by George Mann
These qualities made him very appealing to someone used to writing the pulp adventures of a faux-Victorian master of derring-do; that and the fact that Sir Henry’s lands border the county of Cornwall, a land rich in myths concerning mysterious beasts all of its own…
—Jonathan Green
Legends, in my experience, have a habit of persisting, and the West Country seems to have more than its fair share. Take, for example, the Devonshire legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles. That was just such a tale that persisted throughout the centuries, so much so that a villain built a plan upon it, with the intention of stealing both my life and my inheritance. And he would have succeeded if it had not been for the legend who is celebrated as the world’s foremost consulting detective.
To require the services of Mr Sherlock Holmes once in your lifetime might be considered unfortunate, but to require his services more than once smacks of carelessness. But that didn’t stop me from writing to him when events began to take a dark turn once again, in the wilds of the West Country.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I go any deeper into my tale, I should explain the circumstances that led me to seek the aid of the consulting detective for a second time. Not that it was me who contacted him the first time, you understand – that was my friend and physician Dr James Mortimer – but it was I, Sir Henry Baskerville, Baronet of the Baskerville Devonshire estate, who had benefitted from his intervention. So, like Dr Mortimer before me, I found myself contacting Sherlock Holmes on behalf of another.
Some – namely those who have read Dr Watson’s account of the case of The Hound of the Baskervilles, as he so luridly titled it – might consider me unlucky in love, and I would count myself among them. As a consequence of the affair of the Hound, and the duplicity of both Rodger Stapleton and his wife Beryl – whom I had taken to be his sister and with whom I had fallen deeply in love – I had not thought that I would find love again, having been so bitterly betrayed before.
But nonetheless, I had recently become engaged to Miss Loveday Trelawny of Trelawny Hall – a grim, gothic manor that stands at the heart of that bleak expanse of Cornish borderland known as Bodmin Moor, the foundations of the pile dating back to the sixteenth century and the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Miss Trelawny had inherited the estate from her father three months previously, after Lord Tiernen Trelawny died under mysterious circumstances.
Perhaps it was the similarity of our situations, the way in which we had come by our respective inheritances, but when I first met my fiancée at her father’s wake – I myself attending as was mete and right for a landowner with some interests in Cornwall, as a consequence of the precise nature of the Baskerville estate – we found ourselves drawn together immediately. At least that was what I thought at the time. But again, I am getting ahead of myself.
Miss Trelawny’s family line is as old as my own Dartmoor-dwelling bloodline, and has a history just as mired in tragedy and humiliation. But let me return to the matter of Lord Tiernen Trelawny’s death, for it is pertinent to my tale.
Lord Trelawny had met his end suddenly and violently. And it was clearly no accident; the injuries he sustained were so savage that some said he had been attacked by a monstrous beast, while others claimed he had been murdered by an escaped lunatic, who had broken out of Cornwall County Asylum, which was located nearby.
Mention of the Beast of Bodmin, as the locals called it, married with her grief-stricken state, had my beloved believing that she had seen a monstrous cat prowling about the estate as she sat at the drawing-room window, looking out over the grim expanse of the moor. Reports that a number of animals had turned up dead on nearby farmland – sheep and goats mainly, but also a shepherd’s faithful canine companion in one instance – bearing similarly savage wounds to those her father had suffered, only exacerbated her temporary mental instability, to the point where Loveday fervently believed that a big cat was hunting her, wailing to me that her family line was cursed. She was so consumed by this hysteria, I wished that she could be rid of the name Trelawny as soon as possible.
On Dartmoor and within the environs of Grimpen Mire, it had been a hellish hound. Here on Bodmin Moor, it was a phantom cat. But tales of such a beast were nothing new, and so I return to the history of the Trelawny line.
Legend had it that the century before, one particularly roguish smuggler had brought a black panther to England aboard a ship that had sailed from Java. However, as soon as it made it to shore, the animal promptly escaped, disappearing onto the moor. The smuggler was captured and tried by the local landowner, one Squire Trelawny, who condemned him to hang for his contraband crimes. The squire himself died not long after, apparently having been mauled by a big cat whilst out on the moor hunting with his dogs.
