Project Gutenberg's The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Posting Date: October 10, 2010

Release Date: February, 2002 [Etext #3070]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Hound of the Baskervilles

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

CONTENTS

Chapter 1--Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Chapter 2--The Curse of the Baskervilles
Chapter 3--The Problem
Chapter 4--Sir Henry Baskerville
Chapter 5--Three Broken Threads
Chapter 6--Baskerville Hall
Chapter 7--The Stapletons of Merripit House
Chapter 8--First Report of Dr. Watson
Chapter 9--The Light Upon The Moor
Chapter 10--Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson
Chapter 11--The Man on the Tor
Chapter 12--Death on the Moor
Chapter 13--Fixing the Nets
Chapter 14--The Hound of the Baskervilles
Chapter 15--A Retrospection

Chapter 1

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings,
save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all
night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the
hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left
behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood,
bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a "Penang lawyer."
Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch
across. "To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the
C.C.H.," was engraved upon it, with the date "1884." It was just
such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to
carry--dignified, solid, and reassuring.

"Well, Watson, what do you make of it?"

Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no
sign of my occupation.

"How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in
the back of your head."

"I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in
front of me," said he. "But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of
our visitor's stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss
him and have no notion of his errand,