Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.
Chargement... The Adventure of the Copper Beeches (édition 2005)par Arthur Conan Doyle (Auteur)
Information sur l'oeuvreThe Adventure of the Copper Beeches [short story] par Arthur Conan Doyle
Books Read in 2015 (2,373) Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. This is another superb short story with our main character, detective Sherlock Holmes. The plot is interesting: Violet Hunter visits Holmes, asking whether she should accept a job as governess; a job with very strange conditions. She is enticed by the phenomenal salary which, as originally offered, is £100 a year, later increased to £120 when Miss Hunter balks at having to cut her long hair short (her previous position paid £48 a year). This is only one of many peculiar provisos to which she must agree. The employer, Jephro Rucastle, seems pleasant enough, yet Miss Hunter obviously has her suspicions. She announces to Holmes, after the raised salary offer, that she will take the job, and Holmes suggests that if he is needed, a telegram will bring him to Hampshire, where Mr Rucastle's country estate, the Copper Beeches, is situated. After a fortnight, Holmes receives such a message, beseeching him to come and see her in Winchester. Miss Hunter tells them one of the most singular stories that they have ever heard. Mr. Rucastle would sometimes have Miss Hunter wear a particular electric blue dress and sit in the front room reading, with her back to the front window. She began to suspect that she was not supposed to see something outside the window, and a small mirror shard hidden in her handkerchief showed her that she was right: there was a man standing there on the road looking towards the house. At another such session, Mr Rucastle told a series of funny stories that made Miss Hunter laugh until she was quite weary. The one astonishing thing about this was that Mr. Rucastle not only did not laugh, but did not even smile. There were other unsavoury things about the household. The six-year-old child that she was supposed to look after was astonishingly cruel to small animals. The servants, Mr. and Mrs. Toller, were quite a sour pair. A great mastiff was kept on the property, and always kept hungry. It was let out to prowl the grounds at night and Miss Hunter was warned not to cross the threshold after dark. Also, Toller, who was quite often drunk, was the only one who had any control over the dog. There was also the odd discovery by Miss Hunter of what appeared to be her own tresses in a locked drawer. Upon checking her own luggage, however, they turned out to be another woman's, but identical in every way to Miss Hunter's, even to the unusual colour. However, the most disturbing thing of all about the household was the mystery wing. Miss Hunter had observed that there was a part of the house that did not seem to be used. The windows were either dirty or shuttered, and once she saw Mr Rucastle coming out of the door leading into the wing looking most perturbed. Later, he explained that he used the rooms as a photographic darkroom, but Miss Hunter was not convinced. When he is drunk, Toller leaves the keys in the door to the mystery wing. Miss Hunter sneaks in. She finds the place spooky and when she spots a shadow moving on the other side of a locked door, she panics and runs out, into Mr Rucastle's waiting arms. Mr. Rucastle does not reproach her, instead he pretends to comfort her. However, he overdoes his act and alerts her suspicions, causing her to claim that she saw nothing. In an instant, his expression changes from comfort to rage. With the aid of the great detective, it is discovered that someone has been kept a prisoner in the forbidden wing. The purpose of hiring Miss Hunter becomes clear: her presence is to convince the man watching from the road that Rucastle's daughter Alice, previously unknown to Miss Hunter, and whom she resembles, is no longer interested in seeing him. Watson rescuing Rucastle from his mastiff Holmes, Watson and Miss Hunter find Miss Rucastle's secret room empty; Rucastle arrives and thinks the trio has helped his daughter escape and goes to fetch the mastiff to set upon the trespassers. Unfortunately for Rucastle, the dog has been accidentally starved for longer than usual and attacks him instead. Watson shoots the dog with his revolver. Later, Mrs. Toller confirms Holmes' theory about Rucastle's daughter and reveals that when Alice came of age she was to receive an annuity from her late mother's will; Rucastle tried to force his daughter to sign control of the inheritance over to him which only resulted in Alice becoming ill with brain fever; hence, the cut hair. Rucastle then tried to keep Alice away from her fiancé by locking her up in the mystery wing and hiring Miss Hunter to unknowingly impersonate Alice. Rucastle's daughter escapes with her fiancé, and they marry soon after. Watson notes, at the end of the story, that Holmes appears to have been drawn to Miss Hunter. However, to his disappointment, Holmes does not show any interest in Miss Hunter after the mystery has been solved, which was the real force behind his feelings. Rucastle survives as an invalid, kept alive solely by his second wife. Miss Hunter later becomes principal of a girls' school, where, according to Watson, she meets with "considerable success". I recommend this short story to all readers that appreciate a well written mystery story, mainly when it involves Sherlock Holmes clever solutions! aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Appartient à la sérieEst contenu dansSherlock Holmes Omnibus (4) par আর্থার কোনান ডয়েল (indirect) Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes / The Hound of the Baskervilles / The Return of Sherlock Holmes par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) The Celebrated Cases of Sherlock Holmes par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Wordsworth Classics) par Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Les Aventures de Sherlock Holmes : Tome 1 par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Sherlock Holmesin seikkailut 1-2 par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Conan Doyle : Sherlock Holmes, tome 1 par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) A Study in Scarlet / The Sign of Four / The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) The Complete Sherlock Holmes and The Complete Tales Of Terror and Mystery par Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) The Complete Sherlock Holmes Short Stories par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Sherlock Holmes: Complete Short Stories par Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Sherlock Holmes. Tom 2 par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) British Mystery Megapack Volume 5 - The Sherlock Holmes Collection: 4 Novels and 43 Short Stories + Extras par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Oeuvres complètes I. Etude en rouge, Le signe des quatre, Les aventures de Sherlock Holmes par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Classic Illustrated Sherlock Holmes: Thirty Seven Short Stories Plus a Complete Novel par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Word Cloud Box Set: Brown par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Sherlock Holmes par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) শার্লক হোমস সমগ্র par আর্থার কোনান ডয়েল (indirect) Sherlock Holmes Omnibus par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) The Complete Sherlock Holmes Treasury par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Club del Misterio, volum 1 par Jorge Luís Borges (indirect) Club del misterio. Volumen I: Prólogo de J. J. BORGES. "El cuento policial, IX" . Dashiell HAMMETT: "Cosecha roja". Arthur CONAN DOYLE: "Las aventuras de Shrlock Holmes". Hellery QUEEN: "Cara a cara". Raymond CHANDLER: "El sueño eterno". Patricia IHGSMITH: Erle STANLEY GARDNER: "El cuchillo". "El caso del juguete mortífero". James HADLEY CHASE: "Impulso creador". "El secuestro de Miss Blandish". Nicholas BLAKE: "La bestia debe morir". Volumen 2: Prólogo de R. CHANDLER: " El simpl par AA.VV. (indirect) ESSENTIAL COLLECTION OF CLASSIC BANNED BOOKS: Adam Bede, Fanny Hill, Candide, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, The Awakening, Sister Carrie, Women In Love, Madame Bovary, And Many More… par John Cleland (indirect) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes / The Return of Sherlock Holmes / A Study in Scarlet par Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Sherlock Holmes - vol. 2 par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (2-Volume Set) par Arthur Conan Doyle (indirect) Fait l'objet d'une adaptation dans
Sherlock Holmes, the world's "only unofficial consulting detective", was first introduced to readers in A Study in Scarlet published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887. It was with the publication of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, however, tha... Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)823.912Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
|
just to wear an ugly dress
and chop your hair off. ( )