The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

by Otto Penzler

  “It’s a hoax, Mr. Smith,” said the Assistant Editor firmly. “It’s another humorist at work—an unlicenced one. It’s be a mistake to bother Dr. Doyle with it, especially at this time. An impudent hoax would not only annoy Dr. Doyle, it’d just about put the lid on his determination to write no more Holmes tales. Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me—”

  With a brisk nod to Raffles and myself, the Assistant Editor, obviously busy, left us.

  “He’s probably right about this letter,” said Mr. Smith, as the door closed. “It came in this morning, in an envelope postmarked Bovey Tracey. That’s a small town—the ‘Coombe Tracey’ of The Hound of the Baskervilles—on the edge of Dartmoor. No harm in getting a fresh eye cast on this letter. As a man of the world, Mr. Raffles, what d’you make of this?”

  I read the letter, amateurishly typewritten on a machine with a faded blue ribbon, over Raffles’s shoulder:

  Dartmoor,

  Devonshire.

  27th March 1902

  The Editor,

  The Strand Magazine,

  London.

  Sir,

  As a resident in the Dartmoor area, scene of The Hound of the Baskervilles, now concluded in the current issue of your magazine, I have read the narrative with particular interest.

  Your author, A. Conan Doyle, has based his tale on the case, well known in this area since 1677, of Sir Richard Cabell, Lord of the Manor of Brooke in the parish of Buckfastleigh. This evil-living baronet, in the act of raping a virgin, had his throat torn out by an avenging hound, which then, according to legend, took on phantom form, to range evermore upon Dartmoor.

  Your author has adapted the legend to his own purpose, making the Phantom Hound “the curse of the Baskervilles” and skilfully using the topography and certain phenomena of Dartmoor to lend his tale verisimilitude. Among such phenomena mentioned by him are strange nocturnal howlings sometimes heard, as indeed of some huge hound baying the moon. Sceptics attribute these sounds to natural causes—the wind in the rocks of the moorland tors, or the slow upwelling and escape of vegetable gas from the depths of the treacherous Dartmoor mires, such as the Fox Tor morass which your author chooses to call “the great Grimpen Mire.”

  These sounds, and other phenomena mentioned in his tale, have never in fact been satisfactorily explained. I had hoped that your author might advance some theory to account for them. I now find, however, that he is content to end his tale with Mr. Sherlock Holmes destroying the “phantom hound” with five shots from a revolver, proving the beast to be mortal and doctored with phosphorescent paste in order for an evildoer to secure an inheritance by chicanery.

  Sir, I must confess to a slight sense of disappointment, and I feel constrained to describe to you a recent experience of my own.

  As something of a folklorist, I have cultivated the acquaintance, for the sake of his unique knowledge of the moor, of a certain local deer-poacher, sheep-stealer, all-around ne’er-do-well. I am, frankly, ashamed of my furtive association with the man. However, he came stealing one night to my back door not long ago. His poacher’s sawed-off shotgun had been confiscated.

  He begged the loan of my twelve-bore and a handful of cartridges. For some time, I gathered, a lurcher-like bitch he owned, a rangy, grizzly-grey beast he called Skaur, had been wild on the moor. Trouble was now brewing over sheep wantonly hamstrung and other depredations. The police were on the look-out for the culprit—Skaur, my acquaintance was certain, though he had long ago given it out that the bitch was dead and buried. If the police now got her and proved his ownership, it would mean gaol for him, as he could not pay the fines and damages.

  He was in such a panic to down Skaur before the police did so that I lent him my gun. About a week later, he appeared again one night at my door, a deeply shaken man. He had sighted Skaur, shot her, and crippled her. Following her blood trail, he found her laired among the rocks. She lay panting, bloodstained, with three grizzly-grey whelps so savagely at her dugs that she was like to be eaten while yet alive.

  As he crouched, peering into the lair in the failing daylight and howling wind, some instinct made him look round. He swears that, stealing towards him, was a creature, big as a pony, shadowy—some species of enormous hound. He shot at it, wildly—and the apparition was gone.

  The fellow was in such a state when he came to me that it was all I could do to get him, the following day, to take me on the long, rough trudge across some of the worst parts of Dartmoor to the alleged lair.

