In contrast, the villain in “Lamb to The Slaughter”, Mary Malony, does not physically appear violent. The first image that we get of her is a warm, sweet and motherly person “Darling, … would u like me to get you some cheese?”. She is the wife of the victim, Patrick Maloney. She was obsessed of her husband “Now and again she would look up at the clock, but with out anxiety, merely to please herself witht the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come”, which possibly led to the murder. Mary was pregnant and looked beautiful “Her skin…for this was her sixth month with a child…had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth was soft and the eyes, with their placid look, seemed larger, darker than before.” Her motive for killing her husband, ironically, was because of love. Her husband had told her that he was going to leave her for someone else “of course I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after”. After committing the murder, Mary thought carefully of a plan so that she would not get caught. She did not want to be caught because she did not want herself or her child to be killed “What were the laws about murders with unborn children? Did they kill them both…mother and child?” Mary Maloney was an unsuspected villain. It is contrary to the stereotype of men always being the villain. Mary was able to plan a very simple yet effective plan to get away with the murder, unlike Doctor Roylott, who got busted and fell into his own trap.
The setting for “The Speckled Band” was in England during the Victorian times in 1892. We know this because it uses old -formal language, complex words, women wore long dresses and gloves. The presence of dogcarts also proved this because they were around during the Victorian era “There is no dog cart which throws up mud in that way”. The scene of the crime was in an old house. The house is described as “The building was of grey, lichen – blotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin.” Theses detailed description creates a spooky and scary atmosphere. You could relate this atmosphere to a typical atmosphere of a murder mystery. To add to the suspense, Doyle added the presence of a cheetah and baboon in the house.
“Lamb to the Slaughter” was set somewhere in the 80’s. You get this idea from the presence of the car “…she heard the tyres on the gravel outside” and the oven “…she placed the meat in a pan, and turned the oven on high”. In “Lamb to the Slaughter”, the scene of crime had a very calm and relaxed atmosphere “The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight – hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. On the sideboard behind her, two tall glasses, soda water, whisky. Fresh ice cubes in the Thermos Bucket”. The Maloney’s household would be the last place you will expect a murder to happen. It was very homely, nothing spooky.
In “The Speckled Band” Sherlock Holmes immediately suspects Grimesby Roylott as the villain. He spots all the clues, takes personal risks and solves the crime in the end. He does this by spotting all the clues “My attention was speedily drawn…to this ventilator, and to the ropes which hung down to the bed. The discovery that this was a dummy and that the bed was clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to suspicion that the rope was there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me”. At first, I thought it was Doctor Roylott who committed the crime, but after, when Sherlock Holmes revealed it couldn’t be him I had a suspicion that it was an animal because there was a cheetah and a baboon in the house. Sherlock Holmes is a good detective because he is very observant and picks up on clues very quickly. He also thinks very logically. The only ting illogical about his character is that he manages to solve every single crime with such accurate details, which is very unrealistic.
On the contrary, in “Lamb to the Slaughter” the detective did not suspect Mary Maloney. They did not put any pressure on her, they did not make her leave the room, and suspect a woman as a villain. In the end they were not able to solve the crime. Things they did do which they should not have done were discussing the crime with Mary, drinking, eating on duty and eating the evidence. The detectives were very sloppy with the investigation “ she could hear them speaking among themselves, their voices thick and sloppy.” This has a double meaning about the detectives and their investigation. They were thick because they ate the evidence and they ran a sloppy case. They did not seem to bother about the case too much. They thought of the possibilities very shallowly. They do not demonstrate professional detectives and did not solve the crime.
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the murderer, Mary Maloney gets away with killing Patrick Maloney. No one suspected that she was the murderer. At first she was sad but eventually she got over it. This does not usually happen in murder mysteries, which normally have a tragic end and have more drama in it. I think it was clever how Mary managed to get rid of the evidence and, the weird thing is, which adds a touch of humor to the story, the detectives literally ate the murder weapon. What else is unusual is that the murderer was a pregnant woman.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ his own snake kills the murderer, Doctor Roylott. I think he deserved to get killed because he is mentally unstable and twisted and does not care for any one apart from himself.
The most exciting part of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ was when Mary Maloney whacked her husband’s head with a leg of lamb “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without and pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb on the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.” The part which caught my attention and made me carry on reading the story was when Patrick Maloney was going to tell Mary the bad news “This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I’m afraid’ he said ‘but I’ve thought about it a good deal and I’ve decided the only thing to do is to tell you right away. I hope you won’t blame me too much.”
The most exciting part of ‘The Speckled Band’ was when the snake killed Doctor Grimsbey Roylott himself. “His chin was cocked upwards, and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor movement.”
“The Speckled Band” was more appealing for me as it has more action in it. It was also more of a typical mystery story, where the crime gets solved through the clues left behind. I also liked the twist in the story at the end when we discovered that it was the snake that killed Miss Julia Stoner. “Lamb to the Slaughter” is very short and snappy. The investigations did not go into much depth and was floppy. It did not include an important aspect in mystery stories, clues. The time scale was also very much shorter.
Murder stories have changed very slightly from the Victorian times to modern times. The most obvious one is the use of language. Informal language with slang “hullo” is now used. Another change is that stories now do not always have a conventional, happy ending. It is more realistic when the murderer actually gets away with it.
