With the murderers in the Speckled Band they were more typical. The character of the murderer is Dr Roylott, a very violent man. You can assume that he is the murderer in this story just by the description Dr Watson gives of him. He describes Dr Roylott as 'a huge man', who possessed 'A large face seared with a thousand wrinkles and marked with every evil passion'. He has 'deep-set, bile shot eyes' and a 'high thin fleshless nose, which gave him the resemblance of a fierce bird of pray'
Dr Roylott seems to be very evil from the start. Watson said that his face was 'marked with every evil passion' and this appearance gives a prediction of what the personality may be like, in this case evil. If you had heard what Helen Stoner had told Holmes, you would assume that this man was the same man whose 'violence of temper approaching mania' resulted in 'long term imprisonment' in India because 'in a fit of anger caused by some robberies which had been perpetuated in the house, he beat his native butler to death.'
Dr Roylott lived a quiet life once he moved to Stoke Moran. Once he arrived, instead of being sociable, 'he shut himself up in his house, and seldom came out, save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path.' This lack of friends, and the absence of a friendly personality resulted in a void, which he used anger to fill. He became a sour angry man after the death of his wife. Helen Stoner said that after the death of his wife, he abandoned all ideas of setting up a practise in London and moved to Stoke Moran. 'But a terrible change came over our stepfather at that time… he became the terror of the village, and folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.' This, along with my other points proves that Dr Grimsby Roylott was an extremely violent man, who could quite possibly be capable of murdering his own daughters with little or no remorse, just for money.
In "Lamb to the Slaughter" however, the murderer is not so typical. In fact, Mrs Mary Maloney is more of a typical victim than a murderer. She is described as someone who 'now and again… would glance up at the clock… merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come.’?. She already seems like a loving, caring housewife waiting for her husband to come home on a Thursday night, hardly capable of murder.
Dr Roylott would seem to be evil right from the start, and so Dahl writing this story to be not stereotypical of the detective novel creates a murderer who does not resemble a fierce bird of pray, but instead there is 'a slow smiling air about her and about everything she does'. Dahl goes on to describe her more, using phrases such as 'curiously tranquil', 'Her skin… had acquired a wonderful translucent quality,' and ' The eyes… seemed larger, darker than before'. What makes her so untypical though, more than all these descriptive phrases was that 'this was her sixth month with child'; she was a pregnant murderer.
Dahl develops his character for Mary Maloney though makes her definitely the more interesting of the two villains. She goes from a loving housewife waiting for her husband to come home, to a woman who kills her husband with a leg of lamb, and then to a very cold and calculating woman, covering her tracks perfectly by getting an alibi and destroying the murder weapon.
She then, ‘simply walked up behind him and without any pause… swung the frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head'. She changed character very fast and changes into a killer, which makes even more confusion and shock. What’s even more shocking is that after she has committed this terrible crime, she merely speaks, Alright… so I've killed him'
The change in her character happens immediately at this point. 'It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. This doesn’t seem like she is a housewife totally devoted to her husband, or a murderer who has just killed the husband she was totally devoted to. She seems either totally in control of the situation and trying to cover it up, in shock or totally a psychopath, as she is clearly a bit mad for doing something without any explanation.
Throughout the police investigation, she acts totally innocent, unlike Dr Roylott. She manipulates the detectives into having a drink of whiskey and that slows down their investigation making them not realise that when they are sat at the table, they are eating the murder weapon. She almost seems as if she has done this before. Her intelligence and the way she covers her tracks well, make her more like a murderer. Another thing, which makes the story more untypical is that, she succeeds and doesn’t get caught. The character of Mary Maloney is the last person you would think of as a murderer. She is a pregnant loving housewife who 'loved to luxuriate in the presence' of her husband- the man she killed. This is why she is such an untypical and interesting character.
As for victims, Conan-Doyle makes the most typical character in Helen Stoner. The typical victim in a murder mystery is a person, usually a woman, who is scared a lot and is innocent, and is usually about to come into a lot of money. This description is exactly what Helen Stoner is like, she is a woman obviously, and a scared one, terrified by her predicament. 'It is not cold which makes me shiver… It is terror'.
And as for money it is revealed that Helen Stoner is about to come into a fairly large amount. She says that an agreement was made whereby all her mothers fortune was to go to Dr Roylott, 'with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage', then later reveals that she will be marrying 'a dear friend, whom I have known for many years'
Later in the plot, Holmes uncovers the will of Helen Stoner's mother, and finds out 'each daughter can claim an income of £250, in case of marriage.' So that means that after the marriage of Helen Dr Roylott would have to give her £250 a year which was a lot in them days.
