One of the most important aspects controlling the tension, atmosphere and events in a murder mystery is setting. The setting of the murder scene is crucial because that is where the clues are and the key to working it all out. Arthur Conan Doyle has an effective use of contrast with the cozy setting of Baker Street, which allows the reader to snuggle up between Conan Doyle’s’ yarn. There is also the pivotal setting of the gothic ancestral home where the imposing hillside gives an explosive background to a brutal killing ‘The building was of grey, linchen-bloched stone, with a high central portion, and two curved 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’. The three bedrooms of the habited wing are where the murder takes place and another is attempted. These rooms were arranged for a specific use, to get rid of a newly bereaved stepdaughter. This set place killing is reliant on the correct positioning of a chair, a vent, a bell pull and a bed. Without these in their right positions the murder would not have taken place. As well as the setting, the gypsies and the animals also create tension with the reader always when the cheetah will strike. Pathetic fallacy is used to create the right mood through out and the weather changes to make more tension.
In all murder mysteries the writer has to create a certain amount of tension to keep the reader interested. Conan Doyle does this with gradual climbs of tension and then a fall. At the start of the story there are small rises of tension and falls, the use of Victorian Melodrama creates drama for the reader. When Helen Stoner comes in and tells Holmes about her family it is slow paced and little or no tension at all. Then she tells of her sister’s death, which makes the tension rise. In the story there two lulls before the storm which is when everything is quiet happy and slow paced but then the action breaks out and the pace and tension rise ‘But we shall have horrors enough before the night is over for goodness sake let us have a quiet pipe and turn our minds for a few hours to something more cheerful.’ There are four main high points in the story, the last being the climax. This is where Dr Roylott dies.
Sherlock Holmes was the first real fictional detective and is still very popular today. He was a private detective, not a member of the police force because in those days the police weren’t held in high regard. He was put on a pedestal by the people who read about him because he was fulfilling everything the police weren’t. Many of today’s TV detectives are based on Holmes including Colombo, Jonathan Creek, Poirot and Morse. Sherlock Holmes is instantly recognizable in his deerstalker hat and his long cloak but actually these were not originally his clothes. Someone who was drawing him made them up. We also recognize him by his magnifying glass and that he plays the violin and smokes a pipe. He smokes his pipe when he is meditating or trying to work out a clue or puzzle. Holmes’ personality is very polite but not emotional, he is a middle class gentleman and very logical. He always tries to outdo the people he meets. He does this in the story when he describes how Miss Stoner arrives and when he straightened out the poker which Dr Roylott had bent in anger. Inspector Morse is very similar to Sherlock Holmes. He is recognized by his red car, his classical music and his love for real ale. His mannerisms are like those of Holmes too, he is a polite middle class gentleman, very clever but is abrupt. He cares inside but doesn’t show it. Morse also has a sidekick who is called Lewis; he is like Holmes’ Dr Watson. The reason for a sidekick is to narrate the story, to make the detective look a lot cleverer and to be an ally to us the readers. ‘I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis, with which he unraveled the problems which were submitted to him.’
Obviously a murder mystery has to have a murder and we usually find out who the murderer is at the end of the story. ‘The Speckled Band’ is quite unusual because we know that Roylott is the killer but we don’t know how he does it. Dr Roylott has an imposing physique and the author associates him with what we would generally consider bad using similes and metaphors. He is an archetypal villain and his only friends are wandering gypsies that aren’t trusted by others. These gypsies are associated with exotic pets and curses. Roylott is reclusive and has a beastly nature. He planned the murder in advance and spent and spent plenty of money on making sure that it took place.
If Roylott is the archetypal villain then Helen Stoner is the archetypal victim. In Victorian literature women were portrayed as heroines who need help from heroes. Helen Stoner is weak, vulnerable and very emotional. She brings the only element of emotion into his story. She is emotional where as Holmes is logical. She plays a vital role in the story because she is the stepdaughter of the murderer, the sister of the murdered and the next in line. Helen Stoner is the stereotypical female of her time. She is like the prey and Roylott is the predator. When she comes to see Holmes her appearance is old and worn out. ‘Her face all drawn and grey, with restless frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal’. She has aged before her time ‘her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey and her expression was weary and haggard’. The stereotypical view of women has changed a lot over the last century. In the times that ‘The Speckled Band’ was written women were seen as frail people who needed help from big strong men. In the 1920s Agatha Christie wrote books where a woman solved murder cases but people still thought she was stupid. Now in the year 2003 there are women who command entire police forces.
In my opinion I don’t think that ‘The Speckled Band’ is very effective as a murder mystery because it is too obvious that Roylott is the killer. It is very good as a how-dun-it because it’s frustratingly hard to workout how Roylott killed his stepdaughter. Conan Doyle included a red herring into the story to try and throw us off course but I don’t think it works at all. It’s almost as if he just put it in at the end as a rushed job.
