The Hound of the Baskervilles: Sir Henry Baskerville

Our breakfast table was cleared early, and Holmes waited in his
dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our clients were
punctual to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten
when Dr. Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet.
The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years
of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a
strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and
had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of
his time in the open air, and yet there was something in his
steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated
the gentleman.

“This is Sir Henry Baskerville,” said Dr. Mortimer.

“Why, yes,” said he, “and the strange thing is, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes, that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to
you this morning I should have come on my own account. I
understand that you think out little puzzles, and I’ve had one
this morning which wants more thinking out than I am able to give
it.”

“Pray take a seat, Sir Henry. Do I understand you to say that you
have yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in
London?”

“Nothing of much importance, Mr. Holmes. Only a joke, as like as
not. It was this letter, if you can call it a letter, which
reached me this morning.”

He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. It
was of common quality, greyish in colour. The address, “Sir Henry
Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel,” was printed in rough
characters; the post-mark “Charing Cross,” and the date of
posting the preceding evening.

“Who knew that you were going to the Northumberland Hotel?” asked
Holmes, glancing keenly across at our visitor.

“No one could have known. We only decided after I met Dr.
Mortimer.”

“But Dr. Mortimer was no doubt already stopping there?”

“No, I had been staying with a friend,” said the doctor.

“There was no possible indication that we intended to go to this
hotel.”

“Hum! Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your
movements.” Out of the envelope he took a half-sheet of foolscap
paper folded into four. This he opened and spread flat upon the
table. Across the middle of it a single sentence had been formed
by the expedient of pasting printed words upon it. It ran:

As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.

The word “moor” only was printed in ink.

“Now,” said Sir Henry Baskerville, “perhaps you will tell me, Mr.
Holmes, what in thunder is the meaning of that, and who it is
that takes so much interest in my affairs?”

“What do you make of it, Dr. Mortimer? You must allow that there
is nothing supernatural about this, at any rate?”