After Helen Stoner has left Dr Roylott appears Watson describes his as a having ‘A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles burned yellow with the sun and marked with every evil passion was turned from one to the other of us, while his bile shot eyes and high fleshless nose gave him some what the resemblance of a bird of prey.’ These are typical villain characteristics giving you a clear picture of how evil he looks and the reason every one is scared of him.
However when Holmes and Watson visit Mr Wilson’s pawn shop, they are greeted by a very different sort of character. Vincent Spaulding is a short, stout built man, quick in his ways, no hair on his face although he is at least thirty years of age. He has a white acid splash scar on his forehead and pierced ears. These characteristics, although not very villain like, would make him very easy to remember.
Conan Doyle introduces Dr Roylott by him entering a room suddenly and aggressively. He is rude and yells a lot of abuse at Holmes. This shows us that our impressions of Dr Roylott being so violent and aggressive are correct confirming our belief that he would be perfectly capable of the crime. Dr Roylott’s sudden entrance of the room and his behaviour whilst in there also suggests that he is guilty and has something to hide. He calls him ‘the Scotland Yard Jack in Office’ but Holmes does not seem bothered about this. Instead he just replies ‘When you go close the door on your way out, there is a decided draught.’ Before he leaves Dr Roylott picks up the fire poker, bends it in a threatening way and then exits. Holmes then picks it back up and surprisingly, (as he is not a very big man), bends it back into place and then returns with what he was doing before completely unbothered by his experience.
The Red Headed League differs greatly from this. Holmes run in with Vincent Spaulding is very quick and he doesn’t even realise that he has met with Holmes. Whilst visiting the pawn shop he tries to attract Vincent Spaulding’s attention asking him a question, to which he answers very quickly and then returns back into the shop.
The motive for Dr Roylott’s crime seems to be money left by Julia and Helen’s mother when she died. This was just under £1000. each daughter is entitled to this money when they get married so to stop the money being taken Dr Roylott must stop the weddings. This shows us that Dr Roylott is a greedy man who is always wanting more and will do anything to try and get it.
In the story of the Red Headed League the motive is also money but this time it is £30,000. It is stored in the bank’s vault under ground and is not accessible from above or the sides. Another motive for this would be beating bank security and getting away with it without being caught. This shows us that John Clay is a very cunning man and that he wants to be famous for doing something that no man has ever done before, so that everyone will know his name.
In order to plan his murder Dr Roylott did many things. He trained a snake to crawl through a vent joining Dr Roylott and Helen Stoner’s bedrooms and then to climb down a dummy bell rope, onto the bed and return at the sound of a whistle where he could lock it safely back into the safe where he kept it.
Where as in order to plan his robbery, John Clay, used the cellar of Mr Wilson’s pawn shop to tunnel under the bank. He used the Red Headed League as a distraction to get Mr Wilson out of the shop during the day and paid him £4 so that he would make the effort to go, for the money. He also used the excuse of going down to the cellar to develop photos as Mr Wilson wasn’t very clever and never expected anything.
To catch the villain Holmes decided that the best way would be to lie in wait in Julia Stoner’s room where Helen had been moved whilst her bedroom was refurbished and make her sleep in her old room for the night. When Holmes arrived he laid out a wooden cane, a candle, and a match stick and made Watson place his pistol next to him, then they sat and waited whilst Holmes turned out the light. ‘How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil?’ Watson repeats nervously whilst lying in wait in Julia Stoner’s bedroom ‘I could not hear a sound, not even the drawing of breath, and yet I knew that my companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state of nervous tension which I myself was in. After a while Holmes heard a noise and grabbing the cane he hit the snake coming down the bell rope and then turned off the light. A few seconds later there was a high pitched scream and then silence. The snake had climbed back through the vent and attacked the first person it saw, Dr Roylott, killing him almost instantly.
The catch the villain in this adventure was a lot easier and quicker. Holmes, Watson, Jones the policeman and Merryweather the bank manager waited for John Clay in the bank vault. Then when he appeared they jumped out and arrested him and the person he was with that had manage to escape back down the tunnel where he was faced with more police.
In conclusion to this I think that both stories definitely got the point of how tense Holmes and Watson were really feeling when they were waiting for the villains to appear. It also gives a very clear description of how the villains look and how they behave which is important because it creates a clear picture in your mind of how everything is happening. I think that the contrast in these two pieces is good because it makes them more interesting than if they were based along the same sort of lines and you would already know how they were going to deal with it and solve it and the reader would get bored.