It was Loveday’s growing obsession that her ancestor’s fate and her late father’s death were connected. To help put her mind at ease, as well as to protect the local farmers’ livestock, I organised the hunt. I did not believe in the Trelawny curse any more than I believed in the Baskerville curse, at least not since Mr Sherlock Holmes had proved the hound’s haunting had been nothing more than the Machiavellian machinations of a greedy and heartless rogue. But there did indeed appear to be something on the moor – the slaughter of the farm animals attested to that – and a good landlord knows to take care of his tenants just as well as he takes care of his loved ones.
When Loveday heard of the latest attack she took to her bed in an apoplexy of fear. She was unable to bear anything more than a thin soup, strongly flavoured with cardamom, which the late Lord Trelawny’s Sikh houseboy swore by, claiming it to be a remedy he had learnt from his mother.
As the future master of Trelawny Hall, I took it upon myself to pay a visit to the farmer whose lifestock had most recently been attacked. The victim on this occasion was a cow in calf that had been attacked in a pen within the perimeter of the farmyard, which had put the fear of God into the farmer, a man by the name of Bligh, and his family. Had this been Canada, rather than Cornwall, I would have said that the cow had been attacked by a grizzly.
Having seen the evidence of the Beast’s slaughter with my own eyes, the hunt was convened on Saint Valentine’s Day, as fate would have it.
* * *
Valentine’s Day came, and with it a light but persistent mist that clung to the moor like a shroud and which provoked murmurs from the more superstitious members of the hunting party that it was the work of dark powers. Perhaps it was the devilish, dead smuggler seeking to protect his pet from the hunters who would see Squire Trelawny’s descendants freed from its prowling predations. They did not see the fog for what it really was – a not uncommon meteorological effect, given the climate and the season.
We gathered on the drive in front of Trelawny Hall, in sight of my betrothed, who watched anxiously from the large bay window of the drawing room. Farmer Bligh was in attendance, a shotgun broken over the crook of his arm, as were his farmhands. Even Baghinder, the late lord’s houseboy, joined us, armed with his impressive, and not a little intimidating, talwar, preferring to carry the curved blade bestowed upon young Sikh men when they reached manhood. And there were dogs too – mastiffs, not unlike the hound that had prowled the Baskerville estate not so many months before, straining at the chains the gamekeepers’ gripped in their gloved hands, and even a pair of bloodhounds.
Despite setting out with the best of intentions – to drive the Beast from cover and put an end to its savage reign – the hunting party’s fervour also appeared to be its undoing. We hunted on foot, lines of men stretched out across the undulating moorland and exposed rocky bluffs. The shouts of the men calling to one another were muffled by the ground-hugging cloud, although the harsh barking of the dogs, keen to be after their quarry, carried through the mist and chilled me with the memory of a savage beast with another name.
After three hours’ fruitless searching I began to fear that the Beast was keeping well clear of the moor that day, preferring not to leave the safety of i
ts lair, wherever that might be. But it was then we heard the terrified scream. I shall never forget that sound for the rest of my days. It was a desperate, blood-chilling, womanly wail, and yet there could be no doubting that it had been made by a man.
We all rushed to converge on the spot from whence the scream had come, shouts of “This way!”, “Did you hear that?” and “Over here!” echoing strangely through the fog. I was the first to arrive at the scene of the slaughter and see the body lying beside a spur of exposed limestone. There was no question that the man had been mauled by some large predator, just as there was no doubting the fact that he was dead. The throat, ripped out by a fang-filled maw, attested to that, the injury visible even though the body was lying on its side, blood soaking the man’s clothes.
It was only in that moment, as the other members of the hunting party gathered around me, that I became aware of the danger I could have put myself in, coming upon the scene as quickly as I did. But by then the danger had well and truly passed; the noisy approach of the rest of the hunt, and their furiously barking dogs, had driven the beast away again.