  It exists. Skaur lay there dead, ripped and torn by her own whelps. Sir, I have never seen on canine pelts such curious markings as those on these savage creatures. I have penned them into the lair and, at considerable inconvenience, kept them alive. Curious as to their sire, I have maintained long vigils at the lair by day and night, but have caught no glimpse of the creature described by my ne’er-do-well acquaintance, though I have heard, on two occasions, a distant, grievous, hound-like howling—but no conclusion, of course, can be drawn from that nocturnal phenomenon.

  I can devote no further time to this matter. I intend to shoot the whelps. I have no desire, as you will appreciate, for my association with my unsavoury acquaintance to become known. I must guard my local good repute—and hence maintain my anonymity in this matter. However, I will make this much concession: If your author should wish to view the strange whelps, he should insert forthwith, in the Personal column of the daily Devon & Cornwall Gazette, an announcement to this effect: ‘Sirius—instructions awaited.’

  There will then be mailed to your office a map of Dartmoor with, clearly marked upon it, the precise location of the lair of the strange whelps. What your author may then choose to do about them, should he look into the matter, will be his responsibility, not mine.

  In the event of no announcement appearing, as specified above, by 7th April, I shall carry out the intention I have expressed in this notification.

  Meantime, I have the honour to be, Sir, yours truly,

  Sirius

  “Well, Mr. Raffles?” said Mr. Greenhough Smith, as Raffles returned the letter to him.

  “A hoax, obviously,” Raffles said. “Eh, Bunny?”

  “Undoubtedly, Raffles,” I said.

  “How well, Mr. Smith,” Raffles asked, glancing at the illustration of the fictional Sherlock Holmes and the photograph of the real-life Sherlock Holmes, on the wall, “is Dr. Doyle actually acquainted with Dartmoor?”

  “He spent a few days there, researching for The Hound of the Baskervilles,” said Mr. Smith, “at just about this time last year. He was with his friend, Mr. Fletcher Robinson, of Ipplepen, Devonshire, who knows Dartmoor well and told Dr. Doyle of the legend of the Phantom Hound which inspired his Baskerville tale. You know, I’m sorry—in a way—that you consider this letter a hoax. I had just a faint hope that, if I let Dr. Doyle see it, it might kindle a spark in his creative mind—and result perhaps in a sequel to The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

  “I’m afraid,” Raffles said, with a smile, “it would be more likely to annoy him, as your Assistant Editor remarked.”

  “Common sense tells me you’re right, of course. Ah, well!” Mr. Smith put the letter, rather reluctantly, into a drawer of his desk and became business-like. “Now, Mr. Raffles, about a delivery date for your cricket article—”

  A date readily agreed upon by Raffles, we took our leave.

  “I suppose that, as usual when you get an invitation to write about cricket, Raffles,” I said, as we sauntered down Southampton Street, “you expect me, as a one-time journalist, to ghostwrite this article for you?”

  “Why else, except for you to hear Mr. Smith’s briefing for it, would I have brought you with me this morning, Bunny? Innocent appearances in print are useful cover for—shall we say—less innocent activities. But literary toil’s more your cup of tea than mine, though it would have been impolitic to mention your spectral function to Mr. Smith.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “I’m not complaining. I just feel, seeing
that the throes of composition fall upon me, that you might have held out for a later delivery date.”

  “You’ll manage, Bunny,” said Raffles absently. “Dartmoor air will stimulate your muse.”

  “Dartmoor air?” I stopped dead. “Why should we go to Dartmoor?”

  Raffles gave me a strange look.

  “To see a man about a dog, Bunny—if we can find him!”

  —

  In the first-class smoking compartment we had to ourselves in the train going down to Devonshire next day, Raffles explained his reasoning to me.

  “Dr. Doyle’s probably long ago forgotten our Portsmouth encounter with him, Bunny, but I never have. I made a humiliating mistake on that occasion. He detected it. I respect that man. The figure I cut in his eyes on that Portsmouth occasion is something I can’t forget till I’ve levelled the score with him. If I could do him a service, even though he may never know of it, I’d feel—in my own mind—that I’d settled an account long outstanding to my own self-respect. And I could turn the page and forget.”

  A heavy shower lashed the train windows.

