Free Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong by Pierre Bayard Page A

present, the dog’s responsibility for the various deaths is
     not at all as obvious as Holmes seems to think. An attentive examination of the three scenes in which it is supposed to have
     committed its murders should arouse our suspicion.

    Let us consider these scenes calmly, one by one, trying to dispel the fantastic atmosphere in which the story tries to immerse
     us and keeping to the facts alone.
    The circumstances of Sir Charles Baskerville’s death do indeed suggest that an extremely large dog has been on the scene.
     It is true that for most of our story, our only evidence of the dog’s existence is the testimony of Dr. Mortimer, but the
     dog will indeed appear in the final scene of the novel. It is not unlikely, then, that it was also at the scene of Sir Charles’s
     death. Is admitting that it was present enough to make it a murderer, or a murderer’s accomplice?
    While we may concede that any large dog is a potential murderer, the case against this particular dog is limited to a mere
     sighting as it ran by. On that basis, the charges against this animal should be reduced. But beyond that, the version presented
     by the doctor, and confirmed by Holmes, contains a whole series of improbabilities that should suffice to have it thrown out.
    These improbabilities arise when Holmes struggles to make two contradictory facts agree: the dog’s presence on the scene and
     the dog’s absence of aggressiveness. In fact, the victim bears no trace of bites, which would be highly unusual if the large,
     aggressive animal had been led to the scene with criminal intent.
    To solve this problem, Holmes presents the argument that if the dog caused Baskerville to die of fear, it didn’t subsequently
     approach the body, because hounds will not eat dead bodies. This assertion is backed neither by the actuality of the animal’s
     behavior nor by literary fictions, which, from Athalie’s dream * to “A Woman’s Revenge” by Barbey d’Aurevilly, * describe dogs devouring corpses without the slightest hesitation.
    But no hypothesis should be disregarded, and we can allow the supposition that this particular dog prefers only living flesh.
     Even so, herein lies the most complete improbability in the book, one that borders on material impossibility: the speed with
     which the action is supposed to have taken place. According to an examination of its footprints, the dog was about twenty
     yards away from its victim; at a full run, it was only a few seconds away from reaching him. How can we think that in such
     a brief time Sir Charles Baskerville could suffer a heart attack and die, leaving the dog time to make a precise enough diagnosis
     to decide, in the interest of its dietary preferences, to cease its efforts before reaching the body?
    As we will see farther on, the fact that the dog ran toward Baskerville and then abruptly stopped running can be explained
     much more simply. But Holmes is so locked into his scenario of the murderer-with-the-dog that none of the other hypotheses
     worthy of being examined is allowed across the threshold of his famous mind.

    The fantasy scenario of the murderer-with-the-dog so occupies Holmes’s imagination that it can function even in the dog’s
     absence. And that is just what happens at Selden’s death.
    Having taken refuge on the moor, where he lives in fear of being caught by the police and the army who have organized searches,
     the escaped convict falls off a cliff on a gloomy night and dies. Though there is nothing especially surprising about the
     manner of his death, Holmes detects the dog’s presence here too.
    It is true that, just before the body is discovered, Holmes and Watson hear cries coming from the moor, along with barking.
     But the cries can be readily explained if Selden, starting to fall and grabbing onto a bush or a rock for support, was crying
     for help. As for the barking, we imagine it is frequent in the countryside; furthermore it is heard at other times