However, the shock I felt at what I saw, seeing the man’s carcass opened from belly to throat by the bestial nature of the attack, when one of the bolder gamekeepers turned the body over, was as nothing to the shock I felt when I saw his face. For despite the agonised rictus of pain etched forever on his features, I recognised the wretch. And what made that realisation even more shocking was that I had believed him to be dead already!
“It’s Stapleton!” I said, giving voice to my surprise, unable to contain myself, even though no one else present knew to whom I referred. For the dead man was indeed Rodger Stapleton, the same villain who had masterminded the scheme whereby he had planned to have his maltreated hound kill me and thereby claim the Baskerville estate for himself.
“It looks like he’s been attacked by a bear!” I was gabbling, shock causing me to be unguarded with my words.
“Or a big cat,” came a voice from one among the hunting party.
My hunter’s instinct taking over in that moment, I scoured the ground for any signs of the Beast’s presence, but I could see none. “Where are the Beast’s footprints?” I asked.
The other hunters began looking too, but none of them could find any sign that the cat – or whatever the Beast was – had been there, just a matter of moments beforehand. Only our own footprints could be seen in the soft earth, even though something as large as whatever had killed Stapleton would have surely left its own distinct prints behind.
It was then that some helpful Bodmin man said, “’Tis the Beast! It don’t leave footprints, it being a phantom an’ all.”
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the throng, as if the fellow who had spoken was the wisest man in all the West Country. But I had encountered a so-called phantom beast before, and Stapleton’s wounds spoke to me of something very real indeed, which had to be quite literally red in tooth and claw. But I could not explain the absence of marks to show which way it had gone or, indeed, from which direction it had come.
I was reminded of the fact that, when my own uncle, Sir Charles Baskerville, had died of fright upon seeing the terrible Hound, the footprints of a monstrous dog were found nearby. But here there was nothing. And so it was that I decided to contact Mr Sherlock Holmes to ask for his help.
* * *
I wrote to Mr Holmes that very afternoon, to let him know that Stapleton had not died in the Grimpen Mire as we had all presumed, and that he had turned up again, now most definitely dead.
I must confess, I’m not sure what surprised me more: finding Rodger Stapleton dead on the Trelawny estate, or finding Mr Sherlock Holmes calling at Trelawny Hall that very evening.
“Mr Holmes!” I exclaimed, when the consulting detective was admitted by Baghinder, after the house lamps had been lit.
“Sir Henry,” he replied. “I called at your lodgings at The Cross Keys but when I learned that you were not there, I decided to see if you were dining with your betrothed this evening.”
“How good it is to see you,” I said, shaking him furiously by the hand. “I did not expect you to respond to my letter so quickly.” And then, as my surprise subsided and logic began to take over, I went on, “In fact, you have arrived far sooner that I would have imagined possible!”
“You asked for my help, did you not?” Holmes challenged me.
“I did indeed. I did not mean to appear rude or ungracious,” I apologised.
Holmes’s gaze lingered on the displays of Indian weaponry and hunting trophies that adorned the entrance hall of the old house, the stuffed heads of exotic animals – antelope, hyenas, a water buffalo, and even a rhinoceros – and a number of animal skin rugs as well, tigers and bears mainly. All this put the moth-eaten stags’ heads and dusty antlers of Baskerville Hall to shame, all a legacy of the late Lord Trelawny’s time on the subcontinent.
“Do you hunt, Mr Holmes?”
We both turned at hearing the sweet voice, with its delicate Cornish twang, to see Loveday standing at the foot of the stairs, her face as pale as the white lace dress she wore, her blonde tresses arranged in an orderly fashion on the top of her head.
“Only ne’er-do-wells,” Holmes replied, his eyes returning to the imitation glass eyes of a decades-dead Bengal tiger.
Wrong-footed, I introduced the detective to my betrothed, who then continued in a similar fashion as before.
“They are a legacy of my father’s time in India,” she explained.
“The late lamented Lord Tiernen Trelawny,” Holmes said.
