The Hound of the Baskervilles - Part One

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I used to check for monsters under my bed

up until I was about genuinely 13 years old.

don't know why just that

phantom presence under there lurking

listening

I got older uh and and wiser and it went away the way it went with the

the more magical things I think the stories and the myths

but

I'm

sad to report I have relapsed and

that

presence

that I thought I had left behind has

come back.

It's um

hi everyone

It's that podcast again that one that

lifts you up, that can bring,

I don't know, a little break from life or the the world every week, that little light that glows a little bit every Tuesday.

Well, yeah, welcome to that podcast for the next

ten weeks.

That's right, ten weeks.

This is ten parts.

That little light might be a little dark,

sometimes scary dark,

and you will be there with me

alone in the dark.

Like the last

the last big one we did together.

I won't be doing these intros, I'll just let it run through.

Yeah, sign up to get the first volume of five parts right away

and see you at the end of it all.

Archie, we don't chew the mic for God's sake, man.

Look at that.

Hmm, that's a lot of slobber.

Archie, mate, sort your life out.

Hmm, I think it rather harsh to blame Archie.

Sorry for chewing the mic?

I didn't chew it, did I?

Yes, but you did want a bulldog in the first place.

You were responsible for training him.

Sherlock, I and an ex-girlfriend wanted one five and a half years ago.

He knows better than that, don't you?

Hmm?

Don't look at your scrotum, look at me.

Your self-esteem wanes once more, dear Watson.

It dulls as the melancholy winds of autumn chill off the dense summer air.

No, it does not dull as the melancholy winds of autumn chill off the dense summer air, but there's nothing wrong with my self-esteem.

Wait, what does that have to do with this slobbering knobhead?

Once again, your deep-rooted frustration against your own position.

There was a time when you first acquired your beloved bulldog, a time of military pride and a doctorship of noted prominence.

Right, stop.

And had he chewed a vital tool of your profession back then?

Perhaps medical supplies, uniform, medals.

Just.

But now he choose a microphone.

The microphone of a podcaster.

Yes, all right.

John Watson, the podcaster.

There's nothing wrong with being a podcaster.

Goodness.

Not even Archie was convinced by that retort.

I suggest you gather yourself before our client arrives.

You must have clarity.

I do have clarity.

I always have clarity.

Like many things, Watson, envy is a fog.

It hangs like a cloud over a landscape that we must observe keenly.

Many pitfalls lie ahead.

I do not wish to tread unwisely.

Do you?

Oh, yeah, ask a leading question, then shut the door, mate.

Very helpful.

What was that?

I said the game is afoot.

Indeed.

My name is Dr.

John Watson.

Once of the British Army Northumberland Fusilier Regiment, now a true crime podcaster based in central London.

I don't have much experience in criminology, so this is mostly a record of how I met possibly the most brilliant and bizarre person I have ever and will ever know.

Join me as I document the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Look at it, Watson.

Marvel at my concoction.

I shall be remedied to full health in an instant.

My fatigue and strain shall be vanquished in a blitz of vitamin and nutrition.

Better be blitzing out your arse with all those cheer signs, mate.

Please just buy a smoothie from the shop.

Oh, yes, hi.

Which got put through again from the last person.

Our internet is down.

Well, well, it's on and off.

Hmm.

Yeah, no, I've done that.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Done both those things.

Wait, could you please turn the blender off?

Hmm, the turnips are rather stubborn.

Shh.

Shush.

Right, can you just check if you have a problem in the area?

Maybe if there's been an engineer that's been dispatched.

Hello?

God's sake, they've transferred me again.

Come, the smoothie is complete.

And now I must work with this enchanting elixir, fueling my every thought and notion.

What?

Stop what you're doing.

Come.

Feel free to take a glass for yourself.

Stop what I'm doing.

I'm sorting the internet out.

I wish for us to focus on this accidental souvenir of Dr.

Mortimer, which was left in our office by mistake.

Mariana spoke with him.

Go and ask her about it.

But I'd rather work through you.

