Like all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries, we only
know part of what the famous detective is thinking until he reveals his thought process
at the end of the tale. In "The Hound of the Baskervilles," Sir Charles is apparently
killed by his heart's fatal reaction to a gigantic, glow-in-the-dark hell-hound which is
part of a family curse in effect for generations. Because Devonshire is a relatively
remote setting and there is only one surviving Baskerville heir, the choices as to who
murdered Sir Charles Baskerville are fairly limited.
Dr.
Mortenson could be a suspect, but he gained only a thousand pounds in the will and is
the one who is most interested in keeping the new heir, Sir Henry, away from his
ancestral home.
The Barrymores could be suspects,
particularly because of their rather odd and secretive behavior (which is eventually
explained).
There is a prisoner loose on the moors who
might have been involved, though we discover his connection to the manor as the story
progresses.
Perhaps it was a random gypsy who wanted Sir
Charles dead for some reason, though there is only a mention of this
possibility.
The town benefited and prospered because of
Sir Charles's munificence, so it was probably not any of
them.
Really, that only leaves Stapleton. It sounds so
simple, at the end of the story, to say it could only have been him; however, it is the
truth.
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