Canon Discussion: The Five Orange Pips

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

This week we’re having a look at The Five Orange Pips. I’ve typed up a few thoughts to get the discussion going—please leave your own ideas in the comments!

...the Paradol Chamber, ...the Amateur Mendicant Society, ...the loss of the British bark Sophy Anderson, ...the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally ...the Camberwell poisoning case. Any thoughts on any of these cases?

My wife was on a visit to her mother's… Yes… And yet, in SIGN we are told that Mary Morstan’s mother died when she was a child. So, any thoughts? A wife that isn’t Mary? (Watson does place this story in 1887, which is the year before he met Miss Morstan.) Was Mary perhaps adopted by another family after her father disappeared? We don’t know anything about her life in the four years before she starts work for Mrs. Forrester. Is “mother” a slip for aunt—a correction that is found in later editions? But that would still be surprising—Miss Morstan gave the impression in SIGN she had no family in Britain at all.

"I have been beaten four times - three times by men, and once by a woman." Intriguing… We know who the woman was. Any thoughts on the men?

He begged my father to let me live with him…” Bit surprising maybe that Joseph Openshaw hands over the care of his child to his brother. Elias is a drunken recluse who doesn’t seem to like Joseph. And there seems to be no advantage in the situation for young Openshaw—yes, his uncle is a wealthy man, but so is his father. Though John Openshaw doesn’t mention a mother at any point. Perhaps his widowed father was finding it difficult to cope with a child on his own? Or maybe there was a second wife on the horizon, though nothing came of it.

“...we may start with a strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason for leaving America.” Why does Elias Openshaw turn against the KKK? From what we know of him, it would seem he was sympathetic to their beliefs and aims.

“...the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may well have been cause and effect.” Why does Elias Openshaw steal the papers? If he’d just run away to England, then the KKK would probably have left him alone. Did he take the papers because they incriminated him? Or was he actually trying to break up the organisation? (The latter suggestion doesn’t really fit in with what we know about him.) And why did he hang onto the papers? I can understand him taking the papers and immediately destroying them. I can understand him taking the papers and holding onto them to protect himself in some way. But taking them, hanging onto them for years, and then destroying them as soon as he knew the KKK was on his track makes no sense.

(laurose8 and myself had a rather interesting discussion on this subject last time round.)

“You can understand that this register and diary may implicate some of the first men in the South, and that there may be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered." Why do Calhoun and his co-conspirators murder the Openshaws? I can maybe understand them killing Elias Openshaw out of frustration and revenge. But murdering Joseph and John Openshaw means they have little chance of recovering the papers they have travelled across the world for.

“That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death --!" Why didn’t Holmes ask young Openshaw to stay at Baker Street? Or travel back with him? He believes Openshaw is in immediate danger, and is frustrated that the policeman assigned to him hasn’t accompanied him.

"How could they have decoyed him down there?” Good question. Any theories about how young Openshaw’s murder was carried out? I wonder if his eyesight might be a factor: Watson mentions that he raises his golden pince-nez to his eyes. He’s not using the glasses for reading, so he must be shortsighted. And the implication is that he doesn’t wear his pince-nez all the time.

Next Sunday, 15th March, we’ll be having a look at The Man with the Twisted Lip. Hope you can join us then.


PS My esteemed colleague Mouselet has written her own discussion post for The Golden Pince-Nez. So if you're looking for further intriguing questions to ponder (and feel like laughing yourself silly), I suggest you give it a try!

Comments

[vaysh]

So, this time around for "The Five Orange Pips" I had planned to re-create the letters that first Elias, then Joseph and finally John Openshaw received, written in red and black ink, and in old-fashioned envelopes. And five orange pips, of course. So, Thursday I went into the shops, searching for oranges that may yield pips. No such luck. I bought 8 different kinds of oranges, organic, non-organic, blood oranges, small and big ones. Not a single one had pips. True fact. :)

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

They just don't grow oranges like they used to do.

[vaysh]

It's the seedless thing. Next round along, I doing this with melon pips. *nods*

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I am greatly heartened that you appear to be planning to be here for yet another round ^_^

I really wish you could have done your first idea this time - it sounds brilliant.

