Dr Roylott
Dr Roylott looked like a murderer. He had yellowish skin, which can represent a type of illness such as jaundice, suggesting a mental illness in his head. Roylott was described as a ‘bird of prey’ representing him as a predator, tracking down his victims. Additionally, he has had a downhill life. Back in the 1890’s, he killed his butler, whilst living in India and got sent to prison, which makes Roylott a suspect to the crime. A belief back in the late 1800s was that living in a hot country for a time, often makes you end up on the insanity scale. He has observed as a violent person with bad luck in his past. His ancestors had a lot of money but his grandfather’s era and generation somehow lost the money which makes Roylott not well off
Dr Roylott was unable to get away with murder because he was investigated by the one and only, genius that is, Sherlock Holmes. Despite Dr Roylott’s attempt to murder his daughter in an ingenious and well thought out way, he is unsuccessful as he is not as intelligent as the man who is preventing this act of violence being repeated. Sherlock is a very meticulous and careful investigator who observes every minor detail before reaching a conclusion. He is therefore able to solve the case with ease and Dr Roylott cannot prevent him.
He attempted to feed a snake through tubing in a false ventilation system of some sort on the ceiling. When the resident was sleeping he would place the snake in the tube and make the snake hiss. The sleeper would hopefully then agitate the snake by hitting or pressurising the snake, causing the snake to bite the victim with its fangs. The snake was kept in a small safe which only Dr Roylott had access to.
Conclusion
The murder committed by Dr Roylott is actually far more precise and intelligent than that of Mrs Maloney. The difference is however, that the inspectors differ greatly in the way that they investigate the murders. Sherlock Holmes is slow but steady in his approach; moreover he is also willing to consider anyone as a suspect until they are proven innocent. Mrs Maloney’s investigator assumes her innocence although he is wrong to do so. The main reason why the outcome is different is the weapon used to kill Patrick Maloney was discarded by the inspectors consumption, where as the snake was never properly considered as a murder weapon towards the victim, Helen Stoner, twin sister of Julia Stoner and stepdaughters by marriage of Dr Roylott. Additionally Mrs Maloney would not of been thought suspect to her crime as she was known to have loved Patrick to the extent that she was willing to start a family and become pregnant as she was at the time of the killing. She was also represented as looking innocent with her big child like brown eyes and people viewed her as an angelic type of women who was not capable of such an event. Mrs Maloney was very organised which formed an alibi and put the inspectors in the state of mind not to suspect Mrs Maloney for the murder of her husband, an example of the organisation is that she had a bucket of ice ready that the inspectors thought was for when he got in. she was also organised in the way that as soon as she struck Patrick with the carcass, she put it in the oven then journeyed down the greengrocers to get some peas and cheesecake. Sam, the greengrocer, asked Mrs Maloney the basics on how she was, how everything is going. She stayed calm and collected as she normally would. This played a major part in the alibi, and even more so when she phoned the police when she got home to make out she had only just found him. The inspectors still don’t suspect Mrs Maloney of this brutality. The inspectors were asked by Mrs Maloney to stay for dinner and how that Patrick would never forgive them if they didn’t. In the end they agreed. Later on, they were at the table eating their dinner of lamb and a lot of whispering was taking place. After the minor discussion, one of the officers suggested, ‘I think the clue is right under our noses’, and with that, he took a nibble out of his share of lamb. The evidence is now destroyed and Mrs Maloney is safe. In the ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the inspectors were very unprofessional in the way they carried out their investigation. They should have scoured round the house for clues previous to dinner, but Mrs Maloney seduced them into spending the evening with her to discuss the developments of the incidence that occurred during the time of Patrick Maloney’s death. In contrast, Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective of all time, did the job properly. Slowly but surely he did what he had to do, which was to solve the case without hesitation and catch the culprit of this crime. These two stories compare in the way that the inspectors both solve or attempt to solve cases in different ways. Sherlock Holmes is extremely cautious in his approach to find the criminal. The inspectors on the other hand are careless whilst investigating. Roylott was in the end killed by the snake, which allowed Sherlock Holmes to thoroughly inspect the doctor’s room, which in addition solved the crime itself when Sherlock discovered what happened to Roylott. Holmes found out that the clanging metal was from the safe that Roylott was hiding the snake in.
