Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also used various effects to encourage the reader to continue reading.
In ‘The Speckled Band’, the story concentrates on the well-known detective Sherlock Holmes. This story is told through the eyes of his companion, Dr Watson. Both stories have the typical elements of a detective story, only they are shown differently.
The detective figures differ greatly in both stories. In Conan Doyle’s story ‘The Speckled Band’, the detective is a well-known man called Sherlock Holmes. He has an associate called Dr Watson who tells the story. Watson tells the reader that Holmes love to work on unusual cases, ‘he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, even the fantastic’. Holmes is famous for carrying two items with him at all times, one a pipe, the other a ……..
Holmes is the typical classic detective. He is shown as an observant, intelligent, clever, polite and committed detective. To show this, Watson tells the reader, ‘I find many tragic, some comic, a large number rarely strange, but none commonplace; for working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth’, this shows that he has a love for his work and is dedicated.
Holmes has the ability to understand the most complicated mysteries. This is an ability that Watson greatly admires. He says, ‘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 unravelled the problems which were submitted to him’.
In Dahl’s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the detectives are very different. They are unobservant, unintelligent and not committed. They are Holmes’ exact opposites.
The main detective in this story is sergeant Jack Noonan, although there are three others, which have a minor role in the story. Jack Noonan is not observant or intelligent. To begin with, he allows Mrs Maloney to coax him to drink some whisky while on duty making him even less observant. He also presumed that because Patrick Maloney was hit with a large, heavy object, it had to be a man and not a woman who killed him. He says, ‘Get the weapon, you’ve got the man’. He also ordered his men to search the premises for the weapon. He didn’t stop to think that the murderer would have most probably taken the weapon away and then either hid it or buried it somewhere. He doesn’t mention anything about a motive or how the murderer got into the house. Also, if the murderer had brought the weapon into the house, would ‘he’ have left it anywhere near the scene of the crime. Why didn’t anyone notice a man or woman enter the Maloney house carrying a large object?
Jack Noonan was very kind and sympathetic to Mary Maloney. This is acceptable but he should have overlooked the possibility that Mary Maloney could have been the killer too. A woman easily convinces Noonan. He let her persuade him to have a glass of whisky. To convince Noonan of her grief, ‘she looked at him with her large, dark, tearful eyes’.
She also talked Noonan into eating the leg of lamb as her deceased husband would, ‘…never forgive me, God bless his soul, if I allowed you to remain in this house without offering decent hospitality. Why don’t u eat up the lamb that’s in the oven…’ this was the murder weapon.
In ‘The Speckled Band’, the murderer is Dr Grimesby Roylott. He is the stepfather of Helen and Julia Stoner.
We are given the impression that Roylott is a murderer from Watson’s description of him. Watson also describes Roylott as a ‘huge man’, with a large face ‘marked with every evil passion’. He has ‘deep set, bile shot eyes, and the high thin fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey.’
Helen Stoner had also told Homes that Roylott had a long-term imprisonment in India as he had beaten his native butler to death due to some thefts that had taken place.
Roylott also lived an isolated life when he moved to Stoke Moran. Instead of making friends, he closed himself up in the house away from the rest of the world and was anti-social. He had ‘ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path’.
Helen Stoner tells Holmes that, ‘a series of disgraceful brawls took place, two which ended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger’.
This proves that Roylott could have possibly murdered his stepdaughter with no guilt, as he is a callous cold-hearted man.
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the murderer is Mary Maloney but she seems like a quiet, pleasant, loving housewife who is not capable of murder but she is not as innocent as she seems. Who would suspect a pregnant woman who is described as having ‘a slow smiling air about her, and about everything she did’ turn out to be the murderer.
Dahl uses many descriptive phrases to describe Mary Maloney such as, ‘her skin-for this was her sixth month with child-had acquired a wonderful translucent quality’. ‘The eyes…seemed larger, darker than before’, and ‘she loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man’. She is untypical of a murderer. When she commits the crime, we were shocked by her actions. This is Dahl’s intention.
Her character changes dramatically during the story. At the beginning, she is a loving housewife, waiting for her husband then she changes to a cold-hearted woman who has killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb. After this, her character changes instantly. She is now a calculating woman who is trying to cover up her crime. She had no remorse; after the murder she tells herself, ‘all right…so I’ve killed him’. She also seems very calm, ‘it was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began think very fast’. She thought about the consequences and decides the death penalty would most properly be her punishment. ‘That was fine. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief’, but she was not sure of the death penalty and was not prepared to take a chance.
In ‘The Speckled Band’, Julia Stoner is the victim. The reason for her death was that she was bout to be married. On the event of her marriage, Roylott would have to pay an ‘annual sum’ of £250. This would mean that Roylott would lose a large sum of money.
Helen stoner also seems likely to be the next victim, she reveals to Holmes that she will be marrying ‘a dear friend, whom I have known for years’. She is also the typical victim; she is a frightened woman who is about to come into money. If she was attempted to be murdered, she would not be able to put up a fight.
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, Mary Maloney seems to be the typical victim, yet she turns out to be the murderer.
Her husband Patrick Maloney seems to be the least conventional type of victim. He is a policeman and not rich. Our first impression of him is that he seems quite aggressive, this could be about the news he was going to tell his wife or the amount of whisky he had just drank. He seems to have done something shameful, which then becomes Mary Maloney’s motive for killing her husband. His mannerisms are that of a typical murderer, he gives short, one-word answers, which shows he is irritated, and possibly on edge.
‘The Speckled Band’ was set in both London and leatherhead. The main events of the story were set in a two hundred year old mansion called Stoke Moran.
Stoke Moran is the kind of setting you would expect a murder mystery to take place, if u read Watson’s account of the mansion. Watson described the wings of the house as, ‘like the claws of a crab’. He observes that in one wing, ‘the windows were broken, and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of a ruin’, giving the reader a mental picture of the house as large, old, damp and dark.
The setting for ‘Lamb the slaughter’ is the opposite of Stoke Moran. It is not the conventional type of setting for a murder mystery to take place.
The setting is warm 1950’s home, which belongs to Mr and Mrs Maloney. Dahl begins the story with a short account of the Maloney residence. ‘The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight-hers and the one by the empty chair opposite’.
The image the reader is given of the house is that it is small, cosy, warm and bright.
The description of the Maloney residence is not the typical setting for a murder mystery. It is nothing like the portrayal of the Stoke Moran. The approach Dahl uses, makes the reader feel a false sense of security, making you unaware of what is going to happen. Dahl’s intention is that the reader is shocked when the murder of Patrick Maloney happens.