[vaysh]

I absolutely plan to stick around. :)

I've already decided to store away all the orange pips I will find this year.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I frequently have thoughts about cases that are only briefly mentioned, there is a vague mention to one in this week's edition of the Marylebone Illustrated and Mrs Hudson explains the mystery of Mrs Watson's mother on the poetry page.

I suppose there is always the question as to whether it would have been believed that the papers had been burnt.

[vaysh]

And then, Elias still knew the names of the KKK-members. And he may have passed down this knowledge to his family members. I think he saw the papers as an assurance that the Klan did not kill him. As with all such terrorist groups, members are not to be trusted to be bound by any kind of moral or honor code.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I just don't fully understand the behaviour of Elias or of the KKK members though.

If Elias was keeping the papers as an assurance, why did he destroy them the moment he knew the KKK was coming? Why not take them to the authorities? (And I rather think he must have known that being in possession of such sensitive information would cause the KKK to come after him, not leave him safe.) He may have destroyed the papers to spite the KKK because he knew they'd kill him whether he handed them over or not. But if he always knew this would be his fate if they caught up with him, why bother to keep the papers?

And, yes, the KKK may have murdered the other family members in case they knew what was in the papers. But murdering them all in carefully planned executions before getting their hands on the papers? If the papers still exist, they've made it far more difficult to recover them.

I suppose there is the small possibility they talked to young Openshaw before killing him and were convinced by his story that the papers had been burnt, and so simply killed him to tie up a loose end and to get away.

(Sorry about the edit: correcting a verb form ^^")

[vaysh]

As I see ti, Elias could no have gone to the police because the papers would have incriminated himself. And then I don't think the attacks were neatly organised actions. Perhaps the KKK members did not even know there was a John who had been close to Elias when they killed Joseph. It does sound a bit as if it was a one-man action by someone who had a particular and irrational hatred of Elias and his family. A sea-faring man who whenever he was bound for London was sending letters in advance, to then come and haunt the family. He may have been the one that Elias fled from Florida in the first place. The demand for the letters may have been simply a ploy to harass the Openshaw family.

(Verb forms are important. :))

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt the papers would have incriminated Elias in some way - just being in possession of them would probably have indicated that he'd been part of the organisation. But he could have handed them over in an attempt to save his life - even if he ended up in prison. And why hang onto such dangerous documents, if he had no intention of ever showing them to anyone else?

I don't think the attacks were neatly organised actions... It does sound a bit as if it was a one-man action by someone who had a particular and irrational hatred of Elias and his family. I think I have to disagree with you. Three murders were skilfully and successfully passed off as a suicide and two accidents. Holmes himself says: A single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a coroner's jury. And I think I have to agree with that. For Elias' death, there was no sign of any violence. He would have tried to fight off one man, and there would be signs of that left behind.

But you may be quite right about the papers - perhaps retrieving them was never that important. Perhaps revenge was always the main thing on Calhoun's mind.

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

It struck me, too, about just handing his child, it seems his only child, to his brother. It could have been that Joseph was travelling on business; but a child of the class would normally be sent to school. Why wasn't John? Actually, staying home to keep house for a relative is more how you'd expect a daughter to be treated.

Particularly weird is the police guard not accompanying him. In a Gothic, the young heroine would have sneaked out without telling the policeman.

I did wonder if Holmes just didn't believe the story; but he did seem upset about the guard's negligence, before he duplicated it.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

That is a very good point - we're not told anything about young Openshaw's education. Was he taught at home? Did he go to a day school? You're quite right - you would expect the son of a wealthy businessman to be sent away to school. That had never occurred to me.

Could it be that Joseph Openshaw considered his son too delicate to be sent away to school, and that he found him disappointing because he was delicate? Perhaps he just wasn't terribly interested in his son, so was happy for his brother to take care of him.

It does seem odd that the policeman had been ordered to stay specifically at the house, rather than with Openshaw. But I have no doubt that Holmes believes everything that Openshaw tells him - I don't think there's any evidence to suggest otherwise.

And I don't quite know what to make of Holmes letting Openshaw travel home on his own. He does point out, I suppose, that it's still relatively early and there are many people about, and he knows Openshaw is armed. But still...

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's a good idea about him being delicate. Indeed, he does rather give that impression in the story.