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omniscient narrator to whom a certain credibility is naturally due, but by a companion of the detective’s, Dr. Watson.
    There is nothing original about this narrative device; it is common for a character in a novel to take it upon himself to
     tell the story. It takes on a special interest, however, when one looks at one’s reading as a detective investigation, in
     which everything should be open to suspicion. From this perspective, The Hound of the Baskervilles does not relate the actions that occurred on the Devonshire moor or the investigation of Sherlock Holmes; it relates only
     these actions or this investigation as Dr. Watson perceived them .
    When a character can intervene in this way, we readers are never dealing with bare facts, but only with stories about facts,
     subjected to the prism of a subject—of a particular intelligence, sensibility, and memory—and therefore eminently problematic.
     Everything contained in this story, including Holmes’s conclusions, stems from an eyewitness account. True, the source of
     this account is peculiarly well informed and probably sincere, but he is nonetheless intimately involved in the affair, and
     therefore cannot claim to determine the truth of the reported events.

    Things become even more complicated when this narrator-character, already made questionable by his subjective involvement,
     is presented as a complete fool. The book in fact takes a malicious pleasure in displaying how little Watson understands of
     what is happening around him.
    The low opinion Holmes has of his friend’s intellectual capacities is no secret; it is demonstrated repeatedly throughout
     the accounts of his adventures. And it is stressed again at the very beginning of this book, in the conversation between the
     two friends before Dr. Mortimer’s first visit. Having asked Watson what reflections their client’s cane inspired, and having
     listened to Watson’s conclusions, Holmes replies:
    “Really, Watson, you excel yourself. [ . . . ] I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to
     give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous,
     but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess,
     my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.” 30
    For a moment Watson delights in these compliments, which he was hardly expecting, given the way he is usually treated by the
     detective:
    He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his
     indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to
     think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. 31
    But Watson’s joy is short-lived; he soon understands where Holmes is leading him:
    He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest
     he laid down his cigarette, and, carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.
      “Interesting, though elementary,” said he, as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one
     or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several deductions.”
      “Has anything escaped me?” I asked, with some self-importance. “I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have
     overlooked?”
      “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to
     be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.” 32
    To praise a friend for his help because he has led you to the truth through the accumulation of his mistakes is a dubious
     compliment. But that is the only way we can read Holmes’s