Work through me.

Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?

The internet is fine.

It just can't handle the demands of the games console at the moment.

I have had a long day.

I would like to shoot some people online and laugh at them.

Is that unreasonable?

It makes you laugh.

Killing these people.

Why?

Ah, don't give me moral lectures, mate.

Not when you pull spiders apart.

I don't pull them apart.

Oh, right.

What was it in the kitchen earlier than a spider physiotherapy session?

Yes, hello.

Hi.

Yeah, my internet's very slow and very patchy.

And yes, I have done all the things with the router that you're going to ask me if I've done.

Can I please just get an engineer or just confirmation that there's a problem in the area?

No, no, no, no.

I'll only hold if I'm going to- Oh, for fu.

What do you see, Watson?

Uh, it's like a flashing red light, then it goes green for a bit.

Not the router.

What do you see?

A red mist descending over my eyes.

Can you recreate the man?

What now?

From his walking stick.

Mate.

Can you, John?

I'm not doing this.

You refuse to observe?

No, I refuse to do your little game that you're way better at.

It's like me asking you to do the washing up, but oh, they've...

Oh my god, they've actually hung up.

Oh, and great.

Just smelled that awful smoothie.

Oh, come, sit.

Here, I'm sat.

It's a very nice walking stick, but Dr.

Mortimer is imminent.

I'm sure we can figure him out then.

Our somewhat more sinister doctor from our most recent case, he tells me I am examined from afar.

A buyer for my blood.

Yeah, lots of weirdos out there, mate.

Don't worry about it.

Probably just a fan of the podcast.

You never know.

Hmm, that strikes me as somewhat unlikely.

Have you met our fans?

But expelled blood, like this stick, are disconnected parts of us, are they not?

Uh,

yeah.

No,

no, no.

I would like you to try

to examine.

Yeah, well, I'm not a genius, so I don't see the point.

You underrate your own abilities.

Yeah, I do.

For good reason.

Now, can you please shed some light on this situation so I can listen semi-intently and then go for a wee?

Light.

Yes.

Rather like genius.

What?

It shines, does it not?

Out in the darkness.

A beacon to some, a

paining glare to others.

It certainly stings from time to time.

Yep.

I know I'm just seen as the,

you know, assistant.

It shouldn't sting.

You wouldn't understand.

I understand more than you know.

Great.

You understand everything, apparently.

So much so, I can't even do a routine case as the lead detective at my own agency.

You are not luminous, Watson.

Lovely, thank you.

But you are a conductor of light.

A conductor of light?

Our router here.

Slowed.

Laggy.

Weak.

Why?

Because they won't send out a bloody engineer and I was duped by a very favourable monthly cost.

It's because of light.

The fiber optic cables that come through into this property.

Feeding that router.

They merely conduct the light into its path.

They feed it, John.

Now,

Dr.

Mortimer's walking stick.

Right.

Okay, fine.

Let's give it here.

Let's have a looky look.

Okay, walking stick.

Wood.

very polished, uh smooth on on the handle.

The the top here, little

metal sort of plaque says Dr.

Jamie Mortimer, MRCS, CCH.

Indeed.

Meaning he's a surgeon called Jamie.

MRCS is Royal College of Surgeons.

Correct.

Very good.

And CCH

is

I don't know.

That could be

maybe a club maybe yeah this was probably given to him by the club he's got to be old he's got a walking stick

what kind of clubs do old people attend

golf there's a G in that CCH CCH hockey hurling not gonna be doing them if he's elderly okay so maybe not a sport

uses a walking stick after all um

CC could mean

Conservative club conservative Club

Henley?

Hmm?

Hungerford.

They're kind of

conservative-y type places, right?

Very good indeed.

Really?

Really?

Am I right?

I didn't ask you to be right.

Because you're the genius.

And you possess the ability to stimulate it.

And for that, I am forever in your debt.

Thank you, mate.

I appreciate that.

You're in debt for that, of course, but also the washing up, the laundry, the cooking.

Yes, yes, yes.

