The Hound of the Baskervilles: The Stapletons of Merripit House

The fresh beauty of the following morning did something to efface
from our minds the grim and grey impression which had been left
upon both of us by our first experience of Baskerville Hall. As
Sir Henry and I sat at breakfast the sunlight flooded in through
the high mullioned windows, throwing watery patches of colour
from the coats of arms which covered them. The dark panelling
glowed like bronze in the golden rays, and it was hard to realise
that this was indeed the chamber which had struck such a gloom
into our souls upon the evening before.

“I guess it is ourselves and not the house that we have to
blame!” said the baronet. “We were tired with our journey and
chilled by our drive, so we took a grey view of the place. Now we
are fresh and well, so it is all cheerful once more.”

“And yet it was not entirely a question of imagination,” I
answered. “Did you, for example, happen to hear someone, a woman
I think, sobbing in the night?”

“That is curious, for I did when I was half asleep fancy that I
heard something of the sort. I waited quite a time, but there was
no more of it, so I concluded that it was all a dream.”

“I heard it distinctly, and I am sure that it was really the sob
of a woman.”

“We must ask about this right away.” He rang the bell and asked
Barrymore whether he could account for our experience. It seemed
to me that the pallid features of the butler turned a shade paler
still as he listened to his master’s question.

“There are only two women in the house, Sir Henry,” he answered.
“One is the scullery-maid, who sleeps in the other wing. The
other is my wife, and I can answer for it that the sound could
not have come from her.”

And yet he lied as he said it, for it chanced that after
breakfast I met Mrs. Barrymore in the long corridor with the sun
full upon her face. She was a large, impassive, heavy-featured
woman with a stern set expression of mouth. But her telltale eyes
were red and glanced at me from between swollen lids. It was she,
then, who wept in the night, and if she did so her husband must
know it. Yet he had taken the obvious risk of discovery in
declaring that it was not so. Why had he done this? And why did
she weep so bitterly? Already round this pale-faced, handsome,
black-bearded man there was gathering an atmosphere of mystery
and of gloom. It was he who had been the first to discover the
body of Sir Charles, and we had only his word for all the
circumstances which led up to the old man’s death. Was it
possible that it was Barrymore, after all, whom we had seen in
the cab in Regent Street? The beard might well have been the
same. The cabman had described a somewhat shorter man, but such
an impression might easily have been erroneous. How could I
settle the point forever? Obviously the first thing to do was to
see the Grimpen postmaster and find whether the test telegram had
really been placed in Barrymore’s own hands. Be the answer what
it might, I should at least have something to report to Sherlock
Holmes.