unpleasant remembrance back to
London with me to-morrow."

"Oh, you return to-morrow?"

"That is my intention."

"I hope your visit has cast some light upon those occurrences
which have puzzled us?"

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

"One cannot always have the success for which one hopes. An
investigator needs facts, and not legends or rumours. It has not
been a satisfactory case."

My friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner.
Stapleton still looked hard at him. Then he turned to me.

"I would suggest carrying this poor fellow to my house, but it
would give my sister such a fright that I do not feel justified
in doing it. I think that if we put something over his face he
will be safe until morning."

And so it was arranged. Resisting Stapleton's offer of
hospitality, Holmes and I set off to Baskerville Hall, leaving
the naturalist to return alone. Looking back we saw the figure
moving slowly away over the broad moor, and behind him that one
black smudge on the silvered slope which showed where the man was
lying who had come so horribly to his end.

Chapter 13

Fixing the Nets

"We're at close grips at last," said Holmes as we walked together
across the moor. "What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled
himself together in the face of what must have been a paralyzing
shock when he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his
plot. I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again,
that we have never had a foeman more worthy of our steel."

"I am sorry that he has seen you."

"And so was I at first. But there was no getting out of it."

"What effect do you think it will have upon his plans now that he
knows you are here?"

"It may cause him to be more cautious, or it may drive him to
desperate measures at once. Like most clever criminals, he may be
too confident in his own cleverness and imagine that he has
completely deceived us."

"Why should we not arrest him at once?"

"My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action. Your
instinct is always to do something energetic. But supposing, for
argument's sake, that we had him arrested to-night, what on earth
the better off should we be for that? We could prove nothing
against him. There's the devilish cunning of it! If he were
acting through a human agent we could get some evidence, but if
we were to drag this great dog to the light of day it would not
help us in putting a rope round the neck of its master."