Dealing with nearly all people, cleaning the bathroom.

Okay, thank you.

The observations you made are interesting, though elementary.

Really?

Yes.

I'm afraid your only significant ones were erroneous.

Oh.

The CCH, I would venture, is Charing Cross Hospital.

Ah, yeah, shit.

Yep.

This is certainly a gift, so I would imagine a leaving present.

Probably retirement gift?

No.

Why not?

Because he's not old enough.

Well, he uses a walking stick.

As have you, upon occasion.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Oh, your smoothie is starting to separate all the slushy bits that go into the bottom.

So, Mortimer, Royal College of Surgeons, Charing Cross Hospital.

Why would a walking stick be such a gift?

Perhaps an ironic one, do we think?

The famous gallows humour of the medical profession.

Well, could be.

I just.

You just what?

I just don't think you're gonna get that much from a walking stick.

Jamie Mortimer is a young doctor.

He works in a rural location.

A Moorland, I'd say.

A Morland that he walks regularly.

He's potentially of mixed heritage.

The handle here has traces of Permade.

Certainly heavier than most products.

Closer to a Shea or Castor oil.

I would say he rested his head against this stick on his journey to this very office.

A hair even transferred in the pinch between handle and embossed nameplate.

An afro-textured hair, so that confirms initial observation regarding heritage.

Yes, this handle tells us many things about Jamie.

He's leaning on this stick far more than an elderly gentleman, like you denoted, would do.

Observe the frule, worn, not evenly, but on the inner edge, ground into an ellipse.

Meaning, meaning the stick is planted close to the midline as a stabilizer, not thrust wide as one does to ease, say, arthritic pain.

Then examine the wooden mold of the handle.

Not the wear of a light fingertip, no, but a deep gloss left by the heel of the palm, day after day, bearing true weight.

This is no ornament or proprioceptive stabilizer.

We can confirm that down here.

Thirty centimeters down from the tip, a neat scuff band rubbed smooth against the shaft's varnish.

You see?

I.

Yeah, I see that.

Unlikely a trouser hem.

Too consistent for accident.

It's the trace, Watson, of a synthetic shin.

bruising the stick each time he sits, rises, or even crosses his legs, like so.

Ding!

Ow!

Ding!

Ow!

And ding!

And ow!

Ow, indeed!

Flesh would bruise before it wore wood so evenly.

Note the shaft, an inch shorter than a man of five foot eleven would require if his limbs were natural and equal.

The cut compensates for a right leg that stands a fraction lower than its fellow left chum, as prosthetics are wont to do.

He's an amputee.

There are our ingredients, Watson.

Now, chop them up, plop them in a blender, and mush them into a delicious slurpable gloop of deduction juice.

Bottoms up.

Oh, goodness me.

That's grotesque.

You are a clever, clever man.

In some ways, not so much in others.

But, question mate,

if he's that dependent on the stick, why did he leave it at our flat?

Yes.

Dr.

Jamie Mortimer is a man of perseverance, refusing to be defined by what is missing below his left knee.

The stick is not a vital instrument for errands to London.

His prosthetic leg will be modern.

It will no doubt have balance features, a custom-moulded socket, shock pylons.

No, this stick here is a companion for the Moors, John.

That is where Mortimer tests himself.

That is where he searches for his soul in challenging rambles of self-examination.

It was was brought along to London because of habit.

It was abandoned because of absent-mindedness, because of distraction and fixation on something else.

Something troubling this young man.

Something haunting him.

Ah, the internet's back.

Darkness lifts.

The light returns.

And my final observation grows ever so dimly.

Yes.

The pocked indents of granite smattered on the base of Mortimer's stick

from

a granite-ridden moorland, Dr.

Watson.

Does the ancient expanse of Dartmoor call us once more?

Let's

go see.

No, my colleagues, they follow down that unique.

Yeah,

now that I have microstitch for that on the map.

Maybe I'm a little too attached to the stick.

Here they are.

Dr.

Mortimer, I presume.

Yes.

Hi.

John.

