Discussion Post: The Veiled Lodger
Jul. 29th, 2012 12:06 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60Happy 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.
- 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.
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