A Study in Scarlet: Chapter 7 {Sunday Midnight Book Club #4}
Hello, Internet, and good mornight to you all!
My name is Taffryne, shoppekeeper of Midnight on Memory Lane, and it is my absolute delight to welcome you to this week's gathering of Sunday Midnight Book Club!
'Tis a pleasure, 'tis a pleasure indeed.
As the title of this post says, we're going to be talking about the seventh chapter of part one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first-ever Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet. I humbly present my thoughts for your enjoyment and consideration. Accordingly, please mind that there will be spoilers ahead!
Page Bound Link: click here!
Disclaimer: All of the original Sherlock Holmes books were written by a well-off, white gentleman in the late 1800s. Unfortunately, there potentially will be relics of their time, be it terminology or depictions, at varying levels of offensiveness. I mean no disrespect to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, nor his legacy; I merely want to make it clear that they were wrong during his time, they are wrong now, and I am wholeheartedly in no way endorsing them on this blog. Everyone has different levels of acceptability, so please advise and feel no judgement if you'd rather not take the risk yourself this time around.
Trigger Warnings: Discussion of Murder, Warning for Sherlock Holmes' Social Skills, Questionable Police Work, Discussion of Medicines, Non-abusive Poisoning of a Dog resulting in Death, Arrests, Fighting
Chapter 7 ~ Light in the Darkness
Recollection
- Joseph Strangerson (Drebber/The Victim's secretary) was found dead from a stab wound in his hotel room with the word "RACHE" once again written in blood
- A milk boy witnessed a man leaving from the room's window via a ladder, but thought he was a carpenter or something
- Strangerson had a telegram stating that "J.H. is in Europe" in his pocket alongside a box of pills on the window-sill
- Watson determines the pills to be abnormal and water-soluable
- Sherlock gives the eldery/on-deathbed dog one a half pill, which does nothing
- Sherlock gives the dog a different half pill which ultimately kills the dog (rest in peace)
- Lestrade and Gregson get tired of Sherlock's parades and ask him to just spit it out already with Watson agreeing
- Sherlock called a cab and had the cabman assist him in loading boxes
- Sherlock introduces the cabman as the murderer
- Sherlock, Gregson, and Lestrade stop the cabman from jumping through the window and arrest him after a struggle
" 'Gentlemen,' he cried, with flashing eyes, "let me introduce you to Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Strangerson." (Pg. 37)
OH MY GOD WHAT A REVEAL!!! Holy, holy smokes. The smoothness of it all, truly. Here we are scratching our heads bloody at what the heck happened to Drebber and Strangerson and Mr. Holmes here is just casually calling up a cap to load some nonsense piece of furniture into a cab driven by a murderer. Right in the final sentence of that page too, good jeez.
How on earth did he know it would be this cab??? Are they numbered like they are nowadays? Did he just keep having his network call upon cabs until the right one showed up? Oh my word, could you imagine having to call and dismiss 17 different cabs because they didn't kill someone? The hilarity.
The thing with the pills...I know this is the late 1800s and I know that the poor dog was already in a questionable quality of life, but was there really no better test? Chemistry was alive and well at this point and Sherlock was introduced as very knowledgeable in that regard. Was slaying the dog truly the only option to figure out that the pill box was half poison/half placebo Rest in Peace, literary furry one.
Regarding the pills again, how in the world did they make those? I'm no pharmaceutical historian, but from the random internet dives I've done, pills back then were often hand-rolled paste type things, right? What poison was used? What're the compounds in the pill paste? Why did these men then allegedly accept random pills from a stranger?
So we have the means and the manner...what's the motive here? What did these two men do for Mr. Jefferson Hope to kill them? Why was Strangerson stabbed to death but Drebber was (presumably) only poisioned?
Agh, my curiosity!!!
"...and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city... (Pg. 37)"
Soooooooo, who wants to tell Sherlock that London actually has roughly 9 million inhabitants and roughly 15,500 cab drivers now? You know, that does make me wonder: Were the cab drivers more of a clique back then? As in, was there your set group of cab drivers and eventually you got to know each of them or one specific one well enough to basically start functioning as your personal driver? That'd be kinda cool!
Thanks for Reading!
I hope you've been able to read and enjoy the story for yourself! If you haven't, that's okay too! My thoughts are here to keep you updated and entertained in the meantime.
This caps off this week's gathering for Sunday Midnight Book Club, so off into the nighttime we go in preparation for tomorrow!
I hope you'll come back for tomorrow's Manga Monday! We'll be discussing volume 4 of The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess.
May we meet again at Midnight!