Dr.

John Watson.

And this is.

Sherlock Holmes.

That's right.

Good to meet you, Dr.

Mortimer.

Call me Jamie, please.

I like to be proper.

Jamie would be proper.

I'm afraid the doctor title is a little

outdated.

Huh?

Really?

Struck off.

Goodness.

Correct.

I apologize.

I didn't.

I, um...

I thought I caught everything.

Caught everything?

He, uh,

our resident detective here predicted everything about you before your arrival.

Except that.

You know, you could have just asked me, right?

Where's the fun in that exactly?

How do you mean predicted?

He surmised pretty much exactly what I'm seeing now.

Prosthetic limb, young doctor.

Jamaican background.

I mean, he didn't give me the exact country, that's true.

What else?

Dartmoor.

Goodness me.

What a curious talon.

Not quite.

It is not my talent that is the curiosity, but rather...

my curiosity that is the talent.

Please, take a seat, Jamie.

That's very kind, but I just can't get my stick.

The morning exercise doesn't let up.

Ah, yes, that determined ramble across the moors.

Now, this...

This is bloody clever.

I could perform a few more tricks, if you'd care to take a seat.

Honestly, I just can to get my stick.

Without this thing, I'd tumble over just about every outcrop and sink into every mire.

Quite the tenacity.

A little too tenacious for the GMC.

Mariana, thank you so much.

Oh, no, no, no problem.

Sorry, I didn't see it when you left it before.

I hope I was helpful.

And the

Dr.

Armstrong case was...

yeah.

I've seen the news that the football has recovered, so.

Yeah.

Raito?

oh

that's the West Country, I suppose.

You loathe him, hmm?

Dr.

Leslie Armstrong.

That's

not true.

True and truth are loaded terms, but it is at least accurate, is it not?

How exactly?

You broke eye contact mentioning his name.

You grasped your stick with one hand, you rubbed your right temple with the other.

His very mention brings irritation, does it not?

Mr.

Mortimer.

Sherlock.

He's the reason.

Mm-hmm.

You are a brave whistleblower, Jamie.

The establishment protects its wizened elders a little too vigorously from its tenacious juniors.

Cutting a long, long story, very short.

Yes.

I would say you've got the measure of it yet again, Mr.

Holmes.

Very impressive.

I hope it impresses you enough to stay and share your story.

I think Jamie mentioned a train, Sherlock.

So maybe we could set up a Zoom call.

What train would that be?

Paddington.

To Tottness.

What time?

Um.

The train.

You have to imminently catch a train and you're not sure of its departure time.

What does it say on the ticket?

No, I know.

I bought an open return.

That's why.

Um, let's.

I think Jamie wants to go.

That's my deduction.

So we'll set up a call.

We will not be setting up any kind of call.

Well, we can always just reach out.

Tell me, Jamie,

what do you do for work?

In between things, right now.

Okay, if we're putting him through this, can I at least offer him some tea?

We've also got the posh biscuits, Mariana from Lestrade.

Yes, yes, we do.

There are these little shortbread things with the chocolate.

And the caramel ones as well.

Irresistible, surely, Jamie.

Tea, shortbread, caramel.

And

a captive audience for that tale.

That tale that wakes you in the night and keeps you away from the moor

and has you subconsciously discarding your walking companion as if to shut out the darkness entirely.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay.

Okay, Jamie, sorry, that's me.

That's my dog.

I left the upstairs door open.

Yeah, he kind of lives between the two floors.

See, he's just a chubby little bulldog.

He's, uh, you okay with dogs?

Um, yeah.

Yeah, I am.

Sorry, yeah.

There we go.

Gonna give you a sniff.

Might get a lick if you're lucky.

There you go.

You'll get a fart if you're unlucky.

Nope, fart free.

Right.

Uh, yeah.

Kettle.

Yep.

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I developed it, and the blistering rash lasted for weeks.

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He's been cruel.

He's not being cruel.

He's just...

He's tired.

You know, he's grouchy.

And...

