hat
Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who fled with
a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said to have died
unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had one child, this
fellow, whose real name is the same as his father's. He married Beryl
Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa Rica, and, having purloined a
considerable sum of public money, he changed his name to Vandeleur and
fled to England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire.
His reason for attempting this special line of business was that he had
struck up an acquaintance with a consumptive tutor upon the voyage
home, and that he had used this man's ability to make the undertaking a
success. Fraser, the tutor, died however, and the school which had begun
well sank from disrepute into infamy. The Vandeleurs found it convenient
to change their name to Stapleton, and he brought the remains of his
fortune, his schemes for the future, and his taste for entomology to
the south of England. I learned at the British Museum that he was a
recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur
has been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his
Yorkshire days, been the first to describe.

"We now come to that portion of his life which has proved to be of such
intense interest to us. The fellow had evidently made inquiry and found
that only two lives intervened between him and a valuable estate. When
he went to Devonshire his plans were, I believe, exceedingly hazy, but
that he meant mischief from the first is evident from the way in which
he took his wife with him in the character of his sister. The idea of
using her as a decoy was clearly already in his mind, though he may not
have been certain how the details of his plot were to be arranged. He
meant in the end to have the estate, and he was ready to use any tool
or run any risk for that end. His first act was to establish himself as
near to his ancestral home as he could, and his second was to cultivate
a friendship with Sir Charles Baskerville and with the neighbours.

"The baronet himself told him about the family hound, and so prepared
the way for his own death. Stapleton, as I will continue to call him,
knew that the old man's heart was weak and that a shock would kill him.
So much he had learned from Dr. Mortimer. He had heard also that Sir
Charles was superstitious and had taken this grim legend very seriously.
His ingenious