<h2><SPAN name="chap11"></SPAN>Chapter 11.<br/> The Man on the Tor</h2>
<p>The extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter has brought
my narrative up to the eighteenth of October, a time when these strange
events began to move swiftly towards their terrible conclusion. The
incidents of the next few days are indelibly graven upon my recollection,
and I can tell them without reference to the notes made at the time. I
start them from the day which succeeded that upon which I had established
two facts of great importance, the one that Mrs. Laura Lyons of Coombe
Tracey had written to Sir Charles Baskerville and made an appointment with
him at the very place and hour that he met his death, the other that the
lurking man upon the moor was to be found among the stone huts upon the
hillside. With these two facts in my possession I felt that either my
intelligence or my courage must be deficient if I could not throw some
further light upon these dark places.</p>
<p>I had no opportunity to tell the baronet what I had learned about Mrs.
Lyons upon the evening before, for Dr. Mortimer remained with him at cards
until it was very late. At breakfast, however, I informed him about my
discovery and asked him whether he would care to accompany me to Coombe
Tracey. At first he was very eager to come, but on second thoughts it
seemed to both of us that if I went alone the results might be better. The
more formal we made the visit the less information we might obtain. I left
Sir Henry behind, therefore, not without some prickings of conscience, and
drove off upon my new quest.</p>
<p>When I reached Coombe Tracey I told Perkins to put up the horses, and I
made inquiries for the lady whom I had come to interrogate. I had no
difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central and well appointed. A
maid showed me in without ceremony, and as I entered the sitting-room a
lady, who was sitting before a Remington typewriter, sprang up with a
pleasant smile of welcome. Her face fell, however, when she saw that I was
a stranger, and she sat down again and asked me the object of my visit.</p>
<p>The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty. Her
eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks, though
considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom of the
brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the sulphur rose.
Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the second was
criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness
of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness of lip which
marred its perfect beauty. But these, of course, are afterthoughts. At the
moment I was simply conscious that I was in the presence of a very
handsome woman, and that she was asking me the reasons for my visit. I had
not quite understood until that instant how delicate my mission was.</p>
<p>“I have the pleasure,” said I, “of knowing your father.”</p>
<p>It was a clumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it. “There is
nothing in common between my father and me,” she said. “I owe him nothing,
and his friends are not mine. If it were not for the late Sir Charles
Baskerville and some other kind hearts I might have starved for all that
my father cared.”</p>
<p>“It was about the late Sir Charles Baskerville that I have come here to
see you.”</p>
<p>The freckles started out on the lady’s face.</p>
<p>“What can I tell you about him?” she asked, and her fingers played
nervously over the stops of her typewriter.</p>
<p>“You knew him, did you not?”</p>
<p>“I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness. If I am able
to support myself it is largely due to the interest which he took in my
unhappy situation.”</p>
<p>“Did you correspond with him?”</p>
<p>The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.</p>
<p>“What is the object of these questions?” she asked sharply.</p>
<p>“The object is to avoid a public scandal. It is better that I should ask
them here than that the matter should pass outside our control.”</p>
<p>She was silent and her face was still very pale. At last she looked up
with something reckless and defiant in her manner.</p>
<p>“Well, I’ll answer,” she said. “What are your questions?”</p>
<p>“Did you correspond with Sir Charles?”</p>
<p>“I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy and
his generosity.”</p>
<p>“Have you the dates of those letters?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Have you ever met him?”</p>
<p>“Yes, once or twice, when he came into Coombe Tracey. He was a very
retiring man, and he preferred to do good by stealth.”</p>
<p>“But if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he know enough
about your affairs to be able to help you, as you say that he has done?”</p>
<p>She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.</p>
<p>“There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to help
me. One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour and intimate friend of Sir
Charles’s. He was exceedingly kind, and it was through him that Sir
Charles learned about my affairs.”</p>
