The Hound of the Baskerviles: Chapter 5: Qs. & Ans.

The Hound of the Baskerviles: Chapter 5

1.       Remarkable qualities in  Sherlock Holmes of detaching his mind from anything for hours together.

2.       He can enjoy easily the pictures of the meodern Belgian masters.

3.       Sherlock holmes is going upstairs to meet Henry Baskerville and then he also looks at the entries about the visitors made by the clerk in the register of the hotel.

4.       There are two names: one is of Theophilus Johnson and the second one is of Mrs. Oldmore.

5.       Sherlock Holmes reaches upstairs and finds Sir Henry in extreme anger.

6.       Reason: One of his black shoes is missing. Previously it was  a brown one. In his anger, he calls the hotel ‘a den of thieves’.

7.       A German waiter tries to pacify Sir Henry by promising that he would surely make a search for his his mising boots.

8.       Sherlock Holmes finds the case very much complex. He has handled 500 cases so far, but this cases seems to be the most comlex for him.

9.       Sherlock Holmes becomes doubly sure now that Sir Henry Baskerville is being stalked by some evil doers. So he tells Sir Henry clearly that he was being followed by someone who must have very bad intention about him.

10.   Dr. Mortimer is also amazed to note that.

11.   Sherlock Homes asks Dr. Mortimer if there is a person with a black full beard as a neighbour or any acquaintance.

12.   Dr. Mortimer thinks a little and then says that there is Barrymore, Sir Charles’ butler who has full black beard. He also tells Sherlock Holmes that Barrymore and his wife live together at Baskerville Hall.

13.   After this Sherlock holmes wants to confirm if Barrymore is living at Baskerville Hall at that very time or not. So he sends a telegramme  at that address. He hopes to know the truth before evening. Another wire he sends to the post master in which he instructs him that the telegramme must be returned to the sender if the person in whose name it was addressed was not present there to receive it.

14.   Then he asks Dr. Mortimer for more detail about  Barrymore.

15.   Dr. Mortimers says that he is the son of the old caretaker, who is dead now. They have looked after the Hall for four generations. He also adds that Barrymore and his wife are respectable persons in that area.

16.   After that Sherlock Holmes asks Dr. Mortimer if Barrymore would be benefited by Sir Charles’ will.

17.   Dr. Mortimer replies that Barrymore and his wife would get five hundred pounds each.

18.   Then Holmes asks Dr. Mortimer if they knew about the profit by the will. Dr. Mortimer says that sir Charles was very fond of discussing his will openly. Dr. Mortimer here jokingly remarks that he himself  also has one thousand pounds by the will and , so, Sherlock Holmes should not become suspicious about him.

19.   He also tells Sherlock Holmes that the residue of the wil was about seven hundred and forty thousand pounds and it would go to Sir Henry Baskerville. The total value of the  Baskerville estate was nearly a million pounds.

Topic 1: About Sir Charles’s Will

ü  Sherlock Holmes wanted to know from Dr. Mortimer about Sir Charles’s will. He wanted to find out if any thread of suspicion is related to his will or not. Dr. Mortimer explains to Sherlock Holmes that Sir Charles was the owner of a huge property. People did not know about his being so much rich until his will was made open. The total value of his property was around one million pounds.

ü  Dr. Mortimer tells Sherlock Holmes all bout his will and also that he was very fond of discussing his will to others. Sir Charles had willed some of his funds to charitable societies, five hundred pounds each to Barrimore and his wife, one thousand pounds to Dr. Mortimer and the rest of the money i.e. seven hundred and forty seven thounsand pounds goes in favour of the only surviving heir to his property, who is  Sir Henry Baskerville.

ü  Sir Henry also explains to Sherlock Holmes that Sir Charles was a philanthropist type of person. In an indirect way, he hopes to restore and  maintain the glory of the Baskervilles with the money he gets from the will.

Topic 2: The Three Threads

ü  Sherlock Holmes has to unravel the mystery about the person who had sent a note to Sir Henry in the hotel he was staying.

ü  Another mystery was about the man who was sitting in the cab and watching intently towards Sir Henry Baskerville.

ü  Sherlock Holmes relates the first thread to Sir Charles Butler Barrymore because he was going to be benefited by keeping Sir Henry away from the Baskervilles estate. He is linked to the person who was stalking Sir Henry as he also had dark black beard. But soon Sherlock Holmes’ suspicion about the butler is cleared by a telegram. It showed that Barrymore was at the Baskerville Hall.

ü  The second thread also got broken as Sherlock Holmes could not get the copy of Times from which the words had been cut to make the note that was sent tp Sir Henry Baskerville. Cartwright could not collect the copy of Times from any hotel.

ü  The third thread was the cab man who drove the spy with dark black beard. The cabman’s name was John Clayton. He could not provide any other useful information except that the spy called himself Sherlock Holmes.

ü  Thus Sherlock Holmes felt cheated by the man in the cab.

Sherlock Holmes was disappointed and calls him a ‘cunning rascal.’

Topic 3: Why does Sherlock Holmes say the words to the hotel clerk, “ Have you any objection to my looking at your register?”

Detail:

ü  Sherlock Holmes reaches the hotel in which Sir Henry Baskerville is staying. He is not able to solve the riddle as to who had sent the note to Sir Henry.

ü  So as he enters the hotel, he asks the clerk if he can see his register in which the names of the visitors are written.

ü  He wants to know the names of the person who have checked in the hotel after Sir Henry. He finds the names of two persons who have checked after Sir Henry. The clerk tells Holmes that these two persons were the regular visitors of the hotel.

ü  Thus by looking at the register, Sherlock Holmes wants to know about the recent visitors and also to check their hand writing to find out if they had any link with the note sent to Sir Henry Baskerville.

ü  He also reaches the conclusion that the person who was tracking Sir Henry was not staying in the hotel.

Topic 4: Henry Baskervilles’s reaction when he found one of his old dusty boots.

Detail:

ü  Henry Baskervile lost two boots, one each from his two pairs of shoes since he has stayed in Northumberland hotel. Sherlock Holmes linked this incident to a dangerous conspiracy against the Baskeville Hall and the death of Sir Charles Baskerville.

ü  As Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson reached upstairs, they found Sir Henry shouting in anger. They came to know that  another boot of his black pair was lost. Sir Henry was shouting furiously at the waiter and he was unable to speak properly. He also warns the waiter od bad consequences if his boots were not found. He calls the hotel ‘the den of thieves’

ü  He told  Sherlock Holmes that he had only three pairs of shoes. One shoe from his brown pair was lost last night and another from his black pair was lost that day.

ü  Sherlock Holmes call the case as the most complicated of all handles by him so far.

Topic 5: The information given by the cabman, John Clayton about the spy.