  “Raffles,” I said uneasily, “we’d be well advised to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “Every instinct tells me, Bunny, that the dog in that ‘Sirius’ letter is very wide-awake. I think that letter’s an attempt to set a trap. I think ‘Sirius’ is a man with a mission. I think he’s a running dog of those ‘tainted sources’ who’d like to stop the translation and free world-wide distribution of Dr. Doyle’s book disproving their mischief-making allegations. He carries that whole project on his own shoulders. Remove Dr. Doyle, in some way that would appear mere accident, and the world-wide project would die on the vine, and, incidentally, the career of the fictional Sherlock Holmes would end with the career of the real-life one.”

  “Who,” I argued, “being what we know him to be, would be as quick as you are to suspect a trap in that letter!”

  “Of course he would, Bunny. And, being the man he is, he might decide—if he saw that letter—to track down ‘Sirius’ himself. That’s why I told Mr. Greenhough Smith I thought the letter a hoax. ‘Sirius’ thought, of course, that the letter would be passed on immediately to Dr. Doyle. ‘Sirius’ couldn’t know what we know, which is that Mr. Smith was in two minds about it—an editorial predicament. We don’t want Dr. Doyle to see that letter, Bunny, because we want to be the ones to kennel ‘Sirius’!”

  “How?”

  “He has a weak spot, Bunny. His whole letter proclaims it. He’s a Sherlockian!”

  I stared. The train rat-tatted along, vibrating, through the wind-blown rain. Raffles offered me a Sullivan from his case.

  “Consider what’s probably happened, Bunny. Assume ‘Sirius’ to be a man briefed to queer Dr. Doyle’s pitch. Seeking ways and means to get at him, ‘Sirius’ reads The Hound of the Baskervilles—with its vivid descriptions of the natural hazards of Dartmoor. Where most likely, thinks ‘Sirius,’ for Dr. Doyle to meet with a fatal accident than among the scenes of his own tale—if somehow he could be lured there?”

  My heart began to thump.

  “If I’m right,” said Raffles, “the idea of a trap probably began to shape in the mind of ‘Sirius’ as he finished his reading of The Hound of the Baskervilles—the end of which, he says, ‘disappointed’ him. It’s highly unlikely that the man is, in fact, a Dartmoor resident. So what would he do?”

  “Reconnoitre the area himself,” I said, “to decide just where and how he could best contrive a trap.”

  “Furthermore, Bunny, he’d want to find out just how familiar Dr. Doyle really is with the area. ‘Sirius’ would probably ask a question here and there, to find out if Dr. Doyle had personally explored Dartmoor and, if so, how extensively. So—what are you and I to look for?”

  “An inquisitive stranger!”

  “Asking questions, Bunny, within—probably—the past couple of weeks, because the current issue of The Strand Magazine, containing the end of the Baskerville tale, only became available about then. No, Bunny, ‘Sirius’ shouldn’t be hard to find. He’s like you and me—a deviant Sherlockian.”

  “Deviant?”

  “Avowed Sherlockians, Bunny, are interested in the fictional Sherlock Holmes. You and I are interested in tracing the footsteps of the real-life Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Doyle. So, I suspect, is ‘Sirius.’ Now, as Mr. Greenhough Smith told us, Dr. Doyle did visit Dartmoor almost exactly a year ago. If we can find out who’s been sniffing, just recently, to pick up a scent of Doyle on Dartmoor, we’ll have discovered the prowling hound, the deviant Sherlockian—‘Sirius.’ And here, by the look of it,” Raffles added, “is our first glimpse of the moor coming up.”

  The daylight was fading. Bleak hills swept by wind and rain loomed in the distance—the outlying bastions of Dartmoor with its sombre tors and quaking morasses, its neolithic hut circles and notorious prison. As I peered through the train window at those brooding sentinel hills, my own reading of The Hound of the Baskervilles gave me a haunting sense of having been here before—in the company of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the menaced Sir Henry Baskerville.

  After changing to a local train, Raffles and I arrived that night at Lydford Station and put up at an inn under Black Down on the moor’s edge.

  “Dr. Conan Doyle?” said the landlady, in reply to Raffles’s inquiry. “In these parts this time last year? No, sir, I don’t recolleck any Dr. Doyle.”

  “Have you had any visitors during the last couple of weeks?” Raffles asked.

