Quotes

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

CHAPTER 1• “How did you know what I was doing? I believe

you have eyes in the back of your head.”

• “Interesting though elementary.”

• “It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.”

CHAPTER 2• “You will observe, Watson, the alternative use of

the long s and the short. It is one of several indications which enabled me to fix the date.”

• “Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”

CHAPTER 3• “No, it’s this poisonous atmosphere.”

• “There lies our problem. There are indications that the man was crazed with fear before ever he began to run.”

CHAPTER 4• “No one could have known. We only decided

after I met Dr. Mortimer.”

• “Why in thunder should anyone follow or watch me?”

CHAPTER 5• “Well, either that boot comes back before

sundown, or I’ll see the manager and tell him that I go right straight out of this hotel.”

• “I hope that you do not look with suspicious eyes upon everyone who received a legacy from Sir Charles, for I also had a thousand pounds left to me.”

CHAPTER 6• “To think that this should be the same hall in which

for five hundred years my people have lived.”

• “Would you wish dinner to be served at once, sir?”

• “A glance at our friend here reveals the rounded head of the Celt, which carries inside it the Celtic enthusiasm and power of attachment.”

CHAPTER 7• “Did you, for example, happen to hear someone, a

woman I think, sobbing in the night?”

• “I feared that some disaster might occur, for I was very fond of the old man, and I knew that his heart was weak.”

• “Go back! Go straight back to London, instantly.”

CHAPTER 8• “My previous letters and telegrams have kept you

pretty well up to date to all that has occurred in this most God-forsaken corner of the world…”

CHAPTER 9• “Well, you know what my instructions are. I am

sorry to intrude but you heard how earnestly Holmes insisted that I should not leave you, and especially that you should not go alone upon the moor.”

• “Did he ever strike you as being crazy – this brother of hers?”

• “My God, what’s that, Watson?”

CHAPTER 10• “He thinks that it was unfair on our part to hunt his

brother-in-law down when he, of his own free will, had told us the secret.”

• “God bless you, sir, and thank you from my heart! It would have killed my poor wife had he been taken again.”

CHAPTER 11• “Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn this

letter, and be at the gate by ten o’clock.”

• “Ha, ha, my boy, a very much more important matter than that! What about the convict on the moor?”

• “It is a lovely evening my dear Watson. I really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.”

CHAPTER 12• “I never was more glad to see anyone in my life.”

• “…If you seriously desire to deceive me you must change your tobacconist; for when I see the stub of a cigarette marked Bradley, Oxford Street, I know that my friend Watson is in the neighborhood.”

CHAPTER 12 CONTINUED• “Why, Dr. Watson, that’s not you, is it? You are the

last man that I should have expected to see out on the moor at this time of night. But, dear me, what is this? Somebody hurt? Not – don’t tell me that it is our friend Sir Henry?”

CHAPTER 13• “We’re at close grips at last.”

• “Ha, you see it now. My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not their trimmings.”

• “His wife!... His wife! He is not a married man.”

CHAPTER 14• “Yes, we shall make our little ambush here…”

• “My God! What was it? What in heaven’s name was it?”

• “No, no, I did not mean my husband. Sir Henry? Is he safe?”

CHAPTER 15

• “My inquiries showed beyond all question that the family portrait did not lie, and that this fellow indeed was a Baskerville…”

• “No doubt. There remains one difficulty. If Stapleton came into the succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir, had been living so close to the property? How could he explain it without causing suspicion and inquiry?”