Yeah, maybe he's rushing things.

If Sherlock is tired and grouchy, why isn't he doing the usual thing after a case?

And...

Sleeping for two days straight.

Because...

I don't know.

He said he could smell a case or something.

Smell a case.

He's just...

He's restless.

Why?

He said he's euphoric after cases.

He said that that's the only thing that brings him true happiness.

What about Anne-Penne Pastor?

He said resolutions to problems are the only calm in the storms of his mind.

Wow, you really pay attention to what he says, don't you?

I just don't get why he's restless.

Something about blood.

It's this blood thing.

The Armstrong situation.

Someone wants to buy a sample of Sherlock's blood.

Why?

It's a cup of tea, not a souffle.

What does that mean?

You are taking a long time.

You've never made a souffle in your life, have you?

And neither have you.

Can we please hurry?

You're the one in the way.

I'm trying to carry the tray.

Righty, righty, right.

A round of cuppers with some nice biscuits to boot.

Probably a bit too posh for a dunk, but I won't judge.

There you go, Jamie.

Thank you.

I feel like you're all looking at me.

No, no, not at all.

Why, why do you feel like that, Jamie?

Because you're all looking at me.

Oh, no, no, no.

I was looking

out the window at that lamppost.

It's uh, yeah, it's a it's a good aunt, that one

our clients find it rather therapeutic, Jamie, to talk.

Do they now?

I can assure you, they do.

Yeah, well, um,

this isn't really a um

internal crisis as such, it's more

out there in the wild, as it were.

Mm-hmm.

So just

quick back story.

I uh

when I was seventeen I got in a car accident in Wolverhampton, where I'm from,

and

I died,

yeah.

Right.

Our first ghost client.

Yeah, for eleven minutes I was dead.

I remember just

darkness,

complete just swallowed pitch blackness, and then these little

glowing blobs of light, and they were sort of

guiding me through it, like the little lights on a plane through the aisle, the safe passage.

And I could hear my grandfather's voice, and I kept walking towards him, thinking, okay.

Guess I'm dead, but I'm gonna go see Gramp, you know, maybe I'll dunno, meet Elvis or something.

And he just said, my granddad, not Elvis, he went,

not yet, Jimmy boy.

And then bang, bright light, hospital, tubes, beeps of monitors, and bangs of the bed, and doors flying open, and voices just this constant shouting over each other.

And

then Dr.

Siddiqui,

the man that

saved my life,

it took my leg, of course, but

saved my life and he

yeah

yeah.

And the other thing he did, I suppose, was

give me meaning, give me a purpose.

I just

I just wanted to be a surgeon from the moment I was discharged.

I did med school, graduated from Royal College of Surgeons, um

yeah, then a

normal, shitty, semi-shitty, I should say, life of a young CT1, CT2 surgeon.

Quite shortbread.

Oh, you see?

Worth it now?

Totally worth it.

So then,

of course, I called out Dr.

Leslie Armstrong around four years ago.

Malpractice, blatant malpractice.

I got

agitated, as I apparently do.

And I suppose I,

yeah, when things didn't get sorted, I transitioned from blowing the whistle to out and out, shouting and screaming.

The medical counsel didn't really.

It wasn't the message that they took offence to, it was the method of delivery, I suppose.

I may have

tested the protections afforded to your average whistleblower.

Stealing of files.

And the rest.

Yeah.

I see.

He got a slap on the wrist.

I got the knockout blow.

Struck off.

I left London.

No chance I'm affording rent or anything like that anymore.

And

I saw on Reddit, I think it was, maybe it was Facebook, I don't know, these

struck off doctors, retired doctors doctors, and all this.

They had these, they had private patients.

They weren't like practicing within the NHS or even prescribing drugs or nothing like that, nothing dodgy, but they were

kind of servicing these sort of

well-off clients, I guess you'd call them.

You do realize you're addressing a detective who's not actually a detective that services sort of well-off clients.

So, you understand,

and

I thought,

yeah, I might go and do that and

one of them had turned down a client in Devon

on the yeah, I think it was the Reddit so

sounds stupid really.