“Just so,” Loveday replied. “Stories of his hunting expeditions are famous throughout Uttar Pradesh, or so my father told me.”
“Ironic then,” Holmes mused, “that the hunter should become the hunted.”
“I say, Mr Holmes,” I railed. The detective’s cold manner and careless use of language forced me, as a gentleman, to interject. I was no stranger to the man’s bizarre and unfathomable ways, but I could not tolerate plain bad manners.
“I apologise, Miss Trelawny,” Holmes said. “I meant no offence. I was merely making an observation, which is, after all, what I am famed for.”
“I understand, Mr Holmes,” Loveday accepted graciously.
“We have yet to be introduced,” the detective said, turning to Baghinder, who hovered at Loveday’s shoulder, as he was wont to do.
“This is Baghinder,” Loveday said, as the houseboy bowed. “Another legacy of my father’s time in India.”
“That’s a most distinctive ring you are wearing, Baghinder,” Holmes remarked, regarding the gold ring, set with an unusual gemstone, the precise nature of which I had wondered about before, but never remarked upon myself. “A tiger’s eye, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” the houseboy replied. “It was my father’s.”
“Now, if it is not too impolite to ask,” Holmes said, “would I be right in thinking that dinner is about to be served?”
* * *
Over dinner I recounted to Mr Holmes all that had happened since my extended sojourn at Trelawny Hall had begun. His response to which was to ask to visit the moor and the scene of the crime the very next day, but not before examining Stapleton’s body, which had found temporary accommodation at the doctor’s surgery in nearby Bodmin.
After breakfast, the two of us set off for Bodmin and the doctor’s. A grey mist hung over the moor, just as it had the day before, and I insisted on taking my Webley revolver with me, as a safety precaution.
The local physician, one Dr Philip Thorogood, led us from his fire-warmed consulting room into the icy, tiled surroundings of the cold store-cum-morgue that he shared with the butcher next door. If Mr Holmes felt any emotion upon seeing his erstwhile nemesis laid out on the slab, with irrefutable evidence of Rodger Stapleton’s death presented before him, he did not show it. He merely stared at the frigid corpse with hawkish intensity.
“Ah, yes,” he said, pointing with a gloved finger at t
he ragged mess of the dead man’s neck, “you can see the tooth marks quite clearly here” – I followed his finger as he indicated a spot below the jaw – “and here. Stapleton was quite clearly mauled to death.”
“Then he was killed by the Beast,” I murmured.
“That I do not know,” Mr Holmes replied. “But what I can tell you, with absolute certainty, is that Stapleton was killed by a big cat. The bite marks confirm it.”
“I had wondered if he was the victim of a psychopath, Mr Holmes,” Dr Thorogood put in, and I couldn’t help wonder if his interjection was intended to impress the world’s foremost consulting detective.
“Then how do you explain these claw marks here and here?” Holmes asked, indicating numerous slashes to the man’s clothes.
“Someone wielding a claw-like weapon of their own devising?” the doctor suggested, his imperious tone starting to waver.
“Dr Thorogood,” Mr Holmes said pointedly, “do you have many patients escaping from the Hospital of St Lawrence? Besides, as I have often said before, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Equally, when the obvious is staring you in the face, no matter how unlikely it may seem, you need not look elsewhere for an explanation.”
The doctor cast his eyes to the ground, shame-faced.
“Rodger Stapleton was mauled to death by a big cat. The question is, which one?”
* * *
After a spot of lunch at The Cross Keys, Holmes and I determined to walk back to Trelawny Hall along an old sheep track, stopping off at the scene of the crime on the way.
The chill mist had lifted at last, and as we strolled across the moor, the warmth of the sun on our skin pleasantly complemented the warmth in our bellies from the spatchcock and heady ale we had enjoyed at the inn. Such a change was this compared to the day before that it felt as if the killing of Stapleton had occurred months ago, rather than the previous day. But as we neared the spot where I had first come upon the reprobate’s body, clouds appeared over the horizon and the afternoon turned a drab and forbidding grey.
