Discussion Post: The Veiled Lodger

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Happy Sunday, all! Let's talk canon and let's talk The Veiled Lodger -- the shortest story of all 60 by word count. What did you think of it? As always, I've written up a few of my own random thoughts and questions. Please add your own!

- This is a very strange case. In fact, can it even really be called a case at all? There is barely a mystery and no detection to speak of whatsoever for the master detective. Why do you think Watson chose to tell this particular story of "terrible human [tragedy]"?

- Speaking of Watson, how is it he forgot all about this case from when they investigated it earlier? A circus lion gets loose, mauls a man to death and tears a woman's face off, he and Holmes investigate, and yet the thing that finally sparks his memory is the "thin yellow-haired man"?

- "There is the long row of year-books which fill a shelf and there are the dispatch-cases filled with documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime but of the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era." -- Our favorite biographer has quite a trove. Wouldn't you love to get your hands on his notes? What happened to them in the end, do you think?

- A cormorant is a diving bird, and they have been trained for over a thousand years in Asia to dive for fish on command. A ring around the bird's neck keeps the fish from being swallowed. What was the cormorant fishing for in the case of the politician and the lighthouse?

- Curious random research find: Watson can smell the almondy scent of the Prussic acid (or hydrogen cyanide) thanks to a genetic trait he possesses. Not everyone has the ability.

Comments

[hisietari.livejournal.com]

I loved this case. It was the last one I read in my big re-read, and I found especially the end very touching. Proof that Holmes is not the machine Watson has accused him to be from time to time, and hopefully a life not just saved, but improved.

I think that after the death of all involved - Watson, the Holmes brothers - those files would be stored away in some government vault.

Ha! Watson the sleuth dog. *dodges stones*

[debriswoman]

One of the great things about canon tales, of course, are all the loose ends and glimpses of tales we love to take further and speculate upon. Having everything explained, unambiguous, and neatly finished off by ACD would have been a great shame. I am happy for a case full of unpublished tales and notes to lie there for future generations.

This seems to be more a character study than a mystery to solve, and gives a chance for a different aspect of Holmes to come to the forefront. That may be why Watson thought it of note, or maybe he thought Leonardo should be " named and shamed", even after death.

ACD must have had a lot of fun with the scanty provision of cases past-the politician, the lighthouse and the trained cormorant being a classic example:-)

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't you love to get your hands on his notes? What happened to them in the end, do you think?

I like to think that after Cox and Co was fire-bombed in the Blitz, the safe deposit vaults were accidentally filled in with rubble and melted metal and that tin box is still there, awaiting the archaeologists' trowels...

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

This is now complete truth for me. Somewhere in London, the box is waiting for some intrepid future Sherlockian to find. Perfect.