<p>I knew already that Sir Charles Baskerville had made Stapleton his almoner
upon several occasions, so the lady’s statement bore the impress of truth
upon it.</p>
<p>“Did you ever write to Sir Charles asking him to meet you?” I continued.</p>
<p>Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again. “Really, sir, this is a very
extraordinary question.”</p>
<p>“I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat it.”</p>
<p>“Then I answer, certainly not.”</p>
<p>“Not on the very day of Sir Charles’s death?”</p>
<p>The flush had faded in an instant, and a deathly face was before me. Her
dry lips could not speak the “No” which I saw rather than heard.</p>
<p>“Surely your memory deceives you,” said I. “I could even quote a passage
of your letter. It ran ‘Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn this
letter, and be at the gate by ten o’clock.’”</p>
<p>I thought that she had fainted, but she recovered herself by a supreme
effort.</p>
<p>“Is there no such thing as a gentleman?” she gasped.</p>
<p>“You do Sir Charles an injustice. He <i>did</i> burn the letter. But sometimes a
letter may be legible even when burned. You acknowledge now that you wrote
it?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I did write it,” she cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent of
words. “I did write it. Why should I deny it? I have no reason to be
ashamed of it. I wished him to help me. I believed that if I had an
interview I could gain his help, so I asked him to meet me.”</p>
<p>“But why at such an hour?”</p>
<p>“Because I had only just learned that he was going to London next day and
might be away for months. There were reasons why I could not get there
earlier.”</p>
<p>“But why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the house?”</p>
<p>“Do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor’s house?”</p>
<p>“Well, what happened when you did get there?”</p>
<p>“I never went.”</p>
<p>“Mrs. Lyons!”</p>
<p>“No, I swear it to you on all I hold sacred. I never went. Something
intervened to prevent my going.”</p>
<p>“What was that?”</p>
<p>“That is a private matter. I cannot tell it.”</p>
<p>“You acknowledge then that you made an appointment with Sir Charles at the
very hour and place at which he met his death, but you deny that you kept
the appointment.”</p>
<p>“That is the truth.”</p>
<p>Again and again I cross-questioned her, but I could never get past that
point.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Lyons,” said I as I rose from this long and inconclusive interview,
“you are taking a very great responsibility and putting yourself in a very
false position by not making an absolutely clean breast of all that you
know. If I have to call in the aid of the police you will find how
seriously you are compromised. If your position is innocent, why did you
in the first instance deny having written to Sir Charles upon that date?”</p>
<p>“Because I feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from it and
that I might find myself involved in a scandal.”</p>
<p>“And why were you so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy your
letter?”</p>
<p>“If you have read the letter you will know.”</p>
<p>“I did not say that I had read all the letter.”</p>
<p>“You quoted some of it.”</p>
<p>“I quoted the postscript. The letter had, as I said, been burned and it
was not all legible. I ask you once again why it was that you were so
pressing that Sir Charles should destroy this letter which he received on
the day of his death.”</p>
<p>“The matter is a very private one.”</p>
<p>“The more reason why you should avoid a public investigation.”</p>
<p>“I will tell you, then. If you have heard anything of my unhappy history
you will know that I made a rash marriage and had reason to regret it.”</p>
<p>“I have heard so much.”</p>
<p>“My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I abhor.
The law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the possibility that
he may force me to live with him. At the time that I wrote this letter to
Sir Charles I had learned that there was a prospect of my regaining my
freedom if certain expenses could be met. It meant everything to me—peace
of mind, happiness, self-respect—everything. I knew Sir Charles’s
generosity, and I thought that if he heard the story from my own lips he
would help me.”</p>
<p>“Then how is it that you did not go?”</p>
<p>“Because I received help in the interval from another source.”</p>
<p>“Why then, did you not write to Sir Charles and explain this?”</p>
<p>“So I should have done had I not seen his death in the paper next
morning.”</p>
<p>The woman’s story hung coherently together, and all my questions were
unable to shake it. I could only check it by finding if she had, indeed,
instituted divorce proceedings against her husband at or about the time of
the tragedy.</p>
<p>It was unlikely that she would dare to say that she had not been to
Baskerville Hall if she really had been, for a trap would be necessary to
take her there, and could not have returned to Coombe Tracey until the
early hours of the morning. Such an excursion could not be kept secret.
