"However improbable..."

We all know the story of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Holmes demonstrates that the "hell hound" that literally frightened Sir Charles Baskerville to death was, in fact, a mutant mastiff (or possibly a staghound)[1] trained into viciousness by Stapleton (a.k.a. The Missing Baskerville) and painted with phosphorous (or possibly barium sulphide)[2] to make it glow in the dark . The dog itself is shot and Stapleton (we are to assume) meets his end in an attempt to negotiate the Great Grimpen Mire. The clouds part, the mystery is explained, and once again Science and Reason are shown to be triumphant.

Or are they? While it is true that Holmes' wholly materialistic explanation covers all the relevant facts (or at least most of them), it must be noted that it does not actually disprove the existence of the hell-hound. We (and Holmes) accept the more prosaic explanation because we regard it as more probable than the alternative. But even improbable events have been known to occur; to quote Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter": "In a world where carpenters get resurrected, anything is possible." Or as Holmes himself noted, "when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable , must be the truth".[SIGN]

Holmes, as befits his training and temperament, immediately discounts a supernatural explanation. "Of course," he notes, "if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one." And yet even the Great Ratiocinator has a twinge of misgiving, as we see in his reply to Watson's comment on the desolate aspect of the area around Baskerville Hall: "It must be a wild place."
"Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men ---"
"Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation."
"The devil's agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?"
They may be of fire and brimstone, as well.

Is there any substance to the legend of the Baskerville curse? Obviously Sir Hugo thought enough of it in 1742 to caution his sons Rodger and John. Would he have been so stern if the curse had not manifested itself during the preceding three generations? The story itself seems odd for a folk-tale and lacks the obvious moral associated with the genre. Certainly if the intent was simply to warn of the dangers of wandering about on the moor after sundown, a simpler stratagem could have been devised.

Then there is the actual death of Sir Charles Baskerville. Holmes concludes that Sir Charles' weak heart, combined with the shock of seeing the illuminated hound, caused his death. And yet Dr. Mortimer describes Sir Charles as "a strong-minded man...shrewd, practical, and as unimaginative as I am myself". Does it seem likely that such a man could be frightened literally to death by a staghound painted with glowing pigment? There were no actual witnesses to Sir Charles' death, after all, so we are left to assume the bogus hound caused his death. Could its spectral brother have been present as well?

Let us not forget the disappearance of Stapelton. Did he actually fall victim to the mire he had so skillfully negotiated in the past? Or did the evil force he had so flagrantly mocked simply decided to claim its revenge? Cheated of the chance to claim the soul of an innocent Baskerville, did it choose instead the soul of a guilty one? Stapleton was, after all, a throwback to the original Sir Rodger in appearance; did the ancient curse finally light on an appropriate victim?

These are rhetorical questions, in the final analysis. They do, however, serve to point out that the course followed by logic is profoundly affected by the basic assumptions underlying that logic. Change one assumption -- the absence of supernatural forces -- and the adventure of the Hound of the Baskervilles takes on an entirely new complexion. And one that is unlikely to be comforting to those of a materialistic bent.

Holmes would no doubt agree, with Joseph Conrad, that "a belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness"[3] Perhaps he was right. And yet the tale of the Hound of the Baskervilles continues to fire the imagination not because of its rational conclusion, but because of its hints of lurkers at the threshold of our limited reality and of the things that may lie beyond the border of Shakespeare's "undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns".[4] For as The Master himself noted, "where there is no imagination, there is no horror."[STUD]

Notes:

[1] Frisbee, Owen "On the Origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles", cited in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes
[2] Redmond, D.A. "Some Chemical Problems in the Canon", cited in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes
[3] Conrad, Joseph Under Western Eyes
[4] Shakespeare, William Hamlet Act III, sc. 1