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.

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.

In universe, my reasoning is that he hoped that Sir Henry died out of sheer fear, or that he got actually killed by the dog in such a way that can't be tracked back to him. You know what they say? Small Town, Big Hell. Ultimately, he saw a chance of not getting directly involved and took it.

But it's risky as hell, he had witnesses of his wife, the caretaker of the dog while he was playing detective and stealing footwear wearing a fake beard in London for no fucking reason, and the odds of it failing were huge. Am I the only one who got possessed by Scott Evil's soul and thought "Just fucking shoot him!"?

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.

He forces his wife, who he constantly beats, to pretend to be his sister even before he hears the Hugo Baskerville story from Dr Mortimer and thinks "A cursed ghost dog, yeah that's the way to fucking murder my uncle and cousin so I get their money". Makes no sense whatsoever.

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.

For Sir Charles, okay. Sure. Heart attack. For Henry, what would be the excuse? "Mauled by a phantom dog, oh well, case closed"?

If Henry is just shot and placed with a gun on his hand, there's no forensics back then to prove it wasn't a suicide.

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).

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.

>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

The point of the Holmes stories was that he did take a forensics approach when the police really hadn't.

> stealing footwear wearing a fake beard in London for no fucking reason

The answer is "because Doyle was an author who wrote about potboiler shit like fake spectral dogs and fake-beard-wearing shoe thieves (and people pretending to be scabby beggars and geese eating jewels), not guys who just flat out gank their enemies"... a notable exception being Col. Moran who just ganked his enemies.

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

>a notable exception being Col. Moran who just ganked his enemies.

But in an interesting and hard to immediately deduce way

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. 😆

Ar the epilogue Holmes is asked about Stapleton being an obvious culprit regardless of the dog due to him living under a false name nearby, and Holmes pretty much answers "Yeah well oopsie, who knows?".

Stapleton also thought he was superior to EVERYONE and especially all the local yokels. I really don’t think he thought he would be found out and if he was he wouldn’t be convicted. The dude was nuts and made me suspicious of anyone who catches butterflies. “Butterfly net? Yeah sure. Bet you have a starved hellhound hidden somewhere.” 🤣

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'.

He came to Devonshire already planning to acquire the estate one way or the other, that is why he introduced his wife as his sister. He wasn't sure of the actual method yet but then he had heard about Sir Charles frail heart and his belief in the hound.

When Henry appeared he decided to try the same method since it worked for the first time, that makes perfect sense.

Also, I'm not sure about constant beatings, where did you take it from?

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.

Wasn't she described as being physically abused?

You're forgetting a fairly major issue here - Stapleton stands to directly benefit from Henry's death in a very public way, because in order to get his hands on the family money he has to out himself as a Baskerville. So that immediately gives him an obvious motive. What's more likely - a wealthy young extraverted aristocrat suddenly commits suicide and his money happens to go to a local relative, or his death was staged? The dog provides a far more plausible smokescreen than a staged suicide (when you consider that in those days, basically everyone accepted the existence of ghosts as a fact - indeed even in modern Britain it's not uncommon).

I do remember that she feared him immensely and that he tied her at the end but extensive physical abuse I don't recall. Maybe I'm mistaken, it was quite a while since I read the book the last time.

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

......why???

He was a lost relation. That was his motive. Believed it was his right to inherit. He was killing the usurpers with the stolen family legacy.