She seems the type who couldn't put up much of a fight, which is a fairly typical victim. “Lamb to the Slaughter” Looking at the description of Mary Maloney, she seems to be the perfect choice for the character of the victim of this story, yet she turns out to be the murderer. So by looking at what the characters say and do and how they are described it seems to me that Patrick Maloney is the most typical villain and Mary is the most typical victim. Firstly, because he’s a policeman sergeant, so that gets rid of the anxious, terrified image. Secondly, he seems quite aggressive, but that could be because he drinks alcohol, or the news that he's just about to tell her. Also he's not particularly rich, and the only wealth he's likely to come into in the future is his wages. He definitely does not sound like a typical victim.
He seems to have done something wrong which, when he tells his wife, becomes her motive. This day when he comes home, he is particularly nervous because of something that had previously happened. You can tell this by his mannerisms in particular. He seems irritated and gives short answers to the questions Mrs Maloney asks. '"Tired darling?" "Yes" he said "I'm tired"' He also seems to be drinking more than usual, draining half a glass of his whiskey and soda 'in one swallow'. You can see by the way he gives short answers, and the way he words some of these answers, that he is irritated. He seems like the typical murderer which is why we are surprised when he is actually the victim.
As for detectives Conan-Doyle’s story, 'The Speckled Band' centres around the original typical detective Sherlock Holmes, whereas in Dahl's 'Lamb to the Slaughter', the detectives, led by Jack Noonan, play a rather small role in the story.
Holmes is, as I have already pointed out, the classic detective. Assisted by Dr Watson, he makes the 'rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis'. Holmes has the ability to figure out even the most mysterious of murder mysteries. When talking to Helen Stoner, he 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 presume that she went to the train station by dogcart. '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.’ Basically, Holmes is presented as an observant, intelligent and committed detective, which is the typical investigators role in a murder mystery.
On the other hand, in 'Lamb to the Slaughter', the detectives are the exact opposites.
Their first show of observance is when Mrs Maloney is talking to them on the phone: '"Quick! Come quick! Patrick's dead!"
"Who's speaking?"
"Mrs Maloney. Mrs Patrick Maloney."
"You mean Patrick Maloney's dead?" This last sentence shows that they may be just a bit on the slow side.
The main detective in the story, although there are three others there is Sergeant Jack Noonan. He is definitely not over observant or intelligent. Firstly, he allows Mrs Maloney to persuade him to drink some whiskey while on duty. This makes him less observant. He also assumes that since Patrick Maloney was hit with a large, blunt, heavy object, it had to be a man since a woman may not have been able to use an object that heavy. His phrase for cases like this one was 'Get the weapon, you've got the man', Finally, he orders his men to search for the weapon for six hours, even though if it had been an attack like he suggests, it is more likely the murderer would have taken the weapon with him, then buried it or hidden it somewhere. This all shows that he doesn't follow up every angle of the case. He doesn't mention anything about a motive, how the murderer got into the house, or even why nobody would have noticed a man or woman walking into the Maloney house.
Finally, and most importantly, after he spends six hours looking for the murder weapon, he goes into the kitchen and eats it, not having put together the facts that Sam the Grocer probably told him that Mary was cooking a leg of lamb straight from frozen, and that this particular leg of lamb was shaped like a club.
The main difference though between the two detectives though is that in the end, Holmes solves the case while the detectives don't, and even if they had, they would have already destroyed all the evidence they had.
The resolutions of the two stories are, as I have just touched on, very different. 'The Speckled Band' ends with Holmes figuring out the mystery, and thwarting the evil Dr Roylott, using the Dr's own method of killing his daughters to put an end to him, creating a poetic justice when the snake, Dr Roylott's "murder weapon" turns and, enraged by Holmes hitting it with a stick, crawls back through the ventilator and bites Dr Roylott. This is quite a typical resolution- justice has been served, the murderer brought about his own destruction, helped along by the intelligent detective setting the means of murder against the murderer. By the end of the story the reader is left feeling satisfied with the ending. Good has triumphed, evil hasn't, the right person came out on top, and the world is a much safer place to live in, etc. In 'Lamb to the Slaughter' however, the ending follows a different.
After the detectives have spent hours searching the premises, Mrs Maloney manipulates them into eating the leg of lamb in the oven, which just happens to be the murder weapon, and the story closes with Mrs Maloney giggling while the detectives talk amongst themselves.
"Have some more Charlie?"
"No. Better not finish it"
"She wants us to finish it. She said so. Be doing her a favour"
"Okay then give me some more… Personally, I think the weapon's right here on the premises"
"Probably right under our very noses. What do you think Jack?"
‘And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle'
The bit about her giggling suggests she is a bit mad.
Dahl and Conan-Doyle have created the two stories well, but in my opinion, Dahls story, 'Lamb to the Slaughter', is the better of the two, for two main reasons.
Firstly, Dahl it was written so that it is the exact opposite of a detective story, which makes everything in it untypical. Secondly, I particularly like the way in which Dahls characters develop as the story goes on. Mary Maloney goes from loving housewife and victim to a murderer. Patrick Maloney develops from murderer to dead victim, and as for the detectives to me they seem like typical cartoon detectives not murder mystery detectives.
