The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 126 The Hound of the Baskervilles (7)
The road leads to a wide lawn, and the house is in front of us.In the dim light, I could see a solid building in the center with a corridor sticking out.The front of the house was covered with ivy, clipped only where the windows or coats of arms were, like patches in the gaps in the black visors.There are a pair of ancient towers on the top of the central building, with gun holes and many lookout holes.On the left and right sides of the tower, there is a newer wing built of black granite.Dim light shone through the solid mullioned windows, and a black column of smoke spewed from the tall chimneys on the steeply sloping roof.

"Welcome, Sir Henry! Welcome to Baskerville Hall!"

A tall man emerged from the shadows of the corridor and opened the door of the carriage.In front of the pale yellow light in the living room, a woman's figure appeared again, and she came out to take the luggage bag that the man took down.

"You will not be offended, Sir Henry, if I have to go straight home?" said Dr. Mortimer. "My wife is waiting for me."

"You'd better go back after dinner."

"No, I must go at once, perhaps there is something waiting for me at home. I should have stayed to show you the house, but Barrymore was a better guide than I. Good-bye, As long as I can help you, call me right away, day or night."

As soon as Sir Henry and I entered the hall, the sound of the wheels on the path ceased, and the door slammed heavily behind us.The room we were in was very luxurious, high and large, with rafters black with age and huge beams.Logs crackled and crackled in the great old-fashioned fireplace behind tall iron dogs.Sir Henry and I warmed ourselves by the fire, and the long drive left us numb.Then we looked round again, and saw the long narrow windows of old stained glass, the oak panelling, the stuffed stag's head, and the coat of arms hanging on the wall, softly lit by the central chandelier. In the bright light, it looks dark and gloomy.

"As I imagined it," said Sir Henry, "isn't that what an old family should look like? This is the hall where my ancestors have lived for five hundred years, and I feel heavy when I think of it .”

As he looked about me, I could see a childlike enthusiasm burning in his swarthy face.There was light shining where he stood, but the long shadows on the wall and the dark ceiling seemed to stretch a canopy over his head.Barrymore came back after taking the luggage into our living room.He stood before us with the obedience of a well-trained servant.He was a very handsome man, tall and handsome, with a square-cropped black beard and a fair, handsome face.

"Sir, are you going to have supper right away?"

"Are you ready?"

"It will be ready in a few minutes. You have hot water in your bedrooms, Sir Henry, and my wife and I will be at your service until you make new arrangements, but you must understand that in this Under the new circumstances, more servants are needed in this house."

"What's new?"

"My lord, I only mean that Lord Childs lives a reclusive life, so we can manage, and you, of course, would like more people to live with you, so you will certainly Make some changes in the family situation."

"You mean, you and your wife want to quit your job?"

"Sir, of course, at your convenience."

"But your family has lived with my family for generations, haven't you? It would be a great pity if I interrupted this long-standing family tradition when I first started living here."

I seemed to see signs of excitement in the butler's fair face.

"I think so, my lord, and so does my wife. To tell the truth, my lord, we all adored and loved Sir Childs, and his death has greatly affected us, and everything around us Painful. I fear we shall never find peace of mind again at Baskerville Park."

"But what do you want to do?"

"My lord, I believe that if we start a little business, we shall be successful. Lord Childs' generosity has given us the basis for it. But now, my lord, I'd better lead you first." Let's go and see your room."

In the upper part of this ancient hall, there is a circle of square verandas with balusters, which must be ascended by a double-stacked staircase.Two long corridors protrude from the central hall, passing through the whole building, and the doors of all the bedrooms open to these two corridors.

Baskerville's bedrooms and mine were on the same side, almost immediately adjacent, and these rooms appeared to be much newer than the rooms in the middle of the building, the brightly colored wallpaper and numerous burning candles more or less obliterating the ambiguity of our first arrival. The gloomy impressions left in the mind from time to time.

But the dining room, which opened onto the hall, was a dark and gloomy place.This is a long room, and there is a step that divides the room into two parts with different heights from the middle. The higher part is where the family eats, and the lower part is used by the servants.At one end there is a concert hall on a high place.Sooty beams stretched over our heads, and above us the blackened ceiling.Perhaps the austere atmosphere would have been softened in the midst of an old feast of rich and carnival debauchery, if the house had been lit by a row of burning torches, but now?The two gentlemen in black sat in the small halo illuminated by the lampshade, talking in a low voice, and their spirits were also very depressed.A looming row of portraits of our ancestors, in every costume, from the Elizabethan knight to the dandy of the Regency of Prince George IV, all with open eyes, seeming to watch us, Silently accompanies us and intimidates us.We talked very little, and I was only cheered up when the meal was over, and we could go to the new-style billiard room for a cigarette.

