The detective in Conan Doyle’s story could not possibly be more different. Sherlock Holmes is the crème de la crème of detectives. With his observant eyes and his ingenuity, he never misses a thing and looks at things down to the very last detail. He is a very strong, bold and confident character with a very quick mind. Conan Doyle lets us into his ingenuity as he makes his deductions on how Helen Stoner arrived to his home. He tries to let us view the story from Mr Holmes mind, showing us how he thinks. Such lines as, “No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove…” and, “...The left arm of your jacket is spattered with 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 then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver…” shows this well. These lines definitely show how Holmes looks at everything in great detail.
It is hard to pin point the victim in Dahl’s, “Lamb to the Slaughter.” The obvious victim would be her husband, Patrick Maloney, as he is the one who is murdered. It is debatable to say whether her wife is also a victim in another way. It is Mr Maloney who is leaving his wife, so this makes her the victim in that sense but also as I was reading the story I felt that she is playing the victim, and her actions do not make her out to be a cold blooded killer. I spent a lot of time thinking if Mrs Maloney had intentionally planned to kill her husband or if it was a spur of the moment thing. As soon as she kills him, she shows no remorse and knows exactly what to do about covering the murder up, but still I feel that she had not planned to kill him. It is the way that as soon as she killed him she left for the shops to supposedly buy some food for their evening meal, thus giving her an alibi for where she was at the time of her husband’s death. It’s the way she talks to the shop owner, so casually as if nothing has happened. She even goes as far as saying, “No, I’ve got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lamb in the freezer.” She knows well that she had just used that as a weapon to kill her husband. What interested me was the fact that she has no remorse or no regret about her previous actions. How any one can commit a murder and act as Mrs Maloney does I do not know.
It occurred to me that maybe Mrs Maloney had not come to terms with her actions and did not actually believe she had killed him. The way she enters the house and instantly calls, “Patrick! How are you, darling?” Also another line that lead me to believe this was the way Dahl described how she acts when she came across her husband’s body when she returned from the shops. “All the love and longing for him welled up inside her, and she ran over to him, knelt down besides him, and began to cry her heart out.” This lets us know that she really did love her husband and gives the impression that she was almost obsessed with him, and when he tells her he was leaving, she killed him instead of losing him.
In Conan Doyle’s story there are many victims. From the start the whole family seems to be cursed as Miss Stoner tells us, “Violence of temper approaching mania has been hereditary in the men of my family, and in my stepfather’s case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics.” We also learn that Helen Stoner’s real father has dies, and her mother had remarried Dr Roylott. Her mother then died in a railway accident. Her sister had also died in a mysterious way, which is what brought Helen Stoner around to Mr Holmes in the first place. I think that everyone that had had the misfortune to cross paths with Dr Roylott is a victim to his violent temper. Miss Stoner’s sister was a victim to the foul ways of her stepfather, Dr Roylott. Miss Stoner again herself is a victim as it is Doctor Roylott’s intention to kill her also. Miss Stoner first meets Mr Holmes in a state of terror as she is in fear of her life as she suspects Dr Roylott of killing her sister and attempting to kill her, but has no evidence to prove it. Miss Stoner says, “It is fear, Mr Holmes. It is terror.” Dahl shows us how Miss Stoner feels by describing her, “…she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard.” These lines let us experience the fear that she is feeling.
The murderer in, “The Speckled Band” is truly a horrific character. Dahl builds up our emotions of anxiety and suspense when Dr Roylott bursts into Mr Holmes home. It is the way that Conan Doyle describes this man that really makes you sense the evilness of this character, and right from the first moment he appears in the story you can tell that he has had something to do with this devious act. Such a description would be, “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 deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and the high thin fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of pray.” Also with the use of the word ‘apparition,’ that Conan Doyle uses to describe this man. It is as if this man is so monstrous he made him appear not even to be a man at all. Conan Doyle gives Dr Roylott a temper to match his appearance. We can see this by the way he speaks, “…screamed the old man furiously,” and, “…Don’t you dare meddle with my affairs. I know that Mrs Stoner has been here – I traced her! I am a dangerous man to fall foul of…”
Also there are his actions in the same scene, “He stepped swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands.”
This thrilling scene burns a picture of this man into our minds. Conan Doyle describes the man well but he does not describe him too much. I feel by doing this he leaves room in our imaginations to construct detailed images of this man in our minds, based on the framework of information he has set us.
