The Adventure at Baskerville Hall & Other Cases

clenched hands. "Oh, Holmes, I shall never forgive myself."
    The agony of those contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my eyes with tears.
    "We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him all the way to the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?"
    For a horrified moment I wondered if his recent harsh living conditions had turned his mind, for he had uttered a cry, bent over the body, and now he was dancing and laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my stern, self-contained friend? These were hidden fires, indeed!
    "A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!"
    "A beard?"
    "It is not the baronet – it is – why, it is my neighbour, the convict!"
    With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping beard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There could be no doubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was indeed the same face that had glared upon me on the night that Sir Henry and I had ventured onto the moor – the face of Selden, the criminal.
    Then in an instant it was all clear to me. I remembered how the baronet had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to Barrymore. Barrymore had passed it on in order to help Selden in his escape. Boots, shirt, cap – it was all Sir Henry's. The tragedy was still black enough, but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of his country. I told Holmes how the matter stood, my heart bubbling over with thankfulness and joy.
    "Then the clothes have been the poor fellow's death," said he. "It is clear enough that the hound has been laid on from some article of Sir Henry's – the boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all probability – and so ran this man down. But the question now is what shall we do with this poor wretch's body? We cannot leave it here to the foxes and the ravens."
    "I suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can communicate with the police."
    "Excellent. I have no doubt that you and I could carry it so far."
    Once this sad task had been accomplished Holmes and I returned to Baskerville Hall, where Sir Henry greeted my friend with both pleasure and surprise, and I was left to gently break the sad news to Mrs. Barrymore.
    * * * *
    After supper I retired to my room immediately, since it was already very late. More pertinently, I had not had a moment alone since I had met Holmes at his erstwhile lodgings, and I desperately needed one. I sat by the fire meditatively, staring into the dancing flames. I was still filled with a sense of utter disbelief; I had thought him indifferent for so long that I needed some time to adjust my way of thinking and grasp the magnitude of my misunderstanding.
    For he loved me. He had said so, in words that could not be doubted.
    A soft tap at the door roused me, and when I opened it I found Holmes, attired only in his borrowed trousers and shirt, leaning against the doorjamb.
    "Good evening," he smiled at me. "I thought that perhaps you might like some company, or should I be in the way?"
    There was a trace of diffidence in his query, very faint but terribly endearing, and in reply I swung the door wide and gestured him inside.
    "My dear man, you are never in the way," I replied, sternly quashing the fatuous smile that was pulling at my own mouth. He had bathed and shaved while Sir Henry and I had been having supper, and as he brushed past me I caught the faint trace of his scent, overlaid by that of clean linen and soap.
    There is no sense quite so evocative as the olfactory one, and at the smell of him I was flooded with a sudden wave of desire that made my knees weak and my mouth dry. Closing the door, I quietly drew a deep breath and sternly counselled myself to be calm. It was true that, even before my departure, things had been strained between us to the extent that I had spent more nights in my own bed than Holmes's, but that did not automatically mean that Holmes had come here for any other reason than a simple wish for my company.
    When I turned back to him, I saw that he had settled himself on the settee by the hearth, stretching his long legs out towards the fire. In his hand he held a small dish that I had not seen when he had entered, and when he saw me looking at him he tilted it towards me invitingly.
    "I brought dessert. Mrs. Barrymore was kind enough to include it on my supper tray, and I thought perhaps you might like to share it."
    When Sir Henry and I had exclaimed over the quality of Mrs. Barrymore's cooking, her husband had