Because, as you said, Victorian England didn't have forensics. And they hanged people convicted of murder. In order to shoot Sir Henry, Stapleton would have to be there.

With a gun, there's suspicion. While a death by dog would, at worst, be put down to death by dog and, at best, down to the local legend. While Stapleton could definitely be elsewhere in front of witnesses when Sir Henry is killed.

Out of universe, part of the reason is because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got inspiration from a story about an English nobleman. He likely would have begun the story with the idea of using a spectral dog to take the blame and then written from there, resulting in the unclear reasoning behind Stapleton's actions that you're asking about.

In universe, I have no idea.

Stapleton is a bit off his rocker, but from a practical standpoint, if Sir Henry and Sir Charles are killed by the specter of a family curse, he's not a potential suspect. "What a terrible, spooky accident," the police say. By contrast, if the baronets get shot to death, the police look for a human murderer with a gun.

Stapleton is off his gourd, pretends his sister is his wife or something, and collects butterflies in the swamp. So yeah...he thinks this is a good plan.

I always took it as being a way to cover his own tracks (if an animal did it, he wouldn't be a suspect by default). Holmes himself points out that without tying him to the hound (which he had hidden really well and could theoretically put down and hide in the swamp if need be), there's no case against him beyond the flimsy circumstantial evidence.

While convoluted, the plan was more or less effective. The slip-ups that led Holmes to the truth were plausible ones that could be worked around (and the only one that really was his carelessness was telling Watson that he had been a teacher, since Holmes was able to use that background check him and figure out who he really was).

I haven't read this book since high school so I can't answer your question but I am absolutely fucking ROLLING at this post.

I always thought it was because Stapleton was a relation and would have inherited the estate if Sir Henry died. So it would be easy to point fingers at him if the death was obviously murder. If Sir Henry died of fright/heart attack and then suddenly Stapleton is found and inherits then it’s a story for the society columns. If Sir Henry was shot and suddenly Stapleton inherits that looks like motive and TADAA even Inspector Lestrade could find the murderer. 😆

In the country (as opposed to the city) everybody knows what everybody's doing, there are always a ton of witnesses, who went to whom, who sleeps with whom and so on. If Sir Henry died anywhere near the Stapleton house let alone in it, the latter would be the primary suspect and even the lack of evidence due to rudimentary forensic expertise in Victorian England mightn't be able to save him. And sure the truth that Stapleton is Baskerville would be uncovered and after that any body of jurors would send his ass straight to the gallows.

As for the trouble of using the dog, see it that way: it worked once, it may well work twice, makes perfect sense.

>There's no forensics in Victorian England.

Doesn't Sherlock mention at some point in one of the books being able to teat a stain on a jacket and tell if it's blood or a fruit stain? Also people have used sorts of forensics for thousands of years. Granted it being used with crime solving seems to be more recently in the past couple hundred years.. but it was definitely around in Victorian England. Also thank you for saying this cause it made me go down a rabbit hole looking it all up lol. It's fascinating

Because then the book would have to be called "gun of the stapleton"

Because, even in Victorian England, a gun is sus. Forensics might not be able to determine who the gunman was (though Sherlock probably could tbf), a gun still says 'hey this person was murdered' rather than 'hound attack'.

I thought he also wanted to symbolically kill Henry with the legend. He wanted him terrified.