However, Reseck may not be as average as the reader is led to believe. During the story Chandler includes several subtle pieces of information, hinting to his reader that there is perhaps a slight element of mystery/deceit to his hero:
The movement seemed to be a thing imperfectly perceived, an error of vision.
But this touch of mystery is masked by Reseck’s lack of self-belief and relatively un-dynamic approach when compared to Holmes. This lack of enthusiasm almost, is emphasised by the author’s use of belittling adverbs when referring to his hero: delicately, gently, sighed, gravely, softly, mockingly. Furthermore Raymond Chandler portrays Tony Reseck as a rather solitary person:
He always knew if anybody was close to him.
This is another diminishing aspect of Reseck’s character that the author exposes to his readers and in order to explore this further Chandler uses Tony’s brother Al. The brother’s only appearance happens somewhere in the middle of the story when a porter at the hotel tells Tony that he has a visitor. The porter is concerned for Tony’s safety because his description of Al is that of a gang member with which the audience would have been more than familiar with at the time: a relation to the era. At the beginning of the conversation between the brothers the reader learns that Tony and Al have not seen each other for a while. When Al extends his hand to Tony, the detective refuses. Both of these points indicate to the reader that Reseck likes to keep his distance from everyone, even from his own family:
Al: “I forgot. Guess you don’t want to shake hands.“
Tony: “That don’t mean anything,” … ”Monkeys can shake hands.”
Al: “Still the funny fat guy, eh, Tony?
The quote above seems to suggest a trace of rivalry between the two brothers, as if they are both trying to compete for something, perhaps their mother’s love:
Al: “How’s mom these days?”
In stark contrast to Tony Reseck and his brother Al, Sherlock Homes is portrayed throughout many of Doyle’s tales to be almost superhuman. Holmes is of course The Speckled Band’s main character. He is a confident, debonair man, who is suave and intelligent, thriving upon intellectual stimulation. The detective is affluent, enigmatic, incisive, and in all probability, successful, although his self-confidence often borders on arrogance:
"Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official detective force!”
Holmes is socially and publicly well known and the author implies this at the beginning of the story when Ms. Stoner arrives at Holmes’ Baker Street apartment:
“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh…Oh, Sir, do you not think you could help me too?”
These couple of sentences early on in the tale emphasises the reputation of this renowned detective. All of his stereotypical middle-class Victorian qualities are reflected in the customary, methodical manner that he goes about his work. Holmes always proceeds with a case by the same means as does the author, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, who never reveals what his hero is thinking until the end of the story. This requires the reader to use their deductive powers and intellect to attempt to solve the case independently allowing them to engage with the story.
The reader needs some form of relation to a character in the tale (who is in many ways similar to themselves) so that the story is able to flow. Consequently Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle employs a colleague for his hero in order to fulfil the previous requirement. Holmes’ sidekick, Dr Watson, acts as the narrator throughout Doyle’s books. He helps provide a perspective from an observer’s view and a personal, subjective account. He is like the reader; has no idea what his colleague is thinking and is not brilliant enough to solve the case himself.
Watson helps provide a contrast between himself and Holmes during the story, as does the arch-villain, Doctor Roylott. As mentioned before the Doctor is the stereotypical, melodramatic arch villain of The Speckled Band. His first encounter with Holmes is quite early on in the tale when the doctor “visits” Holmes and Watson at their apartment. Before words are exchanged Doyle includes a fairly lengthy description of Roylott using such phrases as: seared with a thousand wrinkles and bile-shot eyes. The Victorians would have recognised the systematic description of the stranger’s appearance as that of a villain’s just like people of today could but perhaps not so easily. As the encounter develops the author sets Roylott against Holmes in order to compliment his hero’s qualities. Firstly Holmes mental strength is tested during Roylott’s heated and mainly one-sided conversation to which he just laughs or ridicules:
"What has she been saying to you?" screamed the old man furiously.
"But I have heard that the crocuses promise well," continued my companion imperturbably.
Secondly, Doyle compares the detective and doctor’s physical strength. Roylott grasps the poker in Holmes’ apartment and bends it into a curve. Holmes’ reply after the Doctor leaves is to straighten the poker. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, therefore, uses his arch-villain to set his hero against in an attempt to prove that Detective Sherlock Holmes is indeed superior in every way.