The probability was, therefore, that she was telling the truth, or, at
least, a part of the truth. I came away baffled and disheartened. Once
again I had reached that dead wall which seemed to be built across every
path by which I tried to get at the object of my mission. And yet the more
I thought of the lady’s face and of her manner the more I felt that
something was being held back from me. Why should she turn so pale? Why
should she fight against every admission until it was forced from her? Why
should she have been so reticent at the time of the tragedy? Surely the
explanation of all this could not be as innocent as she would have me
believe. For the moment I could proceed no farther in that direction, but
must turn back to that other clue which was to be sought for among the
stone huts upon the moor.</p>
<p>And that was a most vague direction. I realised it as I drove back and
noted how hill after hill showed traces of the ancient people. Barrymore’s
only indication had been that the stranger lived in one of these abandoned
huts, and many hundreds of them are scattered throughout the length and
breadth of the moor. But I had my own experience for a guide since it had
shown me the man himself standing upon the summit of the Black Tor. That,
then, should be the centre of my search. From there I should explore every
hut upon the moor until I lighted upon the right one. If this man were
inside it I should find out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver
if necessary, who he was and why he had dogged us so long. He might slip
away from us in the crowd of Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do
so upon the lonely moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and
its tenant should not be within it I must remain there, however long the
vigil, until he returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It would indeed
be a triumph for me if I could run him to earth where my master had
failed.</p>
<p>Luck had been against us again and again in this inquiry, but now at last
it came to my aid. And the messenger of good fortune was none other than
Mr. Frankland, who was standing, grey-whiskered and red-faced, outside the
gate of his garden, which opened on to the highroad along which I
travelled.</p>
<p>“Good-day, Dr. Watson,” cried he with unwonted good humour, “you must
really give your horses a rest and come in to have a glass of wine and to
congratulate me.”</p>
<p>My feelings towards him were very far from being friendly after what I had
heard of his treatment of his daughter, but I was anxious to send Perkins
and the wagonette home, and the opportunity was a good one. I alighted and
sent a message to Sir Henry that I should walk over in time for dinner.
Then I followed Frankland into his dining-room.</p>
<p>“It is a great day for me, sir—one of the red-letter days of my
life,” he cried with many chuckles. “I have brought off a double event. I
mean to teach them in these parts that law is law, and that there is a man
here who does not fear to invoke it. I have established a right of way
through the centre of old Middleton’s park, slap across it, sir, within a
hundred yards of his own front door. What do you think of that? We’ll
teach these magnates that they cannot ride roughshod over the rights of
the commoners, confound them! And I’ve closed the wood where the
Fernworthy folk used to picnic. These infernal people seem to think that
there are no rights of property, and that they can swarm where they like
with their papers and their bottles. Both cases decided, Dr. Watson, and
both in my favour. I haven’t had such a day since I had Sir John Morland
for trespass because he shot in his own warren.”</p>
<p>“How on earth did you do that?”</p>
<p>“Look it up in the books, sir. It will repay
reading—Frankland <i>v</i>. Morland, Court of Queen’s Bench.
It cost me £200, but I got my verdict.”</p>
<p>“Did it do you any good?”</p>
<p>“None, sir, none. I am proud to say that I had no interest in the matter.