I just looked up pictures of Devon and I thought

yeah, looks lovely.

Yeah,

makes sense to me.

Did you do that with Tottenham, Mariana?

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I did.

Yeah,

and I took it.

Took the job.

Who is your client?

Was

he

client?

Who was he?

Sir Charles Baskerville.

Take all the time you need, and all the biscuits.

I've actually got another pack.

I was just hiding because I didn't want them all to go.

I don't know how well you all know, Dartmoor.

I mean,

I didn't not long ago.

But you um

go into the west country

you go past Exeter and these two main roads split off the A30 goes north west the A38 goes southwest and they're both just forking around the mass that is Dartmoor

and that's the last time you see a main road

you get into that moorland and it's all little paths and old roads bending, veering, teetering over hills and stooping down valleys,

ponies and sheep and cows, they'll just wander into the roads.

It's

on some days, it's stunning.

It really is stunning.

On others,

many others,

it's haunting

so bleak and harsh

and lonely

and quiet.

It's the quiet that can um

unsettle you most sometimes.

Funny that

meant to be a luxury in this day and age.

Silence.

Silent retreats.

Noise-cancelling thingies, but

no.

I don't think we uh

like the quiet anymore.

Humanity.

I think we're afraid of it.

I think it makes us think a little too hard.

In one of those bleak, harsh, lonely spots, a few miles south of Princetown,

is Baskerville Hall.

Big, bloody, raw iron gates, climbing weeds and trees writhing around it, these

weather-bitten old pillars,

then the emblem,

the crest in the middle,

the big boar's head of the Baskervilles.

I am

I was made executor of his will

and I have these

documents left to me with other bits and pieces

by Sir Charles.

I had asked him about

family history.

I meant regarding any potential conditions in old age.

He misunderstood and I got the full back story.

And from that point on, I think I probably feigned my interest a little too convincingly.

This is a family record, Dawd.

Oh, I s I see this is

writings on the Baskerville lineage.

Right.

This house was first occupied in the 42nd year of the 18th century.

Play me alright, that's one way of putting it.

This manor of Baskerville was held by Hugo of that name, a most wild, profane and godless man.

It so happened Hugo came to love, if indeed so dark a passion can be known under so bright a name.

A young maiden, however, feared his evil name.

In his customary mist of wine and wickedness, he stole the girl from her home, placing her in his upper chamber.

Yet before the evening was out, she climbed the ivy of the south wall, fled across the bracken and brush to her father's farm.

Hugo returned to find the cage empty.

and the bird escaped whereat Hugo ran from the house, saddled his mare, and unkennelled the pack.

Giving the hounds a kerchief of the maids, he swung them to the line and so off,

full cry in the moonlight over the moor.

Jesus.

That's

horrible.

Keep reading.

A local shepherd noted the impossible sight that met his eyes that night.

I saw first that of the maid, the shepherd recounts, then the hounds.

Hugo Baskerville passed me thence on his black mare, and there behind him, running mute upon his track, such

a hound of hell that God forbid should ever be at my heels.

It's a um

separate paper, yeah?

It's an account of

what was discovered that night by the locals of Princetown.

Kind of hard to read.

Old English spellings, and yeah.

Bowman and here his two sons with Dermond the stablehand

did upon the 11th of October 1743 in the clearing of Hatchett's Wood betwixt the stone pillars of Taverstock Bridleway

spy a dreadful sight.

There was the mare,

black and overturned, all soakened in blood,

and round about her lay eight bull and terrier dogs, torn and marred, each uttering the whimpered breath of death.

There also was found the body of Hugo Baskerville,

ripped open and

spilten,

and at his throat a foul thing in shape like unto a hound, yet larger than any hound mortal eye had ever beheld.

The company fled in fear when the flaming eyes and dripping jaws were turned

upon them.

I

don't

really know what to say.

The locals say more than enough,

believe me.

How so?

At first I ignored it.

What they said.

Which was what, Jamie?

