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Daily Scandal &mdash; Strange circumstances surround Sir Charles Baskerville's death
14.6.1889

Despite the inquest's finding today that Sir Charles Baskerville died from 'natural causes', strange things are afoot on Dartmoor.

The finding of natural causes is certainly to the financial advantage of the region. Sir Charles was an important local benefactor, giving generously to local charities and investing in the local economy from the fortune he had made in South Africa. Reportedly his will, though magnanimous as he was in life, keeps the bulk of his fortune together with the title and estate, so that his heir can continue his grand example of noblesse oblige. Yet his good works will come crashing down if there is no tenant in Baskerville Hall. The last thing the local economy needs is for Sir Charles's heir to be discouraged from taking up residence there; but the reputation of the place, and the rumors now circulating about Dartmoor, are grim.

Baskervilles have lived at Baskerville Hall for five centuries. For over two centuries, the family is supposed to have lived under the curse of a demonic Hound, brought upon them by alleged atrocities of the locally notorious Sir Hugo Baskerville. In more recent generations, Baskervilles have met evil fates with uncanny regularity. Sir Charles's death is in keeping with the family tradition. Even accepting natural causes following recent malaise, it was clearly an unpleasant death; by the testimony of his doctor, the throes of heart failure so contorted his face as to render it nearly unrecognizable. He was himself nearly the last of his name; his two younger brothers both died before him, the youngest falling to yellow fever after fleeing to Central America in disgrace. The surviving Baskerville heir, it is believed, is a son of the middle brother, now living in Canada; after him, the estate would pass out of the name entirely, to distant cousins named Desmond.

If the Canadian heir is enticed to occupy Baskerville Hall, his presence may also ultimately benefit the Liberal Party, who lost with Sir Charles a likely Parliamentary candidate for Mid-Devon.

Meanwhile, the story of the curse has acquired more direct support. Outre tales of a demonic Hound are unfashionable in our enlightened age, but recently a number of reliable local inhabitants have witnessed a huge luminous creature on the moor, of ghastly and spectral aspect, corresponding to no animal known to science. Few residents are now willing to cross the moor at night &mdash; which only increases the aura of strangeness about the death of Sir Charles. For he too was known to avoid the moor after dark; yet, from evidence at inquest by his butler, during his nightly constitutional on the grounds of the Hall on the night of his death, he lingered by the gate to the moor. Then he proceeded inexplicably on his toes, toward the further end of the grounds where he died with no tangible evidence of any other agency about. It is well we have the official organ of an inquest to explain to us there is nothing remarkable in these events, for a lay observer could scarcely be expected to realize their mundanity on his own.