slowly from the crushed skull of the victim. And it shone
upon something else which turned our hearts sick and
faint within us—the body of Sir Henry Baskerville!
There was no chance of either of us forgetting that
peculiar ruddy tweed suit—the very one which he had
worn on the first morning that we had seen him in Baker
Street. We caught the one clear glimpse of it, and then the
match flickered and went out, even as the hope had gone
out of our souls. Holmes groaned, and his face glimmered
white through the darkness.
‘The brute! the brute!’ I cried with clenched hands.
‘Oh Holmes, I shall never forgive myself for having left
him to his fate.’
‘I am more to blame than you, Watson. In order to
have my case well rounded and complete, I have thrown
away the life of my client. It is the greatest blow which has
befallen me in my career. But how could I know—how
could l know—that he would risk his life alone upon the
moor in the face of all my warnings?’
‘That we should have heard his screams—my God,
those screams!—and yet have been unable to save him!
Where is this brute of a hound which drove him to his
death? It may be lurking among these rocks at this instant.
And Stapleton, where is he? He shall answer for this deed.’
‘He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have
been murdered—the one frightened to death by the very
sight of a beast which he thought to be supernatural, the
other driven to his end in his wild flight to escape from it.
But now we have to prove the connection between the
man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we cannot
even swear to the existence of the latter, since Sir Henry
has evidently died from the fall. But, by heavens, cunning
as he is, the fellow shall be in my power before another
day is past!’
We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the
mangled body, overwhelmed by this sudden and
irrevocable disaster which had brought all our long and
weary labours to so piteous an end. Then, as the moon
rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our
poor friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out
over the shadowy moor, half silver and half gloom. Far
away, miles off, in the direction of Grimpen, a single
steady yellow light was shining. It could only come from
the lonely abode of the Stapletons. With a bitter curse I
shook my fist at it as I gazed.
‘Why should we not seize him at once?’
‘Our case is not complete. The fellow is wary and
cunning to the last degree. It is not what we know, but
what we can prove. If we make one false move the villain
may escape us yet.’
‘What can we do?’
‘There will be plenty for us to do to-morrow. To-night
we can only perform the last offices to our poor friend.’
Together we made our way down the precipitous slope
and approached the body, black and clear against the
silvered stones. The agony of those contorted limbs struck
me with a spasm of pain and blurred my eyes with tears.
‘We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him
all the way to the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?’
He had uttered a cry and bent over the body. Now he
was dancing and laughing and wringing my hand. Could
this be my stern, self-contained friend? These were hidden
fires, indeed!
‘A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!’
‘A beard?’
‘It is not the baronet—it is—why, it is my neighbour,
the convict!’
With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and
that dripping beard was pointing up to the cold, clear
moon. There could be no doubt about the beetling
forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was indeed the same
face which had glared upon me in the light of the candle
from over the rock—the face of Selden, the criminal.
Then in an instant it was all clear to me. I remembered
how the baronet had told me that he had handed his old
wardrobe to Barrymore. Barrymore had passed it on in
order to help Selden in his escape. Boots, shirt, cap—it
was all Sir Henry’s. The tragedy was still black enough,
but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of his
country. I told Holmes how the matter stood, my heart
bubbling over with thankfulness and joy.
‘Then the clothes have been the poor devil’s death,’
said he. ‘It is clear enough that the hound has been laid on
from some article of Sir Henry’s—the boot which was
abstracted in the hotel, in all probability—and so ran this
man down. There is one very singular thing, however:
How came Selden, in the darkness, to know that the
hound was on his trail?’
‘He heard him.’
‘To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a
hard man like this convict into such a paroxysm of terror
that he would risk recapture by screaming wildly for help.
By his cries he must have run a long way after he knew
the animal was on his track. How did he know?’