‘I got a nice leg of lamb from the freezer.’
It does not occur to the detectives that the leg of lamb is a club shape suitable for causing the blow to the head and being frozen will be as hard as steel.
Both Arthur Conan Doyle and Roald Dahl use methods to keep us interested in the story. Dahl uses irony to amuse the readers when the detectives are eating the leg of lamb in the kitchen:
‘“Okay then give me some more… Personally, I think it’s right here on the premises”
“Probably right under our very noses. What do you think Jack?”
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ the reader’s view of the characters changes, the victim goes from being a grumpy seemingly violent husband to the victim who did not deserve to die. His wife goes from the victim of a violent and grumpy husband to the murderer. After the murder she seems pathetic but is revealed later as a cunning murderer with mass intuition. The inspectors start professional and sympathetic and later appear un-professional when they drink on duty and eat the murder weapon. In ‘The Speckled Band’ the characters stay the same, Dr. Roylett evil, Holmes amazingly intuitive, Watson bedazzled by Holmes’ brilliance and Helen Stoner frightened.
Dahl’s story is also different from a typical crime novel because the readers know who the killer is from the start instead they watch the inspectors be out smarted by a detective’s wife. In ‘The Speckled Band’ the readers do not find out until Holmes reveals the mystery at the end.
In a traditional crime novel, it is based upon the person solving the crime and shows their trials and tribulations to solving the mystery. ‘The Speckled Band’ does this, it is focused on Sherlock Holmes and how he solves the murder. ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is focused on the murder victim’s wife who is also the killer not the detective(s) and how the murderer fools the Inspectors.
Holmes is a swift think and can come up with rapid deductions using his highly developed logic. Using several clues he can interpret them and come up with a solution, which is apparently always the correct scenario. An example of this is when Helen Stoner visits him at the beginning, Homes takes a brief look and 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.’
Unlike Sherlock Holmes the detectives in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ are not as observant nor as intelligent and dedicated to solving the crime, which is the opposite of a typical crime story. One sign is that they did not realise they were eating something that fitted the description of the murder weapon. Another is when Mrs Maloney first rings the police to report the murder:
‘Quick! Come quick! Patrick’s dead!’
‘Who’s speaking?’
‘Mrs Maloney. Mrs Patrick Maloney.’
‘You mean Patrick Maloney’s dead?’
The last sentence shows that they couldn’t put the first three simple sentences together and realise that Patrick Maloney is actually dead.
One difference between these two short stories is that the endings, Holmes solves the murder the inspectors in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ do not. In ‘The Speckled Band’ the snake that Dr. Roylett used as a murder weapon is enraged by Holmes hitting it with a stick that it crawls back and bites Dr. Roylett. This gives the reader a feeling of triumph as good overcame evil. In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ it ends with the inspectors eating the murder weapon and only evidence allowing Mrs Maloney to get away with the murder. One of the main constituents to the classic crime novel is that the intelligent individual solves and justice is served. Doyle delivers this while Roald Dahl does not.
Therefore the main difference is that Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Speckled Band’ is typical of a classical crime story and Roald Dahl’s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is purposely the opposite.
