an heir in Canada.”

In any case, he would very soon learn of it from his friend, Dr. Mortimer, and he was told by the latter all details about the arrival of Henry Basketball. Stapleton's first idea was that this young stranger from Canada might possibly be done to death in London, without coming down to Devonture at all. He distrusted his wife ever since she had refused to help him in laying a trap for the old man, and he dared not leave her long out of his sight for fear he should lose his influence over her. It was, for this reason, that he took her to London with him. They lodged, I find, at the Mexbara Private Hotel in Craven Street, which was actually one of those called upon by my agent in search of evidence.

Here he kept his wife imprisoned in her room, while he disguised in a beard, followed Dr. Mortimer to Baker Street, and afterwards to the station, and to the Northumberland Hotel. His wife had some inkling of his plans, but she had such a fear of her husband, a fear founded upon brutal ill treatment that she'd dare not write to warm the man whom she knew to be in danger. If the letter should fall into Stapleton's hands, her own life would not be safe. Eventually, as we know, she adopted the expedient of cutting out the words which would form the message and addressing the letter in a disguised hand.

It reached the barrenet and gave him the first warning of his danger. It was very essential for Stapleton to get some article of say Henry's attire, so that in case he was driven to use the dog, he might always have the means of setting him upon his track. With characteristic promptness and audacity, he set about this at once, and we cannot doubt that the boots or chamber-made of the hotel was well-brived to help him in his design.

By chance, however, the first boot which was procured for him was a new one, and therefore useless for his purpose.

He then had it returned and obtained another. A most instructive incident since it proved conclusively to my mind that we were dealing with a real "hound" as no other supposition could explain this anxiety to obtain an old boot and this indifference to a new one. The more "utre" and "grotesque" an incident is, the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is when duly considered and scientifically handled the one which is most likely to elucidate it.

From his knowledge of our rooms and of my appearance, as well as from his general conduct, I am inclined to think that Stapleton's career of crime has been by no means limited to this single basketball affair. It is suggestive that during the last three years there have been four considerable burglaries in the West country, for none of which was any criminal ever arrested. The last of these at Fugston Court in May was remarkable for the cold-lugged pistoling of the page, who surprised the masked and solitary burglar.

“I cannot doubt that Stapleton recruited his waning resources in this fashion, and that for years he has been a desperate and dangerous man.”

We had an example of his readiness of resource that morning when he got away from a so successfully, and also of his audacity in sending back my own name to me through the cab man. From that moment he understood that I had taken over the case in London, and that therefore there was no chance for him there.

He returned to Dartmoor and awaited the arrival of the Baranette.

"One moment," said I, "you have no doubt described the sequence of events correctly, but there is one point which you have left unexplained. What became of their hand when its master was in London? I have given some attention to this matter, and it is undoubtedly of importance.

“There can be no question that Stapleton had a confidant, though it is unlikely that he ever placed himself in his power by sharing all his plans with him.”

There was an old man, servant at Medipit House, whose name was Anthony. His connection with the Stapletons can be traced for several years as far back as the schoolmastering days, so that he must have been aware that his master and mistress were really husband and wife.

This man has disappeared and has escaped from the country. It is suggestive that Anthony is not a common name in England, while Antonio is so in all Spanish or Spanish-American countries.

The man, like Mrs Stapleton herself, spoke good English, but with a curious, lisping accent. I have myself seen this old man cross the Grimpen Maya by the path which Stapleton had marked out. It is very probable therefore that in the absence of his master, it was he who cared for the hand, though he may never have known the purpose, for which the beast was used. Stapletons then went down to Devonshire, with her they were soon followed by Sahenri and you. One word now as to how I stood myself at that time. It may possibly recur to your memory that when I examined the paper upon which the printed words were fastened, I made a close inspection for the watermark.

“So I held it within a few inches of my eyes and was conscious of a faint smell of the scent known as white jessamine.”

There are 75 perfumes which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my own experience dependent upon their prompt recognition. The scent suggested the presence of a lady and already my thoughts began to turn towards the Stapletons. Thus I had made certain of the hand and had guessed at the criminal before ever we went to the West Country. It was my game to watch Stapleton. It was evident however that I could not do this if I were with you since he would be keenly on his guard.

I deceived everybody therefore yourself included and I came down secretly when I was supposed to be in London.

My hardships were not so great as you imagined, though such trifling details must never interfere with the investigation of a case.

