Discussion Post: The Adventure of the Dancing Men

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

It's a classic this week, The Adventure of the Dancing Men. And it's a great one, full of clever turns, but it is also one of the saddest stories in canon. Oh, poor Hilton and Elsie. What was your take on it? Here are some questions to get you started, and add your own questions and thoughts in the comments!

- A question of cryptography. The dancing men are a simple substitution cipher. Simple substitution codes are among the easiest of all to crack, even given only a small amount of text to work with. People decode them for fun in puzzle magazines and newspapers. For someone as well-versed in codes and ciphers as Holmes is, is it surprising he took so long and required so much text to decipher the dancing men?

- Who is at fault for this tragedy? There certainly seems to be plenty of blame to spread around. Obviously, Abe Slaney is the villain here, inducing all of the violence and cruelty himself. But doesn't Hilton Cubitt warrant some blame for not simply asking his wife about her worries, promise or not? He swears by his oath to her, but sees no problem going behind her back for answers, and talking about her desire for secrecy to strangers. He also ignores her when she asks to get away and travel rather than stay and face Slaney. And what about Elsie, could she have stopped this by explaining to Hilton who was bothering her, or would she merely be endangering herself in a different way by risking scandal in the Victorian era?

And then we come to Sherlock Holmes, who takes a very long time to decode the language and then is stuck waiting for a return reply from Chicago for two days. In the meantime, he deciphers the threatening message to Elsie. The last train has already gone, but is that the only option he had at that moment to alert the Cubitts to the danger facing them? Could he have not telegraphed for a messenger to be sent at the very least? This is a matter of life and death, and the delay and inaction leads directly to a terrible outcome. Is it possible to absolve Holmes completely for the sad fate of the Cubitts?

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

One short sentence presumably wouldn't be easy for even a genius like Holmes to solve, although given the length of time he had it he would have had ample opportunity to try every possible letter combination.

It is a sad story, because the outcome does appear to have been preventable.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

The substitution ciphers in newspapers are frequently quotes or clever puns, designed to be solved. They're also usually in other letters, which make things easier because you already know those shapes. I'd have to go back and look at the examples from the story to see what the frequency table looks like.

And yes, if Elsie had explained, things might have gone very differently. But given what her childhood was probably like, I doubt she had much reason to trust the "grownups" to solve things, even once she was one of them.

[lucybun.livejournal.com]

The outcome of this story is sad, but I do appreciate the fact that ACD allows Holmes to make mistakes and have his flaws. A lot of the "flaws" we see are sort of "complimentary" flaws (e.g. Holmes does drugs but only because he's so brilliant he can't stand it when his mind isn't thoroughly engaged), but not here.

I don't think ACD meant for him to appear carelessly slow in deciphering the code. Anything too complicated would have been very difficult to explain in the "reveal" of how Holmes broke the code. I do think, though, that he was apathetic in getting a message to the Cubitts. I don't know if he was just overconfident or thoughtless or unaware of just how precarious the whole situation was. Whatever it was, I like that we're allowed to see the mistake and see that he was despondent at the outcome.

[shouldboverthis.livejournal.com]

I agree--he is stunned that it has taken such a violent turn. I think he might be dismissing women's fears again.

But yes, on the code--E is easy although deceptive because it's not usually the first letter of a sentence. But without more it would be hard to be conclusive and logic requires that he not guess.