![[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 Dancing Men. It carries the theme of fresh starts.
OUr story opens with Watson and Holmes enjoying an afternoon -- Holmes with an experiment and Watson with the paper. The introduction of this case comes after Holmes makes it clear that he can solve somethings with only a few inferrences, but that others, such as his new case, carry so few facts that he can't do much. The case came first by post -- an inquiry from a man who sent ahead a strip of paper that had a drawing of dancing men -- and the man followed after.
The man, Cubitt, is newly married -- within the last year. His wife said she was a simply woman, but that he were to not ask questions about anything. Well, all was well until about six months ago when she received a letter from America; after reading the letter, she threw it into the fire and has been uneasy ever since. Then, recently, Cubitt found a line of drawn dancing men in chalk on a windowsill. He thought it was the stable boy, but the boy said it wasn't his. Then later, the strip of paper which caused Mrs. Cubitt to faint.
Holmes gives his advice that if Cubitt will not ask his wife and if there isn't anything else, to wait for fresh details which come not long after. Though Holmes had asked if there were any strangers on the farms around the property, Cubitt arrives with more reports of written dancing men. And that there was one night when he was up late to try to catch the person doing the drawings, but when he does catch sight, his wife holds him back, afraid for his safety.
Holmes takes the drawings and advises Cubitt that he will be along to the home in a few days. He spends the days with the drawings, excited and vexed in turn. In two days, however, they receive another telegram that coneys that the matter has gotten dire; arriving at the station, they discover that they were too late in fact. In the middle of the night, two shots were fired as heard by the maid and cook; they went to Cubitt's study and found a locked window, a gun lying between husband and wife. Cubitt was dead and his wife was barely alive after a bullet had been fired through her skull.
Holmes begins looking at the scene and finds that a third bullet had been fired, indicating that at some point the window had been open and whoever was part of the affair had shot the bullet from outside. Someone inside had shot at this person. They find the wife's purse which contained a large sum of money, held as a bribery as Holmes suspects. Outside, they find evidence of a third person and his bullet casing. And then, by asking the stable boy if there is a farm nearby owned by an Elrige, Holmes has what he needs.
He sends the boy off with a message written using the dancing men -- explaining after the boy leaves that it was a cipher that he had managed to crack just as he had received a summons to go to the estate. The message returns a man from America -- Abe Slaney. He is wanted in Chicago for crimes and once Holmes explains that Mrs. Cubitt stands to be put on trial for the murder of her husband, Slaney tells his story.
He was in a gang and Mrs. Cubitt was the daughter of the ring leader. He was engaged to her, but she saved up some money and left America to make a safer home for herself. Slaney felt that she ran off without reason and went to change her mind, to convince her to still marry him. It came to a head when she refused and he became angry; she summoned him to try to bribe him to go away, but he wouldn't hear of it. Cubitt heard the ruckus and went in to help. Shots were fired.
And so closes the case of the Dancing Men. Thoughts?
OUr story opens with Watson and Holmes enjoying an afternoon -- Holmes with an experiment and Watson with the paper. The introduction of this case comes after Holmes makes it clear that he can solve somethings with only a few inferrences, but that others, such as his new case, carry so few facts that he can't do much. The case came first by post -- an inquiry from a man who sent ahead a strip of paper that had a drawing of dancing men -- and the man followed after.
The man, Cubitt, is newly married -- within the last year. His wife said she was a simply woman, but that he were to not ask questions about anything. Well, all was well until about six months ago when she received a letter from America; after reading the letter, she threw it into the fire and has been uneasy ever since. Then, recently, Cubitt found a line of drawn dancing men in chalk on a windowsill. He thought it was the stable boy, but the boy said it wasn't his. Then later, the strip of paper which caused Mrs. Cubitt to faint.
Holmes gives his advice that if Cubitt will not ask his wife and if there isn't anything else, to wait for fresh details which come not long after. Though Holmes had asked if there were any strangers on the farms around the property, Cubitt arrives with more reports of written dancing men. And that there was one night when he was up late to try to catch the person doing the drawings, but when he does catch sight, his wife holds him back, afraid for his safety.
Holmes takes the drawings and advises Cubitt that he will be along to the home in a few days. He spends the days with the drawings, excited and vexed in turn. In two days, however, they receive another telegram that coneys that the matter has gotten dire; arriving at the station, they discover that they were too late in fact. In the middle of the night, two shots were fired as heard by the maid and cook; they went to Cubitt's study and found a locked window, a gun lying between husband and wife. Cubitt was dead and his wife was barely alive after a bullet had been fired through her skull.
Holmes begins looking at the scene and finds that a third bullet had been fired, indicating that at some point the window had been open and whoever was part of the affair had shot the bullet from outside. Someone inside had shot at this person. They find the wife's purse which contained a large sum of money, held as a bribery as Holmes suspects. Outside, they find evidence of a third person and his bullet casing. And then, by asking the stable boy if there is a farm nearby owned by an Elrige, Holmes has what he needs.
He sends the boy off with a message written using the dancing men -- explaining after the boy leaves that it was a cipher that he had managed to crack just as he had received a summons to go to the estate. The message returns a man from America -- Abe Slaney. He is wanted in Chicago for crimes and once Holmes explains that Mrs. Cubitt stands to be put on trial for the murder of her husband, Slaney tells his story.
He was in a gang and Mrs. Cubitt was the daughter of the ring leader. He was engaged to her, but she saved up some money and left America to make a safer home for herself. Slaney felt that she ran off without reason and went to change her mind, to convince her to still marry him. It came to a head when she refused and he became angry; she summoned him to try to bribe him to go away, but he wouldn't hear of it. Cubitt heard the ruckus and went in to help. Shots were fired.
And so closes the case of the Dancing Men. Thoughts?
