The Moor - Laurie R. King [93]
"A pair of lights, old-style lanterns rather than the new automobile headlamps, mounted on the upper front corners of a light-coloured square frame. They had with them a strong pair of field glasses."
"As if two lanterns on a coach built of bones."
"As you say."
"How would you judge them as witnesses?"
He shrugged. "Ramblers," he said dismissively. "The sort of young people who would read up on the more arcane myths and legends of an area and spend a week traipsing about, raising blisters and searching for Local Romance."
"Holmes, that sounds perilously close to what I have been doing this last week."
He looked startled. "My dear Russell, I was certainly not drawing a comparison between your search for information and the self-indulgent—"
"Of course not, Holmes. Did they see a dog, or any person either inside or driving?"
"Not to be certain, no, although they had convinced themselves that they saw a large black shadow moving with the horse."
"Of course they did. Was there anything else to be had in London?"
"There was, but I should like to delay until you've read something. Just remain there," he said, getting to his feet. "I won't be a moment."
He went out and, judging by the sounds of another door opening almost immediately he left the drawing room, I knew he was in Baring-Gould's study. A certain amount of time passed, and several muffled thuds, before he returned with a slim book in his hand. He tossed it in my lap and picked up his pipe from the ashtray on the table.
"How long is it since you've read that?" he asked.
"That," to my amazement, was Conan Doyle's account of The Hound of the Baskervilles, looking heavily read. "At least three years. I'm not certain," I replied.
"More than that, perhaps. I should like to consult with Gould for an hour or two; you have a look at that and see if anything within Baskerville Hall strikes you as it did me."
"But Holmes—"
"When I return, Russell. It won't take you long, and you might even find it amusing. Though perhaps," he added as he was going out the door, "not for the reasons Conan Doyle intended."
EIGHTEEN
Take my advice. Henceforth possess your mind with an idea, when about to preach. Drive it home. Do not hammer it till you have struck off the head. A final tap and that will suffice.
—Further Reminiscences
Actually, although I would have hesitated to admit it in Holmes' hearing, I enjoyed Conan Doyle's stories. They were not the cold, factual depictions of a case that Holmes preferred (indeed, when some years later he found that Conan Doyle had set a pair of stories in the first person, as if Holmes himself were describing the action, Holmes threatened the man with everything from physical violence to lawsuits if he dared attempt it again), but taken as Romance, they were entertaining, and I have nothing against the occasional dose of simple entertainment.
In any event, it was no great hardship to settle into my chair with the book and renew my acquaintance with Dr Mortimer, the antiquarian enthusiast who brings Holmes the curse of the Baskervilles, and with the young Canadian Sir Henry Baskerville, come to the moor to claim his title and his heritage. I met again the ex-headmaster Stapleton and the woman introduced as his sister, and the mysterious Barrymores, servants to old Sir Charles. The moor across which I had so recently wandered came alive in all its dour magnificence, and I was very glad this book had not been among my reading the previous weekend, leaving me to ride out on the moor with the image of the hound freshly imprinted on my mind. I could well imagine the terror raised by hearing the rhythm of four huge running paws (or the "thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the heart of that crawling bank" of fog that Dr Watson described), the hoarse panting from between those massive jaws, even without the eerie glow of phosphorus on its coat to render it otherworldly:
A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from