Canon Discussion: The Crooked Man
Nov. 25th, 2017 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60This week we are reading The Crooked Man. It carries the theme of ghosts and allegories.
Our story opens after Watson's marriage and he's had a long day -- more evidenced by the fact that upon answering the door to find Holmes visiting, rather than inquire about how Holmes knows things (such as having a repair man in), Watson merely answers absently for the most part until his brain starts waking up more.
The case is as follows: a middle aged couple known to be devoted to each other on an otherwise ordinary night are heard having an argument. The door is locked, but there is a window that opens onto the lawn and one of the servants uses it to enter the room. He finds the wife insensible on the couch and the husband on the floor with a damaged head. He cannot find a key to the room and has to use the window again to call for the police. Being that no key could be found, it's assumed that the wife murdered her husband using a club that no one in the house remembers belong there but could have easily been overlooked since the husband was a collector of weapons.
The only sticking point is that the maid who first heard the fight reported to the police that she thought that the couple were fighting, but when pressed she admitted that she heard the name David, not James which was the name of the husband. Holmes discovers when he invesitigates the home that a man from the street entered the room with an unusual creature; he conjectures that it's likely that the husband turned, was startled enough to fall and hit his head. The stranger took the key with him when he left the room.
This theory aside, the wife had been out in the evening with a companion for a charity get together. The companion admitted finally that the wife had seen a man on their way home -- someone who shocked her, but told the companion that it wasn't anyone terribly important. Holmes finds the man -- a magician with a strange creature that scares the man's landlady and he pays in some odd coin.
To resolve the case, Holmes and Watson go to confront the man who so startled the wife. There we learn that the man's appearance was what caused the quarel between husband and wife. Years back, the man and the husband served in the same regiment. Both courted the wife and while she loved one, her father favored another. One night, the regiment was cornered; the man was sent as scout and given a trail by the husband. Except that in order to win the suit, the husband sold out the man and everyone presumed he was dead. Including the husband who upon seeing him again, fainted in shock and hit his head. The man dropped his cane -- the club found at the scene -- and his mongoose had gotten loose. The wife had fainted and the man took the key from her intending to get help except then he thought of how it would look so he just left.
Holmes gets from him an agreement to report his version should the wife find herself on trial -- but the case is dropped since a doctor determines that the husband died of heart failure.
And so closes this case. Thoughts?
Our story opens after Watson's marriage and he's had a long day -- more evidenced by the fact that upon answering the door to find Holmes visiting, rather than inquire about how Holmes knows things (such as having a repair man in), Watson merely answers absently for the most part until his brain starts waking up more.
The case is as follows: a middle aged couple known to be devoted to each other on an otherwise ordinary night are heard having an argument. The door is locked, but there is a window that opens onto the lawn and one of the servants uses it to enter the room. He finds the wife insensible on the couch and the husband on the floor with a damaged head. He cannot find a key to the room and has to use the window again to call for the police. Being that no key could be found, it's assumed that the wife murdered her husband using a club that no one in the house remembers belong there but could have easily been overlooked since the husband was a collector of weapons.
The only sticking point is that the maid who first heard the fight reported to the police that she thought that the couple were fighting, but when pressed she admitted that she heard the name David, not James which was the name of the husband. Holmes discovers when he invesitigates the home that a man from the street entered the room with an unusual creature; he conjectures that it's likely that the husband turned, was startled enough to fall and hit his head. The stranger took the key with him when he left the room.
This theory aside, the wife had been out in the evening with a companion for a charity get together. The companion admitted finally that the wife had seen a man on their way home -- someone who shocked her, but told the companion that it wasn't anyone terribly important. Holmes finds the man -- a magician with a strange creature that scares the man's landlady and he pays in some odd coin.
To resolve the case, Holmes and Watson go to confront the man who so startled the wife. There we learn that the man's appearance was what caused the quarel between husband and wife. Years back, the man and the husband served in the same regiment. Both courted the wife and while she loved one, her father favored another. One night, the regiment was cornered; the man was sent as scout and given a trail by the husband. Except that in order to win the suit, the husband sold out the man and everyone presumed he was dead. Including the husband who upon seeing him again, fainted in shock and hit his head. The man dropped his cane -- the club found at the scene -- and his mongoose had gotten loose. The wife had fainted and the man took the key from her intending to get help except then he thought of how it would look so he just left.
Holmes gets from him an agreement to report his version should the wife find herself on trial -- but the case is dropped since a doctor determines that the husband died of heart failure.
And so closes this case. Thoughts?
