The Answer
Who killed Sir Charles Baskerville, and how does a dog kill a man without touching him? The short answer is Stapleton, the polite butterfly collector. He used a half-starved hound, painted to glow, to frighten a man with a weak heart to death. This is the ending of The Hound of the Baskervilles explained, with full spoilers, in the order it happened. The facts come from chapters twelve to fifteen of the Project Gutenberg text.
The Man Behind It
Start with who he is. In chapter fifteen, Holmes says Stapleton is a Baskerville. He is the son of Rodger, the youngest brother of Sir Charles, who fled to South America and was said to have died unmarried. In fact Rodger had married and had one child, and gave the boy his own name.
The son took public money, married Beryl Garcia of Costa Rica, and fled to England as Vandeleur. He ran a school in Yorkshire that sank into disgrace. Then he moved to the south as Stapleton, with his taste for butterflies. He learned that only two lives stood between him and a valuable estate.
The Night In The Yew Alley
Now the murder. Stapleton cannot simply kill an old man, so he builds a death that looks like a curse. He buys the strongest, most savage dog he can find from dealers in London, and brings it down to Devon. He hides it in the Grimpen Mire, and paints it with a glowing mixture.
He needs Sir Charles outside after dark. Mrs. Lyons writes the letter, because Stapleton dictates it. Then he talks her out of going. That night he drives home from Coombe Tracey, gets the hound, and brings it to the gate. The dog leaps the wicket gate and chases the baronet down the yew alley. Sir Charles dies at the far end, of fear and a bad heart. The hound keeps to the grass, so only the man’s prints show on the path. It sniffs the body, turns away, and leaves the print Dr. Mortimer later sees.
The Women
Two women knew pieces of it. Beryl, his wife, knew he had designs on the old man, and knew about the hound. Laura Lyons knew about the appointment, which only he knew about. But he had power over both. Beryl refused to lure Sir Charles for him, and she paid for it in threats and blows.
Notice what the plot does with them. Stapleton tells Laura he is single and promises marriage. He tells everyone else that Beryl is his sister. He lies in two directions at once, and the scheme depends on neither woman seeing the other.
The Chase In London
Then comes Sir Henry. Stapleton may not have known there was an heir in Canada, but Dr. Mortimer tells him everything. He takes Beryl to London, keeps her locked in a hotel room, and follows Mortimer in a false beard.
Beryl cuts the words out of the Times and posts the warning. Stapleton needs an article of Sir Henry’s clothing for the dog’s scent, and Holmes thinks someone at the hotel was bribed. The first boot is new, and no use. So the thief returns it and takes an old one. When Holmes nearly catches the cab, Stapleton gets away, and has the driver pass on Holmes’s own name.
The Wrong Man
Chapter twelve. Stapleton has asked Sir Henry to dine, but Sir Henry stays home. The man who runs across the moor is Selden, the convict, in Sir Henry’s old clothes. Holmes guesses the hound was set on him with the boot. Selden, terrified, screams, and falls from the rocks.
Stapleton comes out to see his work, and finds the wrong man. Holmes and Watson are already there, and pretend it was an accident. In my reading, that is the book’s coldest scene, because everyone is lying with a straight face.
The Trap
The last night is Holmes’s trap, and a risky one. He pretends to leave for London. He tells Sir Henry to dine at Merripit House and walk home alone across the moor. Lestrade comes down from London on a telegram, with an unsigned warrant. Holmes also tells Watson not to mention the hound to Sir Henry, so his nerve stays steady for the ordeal. Then Holmes, Watson and Lestrade hide in the rocks, two hundred yards from the house, and wait. Holmes calls it a waiting game.
Inside the house, Beryl has already turned on her husband. She learned of the convict’s death and of the hound in the outhouse, and told him so. He tied her to a post in the butterfly room. Then the fog came in from the Mire, the one thing Holmes feared. When Sir Henry walked out alone, the hound followed him.
The Shots
Holmes and Watson fire together, and Holmes empties five barrels into the hound’s side. By then the hound has Sir Henry on the ground. It dies, and the flame in its jaws is phosphorus. Holmes says there is no smell to disturb the dog’s scent. Sir Henry has no wounds, and goes down with a fever.
The Mire
Stapleton flees into the Mire. Beryl tells them his refuge, the old tin mine on an island, and says he can find his way in, but not out. Next morning they follow the wands she helped plant, and find Sir Henry’s missing black boot, with the name Meyers, Toronto, inside. There are no footprints, and no body.
The book gives no certainty. Holmes says that if the earth told a true story, Stapleton never reached the island. There, they find the dog’s chain, gnawed bones, and the skeleton of Mortimer’s spaniel. The tin of luminous paste explains the rest.
What Holmes Couldn’t Prove
It matters that Holmes lets Sir Henry walk into danger, because he has no case. He says so in chapter twelve. They could not prove the hound existed, connect it to the death, or give a motive. He tells Watson in chapter fifteen that he had to catch Stapleton red-handed, and that using Sir Henry as bait is a reproach to his own management.
Holmes also admits that Stapleton had a problem. How does the heir claim an estate, after living nearby under another name? Mrs. Stapleton had heard three plans. He might claim it from South America, put on a disguise in London, or use an accomplice.
Loose Ends
A few threads stay open. Anthony, the old servant at Merripit House, has gone, and Holmes thinks he cared for the hound. Holmes suspects Stapleton of four burglaries in the west country, but offers no proof. Mrs. Stapleton’s fate is not told. And Sir Henry leaves on a long voyage with Mortimer to restore his nerves. The last thing Holmes says is that he has a box for the opera.
So Was It A Ghost?
No. Holmes says the family ghost is laid once and forever. In my reading, the best idea in the book is that the legend is a weapon. Stapleton did not need a monster, he only needed people to believe in one.
That is why the ending works. The mystery is solved by observation, and the monster is stopped by a revolver. I think it is at its best in the last chapters, though the scene with Selden is the one I keep thinking about.
Subscribe
If this helped, subscribe, and tap like. And tell me in the comments whether you saw the ending coming.