I act entirely from a sense of public duty. I have no doubt, for example,
that the Fernworthy people will burn me in effigy tonight. I told the
police last time they did it that they should stop these disgraceful
exhibitions. The County Constabulary is in a scandalous state, sir, and it
has not afforded me the protection to which I am entitled. The case of
Frankland <i>v</i>. Regina will bring the matter before the attention of the
public. I told them that they would have occasion to regret their
treatment of me, and already my words have come true.”</p>
<p>“How so?” I asked.</p>
<p>The old man put on a very knowing expression. “Because I could tell them
what they are dying to know; but nothing would induce me to help the
rascals in any way.”</p>
<p>I had been casting round for some excuse by which I could get away from
his gossip, but now I began to wish to hear more of it. I had seen enough
of the contrary nature of the old sinner to understand that any strong
sign of interest would be the surest way to stop his confidences.</p>
<p>“Some poaching case, no doubt?” said I with an indifferent manner.</p>
<p>“Ha, ha, my boy, a very much more important matter than that! What about
the convict on the moor?”</p>
<p>I stared. “You don’t mean that you know where he is?” said I.</p>
<p>“I may not know exactly where he is, but I am quite sure that I could help
the police to lay their hands on him. Has it never struck you that the way
to catch that man was to find out where he got his food and so trace it to
him?”</p>
<p>He certainly seemed to be getting uncomfortably near the truth. “No
doubt,” said I; “but how do you know that he is anywhere upon the moor?”</p>
<p>“I know it because I have seen with my own eyes the messenger who takes
him his food.”</p>
<p>My heart sank for Barrymore. It was a serious thing to be in the power of
this spiteful old busybody. But his next remark took a weight from my
mind.</p>
<p>“You’ll be surprised to hear that his food is taken to him by a child. I
see him every day through my telescope upon the roof. He passes along the
same path at the same hour, and to whom should he be going except to the
convict?”</p>
<p>Here was luck indeed! And yet I suppressed all appearance of interest. A
child! Barrymore had said that our unknown was supplied by a boy. It was
on his track, and not upon the convict’s, that Frankland had stumbled. If
I could get his knowledge it might save me a long and weary hunt. But
incredulity and indifference were evidently my strongest cards.</p>
<p>“I should say that it was much more likely that it was the son of one of
the moorland shepherds taking out his father’s dinner.”</p>
<p>The least appearance of opposition struck fire out of the old autocrat.
His eyes looked malignantly at me, and his grey whiskers bristled like
those of an angry cat.</p>
<p>“Indeed, sir!” said he, pointing out over the wide-stretching moor. “Do
you see that Black Tor over yonder? Well, do you see the low hill beyond
with the thornbush upon it? It is the stoniest part of the whole moor. Is
that a place where a shepherd would be likely to take his station? Your
suggestion, sir, is a most absurd one.”</p>
<p>I meekly answered that I had spoken without knowing all the facts. My
submission pleased him and led him to further confidences.</p>
<p>“You may be sure, sir, that I have very good grounds before I come to an
opinion. I have seen the boy again and again with his bundle. Every day,
and sometimes twice a day, I have been able—but wait a moment, Dr.
Watson. Do my eyes deceive me, or is there at the present moment something
moving upon that hillside?”</p>
<p>It was several miles off, but I could distinctly see a small dark dot
against the dull green and grey.</p>
<p>“Come, sir, come!” cried Frankland, rushing upstairs. “You will see with
your own eyes and judge for yourself.”</p>
<p>The telescope, a formidable instrument mounted upon a tripod, stood upon
the flat leads of the house. Frankland clapped his eye to it and gave a
cry of satisfaction.</p>
<p>“Quick, Dr. Watson, quick, before he passes over the hill!”</p>
<p>There he was, sure enough, a small urchin with a little bundle upon his
shoulder, toiling slowly up the hill. When he reached the crest I saw the
ragged uncouth figure outlined for an instant against the cold blue sky.
He looked round him with a furtive and stealthy air, as one who dreads
pursuit. Then he vanished over the hill.</p>
<p>“Well! Am I right?”</p>
<p>“Certainly, there is a boy who seems to have some secret errand.”</p>
<p>“And what the errand is even a county constable could guess. But not one
word shall they have from me, and I bind you to secrecy also, Dr. Watson.
Not a word! You understand!”</p>
<p>“Just as you wish.”</p>
<p>“They have treated me shamefully—shamefully. When the facts come out
in Frankland <i>v</i>. Regina I venture to think that a thrill of indignation
will run through the country. Nothing would induce me to help the police
in any way. For all they cared it might have been me, instead of my
effigy, which these rascals burned at the stake. Surely you are not going!
You will help me to empty the decanter in honour of this great occasion!”</p>
<p>But I resisted all his solicitations and succeeded in dissuading him from
his announced intention of walking home with me. I kept the road as long
as his eye was on me, and then I struck off across the moor and made for
the stony hill over which the boy had disappeared. Everything was working
in my favour, and I swore that it should not be through lack of energy or
perseverance that I should miss the chance which fortune had thrown in my
way.</p>
<p>The sun was already sinking when I reached the summit of the hill, and the
long slopes beneath me were all golden-green on one side and grey shadow
on the other. A haze lay low upon the farthest sky-line, out of which
jutted the fantastic shapes of Belliver and Vixen Tor. Over the wide
expanse there was no sound and no movement. One great grey bird, a gull or
curlew, soared aloft in the blue heaven. He and I seemed to be the only
living things between the huge arch of the sky and the desert beneath it.
