The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988) (The Hound of the Baskervilles)

Paper, paper.

Finished.

What do you make of it, Watson?

Huh?

I believe you got eyes in the back of your head Holmes.

Well I have a well-polished coffee pot in front of me.

Mrs. Hudson said it was left last night

while you were out.

What do you make of it?

Well,

his name at least we know.

I think Dr. Mortimer

is a successful,

elderly medical man,

well esteemed,

since those who know him

gave him this mark of their appreciation.

Yeah.

I think he's a country practitioner,

does a good deal of his visiting on foot.

'Friends of C.C.H.'

I should guess that to be the local hunt.

Oh bravo, bravo Watson.

You know I am bound to say

you habitually underrate your abilities.

Well.

It may be that you are not yourself luminous,

but you are a conductor of light.

Some people, without possessing genius

have remarkable power for stimulating it.

I confess, my dear fellow,

that I am very much in your debt.

Thank you.

But I'm afraid that

most of your conclusions were erroneous.

'H'?

Surely, hospital.

'C.C.' suggests Charing Cross.

I mean if so I would postulate a young man

under thirty, amiable,

absent-minded,

unambitious

and the possessor of a dog.

Can I see the stick?

Thank you.

Larger than a terrier,

smaller than a mastiff.

I was right,

a curly haired spaniel.

Dr. Mortimer?

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

I wasn't sure whether I left it here

or at the shipping office.

The S.S. Gibraltar,

you see, docks today at Tewberry.

You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes.

I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull

or such well-marked supra-orbital development.

Would you have any objection to my running

my finger along your parietal fissure?

Please, Dr. Mortimer.

A cast of your skull, sir,

until the original becomes available.

It is not my intention to be fulsome,

but I confess that I covet your skull.

Behave and sit down, Dr. Mortimer.

Good boy.

Well I presume that it was not

your phrenological passion,

which drew you to Baker Street?

Unfortunately it was not, sir.

Spot.

I have here...

I have here the statement of a certain legend,

which runs in the Baskerville family.

Baskerville?

Yeah, I'm an executor

of Sir Charles Baskerville's will

and found it amongst his papers.

It concerns Hugo Baskerville;

he was Lord of the manor, Grimpen on Dartmoor.

Dartmoor?

Some 200 years ago.

The document is somewhat later.

"Learn then from this story

to be circumspect in the future,

that those foul passions whereby

our family has suffered may not be loosed

again to our comparable ruin,

8th of November 1742, " was it?

Intriguing preamble.

I've read of Sir Charles Baskerville's death.

From a medical point of view

it was a poorly informed article.

No, thank you.

He died of dyspnea and cardiac exhaustion.

Were the conditions linked

or were they parallel?

Oh, they were linked in my opinion.

There was some, some facial distortion.

Caused by the cardiac pain presumably?

Yes.

You sound doubtful.

It was not merely facial distortion.

Well here in 1692,

Hugo Baskerville abducted a young girl

but she escaped across the moor

at night, cursing.

He unkenneled his pack of hounds

and hunted her down like a wild animal.

When his 3 drunken companions followed,

they found the girl in a deep dip or goyal

dead from fear and fatigue.

And it also confronted the cause of her death,

a huge, demonic hound.

Even as they looked

the hound tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville.

One companion died that very night

of what he saw,

and the other twain were broken men

for the rest of their days.

The sound is supposed to have haunted the family since then

to the general misfortune of the line.

Well, this may appeal

to your lurid taste in fiction, Watson.

It's a fairy tale, sir.

Of course, Mr. Holmes,

but fairy tales would not survive

without a kernel of truth.

On the night Sir Charles died

I arrived at Baskerville Hall at first light.

I shall tell you what I found.

No more or less.

This way please, sir?

I had been concerned about him for some time.

He had become obsessed

with the Legend of the Hound.

It's by the summerhouse

he believed he had heard

the hound itself upon the moors,

he even believed he had seen it.

At the time I took such morbid fancies

to be part and parcel

of Sir Charles' pathological condition.

And now?

I no longer believe that to be the case.

There, sir.

We didn't like to move him, sir.

Once we knew.

Yes, yes quite, Barrymore.

A sad occasion, Mrs. Barrymore,

an unhappy vigil for you.

He was our hope, doctor.

Hope for the country here about's.

He brought the world to us.

He was our hope.

Before Sir Charles ran up the alley

he had eloquently stood at the gate

for at least ten minutes.

How do you know that?

The ash had dropped twice from his cigar

and there were also 3 spent matches.

I'm impressed by Dr. Mortimer.

Was there anything else?

Yes.

Footprints?

A man or a woman's?

Mr. Holmes,

they were the footprints of a gigantic hound.

Several people have seen a creature upon the moor,

a huge creature, ghastly, and spectral.

I've cross examined 2 of them.

Hardheaded countrymen both

and their stories tally.

I want you to advise me what I should do

with Sir Henry Baskerville.

Henry Baskerville has spent his life in America.

He has come over on the S.S. Gibraltar.

Been a pleasure having you aboard, Sir Henry.

Sir Henry,

I still haven't gotten used to that title.

Was there any other claim upon Sir Charles' estate?

None.

His youngest brother, Roger,

died in Central America of yellow fever

some 30 years ago.

Sir Henry is the last of the Baskerville's.

Why did you not consult me immediately?

There's a realm in which the most accomplished

detective is helpless, sir.

There are certain things here,

which are impossible to reconcile

to the settled order of nature.

If you believe this to be supernatural

you'll find more help from a priest.

No, no, no, no, no.

How can I assist?

And I'll have an answer, damn it.

He's in a stir, sir, about his boot.