The Devil’s Foot
this past week for @astudyincanon, I listened to the audiobook of Devil’s Foot, and watched the Granada episode. I noticed all the suggestive phrases like, “long and intimate friendship”, “aversion to publicity”, “discretion and reticence” and how it is beyond question that when Holmes needs a country vacation to recover his health, his Watson will go with him.
One of the things I have learned to notice since being in book club, is how Watson describes (particularly handsome) men they encounter in the course of their adventures. In this case, it’s Leon Sterndale. His name suggests a Lion, and he’s described as a famous lion hunter. The way Watson goes on about him borders on fangirling. I also think it sets us up for the way the ending of the case is handled, where Sterndale’s raw justice on Mortimer Tregennis is accepted and excused. Sterndale is at the pinnacle of the case, but he’s not shown as a villain. Like Captain Croker in ABBE, he’s accepted as a peer by Holmes and Watson.
It’s interesting to look back to a case like STUD, where Jefferson Hope was in much the same role, but so early in Holmes’ career, he still cooperated with the police in arresting him. Here, he has had time to reflect on that, and other cases, and to think about how the Law may be wrong, and may not serve the highest Justice. This could be another case of ACD doing a subtle ‘mic drop’, again without being preachy, he’s planting that idea in the mind of his audience: some laws may be unjust. In fact, Sterndale himself draws attention to laws pertaining to marriage (!) that tie him to a wife who has left him, so he can’t marry the woman he truly loves, Brenda Tregennis. HMM, a tragedy might have been averted, if the two people who loved each other could have been lawfully married.
