Sir Charles Baskerville's murder

Sir Charles Baskerville’s murder was a calculated killing made to appear the work of the legendary Baskerville hound. Stapleton used Sir Charles’s belief in that legend, his weak heart, and an appointment arranged through Laura Lyons to bring him within reach of a dog concealed on the moor. The death seemed mysterious because its apparent supernatural explanation obscured the human design behind it.

Background and Preparation

Stapleton learned of the family hound from Sir Charles himself, who had become his friend. Dr. Mortimer had also told him that Sir Charles had a weak heart and was susceptible to a fatal shock. Holmes’s reconstruction links these pieces of knowledge: the old family story supplied a means of frightening Sir Charles, while his physical vulnerability made terror a means of killing him. Stapleton could therefore turn the legend into cover for a crime that would be difficult to prove.

The plan required a real dog, but also a way to make it seem otherworldly. Stapleton acquired a powerful, savage animal from Ross and Mangles, dealers on Fulham Road in London. He brought it south by the North Devon line, then continued on foot across the moor to avoid attracting notice. His insect-hunting had already taught him how to enter the dangerous Grimpen Mire, where he kept the animal hidden. He applied a luminous preparation to it, making its appearance seem to confirm the story of a supernatural hound.

At first, Stapleton could not get Sir Charles out at night. He had hoped Mrs. Stapleton would lure the old man into an attachment that could be used against him, but she refused to participate, even when he tried to make her comply. The plan stalled until another route opened through Laura Lyons, whose circumstances had made her a recipient of Sir Charles’s charity. Stapleton presented himself to her as unmarried and led her to believe he would marry her if she obtained a divorce.

The Appointment and the Evidence

When Stapleton learned that Sir Charles was preparing to leave Baskerville Hall on Dr. Mortimer’s advice, he acted before the old man could depart. He pressured Laura Lyons to write asking Sir Charles to meet her that evening. He then persuaded her not to attend, leaving Sir Charles to keep an appointment whose cancellation he had never received. In this way, a private request became the means of placing him at the gate at the hour Stapleton needed.

The surviving evidence of the letter emerged only after the death. Sir Charles’s study had remained untouched, but a few weeks before Barrymore spoke of it, his wife found ashes in the back of the grate while cleaning the room. Most of the letter had burned; a small fragment, apparently its postscript, still bore a request to destroy the letter and be at the gate at ten, followed by the initials L. L. The scrap crumbled after it was moved, so it could not be preserved. Barrymore also knew that Sir Charles had been at the gate to meet a woman. Together, the initials and the appointment point to Laura Lyons and explain why Sir Charles was waiting there, though neither clue alone disclosed the whole plot.

The Killing and Its Concealment

On the evening of the appointment, Stapleton returned from Coombe Tracey, prepared the dog with its luminous coating, and brought it to the gate. He had reason to expect Sir Charles there. The dog sprang over the wicket gate and chased the baronet down Yew Alley. Sir Charles died at the end of the path from the combined effects of his weak heart and terror. The dog had run along the grassy edge while Sir Charles followed the path, leaving no visible track of its own; the human footprints were therefore the only ones apparent on the ground.

Dr. Mortimer did observe a hound’s print, a detail that became important to the later investigation. After Sir Charles had fallen, the dog was called away and taken back to its hiding place in Grimpen Mire. The concealed animal, the lack of its tracks, and Sir Charles’s death in circumstances already colored by the family legend left the authorities with a puzzling case and alarmed the surrounding country. The extraordinary appearance of the method helped protect its actual author: the more readily the death could be attributed to the legend, the harder it was to connect it to Stapleton.

Revelation and Significance

Holmes’s account transforms separate, initially incomplete clues into a causal sequence. Barrymore’s knowledge that Sir Charles expected a woman, the fragment signed with L. L., Dr. Mortimer’s observation of a hound’s print, and the circumstances of Sir Charles’s death acquire meaning when set beside Stapleton’s knowledge and preparations. The letter explains the victim’s presence; the hidden dog explains the print; and the dog’s route across the grass explains why the ground did not display the expected tracks.

The murder also marks the point at which the Baskerville legend functions not merely as inherited fear but as an instrument deliberately used by a human killer. Stapleton exploited Sir Charles’s faith in the story to disguise a material crime as a supernatural threat. The death was consequently both the first successful stage of Stapleton’s effort to secure the estate and the event that brought the case, with its apparent mystery and physical evidence, to Holmes’s attention.