![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alafaye posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sherlock60This week we are reading The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. It carries the theme of impersonation.
We open as we so often find ourselves with a bored Sherlock Holmes who turns to Watson about how he chronicles the cases. Luckily, Holmes is diverted from his hobby to whine about the lack of interesting cases (as usual; he does have a usual habit, doesn't he?) and presents a letter to Watson from a young woman who needs advice. She works as a governess and has been looking for a new position for some time. Finally, however, the office where she might find work has something for her. She went to inquire one day and a man was there with the office woman for the interviews. But, curiously, upon seeing her, without starting an interview, he announced that she was perfect for the position.
His job offer comes with the usual hints of what we would consider a scam -- an advancement, asking the young lady to go out of her way to please the employer, in dress or otherwise -- and though the client initially refuses, she comes around given her debts and that it doesn't seem to be too much to be asked (to where a particular dress, to cut her hair). She is asking Holmes his opinion and he gives it -- that she would be best to avoid it. On assuring her however that he would help if some difficulty would arise, she accepts the position.
They recieve a letter from her a fortnight after, asking them to help out. They meet her at a local inn where the position was needed and she lays on the table exactly what Holmes seems to have suspected. The client was asked after a few days to wear the dress and sit by a window, with her back to the street. For about an hour, she was entertained with stories. One day she chanced to peek outside the window and saw a man watching them. The wife in the household bade her to wave her hand to him to get him to move on. She has not been asked to repeat this exercise. Further, she has found locked rooms where someone or something was locked up, a bunch of coiled hair that matches her own cut off part, and a dog who cannot be controlled but patrols at night.
As the head of house and his wife will be away for the evening and one servant will likely be drunk and unable to control the dog to let it out, Holmes proposes to solve the case that night. He advises the client to lock the only servant who might raise an alarm in the cellar so they can solve the mystery once and for all. When they arrive, all seems well -- the one servant locked in the cellar, the other drunk asleep, and the employers out of the house. But in the locked rooms, there is no one. However, the sky light is open and a ladder on the side of the house.
It's then that the householder came home and in his rage that they upset his plans, he sets to the dog loose, but it turns out that the dog had not eaten for a few days and attacked his master. Watson shoots it to prevent further attacks and the one householder who was not drunk explains all. There was a daughter from the householder's first marriage who had inherited no small amount of money from her mother. When she found a suitor, her father pressured her into releasing the money into his hands. She refused of course and became ill; she was locked up in the room during however. The father and his new wife then hired the governness to hopefully convince the suitor that the daughter was well and no longer interested. But he was smarter than they and realized the plan. When he realized that the father and wife were away and the dog locked up, he took his chance to get his fiance out of the house.
And so ends this adventure. I feel like there was a big lead up to a small, neat ending. A bit of a let down. Thoughts?
We open as we so often find ourselves with a bored Sherlock Holmes who turns to Watson about how he chronicles the cases. Luckily, Holmes is diverted from his hobby to whine about the lack of interesting cases (as usual; he does have a usual habit, doesn't he?) and presents a letter to Watson from a young woman who needs advice. She works as a governess and has been looking for a new position for some time. Finally, however, the office where she might find work has something for her. She went to inquire one day and a man was there with the office woman for the interviews. But, curiously, upon seeing her, without starting an interview, he announced that she was perfect for the position.
His job offer comes with the usual hints of what we would consider a scam -- an advancement, asking the young lady to go out of her way to please the employer, in dress or otherwise -- and though the client initially refuses, she comes around given her debts and that it doesn't seem to be too much to be asked (to where a particular dress, to cut her hair). She is asking Holmes his opinion and he gives it -- that she would be best to avoid it. On assuring her however that he would help if some difficulty would arise, she accepts the position.
They recieve a letter from her a fortnight after, asking them to help out. They meet her at a local inn where the position was needed and she lays on the table exactly what Holmes seems to have suspected. The client was asked after a few days to wear the dress and sit by a window, with her back to the street. For about an hour, she was entertained with stories. One day she chanced to peek outside the window and saw a man watching them. The wife in the household bade her to wave her hand to him to get him to move on. She has not been asked to repeat this exercise. Further, she has found locked rooms where someone or something was locked up, a bunch of coiled hair that matches her own cut off part, and a dog who cannot be controlled but patrols at night.
As the head of house and his wife will be away for the evening and one servant will likely be drunk and unable to control the dog to let it out, Holmes proposes to solve the case that night. He advises the client to lock the only servant who might raise an alarm in the cellar so they can solve the mystery once and for all. When they arrive, all seems well -- the one servant locked in the cellar, the other drunk asleep, and the employers out of the house. But in the locked rooms, there is no one. However, the sky light is open and a ladder on the side of the house.
It's then that the householder came home and in his rage that they upset his plans, he sets to the dog loose, but it turns out that the dog had not eaten for a few days and attacked his master. Watson shoots it to prevent further attacks and the one householder who was not drunk explains all. There was a daughter from the householder's first marriage who had inherited no small amount of money from her mother. When she found a suitor, her father pressured her into releasing the money into his hands. She refused of course and became ill; she was locked up in the room during however. The father and his new wife then hired the governness to hopefully convince the suitor that the daughter was well and no longer interested. But he was smarter than they and realized the plan. When he realized that the father and wife were away and the dog locked up, he took his chance to get his fiance out of the house.
And so ends this adventure. I feel like there was a big lead up to a small, neat ending. A bit of a let down. Thoughts?