  “No, sir, you’re the first for many a month. Dartmoor gets visitors in the summer, more. Mostly they like to see the Sepulchre—which is the tomb of Sir Richard Cabell, ’im as was Lord o’ the Manor, wenching and carrying on in ’is prime, over Buckfastleigh way. Ended up with ’is throat tore out by the ’Ound that turned phantom, as is well known in these parts.”

  Raffles and I exchanged a glance.

  “There’s a key’ole in the door of Sir Richard’s tomb,” said the landlady, “an’ to this day, if you pokes yer finger through, ’is skeleton’ll up an’ gnaw at it.”

  “There are mysteries on Dartmoor, Missus,” agreed Raffles, “and you’ll join us in a nightcap to steady us. What’ll you take?”

  “Just a small port-and-peppermint,” said Missus graciously.

  All next day Raffles was out on the moor on a hired hunter, seeking word of Dr. Doyle’s visit to these parts a year ago. The weather was vile, and I was not sorry that my duty as Raffles’s “ghost” kept me indoors by the snuggery fire, working on his cricket article while the wind wuthered in the thatched and dripping eaves.

  As the wan daylight faded and Missus brought the lamp in, lighted, and drew closed the snuggery curtains against the howling dark, there still was no sign of Raffles. It was a night when one could believe in the Phantom Hound, a night for it to be abroad on the desolate moor. I began to grow anxious. But, at last, Raffles returned, soaked to the skin. And when he had changed, and Missus set before us on the snuggery table a great round of beef and a foaming jug of nut-brown ale drawn from the wood, I was left alone with him, and I asked how he had got on.

  “Not badly, Bunny,” he said. “I made a start at Bovey Tracey, on the far side of the moor. That’s the ‘Coombe Tracey’ of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and I struck what we’re seeking—the trail behind the tale.” He began, obviously famished, to carve the juicy sirloin, perfectly roast. “Dr. Conan Doyle’s remembered at Bovey Tracey, both he and his friend Mr. Fletcher Robinson. Two big, genial, moustached gentlemen, Bunny, making a holiday of their explorations on Dartmoor for Dr. Doyle’s tale of the Hound.”

  “What about ‘Sirius’?”

  “Not a sniff, as yet, of that inquisitive Sherlockian. I’ll get his scent to-morrow, with luck. After you with the horseradish, Bunny.”

  But it was not until our fourth night at the Black Down inn that Raffles returned from his own explorations with a glint in his eyes that I knew well.

  “Got him, Bun
ny! I picked up his scent at Widecombe-in-the-Moor. I had the luck to fall into conversation with the Vicar there—elderly man, a devoted Sherlockian himself. He told me about a man who’d called at the Vicarage about ten days ago—a tall, lean, mean-eyed individual, a stranger to the Vicar, who said there was something about the look of the chap that made him think of some lines the poet Shelley once wrote. The old Vicar quoted them to me:

  “I met Murder on the way.

  He had a mask like Castlereagh.

  Very grey he looked and grim.

  Seven bloodhounds followed him.”

  “My God, Raffles!” I breathed.

  “Apparently,” Raffles said, “he told the Vicar he was a bookdealer visiting country houses and would give a good price for any first editions they might care to part with—such as first editions of Dr. Conan Doyle’s books. A good gambit, Bunny, to start asking if Dr. Doyle was known to have visited the area.”

  “It’s ‘Sirius,’ for a certainty!”

  “You can lay to that. But there are only two bloodhounds following him—you and me, Bunny. And the scent’s now hot and rank, because the old Vicar told me he recognised the horse the fellow was riding—a hack hired from an inn called Rowe’s Duchy Hotel at Princetown.”

  “That’s where that damnable prison is, Raffles.”

  “The highest point on Dartmoor, Bunny—Princetown. And we’ll shift our base to there in the morning.”

  In the night, the wind dropped. The weather changed. We hired a dogcart from Missus. Raffles took the reins. Under a leaden sky, we clattered along the potholed road to Princetown. A strange stillness brooded over the moor, its desolation relieved here and there by great, smooth patches of green among the rocks and heather—the deceptive, inviting green of the deadly quagmires. The distant tors loomed up, strange and jagged in the distance, out of a growing hint of mist.