Canon Discussion: The Devil's Foot
Nov. 22nd, 2015 08:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60This week we’re having a look at The Devil’s Foot. I’ve typed up a few thoughts and questions to get the discussion going—please leave your own ideas in the comments!
...my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes… There’s an odd contrast between present and past in this story. In the past, Watson and Holmes are acting domestically as a couple—Holmes is ill and needs a rest; Watson automatically goes with him, and is protective of him. In the present, they are barely in contact. Any thoughts?
Why not tell them of the Cornish horror—strangest case I have handled.
I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh to his mind… Any ideas?
It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In MISS, which probably takes place in February 1897, we have: For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping… Has Holmes had a relapse with regard to the drugs? Or does Watson mean something else by “indiscretions?
In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. Any thoughts on Agar?
From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a northerly breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed craft to tack into it for rest and protection.
Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands far out from that evil place. It’s perhaps a curious coincidence that the murderer should have been named “Mortimer”...
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes's simple deduction had brought to their faces. Here we have some evidence that Watson has indeed learnt some of Holmes’ methods.
"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all else will come.” This seems to be a contradiction of what Holmes says in WIST: “My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.” But in BRUC we do have: of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. BRUC takes place November 1895. It’s not clear when WIST takes place—Watson says March 1892 but that can’t be right. But if we do say that WIST comes before BRUC then maybe Holmes has learnt to control his mind better as he’s got older.
“...you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair.” Stepping outside the Game, ACD obviously has Watson try the drug because he’s the narrator—it means we can experience the effects of the drug too. But playing the Game—why on earth does Watson agree to this? It would make more sense for only Holmes to try it, and Watson to watch from a safe distance so he can immediately help. Or if they really both have to take the drug, they could have done it one at a time. Moreover, it seems more likely to me that Watson would have put his foot down and said that neither of them should inhale the drug—it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Among other things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties…” Why did Sterndale show such a dangerous chemical to a man he didn’t trust?
"Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I, at least, am not prepared to prevent you." Was Holmes right to not turn Sterndale over to the police? And what happens when members of the investigation eventually read Watson’s story?
Next Sunday, 29th November, we’ll be having a look at The Red Circle. Hope you can join us then.
...my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes… There’s an odd contrast between present and past in this story. In the past, Watson and Holmes are acting domestically as a couple—Holmes is ill and needs a rest; Watson automatically goes with him, and is protective of him. In the present, they are barely in contact. Any thoughts?
Why not tell them of the Cornish horror—strangest case I have handled.
I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh to his mind… Any ideas?
It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In MISS, which probably takes place in February 1897, we have: For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping… Has Holmes had a relapse with regard to the drugs? Or does Watson mean something else by “indiscretions?
In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. Any thoughts on Agar?
From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a northerly breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed craft to tack into it for rest and protection.
Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands far out from that evil place. It’s perhaps a curious coincidence that the murderer should have been named “Mortimer”...
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes's simple deduction had brought to their faces. Here we have some evidence that Watson has indeed learnt some of Holmes’ methods.
"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all else will come.” This seems to be a contradiction of what Holmes says in WIST: “My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.” But in BRUC we do have: of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. BRUC takes place November 1895. It’s not clear when WIST takes place—Watson says March 1892 but that can’t be right. But if we do say that WIST comes before BRUC then maybe Holmes has learnt to control his mind better as he’s got older.
“...you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair.” Stepping outside the Game, ACD obviously has Watson try the drug because he’s the narrator—it means we can experience the effects of the drug too. But playing the Game—why on earth does Watson agree to this? It would make more sense for only Holmes to try it, and Watson to watch from a safe distance so he can immediately help. Or if they really both have to take the drug, they could have done it one at a time. Moreover, it seems more likely to me that Watson would have put his foot down and said that neither of them should inhale the drug—it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Among other things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties…” Why did Sterndale show such a dangerous chemical to a man he didn’t trust?
"Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I, at least, am not prepared to prevent you." Was Holmes right to not turn Sterndale over to the police? And what happens when members of the investigation eventually read Watson’s story?
Next Sunday, 29th November, we’ll be having a look at The Red Circle. Hope you can join us then.
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Date: 2015-11-22 05:11 pm (UTC)And maybe the closeness and farness is reflective of ACD's attitudes towards the character of Sherlock himself. In the beginning he loved him and then later on, he wanted to distance himself from him.
I would definitely say the indiscretions were drugs unless he got caught up in something Oscar Wilde-ish, but that doesn't seem likely. Here Sherlock says plainly that he has never loved, which struck me as stiff-upper-lipping Doyle's situation of being in love with one woman and still married to another dying of TB.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-22 08:12 pm (UTC)I really like that thought - that the increasing distance between Watson and Holmes reflects the increasing distance between ACD and Holmes. That's such an interesting and striking idea.
I do incline myself to the idea that the "indiscretions" were drugs. ...which struck me as stiff-upper-lipping Doyle's situation of being in love with one woman and still married to another dying of TB. And I have to say I have reread a lot of the stories with a new eye since I learnt this fact.
