Person
Jack Stapleton
Also known as Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist, Vandeleur, Jack.
A naturalist settled on the moor, named by Dr. Mortimer as one of the only men of education for many miles and a friend of the late Sir Charles. A devoted and expert student of botany and zoology, he spends his days roaming Dartmoor with net and specimen-box after butterflies and rare plants. By Mortimer's account he is a kindly, obliging neighbour who had been much concerned for the old baronet's failing health.
Chapter VII. The Stapletons of Merripit House
Watson meets him in person near Grimpen, a brisk flaxen naturalist of Merripit House who knows every path of the moor and believes the legend's fright likely killed Sir Charles. He introduces his beautiful sister, Beryl.
Chapter VIII. First Report of Dr. Watson
Beneath his cool, unemotional manner Watson senses hidden fires and a possibly harsh nature; he leads the party to the dismal spot where the legend of the wicked Hugo is said to have begun.
Chapter IX. The Light upon the Moor [Second Report of Dr. Watson]
He breaks furiously upon Sir Henry's wooing of his sister, ordering the baronet off, then calls that afternoon to make a handsome apology and asks only that the courtship rest for three months.
Chapter XI. The Man on the Tor
Laura Lyons names him as Sir Charles's intimate friend and almoner, the man through whom her case had reached the old baronet's charity.
Chapter XII. Death on the Moor
Holmes unmasks him to Watson as the cold-blooded enemy who shadowed them in London, reveals that the woman who passes as his sister is in truth his wife, and names him a creature of infinite patience with a smiling face and a murderous heart.
Chapter XIII. Fixing the Nets
A photograph taken at York shows him as the vanished schoolmaster Vandeleur, and the old portrait of Hugo shows his own face, proving him a Baskerville with designs on the estate.
Chapter XIV. The Hound of the Baskervilles
As Sir Henry's host he looses the great hound on the moor path, flees toward the mire when the shots ring out, and leaves his wife bound and beaten behind him; no trace of him is found.
Chapter XV. A Retrospection
The full account: he is Rodger Baskerville's son, who under the names Vandeleur and Stapleton schemed patiently for the estate, kept and painted the hound in the Grimpen Mire, and was swallowed at last by the bog.
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