I stayed for the most part at Cum Tracy and only used the hut upon the more when it was necessary to be near the scene of action. Cartwright had come down with me and in his disguise as a country boy he was of great assistance to me. I was dependent upon him for food and clean linen. When I was watching Stapleton Cartwright was frequently watching you so that I was able to keep my hand upon all the strings. I have already told you that your reports reached me rapidly being forwarded instantly from Baker Street to Cum Tracy.

They were of great service to me and especially that one incidentally truthful piece of biography of Stapletons. I was able to establish the identity of the man and the woman and new at last exactly how I stood. The case had been considerably complicated through the incident of the escaped convict and the relations between him and the Barrymore's.

By the time that you discovered me upon the more I had a complete knowledge of the whole business but I had not a case which could go to a jury.

“Even Stapletons attempt upon Sahenri that night which ended in the death of the unfortunate convict did not help us much in proving murder against our man.”

There seemed to be no alternative but to catch him red-handed and to do so we had to use Sahenri alone and apparently unprotected as a bait. We did so and at the cost of a severe shock to our client we succeeded in completing our case and driving Stapleton to his destruction. That Sahenri should have been exposed to this is I must confess a reproach to my management of the case but we had no means of foreseeing the terrible and paralyzing spectacle which the beast presented.

Nor could we predict the fog which enabled him to burst upon us at such short notice.

We succeeded in our object at a cost which both the specialist and Dr Mortimer assure me will be a temporary one. Along journey may enable our friend to recover not only from his shattered nerves but also from his wounded feelings. His love for the lady was deep and sincere and to him the saddest part of all this black business was that he should have been deceived by her. It only remains to indicate the part which she had to play throughout. There can be no doubt that Stapleton exorcised an influence over her which may have been love or may have been fear or very possibly both since they are by no means incompatible emotions.

It was at least absolutely effective. At his command she consented to pass as his sister. Though he found the limits of his power over her when he endeavoured to make her the direct accessory to murder. She was ready to warn Sahenri so far as she could without implicating her husband and again and again she tried to do so. Stapleton himself seemed to have been capable of jealousy. And when he saw the batonet pay in court to the lady even though it was part of his own plan still he could not help interrupting with a passionate outburst which revealed the fire itself contained manner so cleverly concealed.

By encouraging the intimacy he made it certain that Sahenri would frequently come to meditate house and that he would sooner or later get the opportunity which he desired. On the day of the crisis however his wife turned suddenly against him. She had learned something of the death of the convict and she knew that the hound was being kept in the outhouse on the evening that Sahenri was coming to dinner.

She taxed her husband with his intended crime and a furious scene followed in which he showed her for the first time that she had a rival in his love.

Her fidelity turned in an instant to bitter hatred and he saw that she would betray him. He tied her up therefore that she might have no chance of warning Sahenri and he hoped no doubt that when the whole countryside put down the batonet's death to the curse of his family as they certainly would do. He could win his wife back to accept an accomplished fact and to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I fancy that in any case he made a miscalculation and that if we had not been there his doom would nonetheless have been sealed.

A woman of Spanish blood does not condone such an injury so lightly. And now my dear Watson without referring to my notes I cannot give you a more detailed account of this curious case.

“I do not know that anything essential has been left unexplained.”

He could not hope to frighten Sahenri to death as he had done the old uncle with his bogie hand. The beast was savage and half-starved. If its appearance did not frighten its victim to death, at least it would paralyze the resistance which might be offered. No doubt. There only remains one difficulty.

“If Stapleton came into the succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir, had been living unannounced under another name so close to the property?”

How could he claim it without causing suspicion and inquiry? It is a formidable difficulty and I fear that you ask too much when you expect me to solve it.

Mrs Stapleton has heard her husband discuss the problem on several occasions.

“There were three possible courses he might claim the property from South America, established his identity before the British authorities there,”

and so obtained the fortune without ever coming to England at all, or he might adopt an elaborate disguise during the short time that he need be in London.

Or again, he might furnish and accomplish with the proofs and papers, putting him in as heir,

and retaining a claim upon some proportion of his income. We cannot doubt from what we know of him that he would have found some way out of the difficulty.

And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks of severe work.

“And for one evening, I think, we may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels.”

I have a box for Lizugunu. Have you heard the Doreski's? Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Masini's for a little dinner on the way?

“Next time on Sherlock Holmes' short stories, the game is a foot once again, as Holmes and Watson tackle the Park Lane Mystery,”

an empty house on Baker Street provides the perfect spot for a stakeout. And one of Professor Moriarty's top henchman is caught in Sherlock's web. That's next time. Can't wait until the next episode. Well, listen to it right away by subscribing to Neuser Plus.

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