The Adventures of the Blue Carbuncle
READ AND ANSWER
A. 1. Read the following quotations from the play and answer the questions that follow.
a. 'He came here this morning. He brought me this hat. He doesn't know who the owner is.'
(i) Who said these words and to whom were they said?
Answer: Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson.
(ii) Who is the 'he' being talked about?
Answer: Police Commissioner, Peterson.
(iii) What was the other thing 'he' had brought to the speaker?
Answer: The Christmas goose.
(iv) Whose hat had been left at the speaker's house?
Answer: Of one 'Henry Baker'
(v) What was the second object the person had brought the speaker and where had it gone?
Answer: A goose; Mr. Peterson had taken it away to be roasted before it got spoilt.
b. 'Surely you are joking. What kind of clues could you have got from this battered old hat?
(i) Who said these words and to whom were they said?
Answer: Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes.
(ii) How did the person being spoken to react to the speaker's conclusions?
Answer: He gave him a magnifying glass and asked him to examine the hat closely.
(iii) What conclusions did the person being spoken to arrive at after examining the hat?
Answer: Holmes found that the hat belonged to a highly intellectual man who was fairly well-to-do but had fallen upon hard times in last three years, he had foresight, though much reduced now and his wife had ceased to love him. he used lime cream on his grey hair and didn't have gas lights in his house.
(iv) What conclusions did the speaker come to after examining the hat?
Answer: Dr. Watson found the hat to be ordinary and black, old and well-worn with 'H.B.' scrawled on the lining. It was cracked, very bdusty and spotted and attempts had been made to hide to spots.
c. 'Well, it is very ingenious, but since, as you said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of energy.'
(i) Who is the speaker?
Answer: Dr. Watson.
(ii) Who had been very ingenious and in what way?
Answer: Sherlock Holmes; for he had drawn inferences from small signs which wouldn't have meant anything to anyone else.
(iii) What happened soon after these words were spoken?
Answer: Mr. Peterson came in with Countess of Morcar's Blue Carbuncle, a diamond that his wife had found in the crop of the goose.
(iv) Why was it not a waste of energy after all?
Answer: It was not a waste of energy after all because they found that a crime had been committed and all the observations and inferences made by Sherlock Holmes were not useless.
d. "So now we must set ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman and out what part he has played in this little mystery."
(1) Who is the speaker and who is 'we'?
Answer: Sherlock Holmes; Dr. Watson, Mr. Peterson and Mr. Holmes.
(ii) Who is this gentleman'?
Answer: Mr. Henry Baker
(iii) Why was it necessary to find him?
Answer: It was necessary to find him because the precious diamond, the blue Carbuncle had stolen and Mr. Holmes felt that Mr. Baker may lead them to the thief.
(iv) How did they find him?
Answer: Mr. Holmes places an advertisement claiming he had found Mr. Baker's hat and a goose which could be collected from his residence.
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e. 'Oh, certainly, certainly!' (gives a sigh of relief)
(i) Who said these words and to whom were they said?
Answer: Mr. Henry Baker to Sherlock Holmes.
(ii) Why did he give a sigh of relief?
Answer: Mr. Henry Baker gave a sigh of relief, because Mr. Holmes gave him another goose to replace the one he had lost.
(iii) Why was he upset earlier?
Answer: He was upset he did not have a goose for Christmas, and also because he had meant to make his wife happy by giving her the goose.
(iv) What question did the person spoken to ask the speaker and how did his answer help to solve the problem?
Answer: Sherlock Holmes asked Mr. Baker if he wanted the feathers, legs, crop etc. of his won bird. When Mr. Baker showed no desire to have these things, Holmes knew that Henry Baker had no knowledge of the blue carbuncle in the crop of the first bird.
A. 2. Answer the following questions.
a. What happened at Mr. Breckinridge's turkey stall that helped Holmes and Watson to solve the mystery?
Answer: As they were leaving the stall, they turned around to see a rat-faced man arriving at the stall. They saw the goose salesman shaking his fist fiercely at the man. The visitor seemed to be asking about the geese that has be sold at the stall.
b. Who was Mrs. Oakshot and how was James Ryder related to her?
Answer: Mrs. Oakshott of Brixton Road was the lady who sold the geese to Mr. Breckinridge, the stall owner. She was James Ryder's Sister.
c. How did James Ryder get the blue carbuncle?
Answer: Catherine Cusack, the maid-waiting at the Hotel Cosmoplitan had told James Ryder about the blue carbuncle owned by the Countess of Morcar. the two of them created a situation where a plumber, John Horner, had to visit the room. The two conspirators stole the diamond, and John Horner was blamed for the theft.
d. What did James Ryder do with the blue carbuncle?
Answer: James Ryder went to the house of his sister, Mrs. Oakshott. She reared and sold geese. He picked up a large white goose with a black bar on its tail and pushed the diamond down its throat. The goose flew off and joined the flock of geese. Ryder picked up a goose he thought was his, but when he cut it, he found it didn't have the diamond in its crop.
e. How had the goose got to Breckinridge's turkey stall?
Answer: Mrs. Oakshott sold her turkeys to Mr. Breckinridge who took them to his stall.
f. How did Holmes trick James Ryder and get him to go to his house?
Answer: Sherlock Holmes told Ryder that he thought that he could help him as he had overheard what Ryder had been telling Breckerinridge. He said it was his business to know what other didn't know. He offered to discussed the problem with Ryder and said they could discuss the matter in a cosy room. he thus took him to his house.
g. Who was John Horner and what part did he play in the story?
Answer: Jhoh Horner was the plumber who had been blamed for the theft of the blue carbuncle.
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