Killing Gregory

716 Words3 Pages
When a racehorse in England disappears and its trainer is murdered in “Silver Blaze,” Sherlock Holmes is asked to step in and solve the case. Unsurprisingly, he succeeds. The twists and turns of the mystery present several red herrings to the reader and Watson. However, Sherlock appears unaffected. He proves the innocence of the accused man and reveals the shady actions of the missing trainer. Another case is solved, and Watson has another story to add to his memoir. The reader is left in a state of pleasant surprise as Sherlock’s reasoning is explained. Early in the story, Sherlock is asking questions that Inspector Gregory should have been asking. “We may leave the question of who killed John Straker for the instant, and confine ourselves to finding out what has become of the horse” (Doyle 19). The ‘competent’ Inspector has focused his energy and resources on proving his suspect guilty. He never considered that finding the horse would…show more content…
He theorizes that the only plausible explanation is that the dog knew the midnight visitor. This is easily the weakest argument Sherlock presents in his chain of reasoning. There could be any number of reasons why the dog did not bark. It could have been asleep or it simply could have been a lousy guard dog. The dog recognizing his master is an explanation, but it is not the only one. The renowned detective makes his final deduction with the help of a gut instinct. He analyzes the quality of Straker’s character and comes to the conclusion that the man would have first practiced the procedure of nicking the tendon on a lesser valued creature before carrying it out on the prized horse. Holmes takes a shot in the dark and asks the farmhand if he had noticed anything amiss with their sheep lately (Doyle 25). As luck would have it, three of them had gone lame overnight. A simple guess based entirely on what little he knew of Straker confirmed Sherlock’s
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