Discussion Post: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

What did everyone think of The Adventure of the Copper Beeches? Some questions for pondering:

- Was Holmes ever really interested in Violet Hunter as anything more than a client? She was clever and curious, true, but beyond Watson's wishful (or at least so he would claim) thinking, is there any real evidence Holmes felt anything for her?

- How exactly was this plan by Mr. Rucastle supposed to work? The fiancée was supposed to be convinced by an impostor in his beloved's dress in the window -- always laughing hysterically with her back to the window, always in that same electric blue dress. This strange set of circumstances was meant to deter him rather than make him even more concerned? And what exactly was the plan with Alice? What would happen to her if she did sign the papers? Was she just supposed to die locked away? What was the nature of her illness? Stress, heredity, poison?

- What happened to the first Mrs. Rucastle? All we know of her is that she is dead. Natural causes, or something else? How much complicity did the second Mrs. Rucastle have in this scheme? Holmes believed the frighteningly violent son acquired his cruelty from her. Will the son grow to be a serial killer himself some day, given his youthful torturous proclivities?

Comments

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

I think that was Watson (and Doyle) reaching like heck. Holmes liked her manner, certainly, but in a way of approving her practical and brisk nature, nothing at all to indicate any personal interest, whatever one may think of his innate preferences.

Presumably once the papers were signed it wouldn't matter what happened as she would have no witnesses that she was coerced. Fathers had an awful lot of power and the courts tended to back them up.

I personally have no problem with the first Mrs Rucastle just dying - it was pretty common after all. My feeling is that Rucastle was a bully and a manipulator but balked at actual physical violence, preferring to keep a dog for that.

I had the distinct impression that Holmes favoured the father as the originator of the boy's evil nature ("whether he derives this from his smiling father, as I should suspect, or..."). Mrs R's behaviour seems more in the nature of a victim than an equal conspirator, but then she did stand to gain financially from the deprival of the daughter's money, and appeared to know about the fiance...

As for the boy, perhaps he became a successful businessman or politician - as per my story! They do say you find psychopaths in the boardroom as well as in jail.

[methylviolet10b]

I found Violet Hunter's character wildly inconsistent when I re-read this story. Here's this plucky young woman accustomed to making her own way in the world, intelligent and assertive enough to consult a private detective, brave enough to take the job under decidedly odd circumstances, determined to get to the bottom of things - and then she turns all shrieky and loses her wits when she sees what is obviously the shadow of someone pacing behind the locked door?!? And then can't keep her mouth shut when she runs into Rucastle, or say something plausible like "I thought I heard bats, and I can't abide them?" It's like she becomes a completely different woman. Granted, ACD was not known for his strong, consistent female characters, but still...

And then there's the matter of the absurdity of Rucastle's plot. It just doesn't make sense. There's no way Rucastle's plot in regards to the fiance could work, unless it was just a delaying 'distraction' until he could get Alice to sign over her rights. That might work, although Fowler would have a better shot than most for arguing in court that Alice wasn't in her right mind when she did it, what with having just had brain-fever.

For me, more than most of the canon stories, COPP feels like there's a lot more to the story that Watson either doesn't know, or isn't telling. ;-) More room for the fanfic writers, I guess!