Discussion Post: The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk

[methylviolet10b]

Hi again! I'm still substitute-modding for spacemutineer this week. However, she left plenty of great discussion points to play with when thinking about this week's story, The Stockbroker's Clerk:

- Watson singed his slippers trying to warm his feet by the fire?  Perhaps you're getting your toes a little too close to the flames there, eh, Doctor?  Yikes!

- Watson on his surgery business:  "I had confidence, however, in my own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be as flourishing as ever."  Did he ever make it flourish as he was convinced, or was he too distracted tagging along with Holmes to crime scenes?

- Did you notice Holmes clearly had no doubt he could entice Watson into accompanying him?  He brings his client along to the meeting and barely leaves enough time for the three of them to catch their train.  I suppose he knows his Watson well enough by now to know he's not going to turn down a good, strange case.

- Were you surprised Holmes has to be told by Pinner that it was the newspaper that had driven him to suicide?  He was reading the paper, looking distraught when they walked in.  Sherlock Holmes usually picks up on things like that.  He divined the nature of the scam, but he missed the only truly obvious point: why Pinner tried to hang himself.  Odd.

- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  The Stockbroker's Clerk is another case where a criminal goes to a businessman and proposes an unlikely and preposterous job for an obscene profit.  See also: The Norwood Builder, The Red-Headed League, The Engineer's Thumb.

- A real writing question:  Okay, seriously?  Are you kidding?  Hall Pycroft?  ACD has a recurring issue with reusing names.  Over the course of these stories, we've encountered a bouquet full of Violets, and conspicuously several too many Jameses.  Sebastian Moran does not live at Stoke Moran.  The list goes on.  But Pycroft and then later Mycroft?  That is silly indeed.  Neither is a terribly realistic name, but together they are ridiculous.

The Stockbroker's Clerk: Fulfilling Expectations

[shadowycat.livejournal.com]

Canon Story: The Stockbroker’s Clerk
Author: shadowycat
Title: Fulfilling Expectations
Rating: G

I was only mildly surprised to find Holmes’s latest client waiting for us in a carriage outside my door. Holmes has always expected me to drop everything at a moment’s notice and come along on one of his cases. Why should he think the obligations of marriage and a growing practice would get in the way? They didn’t after all.

The Stockbroker's Clerk: Birmingham New Street

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Canon Story: The Stockbroker's Clerk
Title: Birmingham New Street
Author: thesmallhobbit
Rating: G
Author's Note: Inspired because like Watson I have frequently stood waiting for trains at this particular station.

As we stood in the station at Birmingham New Street, waiting for the train to take us back to London, I looked around at our fellow travellers.  Some were reading their papers and even commenting on the main news item.  What would they have thought if they knew they were but a few feet away from the real Hall Pycroft?

The Stock-broker's Clerk: A Strange Mixture

[methylviolet10b]

Author: methylviolet10b
Rating: PG
Character(s): Sherlock Holmes
Summary: Holmes wonders at the actions of others.
Warnings: Spoilers for STOC.
Word Count: 60, with a quote from STOC in italics.
Author's Notes: 60 words of my own inspired by one of the canon stories.
Disclaimer: I don't own them.

STOC -- The Stock-broker’s Clerk

“Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson.”

I could not help but feel pity for the ersatz Mr. Pinner, for his obvious grief. Sadly for him, my wits were quick, and Watson’s medical skills formidable.

At the same time I felt deeply scornful. Had it been Mycroft or Watson in such dire straits, I would have exerted every effort towards rescue, not self-destruction.

A strange mixture, indeed.

The Stockbroker's Clerk: Ability

[hisietari.livejournal.com]

Canon Story: The Stockbroker's Clerk
Title: Ability
Author: hisietari
Rating: G

I guess the affection which one brother showed for the other should have moved me, and indeed it held some fascination, on a professional level. I would not have allowed myself similarly deep emotions for Mycroft though, and to imagine him exert anything close to sentiment bordered on ridiculousness. Sending a mere Christmas card might have overpowered dear Mycroft’s capabilities.

The Solitary Cyclist, The Speckled Band & The Stock-broker's Clerk

[flawedamythyst.livejournal.com]

This batch are all thematically linked.

Canon Story: The Solitary Cyclist
Title: Selfishness
Rating: PG
A/N: Holmes/Watson. “Even if she couldn't love me it was a great deal to me just to see her dainty form about the house, and to hear the sound of her voice."

"Well," said I, "you call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call it selfishness."

Watson's form is not dainty, but I still empathised. There is inescapable danger in living at Baker Street and accompanying me on cases, not to mention that it keeps him from a conventional life. Selfishness, Watson called it, and I knew then that he had no idea what it was to love so completely, and yet with so little hope.


Canon Story: The Speckled Band
Title: Courage
Rating: PG
A/N: "Do you know, Watson," said Holmes as we sat together in the gathering darkness, "I have really some scruples as to taking you to-night. There is a distinct element of danger."

We have had many similar conversations over the years. That there is danger in helping Holmes with his work comes as no surprise to me, and I have never understood why he should think it necessary to warn me, or protect me from it. I was a soldier, after all, and I flatter myself that I have never lacked courage.


Canon Story: The Stock-broker's Clerk
Title: Temptation
Rating: PG
A/N: Holmes/Watson. For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very closely at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself save upon professional business.

I kept away from Watson as long as I could. I told myself it was better that he was safe from both the danger of my cases and the risk of discovering the dark secret of my affections. Temptation gnawed at me, however, and eventually I succumbed. Still, what danger can there be from a case revolving around a clerk?


*

The Stockbroker's Clerk: My Innings, G

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

The Stockbroker's Clerk

Title: My Innings

Author: tweedisgood

Rating: G

If the City of London is a microcosm of the world, and some say it is, how like the appointment of a clerk is the foundation of a friendship. Providence plunges a hand into the heap and takes the first that comes. That day in the Criterion Bar, it took Watson. I cannot imagine feeling better pleased with its selection.