“Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall beready for anything. So! Now, if you will help me up. What do youpropose to do?”
“To leave you here. You are not fit for further adventures tonight.
If you will wait, one or other of us will go back with you tothe Hall.”
He tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly pale andtrembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock, where he satshivering with his face buried in his hands.
“We must leave you now,” said Holmes. “The rest of our workmust be done, and every moment is of importance. We have ourcase, and now we only want our man.
“It’s a thousand to one against our finding him at the house,” hecontinued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. “Thoseshots must have told him that the game was up.”
“We were some distance off, and this fog may have deadenedthem.”
“He followed the hound to call him off—of that you may becertain. No, no, he’s gone by this time! But we’ll search the houseand make sure.”
The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried fromroom to room to the amazement of a doddering old manservant,who met us in the passage. There was no light save in the diningroom,but Holmes caught up the lamp and left no corner of thehouse unexplored. No sign could we see of the man whom we werechasing. On the upper floor, however, one of the bedroom doorswas locked.
“There’s someone in here,” cried Lestrade. “I can hear amovement. Open this door!”
A faint moaning and rustling came from within. Holmes struckthe door just over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flewopen. Pistol in hand, we all three rushed into the room.
But there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiantvillain whom we expected to see. Instead we were faced by anobject so strange and so unexpected that we stood for a momentstaring at it in amazement.
The room had been fashioned into a small museum, and thewalls were lined by a number of glass-topped cases full of thatcollection of butterflies and moths the formation of which hadbeen the relaxation of this complex and dangerous man. In thecentre of this room there was an upright beam, which had beenplaced at some period as a support for the old worm-eaten baulkof timber which spanned the roof. To this post a figure was tied, soswathed and muffled in the sheets which had been used to secureit that one could not for the moment tell whether it was that ofa man or a woman. One towel passed round the throat and wassecured at the back of the pillar. Another covered the lower partof the face, and over it two dark eyes—eyes full of grief and shameand a dreadful questioning—stared back at us. In a minute we hadtorn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and Mrs. Stapleton sankupon the floor in front of us. As her beautiful head fell upon herchest I saw the clear red weal of a whiplash across her neck.
“The brute!” cried Holmes. “Here, Lestrade, your brandybottle!
Put her in the chair! She has fainted from ill-usage andexhaustion.”
She opened her eyes again.
“Is he safe?” she asked. “Has he escaped?”
“He cannot escape us, madam.”
“No, no, I did not mean my husband. Sir Henry? Is he safe?”
“Yes.”
“And the hound?”
“It is dead.”
She gave a long sigh of satisfaction.
“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this villain! See how he hastreated me!” She shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we sawwith horror that they were all mottled with bruises. “But this isnothing—nothing! It is my mind and soul that he has tortured anddefiled. I could endure it all, ill-usage, solitude, a life of deception,everything, as long as I could still cling to the hope that I had hislove, but now I know that in this also I have been his dupe and histool.” She broke into passionate sobbing as she spoke.
“You bear him no good will, madam,” said Holmes. “Tell us thenwhere we shall find him. If you have ever aided him in evil, help usnow and so atone.”
“There is but one place where he can have fled,” she answered.
“There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire.
It was there that he kept his hound and there also he had madepreparations so that he might have a refuge. That is where hewould fly.”
The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. Holmesheld the lamp towards it.
“See,” said he. “No one could find his way into the GrimpenMire to-night.”
She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamedwith fierce merriment.
“He may find his way in, but never out,” she cried. “How can hesee the guiding wands to-night? We planted them together, he andI, to mark the pathway through the mire. Oh, if I could only haveplucked them out to-day. Then indeed you would have had him atyour mercy!”
It was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the foghad lifted. Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of the housewhile Holmes and I went back with the baronet to BaskervilleHall. The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheldfrom him, but he took the blow bravely when he learned the truthabout the woman whom he had loved. But the shock of the night’sadventures had shattered his nerves, and before morning he laydelirious in a high fever under the care of Dr. Mortimer. The twoof them were destined to travel together round the world beforeSir Henry had become once more the hale, hearty man that he hadbeen before he became master of that ill-omened estate.