Also this scene has makes us associate Dr Roylott with evil and cunning, and whenever we hear his name mentioned again in the text, it automatically made us feel these things. Conan Doyle has done such a good job of constructing this evil character, that when we encounter him in the story, we almost ourselves feel afraid, and the nerve gripping intensity is overwhelming. The character consists of everything needed to make the perfect criminal. He is strong, tall, cunning and evil. His cunningness makes his almost a match for the legendary Sherlock Holmes himself.
The murderer of, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” in comparison with that of “The Speckled Band,” seems very different at first, but later it is surprising to see the similarities. Mrs Maloney does not seem your typical cold-blooded murderer, but as the story unfolds there becomes a change in this character, which is almost chilling to think about. After the murder itself, she knows exactly what to do about covering up the murder. Mrs Maloney shows no emotions over having just killed him, and carries on with her normal lifestyle. At the beginning of the story Mrs Maloney seems to be just a typical housewife, but later we see she is far more cunning and devious than our first impressions.
As the detectives search her house, as they already were friends of Patrick, she manipulates them to make them believe she is the innocent, grieving housewife. Firstly she coaxes them into drinking whisky and then, which I found rather humorous, talks them into eating the cooked leg of lamb, which was used to kill Patrick. “…Please eat it, personally I couldn’t touch a thing, certainly not what’s been in the house when he was here. But it’s all right for you. It’d be a favour to me if you’d eat it up…” This sentence really has more than one meaning, as she meant it to sound to them, that they would be doing her a favour by eating the leg of lamb so it would not go to waste. The truth behind this was that they were eating the actual murder weapon and destroying the evidence.
By this time it had occurred to me that Mrs Maloney is your typical housewife and the way she manipulates the detectives is similar to the way Dahl manipulates us into believing she is just a normal pregnant woman. The thing that made me feel Mary Maloney is evil, not just cunning is not only the fact that she had shown little emotions, apart from where it was required, but is at the very end of the story. The detectives are sitting in the kitchen eating the leg of lamb and talking about Patrick and Dahl tells us, “And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.” The story ends here, but we are left with the final impression that she had got away with the murder and would not be caught. The giggling itself makes me feel that she was either evil, slightly deranged or maybe a bit of both. She really has no regrets and shows no remorse to the murder.
“Lamb to the Slaughter,” is set in a cosy family home, with supposedly normal people. It first gives the impression that everything is well and gives the readers a false sense of security. Nobody expects this to be the scene of a brutal murder. In contrast to Conan Doyle’s story, this story takes place in an everyday normal family home. This story is in a way more frightening than the other as it is believable and something similar could happen to anyone, whereas Conan Doyle sets his story in a country manor, with a mad step-father who has spend a lot of time abroad. I do not think many people can relate to the story, and therefore there is not that same fear as in “lamb to the Slaughter.”
“The Speckled Band,” is set in nineteenth-century England. The story is based on a country manor at Stoke Moran. Conan Doyle describes the house to make it sound gloomy, the typical setting for a good murder mystery story. “The building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central portion, and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab…” Conan Doyle makes the story exotic as well by bringing into the story the two pets of Dr Roylott, the cheetah, and the baboon. Also the gypsies camping on the grounds add the same effect. Also with the use of these things, Conan Doyle has put us off the track of the story. These have no specific role in the story but we are led to believe that they will. This adds to the suspense of the story.
Suspense plays a bit part in, “The Speckled Band,” and Conan Doyle builds it up through the whole story. The main build up of suspense in the story is the way that Conan Doyle keeps us from knowing who is the killer and how he is killing his victims. We get the impression straight away that the murderer is Dr Roylott, but what really intrigued me was how he was killing his victims. This in comparison with, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” is very different. Dahl lets us know straight away who the murderer was and what she did. It was a different type of story that did not rely on suspense. Whilst “The Speckled Band,” is based on the detective work and the cracking of the case, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” is based on this woman escaping the law and not getting caught.
Both of the two stories had different effects on me. I did not enjoy reading, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” because Dahl told us exactly what was going on and there was nothing left to the imagination. On the contrary, “The Speckled Band,” did run away with my imagination and the combination of wits, cunning, evil and mystery make this a great murder mystery story. I found the story livelier and there was a great sense of anticipation, as I wanted to read on and on and find out exactly how Mr Holmes solved the case. Dahl’s story was more focused on the murderer and the crime itself, whilst as Conan Doyle’s story was based on the detective and his logical mind. Both are good crime stories and each have their own way of building up emotions in us. I hope to read more of Conan Doyle’s work.
