With the murderers, Conan-Doyle uses the formulaeic character of Dr Roylott, a very violent man. You can assume that he is the murderer in this story just by the description Dr Watson gives of him. He describes Dr Roylott as ‘a huge man’, who possessed ‘A large face seared with a thousand wrinkles and marked with every evil passion’. He has ‘deep-set, bile shot eyes’ and a ‘high thin fleshless nose, (which) gave him the resemblance of a fierce bird of pray’.
Dr Roylott would seem to be evil from the start. Watson on looking at him remarked that his face was ‘marked with every evil passion’. In “Lamb to the Slaughter”, the murderer is not so typical. In fact, Mrs Mary Maloney is more of a typical victim than a murderer. Would you suspect a person who is described as someone who ‘now and again… would glance up at the clock… merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come.’ She already seems like a loving, caring housewife waiting for her husband to come home on a Thursday night, hardly capable of murder.
Dahl wrote this character as an anti-heroin she does not resemble a fierce bird of pray, but instead there is ‘a slow smiling air about her and about everything she does’. Dahl goes on to describe her more, using phrases such as ‘curiously tranquil’, ‘Her skin… had acquired a wonderful translucent quality,’ and ‘The eyes… seemed larger, darker than before’ What makes her so untypical though is the fact that she is six months pregnant. If Dr Roylott is the typical murderer, then Mary Maloney is the opposite of all we associate with murderers.
As for the second requirement, money, it is revealed that Helen Stoner is about to come into a fairly large amount. She says that an agreement was made whereby all her mothers fortune was to go to Dr Roylott, ‘with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage’, then later reveals that she will be marrying ‘a dear friend, whom I have known for many years’
Later in the plot, Holmes uncovers the will of Helen Stoner’s mother, and finds out ‘each daughter can claim an income of £250, in case of marriage.’ So, from all these quotes, we can determine that after Helen Stoner’s wedding, Dr Roylott would have had to given her £250 per year- an amount which could have ruined the “good doctor”, as at the time the story was set, £250 had much more value than it does now.
So we have a scared woman just about to come into money. She seems the type who couldn’t put up much of a fight. A fairly typical victim, and then, you look at “Lamb to the Slaughter”. Looking at the description of Mary Maloney, she seems to be the perfect choice for the character of the victim of this story, yet she turns out to be the murderer. So, in-keeping with the theme of opposite characters, we ask ourselves, “Who would be the least likely to be the victim?” The answer is her husband, Patrick Maloney.
Firstly, he’s a policeman- a sergeant- so that gets rid of the anxious, terrified image. Secondly he seems quite aggressive, but that could be just the whiskey and soda, or the news that he’s just about to tell her. Also he’s not particularly rich, and the only wealth he’s likely to come into in the near future is his pay packet. In short, he is definitely not the typical victim.
He seems to have done something scandalous which, when he tells his wife, becomes her motive. This day when he comes home, he is particularly on edge because of the “scandalous event”. You can tell this by his mannerisms in particular. He seems irritated and gives short answers to the questions Mrs Maloney asks. ‘“Tired darling?” “Yes” he said “I’m tired”’ He also seems to be drinking more than usual, draining half a glass of his whiskey and soda ‘in one swallow’. Maybe trying to boost himself with some “Dutch Courage”. You can see by the way he gives short monosyllabic answers, and the way he words some of these answers, that he is irritated. He adopts some of the mannerisms of our typical murderer, making it all the more unexpected when he becomes the victim.
Now detectives. Conan-Doyle’s story, ‘The Speckled Band’ centres around the detective- the original typical detective- Sherlock Holmes, whereas in Dahl’s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the detectives, led by Jack Noonan, play a comparatively minor role in the story.
Holmes is, as I have already pointed out, the classic detective. Assisted by Dr Watson, he makes the ‘rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis’ that have made him so famous among avid readers and film buffs alike as the super-sleuth of Baker Street. Holmes has a clear and very sharp ability to deduce even the most complex mysteries, a gift which Dr Watson admires greatly. He says ‘I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and admiring… (the way in which)…he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him.’ Holmes takes every chance he gets to exercise, or sometimes show off, his abilities. When talking t Helen Stoner, she says ‘You have come by train I see… I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove.’ He then goes on to deduce that she went to the train station by dog-cart. ‘The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way and only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver.’ He may be exercising his skill, or he may be using this occurrence as a sales tactic, impressing a potential client.
Basically, Holmes is presented as an observant, intelligent and committed detective, which is the typical investigators role in a murder mystery.
On the other hand, in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the detectives are as unobservant as Holmes is observant, as unintelligent as Holmes is intelligent, and as uncommitted as Holmes is committed. In short, they are Holmes’ exact opposites.
