Who is John Clayton?

John Clayton is a cabman who drove a disguised Stapleton in The Hound of the Baskervilles. He appears in two of the original Sidney Paget illustrations that accompanied the novel's first publication in The Strand Magazine, yet looks slightly different atop his cab than he does when he meets Holmes and Watson face-to-face. The explanation?

One theory is that Clayton donned false whiskers himself for the later interview, to try to avoid recognition from a previous encounter with Holmes. Many rumors surround Clayton, including theories that he was the grandfather of Tarzan, as well as the cab driver driving straight at the artist on the cover of Strand Magazine. He has also been said to be an American immigrant to London, the son of a Peoria wagonmaster named William Clayton.

What we do know for sure about Clayton is that he drove cab number 2704, out of Shipley's Yard near Waterloo Station. He lived at number 3 Turpey Street, the Borough. He earned two pounds, two shilings driving Stapleton in following Henry Baskerville, and another half pound for telling Sherlock Holmes about it.

He also has a Sherlock Holmes society named after him, "The Hansoms of John Clayton" of Peoria.

Other than those few details, Clayton, like so many things in the world of Sherlock Holmes, remains a mystery.