‘But how?’
‘His nerves were so worked up that the appearance of any dog might have had a fatal effect upon his diseased heart. I fancy that he really did see something of the kind upon that last night in the Yew Alley. I feared that some disaster might occur, for I was very fond of the old man, and I knew that his heart was weak.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘My friend Mortimer told me.’
‘You think then, that some dog pursued Sir Charles, and that he died of fright in consequence?’
‘Have you any better explanation?’
‘I have not come to any conclusion.’
‘Has Mr Sherlock Holmes?’
The words took away my breath for an instant, but a glance at the placid face and steadfast eyes of my companion showed no surprise was intended.
‘It is useless for us to pretend that we do not know you, Dr Watson,’ said he. ‘The records of your detective have reached us here, and you could not celebrate him without being known yourself. When Mortimer told me your name he could not deny your identity. If you are here, then it follows that Mr Sherlock Holmes is interesting himself in the matter, and I am naturally curious to know what view he may take.’
‘I am afraid that I cannot answer that question.’
‘May I ask if he is going to honour us with a visit himself?’
‘He cannot leave town at present. He has other cases which engage his attention.’
‘What a pity! He might throw some light on that which is so dark to us. But as to your own researches, if there is any possible way in which I can be of service to you, I trust that you will command me. If I had any indication of the nature of your suspicions, or how you propose to investigate the case, I might perhaps even now give you some aid or advice.’
‘I assure you that I am simply here upon a visit to my friend Sir Henry, and that I need no help of any kind!’
‘Excellent!’ said Stapleton. ‘You are perfectly right to be wary and discreet. I am justly reproved for what I feel was an unjustifiable intrusion, and I promise you that I will not mention the matter again.’
We had come to a point where a narrow grassy path struck off from the road and wound away across the moor. A steep, boulder-sprinkled hill lay upon the right which had in bygone days been cut into a granite quarry. The face which was turned towards us formed a dark cliff, with ferns and brambles growing in its niches. From over a distant rise there floated a grey plume of smoke.
‘A moderate walk along this moor-path brings us to Merripit House,’ said he. ‘Perhaps you will spare an hour that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to my sister.’
My first thought was that I should be by Sir Henry’s side. But then I remembered the pile of papers and bills with which his study table was littered. It was certain that I could not help him with those. And Holmes had expressly said that I should study the neighbours upon the moor. I accepted Stapleton’s invitation, and we turned together down the path.
‘It is a wonderful place, the moor,’ said he, looking round over the undulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged granite foaming up into fantastic surges. ‘You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious.’
‘You know it well, then?’
‘I have only been here two years. The residents would call me a new-comer. We came shortly after Sir Charles settled. But my tastes led me to explore every part of the country round, and I should think that there are few men who know it better than I do.’
‘Is it so hard to know?’
‘Very hard. You see, for example, this great plain to the north here, with the queer hills breaking out of it. Do you observe anything remarkable about that?’
‘It would be a rare place for a gallop.’
‘You would naturally think so, and the thought has cost folk their lives before now. You notice those bright green spots scattered thickly over it?’
‘Yes, they seem more fertile than the rest.’
Stapleton laughed. ‘That is the great Grimpen Mire,’ said he. ‘A false step yonder means death to man or beast. Only yesterday I saw one of the moor ponies wander into it. He never came out. I saw his head for quite a long time craning out of the boghole, but it sucked him down at last. Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive. By George, there is another of those miserable ponies!’
Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges. Then a long, agonized, writhing neck shot upwards and a dreadful cry echoed over the moor. It turned me cold with horror, but my companion’s nerves seemed to be stronger than mine.
‘It’s gone!’ said he. ‘The Mire has him. Two in two days, and many more, perhaps, for they get in the way of going there in the dry weather, and never know the difference until the Mire has them in its clutch. It’s a bad place, the great Grimpen Mire.’
‘And you say you can penetrate it?’
‘Yes, there are one or two paths which a very active man can take. I have found them out.’
‘But why should you wish to go into so horrible a place?’
‘Well, you see the hills beyond? They are really islands cut off on all sides by the impassable Mire, which has crawled round them in the course of years. That is where the rare plants and the butterflies are, if you have the wit to reach them.’
‘I shall try my luck someday.’
He looked at me with a surprised face. ‘For God’s sake put such an idea out of your mind,’ said he. ‘Your blood would be upon my head. I assure you that there would not be the least chance of your coming back alive. It is only by remembering certain complex landmarks that I am able to do it.’
‘Halloa,’ I cried. ‘What is that?’
A long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor. It filled the whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence it came. From a dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar and then sank back into a melancholy, throbbing murmur once again. Stapleton looked at me with a curious expression on his face.
‘Queer place, the moor!’ said he.