Their first show of observance is when Mrs Maloney is talking to them on the phone: ‘“Quick! Come quick! Patrick’s dead!”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Mrs Maloney. Mrs Patrick Maloney.”
“You mean Patrick Maloney’s dead?” This last sentence shows that they may be just a bit on the slow side.
The main detective in the story- although there are three others there- is Sergeant Jack Noonan. He is definitely not over observant or intelligent. Firstly, he allows Mrs Maloney to persuade him to drink some whiskey while on duty. This makes him less observant, since whiskey is strong enough to dull the mind and the senses. He also assumes that since Patrick Maloney was hit with a large, blunt, heavy object, it had to be a man since a woman may not have been able to use an object that heavy. His phrase for cases like this one was ‘Get the weapon, you’ve got the man’, the final part of this being the appropriate point- strengthening this point; the first part of the phrase is an appropriate quote for my next point- he orders his men to search for the weapon for six hours, even though if it had been an attack like he suggests, it is more likely the murderer would have taken the weapon with him for a way, then buried it or hidden it somewhere. This all shows that he doesn’t follow up every angle of the case. He doesn’t mention anything about a motive; how the murderer got into the house; why, if the murderer didn’t use a weapon already in the house, he would have left it anywhere near the crime scene; or even why nobody would have noticed a man or woman walking into the Maloney house carrying a large sledgehammer, then walk out again five minutes later either not holding it or with it covered in blood.
He’s kind to Mrs Maloney because he knows her, which is fine, but would Holmes be kind and overlooks Watson if there was a possibility that he killed his own wife?
Finally, and most importantly, after he spends six hours looking for the murder weapon, he goes into the kitchen and eats it, not having put together the facts that Sam the Grocer probably told him that Mary was cooking a leg of lamb straight from frozen, and that this particular leg of lamb was shaped like a club.
The main difference though between the two detectives though is that in the end, Holmes solves the case while the detectives don’t, and even if they had, they would have already destroyed all the evidence they had.
The resolutions of the two stories are, as I have just touched on, very different. ‘The Speckled Band’ ends with Holmes figuring out the mystery, and thwarting the evil Dr Roylott, using the Dr’s own method of killing his daughters to put an end to him, creating a poetic justice when the snake, Dr Rowlett’s “murder weapon” turns and, enraged by Holmes hitting it with a stick, crawls back through the ventilator and bites Dr Roylott. This is quite a typical resolution- justice has been served, the murderer brought about his own destruction, helped along by the intelligent detective setting the means of murder against the murderer. By the end of the story the reader is left feeling satisfied with the ending. Good has triumphed, evil hasn’t, the right person came out on top, and the world is a much safer place to live in, etc. In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ however, the ending follows a different.
After the detectives have spent hours searching the premises, Mrs Maloney manipulates them into eating the leg of lamb in the oven, which just happens to be the murder weapon; and the story closes with Mrs Maloney giggling while the detectives talk amongst themselves. ‘“Have some more Charlie?”
“No. Better not finish it”
“She wants us to finish it. She said so. Be doing her a favour”
“Okay then give me some more… Personally, I think (the weapon’s) right here on the premises”
“Probably right under our very noses. What do you think Jack?”
And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle’
Some may interpret this giggle as a sign that she has gone psychopathic, others may say she is just giggling at the irony of the situation. Personally, I think maybe a bit of both. The ending is definitely not entirely typical, but in some ways it is. The person who the story is based around wins, therefore the story does not seem unfulfilling. Its just that the story is based around the murderer. Because of the way they are resolved, both stories end well, giving a feeling that the right person won, although in the case of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the “right person” happens to be a possible psychopath. Dahl engineered the story to make you feel as if there was nothing missing, whereas the main ingredient of the detective story- justice- is absent (or it could have taken the form of the murder, depending on what Patrick Maloney told his wife)
Dahl and Conan-Doyle have engineered the two stories well, but in my opinion, Dahls story, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, is the better of the two, for two main reasons.
Firstly, Dahl has written this story specifically to go against the traditional detective story, making the setting, plot and characters untypical. Secondly, I particularly like the way in which Dahls characters develop as the story goes on. Mary Maloney goes from loving housewife and potential victim to possible psychopathic murderer. Patrick Maloney develops from potential psychopathic murderer to dead victim, and the detectives… well the detectives are pretty dim to begin with anyway.
While Dahl’s characters are flexible, Conan-Doyle’s stay rigid and static. Dr Roylott stays violent, Helen Stoner stays terrified, and Holmes stays as vigilant and observant as ever.
The main ingredient of a detective story is that the villain is caught and justice is achieved. This happens in ‘The Speckled Band’, with the poetic justice of Dr Roylott’s death, but in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ it doesn’t, and the villain gets off “scot-free”. Even if they had found her out, they wouldn’t have any evidence. The main ingredient is missing in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, but even so, that doesn’t make the story any worse.