Discussion Post: The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Hey, everyone! Happy Sunday! Let's talk The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter. What did you think of it? As always, here are a few questions and thoughts of my own to get you started. Please add yours!

- Watson's recounting of his "weaning" Holmes off cocaine in this story stands out, especially in Watson's continual (and justified) fear the addiction will return at any moment. Do you think Holmes would have ever bothered to stop without Watson around him? Do you think he is glad he did?

- Why is everyone so immediately convinced of some kind of foul play in this case? Godfrey receives a note, is clearly deeply upset by it, and leaves immediately with an equally affected man. There isn't anything I can see in the porter's story to indicate crime and danger in his disappearance. Sure, the match is important, but did no one consider a personal or family emergency might take precedence for him?

- Both Holmes and Watson are terribly impressed with Dr. Leslie Armstrong. Holmes even goes so far as to compare him to Moriarty in terms of genius and ability! But does that actually seem warranted, given the man's decisions and behavior? Intelligent, certainly. But a worthy heir to Moriarty? Really?

- Dr. Armstrong gets it in his head that Holmes' client is Lord Mount-James and their cat and mouse game comes about entirely from that assumption. Should Holmes have corrected him? He may have been able to cut days off his investigation, although perhaps that's not really what he wanted. Even several days of futile searching is better than stultifying boredom. (And no cocaine to quell it...)

- Almost forgot to mention my favorite part: Holmes' delicious dry wit! "Neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however, and the matter fell through. Relations were strained after that." Ha!

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I think the suspicion of foul play is probably justified, because in the normal way of things if there was a family emergency (say a mother's illness) then someone would leave a message. The difficulty arose because Staunton didn't want anyone to be aware of what had happened.

I think the description of Dr Armstrong is affected by ACD's Victorian belief in how a gentleman behaves. They are either upstanding supporters of the Empire, or they deviate and become criminals. Armstrong had the intelligence and energy and therefore the assumption is that if he took the wrong path he had the potential to be another Moriarty.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Very excellent points. Not leaving any message definitely was the catalyst here. Easy to wonder if all of this could have been avoided with a note, but poor Staunton was far too distraught for anything like that.

And I love your explanation about Armstrong! I hadn't thought of it that way, the dichotomy between "upstanding supporters of the Empire" as you say, and criminal deviants. That makes a lot of sense!

[shouldboverthis.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know what the line, "They say he could chalk his billiard-cue with his knuckles," means?

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

One of the symptoms of gout is chalky deposits on the joints. Billiard cues are chalked to aid playing of billiards (like snooker or pool cues). Does this help?

[shouldboverthis.livejournal.com]

Yes! Thank you. I guessed it must have something to do with the condition.