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Date: 2015-11-22 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-22 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-22 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-22 10:51 pm (UTC)Sterndale does freely admit his actions came from a wish for revenge as much as a wish for justice. And Holmes does seem to allow him to go out of a sense of "there but for the grace of God..." rather than because he thought Tregennis deserved what he got.
But I think justice should always be dispassionate and evenhanded. I wouldn't want to live in a society in which the victims' loved ones were in charge of giving out the punishments.
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Date: 2015-11-23 04:32 am (UTC)This story is my personal favorite in the canon, but like others have said, I disagree with Holmes & Watson letting Sterndale get away with torturing Tregennis to death. Not good, guys.
Stepping outside the Game, ACD obviously has Watson try the drug because he’s the narrator—it means we can experience the effects of the drug too. But playing the Game—why on earth does Watson agree to this? It would make more sense for only Holmes to try it, and Watson to watch from a safe distance so he can immediately help. Or if they really both have to take the drug, they could have done it one at a time. Moreover, it seems more likely to me that Watson would have put his foot down and said that neither of them should inhale the drug—it wasn’t worth the risk.
Well said! Outside the Game, I think ACD did a fantastic job with this sequence and I do love Watson's POV on the experience and its aftermath. But as you say, from the characters' perspective within the story it is hard to justify.
The best I can do is this: I think that, if Holmes and Watson had decided to try to convict Sterndale of the murder he committed, it would have been very difficult to construct an effective case that had any chance of convincing a jury. The drug was unknown to European science, and even if Holmes had handed his small sample over to a lab, it's hard to see how any safe chemical analysis could prove the drug's effects in a way that a jury would understand as conclusive. Analysis might provide technical info on the drug's composition and possible effects, but that's not enough to eliminate reasonable doubt. The only expert on the drug was the murderer himself, so obviously they could not expect him to testify truthfully as to its effects. Even if Holmes took the drug himself, it would come down to his word against Sterndale's, and some juries might not find that sufficient to convict. But if Holmes and Watson BOTH exposed themselves so as to be able to swear to the drug's effects in clear, understandable terms, then their combined testimony would, I think, stand a strong chance of swaying a jury to convict.
I think that is why Holmes felt they had to do this, and furthermore they had to do it before confronting Sterndale. That way, if the interview convinced him that Sterndale needed to face justice, he would have the means to act with a reasonable chance of success.
However, there are still huge problems here that can't really be explained away. You are certainly right that it would have been much safer for them to expose themselves one at a time. You do not want the only person available to offer lifesaving aid to be incapacitated at the same time that you are.
Also, Holmes says, and I think I have to believe him, that he simply failed to imagine that the drug's effects could be 'so sudden and so severe,' but he absolutely should have predicted that. The Tregennis family died at their card table. If the drug's effects had come on gradually, they would clearly have been disturbed enough in its earliest stages to seek help and run or stumble from the room, and thereby save themselves by getting away from the poisonous fumes. The evidence of the crime scene basically told him incontrovertibly that these people had been near-instantly paralyzed and unable to take the very simple step of getting the hell out of that room. They were unable even to get out of their chairs. The fact that Watson managed to do so was an astonishing and unpredictable triumph.
Furthermore, Holmes himself earlier deduced, correctly, that the fatal event must have happened within a few minutes after Mortimer left, because the family was ready to retire to bed and would not have lingered beyond that last hand of cards. In short, the fact that the drug was very fast acting was already established by the crime scene and his own earlier deductions, and his failure to take that into account here is pretty impossible to justify. I guess I'm just going to have to write it off to a resurgence of his illness that temporarily messed with his mind? *shrugs*
But, at the end of the day, I don't care, because nothing can dim my love for this story :)
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Date: 2015-11-24 10:47 pm (UTC)I really admire your thoughts on why Holmes wanted both of them to try the drug - it's an excellent argument, and not something I'd thought about before. And I also admire your thoughts on the problems with Holmes and Watson's decisions. I suppose in the end the reader just has to embrace the story and that brilliant sequence, and not worry too much about the logic of their behaviour. But, at the end of the day, I don't care, because nothing can dim my love for this story :) I'll go with that ^_^
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Date: 2015-11-27 05:13 pm (UTC)No, I wouldn't want that either. I don't agree with the death penalty for anyone (even Mortimer Tregennis, horrible as he was!) So it's lucky for me that I don't have to deal with the Victorian justice system :) Although, for whatever it's worth, this little blurb on capital punishments (http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11359-types-of-punishment-hanging.html) notes that even during the 18th century judges were quietly commuting 60% of capital punishments into non-fatal, lesser sentences. I think Dr. Sterndale would have stood a decent chance of having his sentence commuted due to the kind of mitigating factors you mention.
But, he went off to Africa, and hopefully never took out his feelings through violence again. We can hope!
I would have preferred it, though, if he had stuck around to take care of Brenda's brothers. Their lives, shut up in an asylum without anyone to speak up for them or supply their wants, are too tragic to contemplate.
In fact, I have just now decided that Dr. Watson took it as a personal duty to look in on them and be on call for them, and both he and Holmes made anonymous yearly donations for their care and Watson saw to it that these efforts were never publicized. And the vicarage at Tregennick Wallace also pitched in the charitable efforts of the community on their behalf.
OK, headcanon accepted.
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Date: 2015-11-28 10:24 pm (UTC)