"To tell the truth, this is not an exciting place," said Sir Henry. "I thought I could get used to it, but now I always feel that something is wrong. No wonder my uncle lives here alone. Getting restless. Well, if you like, we'll go to bed earlier to-night, and it may be pleasanter in the morning."

Before going to bed, I opened the curtains and looked outside.This window is open to the grass in front of the hall, and there are two clumps of trees further away, and the stronger and stronger wind blows the trees groaning and swaying.The half-circle moon was exposed in the wind and clouds.In the pale moonlight I could see the broken edge of the hills beyond the woods and the long, low, gently rolling, gloomy moors.I drew the curtains, and felt that my impression at this moment was the same as that at the beginning.

But this is not my last impression.Although I was exhausted, I couldn't fall asleep right away. I tossed and turned on the bed, and the more I wanted to sleep, the more I couldn't fall asleep.A deathly silence hung over the ancient house, and in the distance came the chime of the clock, beating every quarter of an hour.Suddenly, in the dead of night, a voice came to my eardrums, clear and loud.I was sure it was a woman sobbing, like the choked and choked gasps of someone tormented by uncontrollable grief.I sat up and listened intently.The sound could not have come from afar, and was certainly within the house.In this way I waited with tense nerves for half an hour, but there was no sound except the striking of the clock and the rustling of the ivy beyond the walls.

[-]. Stapleton, owner of Melipi House

The fresh beauty of the next morning dispelled most of the horrible and gloomy impressions we had had of the previous night at Baskerville Hall.By the time Sir Baskerville and I sat down to breakfast, the sunlight had diffused in through the high lattices, where the coat-of-arms-pane cast feeble patches of light, and the dark wainscots Glows bronze in the golden sun.It's hard to believe that this is the same room that cast a shadow over our hearts last night.

"I suppose we have frightened ourselves, and not the house!" said the baronet. "We had a bad impression of the place last night, from the fatigue of our journey and the coldness of our car. Now we have recovered, both physically and mentally." , so I feel very happy again.”

"But it's not just a matter of feeling," I replied. "For instance, did you hear someone—a woman, I think—crying in the night?"

"It's strange. I did hear the crying in a daze. I waited for a long time, but I didn't hear it again, so I thought it was a dream."

"I could hear it very clearly, and I'm pretty sure it was a woman's cry."

"We've got to ask about that right away." He rang for Barrymore and asked if he could explain the crying we had heard.I saw the steward's pale face grow paler after he heard the master's question.

"My lord Henry, there are only two women in the house," he replied, "one is the maid, who sleeps in the opposite wing; the other is my wife, but I can assure you that it was not her who cried. .”

But he was later proved to be a liar, for after breakfast I happened to meet Mrs Barrymore on the porch, with the sun shining on her face, a tall, stony, fat woman with a serious mouth.

But her eyes were red, and she glanced at me with her swollen eyes.There was no doubt that she was the one who cried at night.If she had indeed cried, her husband must have known why, but why did he deny it at the risk of being easily discovered?Also, why was she crying so sadly?Around this fair-faced, handsome, black-bearded figure hung an air of mystery and misery.He was the first to discover Sir Childs' body, and it is only from him that we have any information concerning the circumstances of the old man's death.is it possible?Could it be that Barrymore was the man in the carriage we saw in Regent Street?Beards are likely to be the same.

The coachman described him as a man of small stature, and this impression may well be mistaken.How can I figure this out?Obviously, the first thing to do was to go to the postmaster at Greenping to find out whether the tentative telegram had really been delivered to Barrymore in person.Whatever the answer, I have at least something to report to Sherlock Holmes.

After breakfast, Sir Henry had a great deal of papers to look at, so I was able to go out during that time.It was a pleasant walk, and I walked four miles along the edge of the moor, and at last came to a deserted little village, in which were two large houses, taller than the others, one of which was an inn, the other, as I afterwards learned. It was Dr. Mortimer's house, and the postmaster—again the village grocer—remembered the telegram well.

"Certainly, sir," said he, "I have done exactly as directed to have the telegram delivered to Mr. Barrymore."

"Who did you ask to send it?"

"My son sent it. James, it was you who sent that telegram to Mr. Barrymore at the estate last week, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Dad, I gave it to you."

"Did he receive it himself?" I asked.

"Well, he was upstairs at the time, so I couldn't take it to him myself, but I gave it to Mrs. Barrymore, and she promised to have it up right away."

"Did you see Mr. Barrymore?"

"No, sir, I told you he was upstairs."