‘But what is it?’
‘The peasants say it is the Hound of the Baskervilles calling for its prey. I’ve heard it once or twice before, but never quite so loud.’
I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. Nothing stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked loudly from a tor behind us.
‘You are an educated man. You don’t believe such nonsense as that?’ said I. ‘What do you think is the cause of so strange a sound?’
‘Bogs make queer noises sometimes. It’s the mud settling, or the water rising, or something.’
‘No, no, that was a living voice.’
‘Well, perhaps it was. Did you ever hear a bittern booming?’
‘No, I never did.’
‘It’s a very rare bird – practically extinct – in England now, but all things are possible upon the moor. Yes, I should not be surprised to learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last of the bitterns.’
‘It’s the weirdest, strangest thing that ever I heard in my life.’
‘Yes, it’s rather an uncanny place altogether. Look at the hillside yonder. What do you make of those?’
The whole steep slope was covered with grey circular rings of stone, a score of them at least.
‘What are they? Sheep-pens?’
‘No, they are the homes of our worthy ancestors. Prehistoric man lived thickly on the moor, and as no one in particular has lived there since, we find all his little arrangements exactly as he left them. These are his wigwams with the roofs off. You can even see his hearth and his c
ouch if you have the curiosity to go inside.’
‘But it is quite a town. When was it inhabited?’
‘Neolithic man – no date.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He grazed his cattle on these slopes, and he learned to dig for tin when the bronze sword began to supersede the stone axe. Look at the great trench in the opposite hill. That is his mark. Yes, you will find some very singular points about the moor, Dr Watson. Oh, excuse me an instant. It is surely Cyclopides.’
A small fly or moth had fluttered across our path, and in an instant Stapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and speed in pursuit of it. To my dismay the creature flew straight for the great Mire, but my acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft to tuft behind it, his green net waving in the air. His grey clothes and jerky, zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge moth himself. I was standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of admiration for his extraordinary activity and fear lest he should lose his footing in the treacherous Mire, when I heard the sound of steps, and, turning round, found a woman near me upon the path. She had come from the direction in which the plume of smoke indicated the position of Merripit House, but the dip of the moor had hid her until she was quite close.
I could not doubt that this was the Miss Stapleton of whom I had been told, since ladies of any sort must be few upon the moor, and I remembered that I had heard someone describe her as being a beauty. The woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a most uncommon type. There could not have been a greater contrast between brother and sister, for Stapleton was neutral-tinted, with light hair and grey eyes, while she was darker than any brunette whom I have seen in England – slim, elegant, and tall. She had a proud, finely cut face, so regular that it might have seemed impassive were it not for the sensitive mouth and the beautiful dark, eager eyes. With her perfect and elegant dress she was, indeed, a strange apparition upon a lonely moorland path. Her eyes were on her brother as I turned, and then she quickened her pace towards me. I had raised my hat, and was about to make some explanatory remark, when her own words turned all my thoughts into a new channel.
‘Go back!’ she said. ‘Go straight back to London, instantly.’
I could only stare at her in stupid surprise. Her eyes blazed at me, and she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot.
‘Why should I go back?’ I asked.
‘I cannot explain.’ She spoke in a low, eager voice, with a curious lisp in her utterance. ‘But for God’s sake do what I ask you. Go back, and never set foot upon the moor again.’
‘But I have only just come.’
‘Man, man!’ she cried. ‘Can you not tell when a warning is for your own good? Go back to London! Start tonight! Get away from this place at all costs! Hush, my brother is coming! Not a word of what I have said. Would you mind getting that orchid for me among the mare’s-tails yonder? We are very rich in orchids on the moor, though, of course, you are rather late to see the beauties of the place.’
Stapleton had abandoned the chase, and came back to us breathing hard and flushed with his exertions.
‘Halloa, Beryl!’ said he, and it seemed to me that the tone of his greeting was not altogether a cordial one.
‘Well, Jack, you are very hot.’
‘Yes, I was chasing a Cyclopides. He is very rare, and seldom found in the late autumn. What a pity that I should have missed him!’
He spoke unconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced incessantly from the girl to me.
‘You have introduced yourselves, I can see.’
‘Yes. I was telling Sir Henry that it was rather late for him to see the true beauties of the moor.’
‘Why, who do you imagine this is?’
‘I imagine that it must be Sir Henry Baskerville.’
‘No, no,’ said I. ‘Only a humble commoner, but his friend. My name is Dr Watson.’
A flush of vexation passed over her expressive face.
‘We have been talking at cross purposes,’ said she.
‘Why, you had not very much time for talk,’ her brother remarked, with the same questioning eyes.