However, in I’ll Be Waiting there is no an arch villain. A possible reason for this is that Chandler is indicating how the times were corrupt enough and therefore no villain is needed.
Both I’ll Be Waiting and The Speckled Band have story lines based around a female victim. In I’ll Be Waiting the female victim is Ms. Eve Cressy: a mysterious red-haired girl who is waiting for her ex-husband to retrieve her. The female victim in The Speckled Band is Ms. Helen Stoner, who is a young, innocent and anxious:
We could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn and grey…
The language of The Speckled Band informs us about characters and provides the reader with a great deal of information about the era of story. All sentences are grammatically correct and sometimes even ostentatious. The sentence structures are often complex containing archaic clauses.
“And now, Watson, this is too serious for dawdling, especially as the old man is aware that we are interesting ourselves in his affairs; so if you are ready, we shall call a cab and drive to Waterloo.”
This use this anachronistic language portrays the confidence and poise of Sherlock Holmes and 19th Century Britain.
In contrast, the language used in I’ll Be Waiting is more argot, streetwise, cynical and somewhat slick:
They never run out of gas-those boys
And
Talk it up copper. My mind reader just quit.
The cryptic language, however, which many characters use and that continues throughout the story is just a facade. This front or show that Raymond Chandler uses proves to be very effective, reflecting the troublesome era remarkably.
The final aspect of the two stories that I will compare is the ending. The ending in I’ll Be Waiting is very emotional. Tony Reseck receives a telephone call telling him that Johnny Ralls (the man who Tony let go, against his brother’s advice) has murdered his brother Al:
“Al had a hunch you’d run him out. Tailed him and took him to the kerb. Not so good. Backfire.”
The person delivering the message is quite direct and speaks in short disjointed sentences, almost like bullet points. The lack of sympathy gives the reader the impression that the person is used to shootings on the street and that they are nothing special to him/her: The metallic voice sounded impatient, a little bored. During the decade that the story was written in, people were much more accustomed to street crime and murder than one is today: this messenger therefore, reflects the era of the story.
Tony, however, does not take the news well at first. When he picked up the phone Chandler described him as cuddling the receiver close to his chest, but just before he found out about Al’s murder the description changed to:
Tony held the phone very tight and his temples chilled with the evaporation of moisture.
Tony feels culpable for his brother’s murder and this provokes the raw emotions he feels when he finds out his brother is dead: His mouth made a sound that was not speech. The detective goes into a phase of denial:
Tony put the phone down…very carefully, so as not to make any sound.
He might be hoping that he could ignore the feeling of guilt and the depression he will inevitably feel by almost pretending to himself that nothing happened. Finally, Tony seems to begin to accept his brother’s death in the best way he can at the time:
He reached the chair he had sat in before and lowered himself into it inch by inch.
The fact that Tony sits in the chair that he sat in at the start of the story indicates a theme of circularity: more simply life goes on. This attitude towards his surroundings, family and general life reflects the era superbly.
In contrast, the ending in The Speckled Band is a mandatory victory for Sherlock Holmes. He manages to independently solve the case and takes the law into his own hands, by also assisting in the death of the arch-villain Doctor Roylott. The Doctor was sending a poisonous snake through a vent into the room where his victim sleeps. The snake climbed down a rope and bit the person and then returned upon the call of a whistle. The detective however, deduced this and scared the snake, provoking it to return and kill the Doctor. Holmes’ victory only enhances his confidence and reputation and he feels no remorse for acting above the law:
“And I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience”.
To conclude, both these detective stories are very different. The Speckled Band is much more of a conventional tale, using grammatically correct language and a traditional Gothic tale framework to revolve the story around. This heavily tradition based detective story reflects 19th Century Victorian Britain extremely well.
Raymond Chandler’s I’ll Be Waiting is a more original, modern story. The tale is more realistic then that of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s story and has, I believe, a greater sense of atmosphere then The Speckled Band. Chandler helps to create this atmosphere by using a wide array of adjectives and descriptive phrases. However, unlike Doyle’s tale there is not much of a dynamic story line, but maybe this is just another subtle way Raymond Chandler reflects the era his tale was written in?