"How do you know he's upstairs if you don't see him?"

"Oh, of course his own wife ought to know where he is!" said the Postmaster sullenly. "Did he get that telegram after all? Mr. Barrymore himself should be the one to ask if something went wrong. "

There seems to be no hope of further understanding, but it is clear that, in spite of Holmes' ingenuity, we have not been able to prove that Barrymore has not been to London.Suppose that was the case--suppose he was the last to see Sir Childs alive, the first to follow the new heir who had just returned to England, so what?Was he at the beck and call of someone else, or was there a conspiracy of his own?What good would it do him to kill the Baskervilles?I am reminded of the warning letter clipped from The Times review.Had he done it, or could it have been done by someone determined to oppose his plot?

The only conceivable motive was that which Sir Henry had surmised, namely, that if the master of the estate could be frightened away, the Barrymores would be given a permanent and comfortable dwelling.But this hardly explains the long-term intrigue that has spun an invisible net around the young baronet.Holmes himself has remarked that in his long astonishing list of detective cases there is no more complicated one.As I walked back along the gray and deserted road, I prayed silently in my heart that my friend would come here from his business, and take this heavy responsibility off my shoulders.

Suddenly a sound of running and a voice calling my name interrupted my train of thought. I turned around and thought it must be Dr. Mortimer, but to my surprise, it was a stranger who caught up with me.He is short and thin, with a clean shaved beard and a regular face. He has light yellow hair and a thin chin. He looks about 40 or [-] years old. He wears gray clothes, a straw hat, and a thin plant on his shoulder. A specimen case, with a handful of green butterfly nets in one hand.

"I trust you will forgive my insolence, Dr. Watson," he said, panting, running up to me. No need to wait for a formal introduction. I think you may have heard my name from our friend Dr. Mortimer, and I am Stapleton of Melipy."

"Your box and net tell me very well," said I, "that I knew Mr. Stapleton was a biologist. But how did you know me?"

"When I visited Dr. Mortimer, you were walking past his window, so he pointed it out to me. Since we were traveling the same way, I wanted to catch up with you and introduce myself. Is everything all right for Sir Henry's trip?"

"Thank you, he's fine."

"After the tragic death of Sir Childs, we all feared that the new baronet might not want to live here. It is a little unjustifiable to subject a rich man to living in such a place. But, I need not say that this is of great importance to the country. Sir Henry has no superstitious fears about it, I suppose?"

"I don't think so."

"You must have heard the legend of the devilish hound that haunted the family?"

"I've heard of it."

"The farmers here are so credulous to rumors! Every one of them can swear that they have seen such an animal in this swamp." He said with a smile, but I seemed to see it in his eyes. Come out, he is very serious about this matter. "It affected Sir Childs a great deal. I am sure it was the cause of his tragic end."

"how could be?"

"His nerves were so strained that the sight of a dog would have had a fatal effect on his fragile heart. I reckon he actually saw something like that the night he died, in the yew lane. I used to worry What a disaster, because I love that old man and know he has a weak heart."

"How do you know that?"

"My friend Mortimer told me."

"Then, do you think Sir Childs was pursued by a dog, and he was frightened to death by the dog?"

"Do you have a better explanation than that?"

"I haven't drawn any conclusions yet."

"And Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

This sentence made me hold my breath for a moment, but when I looked at the other party's gentle and calm expression and calm eyes, I realized that he didn't mean to surprise me.

"It is impossible for us to pretend that we do not know you, Dr. Watson," said he; "we have already read your account of the investigation here, and you have not been able to praise your My friend, and keep yourself unknown. When Mortimer spoke of you to me, he could not deny your identity. Now that you are here, it is evident that Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself is also aware of the matter. Interested. And I, of course, would like to know his opinion on this matter."

"I'm afraid I can't answer that question."

"May I ask if he will come here himself?"

"He cannot leave London at present. He is concentrating on other cases."

"What a pity! He may be able to turn this inexplicable matter into a new clue. If I can be of any help when you are in trouble in the investigation, just ask. If I understand your doubts or I may be able to help or make suggestions at once about how you plan to conduct your investigation."

"You will be assured that I am here only to call on my friend Sir Henry, and I do not need any help."

"Well!" said Stapleton, "it is perfectly right to be cautious, and I deserve the reprimand for meddling without purpose. I assure you I will never speak of it again." It's over."

We took a narrow, grassy, ​​sloping path that meandered across the moor.On the right are steep hills strewn with rocks, which have been turned into a granite quarry many years ago; towards us are dark cliffs, with ferns and brambles growing in the crevices; With a wisp of gray smoke.

(End of this chapter)