RG

IN CONTEXT

TYPE

Short story

FIRST PUBLICATION

US: January 1893

UK: January 1893

COLLECTION

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1894

CHARACTERS

Susan Cushing Quiet and respectable retired spinster.

Sarah Cushing Sister of Susan; a proud, fierce woman.

Mary Browner Third Cushing sister; married to James Browner.

James Browner Tempestuous, heavy-drinking ship’s steward.

Alec Fairbairn Dashing, swaggering competitor for Mary’s affections.

Inspector Lestrade Scotland Yard detective.

The story opens on a “blazing hot day in August” and Watson is dying to get out of the sweltering city. Restless and bored, his gaze wanders to two portraits on the wall. Moments later, Holmes makes a comment that is so in tune with his thoughts, it is as if he has read the doctor’s mind. The detective explains the trick: he had followed his friend’s facial expressions and, from a mere quiver on his lips, had deduced that Watson had been musing on “the preposterous way” of settling arguments through violence. This observation neatly foreshadows the action to follow. Holmes announces his involvement in a sensational new case, which “may prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading.” An innocuous spinster, Susan Cushing, has received a very grisly package of two severed human ears. Lestrade suspects it is no more than a prank by her former lodgers (three medical students) but, as usual, he turns out to be wide of the mark.

Unpacking the box

At Susan’s home, Holmes’s major deductions revolve around the package, the cardboard box of the title. To the sharp-eyed detective, this box yields a host of clues—including tarred twine and an especially well-executed knot—to the sender’s identity. The ears themselves are preserved in rough salt, which is not a substance that a medical practitioner would use, and they are not a matching pair: one is a woman’s, the other a man’s. Holmes deduces that this is no student joke—it is a double murder.

Susan then unwittingly provides almost all the extra information Holmes needs to solve the case, telling him that she has two sisters, Mary and Sarah. Mary lives in Liverpool with her sailor husband James Browner; her other sister Sarah had once lived with the couple, but after a “quarrel” she returned to London to lodge with Susan (although she has recently moved out). As they talk, Holmes notes a strong resemblance between Susan’s ear and one in the box.

En route to sister Sarah’s house, Holmes wires a police contact in Liverpool. Sarah is ill and cannot meet them, but Holmes says that he had only wanted to “look at her,” and that he already has the information he needs. Back at Scotland Yard, he receives a response to his telegram, and tells Lestrade that Browner sent the parcel, and can be apprehended when his ship next docks in London. By now, Holmes is convinced that one of the ears belongs to Mary Browner, and the other to her lover.

"What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear?"

Sherlock Holmes

RG

The 1994 television adaptation of “The Cardboard Box” was set during a snowy Christmas. It starred Jeremy Brett at the end of his Holmes career, due to his declining health.

A husband’s betrayal

Once under arrest, Browner readily admits to his crime in a confession that portrays him more as the victim of the case, rather than the villain, confusing the story’s morals. Sarah was in love with him, but when he gently spurned her advances, she became vengeful, poisoning his marriage and encouraging Mary to have an affair with a dashing seaman, Alec Fairbairn.

One day, Browner saw the lovers, and, in a jealous rage, he armed himself with a heavy stick and followed. When they rented a boat and rowed out to sea, he did the same and, after a confrontation, he killed them both. He hacked off their ears, later sending one of each to Sarah, in a crazed bid to show her where her “meddling” had led. All of this precipitates a melancholic closing remark from Holmes, echoing Watson’s thoughts on “the sadness and horror and useless waste of life” involved in violence.

CONAN DOYLE’S SELF-CENSORSHIP

When the stories published in The Strand Magazine between December 1892 and November 1893 were compiled as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, “The Cardboard Box” was left out at Conan Doyle’s insistence. The story was included in the first American edition of the Memoirs, but removed in a revised second printing, and the original edition destroyed. Debate about Conan Doyle’s reasons has raged among Holmesians ever since. As Christopher Roden points out, the author offered various excuses: “that it was out of place in a collection intended for boys; that it was more sensational than he cared for; and that it was a weak story.” However, salacious content appears elsewhere in the canon, and the tale is a compelling one. Whatever the reason, there was one part of the story that Conan Doyle thought too good to lose. For the Memoirs publication, the opening mind-reading passage of this story was moved to the start of “The Adventure of the Resident Patient”. While “The Cardboard Box” was eventually included in 1917’s His Last Bow, most modern editors return it to the Memoirs and, to avoid duplicating the opening passage, restore both stories to their original versions.

..................Content has been hidden....................

You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.
Reset
54.243.2.41