The Hound of the Baskervilles: Chapter 4; Qs & Ans

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Chapter 4

Q1. What do you know about Sir Henry Baskerville?

Ans. Sir Henry Baskerville was Sir Charles’s second brother’s son. He lived in Canada before coming to London and did farming there.

Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskervilles reached Sherlock Holmes’s office on time.

Sir Henry Baskervilles was a strongly built young man of thirty years having a small stature. He had dark eyes with thick and black eyebrows. His face and appearance showed that he had lived in the open air for the most of his time. Although some features of his face were the proof of his quarrelsome nature, yet he seemed to be a gentleman.

He was wearing a red coloured tweed suit when he came to meet Sherlock Holmes in his office.

Q.2. What conclusions are drawn by Sherlock Holmes after examining the letter that Sir Henry Baskerville showed to him?

Ans. Sherlock Holmes draws the following conclusions after reading the contents of the letter and the address written on the envelope.

Someone must be tracking Sir Henry Baskerville’s movements as he arrived in London.

Sherlock Holmes observed that the words cut from a famous newspaper The Times of a previous day were pasted on a plain paper.

The address on the envelope was not written smoothly in a natural way, rather the writer had written it loosely to hide his own identity.

The writer was a well educated person.

Sherlock Holmes also concludes that the writer of the address was in a hurry and the ink spluttered on the paper showed that the pen of a hotel was used to write the address. It meant that the message was prepared in a hotel.

In this way, the message in the envelope and the way in which the address was written on it has created a lot of interest and suspense for the readers. It has also given a new task to Sherlock Holmes.

It was also concluded that the man who left the message in the envelope for Sir Henry Baskerville was not ‘ill disposed’ to him.

Q3. What was the mystery around Sir Henry Baskerville’s lost boot? Dr. Mortimer says that it has been ‘mislaid.’ Do you agree?

Ans. Sherlock Holmes continued enquirying from Sir Henry Baskerville. He also asked him if anything special happened to him in London since he arrived there. He told Sherlock Holmes in a light way that one of his boots was missing. He had put the pair of tan boots outside his room for polish. At this, Sherlock Holmes at once jumped to the conclusion that someone had stolen the boot to give its scent to a hound. But Sir Henry said that the pair of tan boots was new and unused.

He had purchased them to give himself a new look of a squire. Then Sherlock Holmes remarked that his boot would soon be returned.

But Dr. Mortimer thought differently. He said that the boot had been misplaced.

We do not agree with Dr. Mortimer’s conclusion.

In this way, the incident of the boot has created more suspense in the story.

Q4. What did Sherlock Holmes decide to do after Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry had left his office?

Ans. Sherlock Holmes was an astute crime detective. His observations were par excellence. During the discussion with Sir Henry and Dr. Mortimer, he had concluded that someone had been tracking Sir Henry Baskerville’s movements. Therefore he had looked outside from the window of his office to see if anybody was wandering about there. The secret of Sir Henry’s stay in a hotel was known to only Dr. Mortimer, Dr. Watson and he himself.

As soon as Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskerville left the office to walk the distance, he told Dr. Watson to follow them to catch the person tracking Sir Henry.

After some time, Sir Henry stopped and walked towards a shop to enter it. It was then Sherlock Holmes saw a man sitting in a cab and he was looking at Sir Henry intently (with intention).

Sherlock Holme told Dr. Watson about the  person in excitement. But as they tried to reach there quickly, the man in the cab had disappeared. But Sherlock Holmes had noticed the man’s bushy black beard and the number of the cab.

Q5. Did the man in the cab escape because of his good luck or the bad management of Sherlock Holmes?

Ans. Sherlock Holmes thinks that the man in the cab had advantage of sitting in a cab. They were walking on foot. Al though Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson tried to chase him with quicker steps, but it was of no use. So Holmes called it his own bad luck as well as his bad management. The man in the cab had double advantage. One, he was sitting in a cab, therrefore, he was not fully visible to others. Two, he easily escaped with a speed because he was siting in a cab. Holmes should have hired a cab at once to give the person a good chase. So he called it a bad luck of himself and also his own mismanagement to face a situation.