I can't believe I'm bloody saying this.

That

every

Baskerville, every male head of household Baskerville

had a bloody and mysterious death.

Out on the moor?

Yeah, they, um,

it's it's

they said it's a curse, all this.

Do you believe it?

What what makes you believe it?

Because they're f

because they're right.

Like, every single Baskerville man from 1743 to now died out there.

It's in the records.

In the night,

in the darkness, like ripped open, drowning on their own blood as something.

What happened to to Sir Charles, Jamie?

Sorry, just...

Just give me a sec.

Just give me a sec.

Evenings are getting darker now.

You said your hotel is...

It's literally the other side of Regent's Park.

So, not that gate, the one after it.

Cool, cool, cool, cool.

We will gladly walk you there, won't we, Arch?

Great.

I'm sorry, Jamie, to have hurried my instincts upon you.

Don't be daft.

Need to get it out, don't I?

Whole thing's driving me, uh.

I mean, mad.

It's actually

driving me mad, isn't it?

I think a therapist would probably call it misplaced

grief.

I don't know.

At losing the thing I worked so hard for.

You said you can hear it.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's...

Am I

just manifesting something or

is actually out there outside my cottage or

prowling off in the mire somewhere?

I can

always hear these howls and screams.

Screams of what?

I don't

know.

I think um

yeah,

uh

a fresh start might be required.

Just what the doctor ordered, eh?

Did you really come to London just to warn us of Dr.

Armstrong, Jamie?

Because I feel that to be somewhat excessive than just the imparting of knowledge.

Good observation.

Again.

Just over a month ago Sir Charles Baskerville's health was declining pretty sharply.

He was 88.

I had become over the sort of days and weeks before that a kind of secondary doctor really.

Outside of schooling I'm a specialised surgeon so

he was being seen by registered professionals and I was

I suppose I became a bit of a sort of of carer I don't live far he paid well so

on the 17th he told me he wanted a check-up for a clean bill of health before he headed to London the next day actually no um no that was it a friend nearby Stapleton had called me and said

this idiot thinks he's fit enough to go to London do something

So I spoke to Sir Charles and I just said, you know, your heart is very weak, you're showing signs of kidney failure, you've got all these markers, blah, blah, blah.

Not quite sure he accepted it, but yeah.

I told him what he needed to hear.

And a few hours and a nightmare or two later, I bush, just bolt upright in bed.

Someone's pounding on the door.

Mortimer, Mortimer.

I answer it.

It's a resident of the Baskerville Hall estate.

Who?

The underkeeper, Frank Barrymore.

He and his wife live in the hall too.

She tends to the gardens.

And he works for the local gamekeeper?

Correct.

He says to me, they're very rigid and no nonsense, the Barrymores.

He says,

Sir Charles is dead.

We head up to the house and we stop just after the gates in the tree line drive or gravel.

Still a good 200 yards from the house itself.

and there he is

so Charles was on the ground

face down

arms out fingers dug well

clawed into the ground

so tight could barely wrench him out

Took a second to identify him.

His face was there

so

contorted and

twisted into such a horrified expression.

Barrymore and I, we

just stood there.

What was he doing up there?

In front of the house?

At his age?

At that time?

Well-timed story.

Right, well, hotel really is just the other side of the park.

I've got plenty more details on it, Ola.

Just

a night away from Dartmoor means a proper night's sleep, so.

No, go to sleep, okay?

We can.

We'll revisit this, okay?

Sure.

Sure.

No blood?

No?

No injuries?

No.

Then what do you have for me, Jamie?

I have this, Sherlock.

I have this.

slip type.

Night, Jamie.

It's a photo of

gravel.

Is that where they found the body?

Can I see, Sherlock?

Footprints.

Yeah, okay.

That's a

start.

Big, small, footprints of a man, a woman.

What have we got here?

Of a beast.

What is it?

What do you see?

The hound of the Baskervilles.

To hear right up to the end of part five of the Hound of the Baskervilles, go to patreon.com forward slash Sherlock and Co.