The barren scene, the sense of loneliness, and the mystery and urgency of
my task all struck a chill into my heart. The boy was nowhere to be seen.
But down beneath me in a cleft of the hills there was a circle of the old
stone huts, and in the middle of them there was one which retained
sufficient roof to act as a screen against the weather. My heart leaped
within me as I saw it. This must be the burrow where the stranger lurked.
At last my foot was on the threshold of his hiding place—his secret
was within my grasp.</p>
<p>As I approached the hut, walking as warily as Stapleton would do when with
poised net he drew near the settled butterfly, I satisfied myself that the
place had indeed been used as a habitation. A vague pathway among the
boulders led to the dilapidated opening which served as a door. All was
silent within. The unknown might be lurking there, or he might be prowling
on the moor. My nerves tingled with the sense of adventure. Throwing aside
my cigarette, I closed my hand upon the butt of my revolver and, walking
swiftly up to the door, I looked in. The place was empty.</p>
<p>But there were ample signs that I had not come upon a false scent. This
was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets rolled in a waterproof
lay upon that very stone slab upon which Neolithic man had once slumbered.
The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate. Beside it lay some
cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water. A litter of empty tins
showed that the place had been occupied for some time, and I saw, as my
eyes became accustomed to the checkered light, a pannikin and a half-full
bottle of spirits standing in the corner. In the middle of the hut a flat
stone served the purpose of a table, and upon this stood a small cloth
bundle—the same, no doubt, which I had seen through the telescope
upon the shoulder of the boy. It contained a loaf of bread, a tinned
tongue, and two tins of preserved peaches. As I set it down again, after
having examined it, my heart leaped to see that beneath it there lay a
sheet of paper with writing upon it. I raised it, and this was what I
read, roughly scrawled in pencil: “Dr. Watson has gone to Coombe Tracey.”</p>
<p>For a minute I stood there with the paper in my hands thinking out the
meaning of this curt message. It was I, then, and not Sir Henry, who was
being dogged by this secret man. He had not followed me himself, but he
had set an agent—the boy, perhaps—upon my track, and this was
his report. Possibly I had taken no step since I had been upon the moor
which had not been observed and reported. Always there was this feeling of
an unseen force, a fine net drawn round us with infinite skill and
delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was only at some supreme moment
that one realised that one was indeed entangled in its meshes.</p>
<p>If there was one report there might be others, so I looked round the hut
in search of them. There was no trace, however, of anything of the kind,
nor could I discover any sign which might indicate the character or
intentions of the man who lived in this singular place, save that he must
be of Spartan habits and cared little for the comforts of life. When I
thought of the heavy rains and looked at the gaping roof I understood how
strong and immutable must be the purpose which had kept him in that
inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant enemy, or was he by chance our
guardian angel? I swore that I would not leave the hut until I knew.</p>
<p>Outside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with scarlet and
gold. Its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches by the distant pools
which lay amid the great Grimpen Mire. There were the two towers of
Baskerville Hall, and there a distant blur of smoke which marked the
village of Grimpen. Between the two, behind the hill, was the house of the
Stapletons. All was sweet and mellow and peaceful in the golden evening
light, and yet as I looked at them my soul shared none of the peace of
Nature but quivered at the vagueness and the terror of that interview
which every instant was bringing nearer. With tingling nerves but a fixed
purpose, I sat in the dark recess of the hut and waited with sombre
patience for the coming of its tenant.</p>
<p>And then at last I heard him. Far away came the sharp clink of a boot
striking upon a stone. Then another and yet another, coming nearer and
nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner and cocked the pistol in my
pocket, determined not to discover myself until I had an opportunity of
seeing something of the stranger. There was a long pause which showed that
he had stopped. Then once more the footsteps approached and a shadow fell
across the opening of the hut.</p>
<p>“It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson,” said a well-known voice. “I
really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.”</p>
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