‘I talked as if Dr Watson were a resident instead of being merely a visitor,’ said she. ‘It cannot much matter to him whether it is early or late for the orchids. But you will come on, will you not, and see Merripit House?’
A short walk brought us to it, a bleak moorland house, once the farm of some grazier in the old prosperous days, but now put into repair and turned into a modern dwelling. An orchard surrounded it, but the trees, as is usual upon the moor, were stunted and nipped, and the effect of the whole place was mean and melancholy. We were admitted by a strange, wizened, rusty-coated old manservant, who seemed in keeping with the house. Inside, however, there were large rooms furnished with an elegance in which I seemed to recognize the taste of the lady. As I looked from their windows at the interminable granite-flecked moor rolling unbroken to the farthest horizon I could not but marvel at what could have brought this highly educated man and this beautiful woman to live in such a place.
‘Queer spot to choose, is it not?’ said he, as if in answer to my thought. ‘And yet we manage to make ourselves fairly happy, do we not, Beryl?’
‘Quite happy,’ said she, but there was no ring of conviction in her words.
‘I had a school,’ said Stapleton. ‘It was in the North Country. The work to a man of my temperament was mechanical and uninteresting, but the privilege of living with youth, of helping to mould those young minds and of impressing them with one’s own character and ideals, was very dear to me. However, the fates were against us. A serious epidemic broke out in the school, and three of the boys died. It never recovered from the blow, and much of my capital was irretrievably swallowed up. And yet, if it were not for the loss of the charming companionship of the boys, I could rejoice over my own misfortune, for, with my strong tastes for botany and zoology, I find an unlimited field of work here, and my sister is as devoted to Nature as I am. All this, Dr Watson, has been brought upon your head by your expression as you surveyed the moor out of our window.’
‘It certainly did cross my mind that it might be a little dull – less for you, perhaps, than for your sister.’
‘No, no, I am never dull,’ said she quickly.
‘We have books, we have our studies, and we have interesting neighbours. Dr Mortimer is a most learned man in his own line. Poor Sir Charles was also an admirable companion. We knew him well, and miss him more than I can tell. Do you think that I should intrude if I were to call this afternoon and make the acquaintance of Sir Henry?’
‘I am sure that he would be delighted.’
‘Then perhaps you would mention that I propose to do so. We may in our humble way do something to make things more easy for him until he becomes accustomed to his new surroundings. Will you come upstairs, Dr Watson, and inspect my collection of Lepidoptera? I think it is the most complete one in the southwest of England. By the time that you have looked through them lunch will be almost ready.’
But I was eager to get back to my charge. The melancholy of the moor, the death of the unfortunate pony, the weird sound which had been associated with the grim legend of the Baskervilles – all these things tinged my thoughts with sadness. Then on the top of these more or less vague impressions there had come the definite and distinct warning of Miss Stapleton, delivered with such intense earnestness that I could not doubt that some grave and deep reason lay behind it. I resisted all pressure to stay for lunch, and I set off at once upon my return journey, taking the grass-grown path by which we had come.
It seems, however, that there must have been some short cut for those who knew it, for before I had reached the road I was astounded to see Miss Stapleton sitting upon a rock by the side of the track. Her face was beautifully flushed with her exertions, and she held her hand to her side.
&n
bsp; ‘I have run all the way in order to cut you off, Dr Watson,’ said she. ‘I had not even time to put on my hat. I must not stop, or my brother may miss me. I wanted to say to you how sorry I am about the stupid mistake I made in thinking that you were Sir Henry. Please forget the words I said, which have no application whatever to you.’
‘But I can’t forget them, Miss Stapleton,’ said I. ‘I am Sir Henry’s friend, and his welfare is a very close concern of mine. Tell me why it was that you were so eager that Sir Henry should return to London.’
‘A woman’s whim, Dr Watson. When you know me better you will understand that I cannot always give reasons for what I say or do.’
‘No, no. I remember the thrill in your voice. I remember the look in your eyes. Please, please, be frank with me, Miss Stapleton, for ever since I have been here I have been conscious of shadows all round me. Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the track. Tell me, then, what it was that you meant, and I will promise to convey your warning to Sir Henry.’
An expression of irresolution passed for an instant over her face, but her eyes had hardened again when she answered me.
‘You make too much of it, Dr Watson,’ said she. ‘My brother and I were very much shocked by the death of Sir Charles. We knew him very intimately, for his favourite walk was over the moor to our house. He was deeply impressed with the curse which hung over his family, and when this tragedy came I naturally felt that there must be some grounds for the fears he had expressed. I was distressed, therefore, when another member of the family came down to live here, and I felt that he should be warned of the danger which he will run. That was all which I intended to convey.’
‘But what is the danger?’
‘You know the story of the hound?’
Sherlock Holmes Page 36
