Sherlock Holmes Complete Works 2

Chapter 79 The Hound of the Baskervilles 18
"Ah! Sorry, please help me up, what shall we do now?"

"You should stay here, Sir Henry. If you want to go back to the Manor, one of the three of us will always go back to Baskerville Manor with you."

He tried to struggle to stand up, but his efforts were in vain.We helped him to sit down beside a rock, and he covered his face with trembling hands after he sat down.

Holmes said: "Now we must leave you, Sir Henry, and there are other things to deal with. Every minute is important to us. We have the evidence. Now it is enough to catch that man. "

As we raced down the lane to the Staple Valley house again, he continued, "There's only one in a thousand chances we'll catch him inside the house, the gunfire has told him—his tricks." If he was exposed, he must have escaped."

"We were still some distance away from him then, and the fog might have blocked the gunfire! He might not have heard it."

"He must have followed the hound and commanded it. He has escaped now, but we have to search his house, hoping to find some clues, or where he fled."

The front door was open, and we rushed in, hurried from room to room, and there was no one there except a terrified and very elderly footman.Holmes turned on the light, and we searched every corner, but there was no trace of the man we were looking for. Finally, we found a locked room on the second floor, which could not be opened no matter how hard we pushed. .

Remired yelled, "There's someone inside! I hear something moving inside, open this door!"

Holmes kicked open the door, and all three of us rushed in, pistols in hand.

But the villainous villain we were looking for was not in the house, and there was a very strange thing in front of us, and we were dumbfounded.

In the middle of the house is an upright wooden stake.There was a person tied up on it, and that person was bound so tightly that he couldn't make a sound. You couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman.A handkerchief was tied around the neck to a post behind the back, and another covered the lower part of the face, revealing two dark eyes, full of pain and shame, staring at us.In a short time we set the man free, it was Mrs. Staple Valley, she was falling slowly, with the most prominent red and swollen welts on her neck.

Holmes seated her in the chair.She fainted from fear and fear.

But she opened her beautiful eyes again, "Did he run away?"

"He can't escape, ma'am."

"I mean Sir Henry. Is he safe now?"

"He was rescued by us now and is resting."

"And what about the hound?"

"We've killed the damned Hound."

She let out a long sigh: "Thank God for saving another good man! Look at this villain, and see what he did to me." She pulled up her sleeves suddenly, revealing her snow-white arms, which were covered with scars. "Now I understand that I'm nothing more than an object of deceit and a tool he uses to achieve his shameful purpose!" she cried bitterly.

Holmes persuaded her: "You have seen his ugly face, madam. Tell us, then, where we may find him."

She immediately replied: "On a small island in the center of the quagmire, there is a tin mine used in the past. He usually keeps the hounds there, and he still has preparations for hiding in times of crisis. At this time Just run there."

A wall of fog surrounded the outside, and Holmes walked to the window with a lamp in his hand and said, "Look outside, no one will find their way into Grimpen Mire tonight."

"He'll probably find his way in, but he'll never find his way out," she cried. "He can't see those stick signs tonight. I put them in with him, Used to mark the trails through the mire, if you pull them up now, then you can really do with him!"

Evidently any pursuit would be in vain until the fog cleared.Remy Read remained and tended the house, while Holmes and I returned with the baronet to Baskerville Park, and we ceased to deceive Sir Henry about the state of affairs at Staple Valley.When he heard that the woman he loved was someone else's wife, he survived the shock.But the fright at night had damaged his nerves, and before dawn he developed a high fever and lay unconscious on the bed.We got Dr. Mortimer to look after him.They had decided that they would go on a round-the-world trip together after Sir Henry recovered.To know what a spirited and lively man Sir Henry was before he had a great fortune!

The next morning the fog cleared over the pond, and Mrs. Staple Valley led us to the path that led to the mire.We left her on a long, narrow, firm peaty surface.The further you go into the mud, the narrower the ground becomes.

At the end of this ground is a signpost of small wooden sticks inserted one after another, and along them is the road that strangers can't walk at all, winding from one clump of trees to another. , with green puddles and dirty muddy paths floating on it.We took a few steps and we were knee-deep in black mud.Only once did we see a trace that someone else had walked this dangerous road before us.A black thing protruded from a pile of cotton grass on the clay.Holmes grabbed the thing and looked at it. It was a black high-top leather shoe with the words "Miles Toronto" written on it.

He said: "You see, I found Sir Henry's lost leather shoe. He will be happy when I get back."

"It must have been dropped here when Staple Valley escaped."

"Exactly, he left the shoe with his hand after he let the hounds smell it and chased it, and fled with it when he knew we had caught him. That way we can deduce that at least as far as here he Still safe."

We will never know more than this.It was impossible to find his footprints in the swamp to tell where he was going, because the rising mud quickly covered them.When we came to solid ground after the last stretch of the boggy track, we eagerly began looking for tracks, but there were no shadows to be found.If the land hadn't lied, then Staple Valley hadn't reached his destination yesterday when he groped his way through the bog to his safety.Somewhere in the Great Grimpen Mire, he had been swallowed up in foul yellow mud, and the vicious man ended his life unnoticed.

On the island, we found many traces of him. In a small house, we found a horseshoe, a chain and some gnawed bones, which showed that there was where the beast hid. The skeleton, lying among the broken walls, still has a mass of brown hair stuck to it.

"A dog," said Sherlock Holmes, "poor Dr. Mortimer's dog. There is probably no secret here which we do not know. He can hide his hound, but he cannot keep him from barking." , so that some barking was heard from the surrounding houses, and even the barks were not pleasant in the daytime. When he needed the dog urgently, he kept the dog in the little house of his family, but it was very risky to do so. So he will only take the dog out when he is ready and ready to move. The contents of this tin can are the mixture used to paint the dog at night to make the dog glow. Of course, he took this Inspired by the family's story about the magic dog, Sir Childs was frightened to death with his big hound. This is indeed a cunning plot. Because it will not only kill him without leaving a trace. murderer, and could convince the surrounding peasants of that legend. Never before have we assisted in the hunt for a more dangerous man!" With that, he waved his long arms.Now the task we face is how to return to our manor safely.

(End of this chapter)