The Moor - Laurie R. King [94]
So engrossed was I that I completely missed the reference Holmes had wanted me to see. Only when the Hound was dead did I recall the point of the exercise, and thumbed back to the previous chapter that described the evening when Holmes first saw the interior of Baskerville Hall. The reference startled me, and I sat deep in thought for twenty minutes or so, contemplating the "straight severe face" which was "prim, hard, and stern, with a firm-set, thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly intolerant eye" until I heard the door behind me open.
I said over my shoulder, "You think Scheiman may be a Baskerville? Stapleton's son, even?"
"Stapleton's body was never found," Holmes pointed out unnecessarily as he resumed his chair on the other side of the fire. "I was never happy with Scotland Yard's conclusion, and always felt it possible that he had prepared an escape route and slipped through it while we were occupied elsewhere, but he was never seen, and after two weeks, Scotland Yard was satisfied with his fate in the mire and took their watch from the ports."
"I have to agree that the description of the Cavalier painting, wicked Sir Hugo himself with his prim lips and his flaxen hair, does fit Scheiman."
"Scheiman is by no means so clear a case, else I should have noticed it when first I laid eyes on him. If Stapleton married in America —although legal marriage it could not have been, nor indeed would Sir Henry's have been to Beryl Stapleton, the supposed widow—the woman contributed a great deal more to her son's looks than did the father. Ears, eyes, cheekbones, and hands are all hers; only the mouth (which you will have noticed he takes care to conceal beneath a beard) and the stature are his father's."
"You wondered when the portrait of Sir Hugo had gone: If the surviving Baskerville took it with her rather than sell it with the others to Ketteridge, for the dubious privilege of preserving a memento of the family history perhaps, then its absence is innocent, whereas if it was removed after the sale, by Ketteridge or Scheiman—"
"Then the why is obvious: that Scheiman's family resemblance might not be seen by visitors to the house."
"Visitors such as Sherlock Holmes. I don't think I told you, by the way, that Ketteridge was interested in hiring you to investigate the hound sightings."
That brought a laugh, as I had thought it might do, albeit a brief one.
"What brought the resemblance to your mind?" I asked. Surely he hadn't picked up The Hound of the Baskervilles to read on the train?
"A number of things. Scheiman's interest in the antiquities of the moor, the dim lighting of the dining hall, how he spent the least amount of time possible with us—with me, who had known Stapleton. But, I have to admit, the actual possibility was got through hindsight.
"As I told you, the Ketteridge establishment interests me. It interested me when first I saw the man helping himself to Gould's liquor cabinet. He does not fit in Dartmoor, and does not seem eccentric enough to justify the oddity of his presence here.
"So while I was in town, I initiated some enquiries about Ketteridge and his secretary. The responses to my telegrams will take days, even weeks, but I did come across one thing of interest: The two men were not together when they boarded the ship coming over here. Ketteridge began his journey in San Francisco, but Scheiman joined the ship in New York."
"There could be an explanation for that."
"There could be any number of explanations. However, Ketteridge told us he came over in the summer, yet his passage was in early March."
I had to agree that although the oddity was hardly evidence of criminal activity, it did call for a closer examination of the two men.
"You've sent wires to New York and San Francisco?"
"And Portland and Alaska."
"So you think Ketteridge is involved."
"He may or may not be. Scheiman is definitely up to something."
The generality