PLOT SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

CHAPTER THREE: The Problem

Summary

Holmes questions Dr. Mortimer in greater detail about the setting. The alley is eight feet wide with grass extending an additional six feet on either side. The footprints of the hound had been found on the path, not the grass, and on the same side as the moor, but had not approached the body. Dense yew hedge twelve feet high encloses the alley so that there are only three possible entrances to it, including from the house. There is a four foot high padlocked wicket-gate which leads to the moor and where Sir Charles had, from the evidence of the cigar ashes, stopped for 5 to 10 minutes. Also, at the end of the alley is a summerhouse. The body had been found about 50 yards from it.

Though Holmes is pleased with Mortimer’s deduction from the ash, he is still slightly upset that he was not called in earlier, despite the reasons. Holmes’s rational mind is further irritated by the doctor’s apparent belief that the hound is supernatural, mentioning sightings by others on the moor. However, Mortimer is only there for advice on what to do with the heir Henry Baskerville, who has arrived in England from Canada where he was farming.

It is not believed there are any other heirs; of the three brothers, Sir Charles died childless and one is the deceased father of Henry. The third, Rodger (who looked very similar to the legend’s Hugo), went to Central America, where he also died, supposedly childless.

Holmes tells Mortimer to return tomorrow morning at 10:00 with Henry Baskerville and he will advise on how they should proceed. After the visitor departs, Watson does as well, to give Holmes time to think over the case.

When Watson returns, having spent the day at his club, Holmes has filled the apartment with tobacco smoke from his clay pipe while he was looking over a large map of Devonshire. He says there are two questions to be answered-was there a crime committed, and, if so, what was it and how was it done? He has already come to the conclusion that Sir Charles was waiting for someone at the gate when he saw something so frightening across the moor that it drove him to run (hence the change in footprints) in panic away from the house until his heart gave out.

Notes

The “great convict prison of Princetown” which Holmes points out on the map is important to note. In Chapter Six: Baskerville Hall, the driver of the wagonette reports on the escape of a prisoner from there, who will later play a greater part in the story. The prison was originally built to keep French POWs, but it was later changed to serve this purpose of housing convicts.

Dr. Mortimer’s conviction that there could be forces beyond this world at work is set as a last resort to the practical Holmes and in the end is not the explanation for the mystery. However, the supernatural might not have seemed altogether out of the question to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; he is believed to have conducted séances with Houdini’s ghost.

The clay pipe is typical of Holmes, who is so often portrayed with it, that, along with the hat, has become the classic caricature of a detective. In other stories, Holmes also has a cocaine addiction, and Watson, acting years ahead of his time, opposes and eventually breaks Holmes of it.

CHAPTER FOUR: Sir Henry Baskerville

Summary

Dr. Mortimer arrives right on time with Sir Henry, a man who, while with the sturdy build and appearance that one would expect of a farmer also has something of the air of a gentleman about him. The baronet, even before hearing of the legend, is already feeling disturbed, by the arrival at his hotel (where no one had known he would be staying) of a note warning him not to go to the moor.

Holmes is easily able to identify the cut out words as being from the previous day’s Times newspaper. He also deduces from the message that it is an educated person in a hurry in order to avoid an interruption. The written portion-the address and the word “moor”, being difficult to find in print-indicate by the quality that the person is attempting to disguise their handwriting since it is or will be familiar and that the message was composed in a hotel.

Sir Henry also reports on the disappearance of one of his tan boots, which he set outside his room to be varnished and has yet to wear. He then demands to be told what is going on, and Dr. Mortimer tells him all that he has told Holmes and Watson. Sir Henry was familiar with the legend but until hearing of his uncle’s mysterious death, had always dismissed it. Regardless, he is insistent on going to the Hall. He does however request another meeting at his hotel at 2:00 that afternoon.

As soon as the doctor and the baronet leave for the hotel on foot, Holmes and Watson begin trailing them. They quickly notice that a cab is following the pair but unfortunately the passenger, a man with a black beard (a fake), notices them at the same time and the cab takes off. Unable to pursue it and regretting his enthusiasm that tipped the man off, the detective did at least get the number-2704.

Holmes and Watson go into a nearby messenger office and employ Cartwright, a young boy who works there, to go about to the twenty-three hotels in the area and bribe the employees so he can look through the wastepaper, looking for a cut up copy of the Times.

Notes

Esquimau refers to someone who lives in the Arctic. Due to the isolated nature of such a place, the skull of one from there would likely have marked differences, especially to an expert. Though for a doctor like Mortimer, such knowledge would not be unusual, in this time period, phrenology (studying the bumps on a head in the same way a fortune teller reads palms) was popular.

Similarly, as a detective, Holmes is skilled at font identification. The Times typeface that he recognizes so easily was changed in 1932, when, after commissioning a new design, Times New Roman was created.

The Hound of the Baskervilles - Free Plot Summary

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