CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Search for the Murderer

Suddenly Holmes jumped up and gave a great cry. Holmes and I fired our guns together. The hound gave a howl of pain, and we knew we had hit it. But it did not stop, and ran on, after Sir Henry.

When we heard the cry of pain, our fears disappeared. This was not a ghost hound! It was a real, living animal. Our guns could kill it. We ran after it as fast as we could. Holmes was running so fast that I could not stay next to him. On the path in front of us, we heard Sir Henry shouting for help. The hound jumped at Sir Henry and threw him to the ground. Its teeth went for his throat! But the next moment Holmes had shot his gun. All the bullets went into the hound's body. It gave a last deep howl of pain. Its teeth closed on the empty air, and it fell down on top of Sir Henry. I put my gun to its head, but I did not need to fire. The hound was dead.

Sir Henry lay where he had fallen. Quickly we pulled the hound's body off him. It was heavy and dripping with blood. Holmes opened Sir Henry's shirt and gave a sigh of relief. We had been just in time. The hound's teeth had not reached our friend's throat. Sir Henry's eyes opened and he looked up at us.

"Oh, my God," he whispered. "What was it? What in Hell was that thing?"

"It's dead, whatever it was," said Holmes. "We've killed the Baskerville family's ghost for ever!"

The animal that lay before us was as large as a small lion! Its mouth had rows of teeth, sharp as knives. There were rings of blue light round its cruel eyes, too. I touched the hound's burning coat. When I held up my hand, it, too, seemed to be on fire.

"It is the chemical phosphorus," I said. "Stapleton put phosphorus paint on the hound in the hut beside the house. That is why the hound appears to burn in the dark with that white light."

But Holmes was thinking more about Sir Henry than about Stapleton's cleverness.

"I must apologize to you, Sir Henry," he said. "I put your life in danger. I expected to see a large hound, but not a horrible thing like this! For moments we could not move."

"Do not worry," said Sir Henry. "You saved my life, and I thank you. Please help me stand up. What are you going to do now?"

Sir Henry's legs were shaking so much from his terrible experience that he could not stand. We helped him to a rock so he could sit down and rest.

"We must leave you here, Sir Henry, and try to catch Stapleton. We shall come back as quickly as we can, and take you to Baskerville Hall. Our work is almost done, but now we must find the true criminal!"

I followed Holmes along the path back to the Stapletons' house.

"We must search the house," said Holmes, "but I am sure that Stapleton won't be there. He probably heard the sound of our guns, so he knows the hound is dead."

The front door of the house was open. We went in and looked in all the rooms. All the rooms downstairs were empty, so we went upstairs. We found nothing and nobody, until we came to one room that was locked.

"There's somebody in there!" I said. "I heard someone move. Help me break open this door."

We threw ourselves against the door, and as the lock broke we went in. We held our guns ready to fire.

In the middle of the room was a person lying on the bed. There were ropes around the body. We could not see whether it was a man or a woman, because the person was completely covered with sheets. Only the eyes and nose were free.

We pulled off the sheets and cut the prisoner's ropes. It was Miss Stapleton. As we untied her, we could see long red bruises across her neck.

"It's just as I thought! That cruel devil Stapleton has beaten her, and then hid her upstairs!" Holmes said. "Put her into a chair." Miss Stapleton had fainted, but when we moved her she opened her eyes.

"Is he safe?" she cried. "Has he escaped?"

"Your husband cannot escape us, Miss Stapleton," Holmes said.

"No, no, I don't mean my husband. I mean Sir Henry. Is he safe?"

"Yes," I said, "and the hound is dead."

"Thank God," she said. "Thank God! Oh, the cruel devil. Look what he has done to me!" She showed us her arms, and we saw with horror that her skin was black and blue where she had been beaten. "But he has hurt me more in other ways. While I thought he loved me, I accepted many things. But he doesn't love me. He doesn't love anyone except himself. He has used me."

"Then help us now," said Holmes gently. "Tell us where he has gone."

"On an island in the middle of the marsh, there is a little old house," she said. "My husband kept his hound there. He also had the house ready in case he needed to escape. He knows that no one can walk into the Grimpen marsh except himself. I am sure he is there now."

"Nobody could walk into the Grimpen marsh in this mist!" said Holmes, looking out of the window.

The mist was like a thick, white cloth covering the house. We knew we could not find Stapleton until the mist cleared. We decided to take Sir Henry back to Baskerville Hall. We had to tell him everything about the Stapletons. He was deeply hurt when he learned the truth about Miss Stapleton, the woman he loved. The news that she was married, and the awful fear he had experienced, caused Sir Henry to become ill with a fever. We sent for Dr Mortimer, who came and sat with Sir Henry all night.

The next morning, Miss Stapleton took us to the path through the Grimpen marsh. The fog had lifted, and she showed us the sticks that she and her husband had put in to help them find their way. We followed the path through the marsh. It smelled of rotting, dying plants. One man alone could never escape the pull of the marsh's wet, thick sand; without help, he would sink to his death.

But we never found Stapleton. We searched and searched without success. Perhaps he lost his way in the fog, and sank into the marsh. Maybe somewhere, deep down, his body lies to this day. Maybe he escaped us, and went to another country. One day we will know the truth.

We reached the island Miss Stapleton had described, and searched the old house.

"This place tells us a few more things," said Holmes. "These bones show that he hid the hound here, and gave it meat to eat. But he could not always keep it quiet, so people heard its howling. Here is the bottle of phosphorous paint. Stapleton was clever to put this paint on the animal! After what we saw and felt last night, we cannot be surprised that Sir Charles died of fright. His heart was too weak to live through a horror like that. Selden's death was even more horrible than Sir Charles'. Selden could see the hound's shining body in the darkness, and he was so frightened that he probably chose to fall to his death, rather than be killed by that hound! The old story of the supernatural hound probably gave Stapleton the idea of using phosphorus. Very clever—but not clever enough!"

(end of section)