Response #1: Was Holmes and Watson Truly Successful in Solving Their Case?

Were Holmes and Watson truly
successful in solving the case of
the Baskervilles?

When I think about how a story of crime should end I picture the criminal being taken away by the authorities and then a intense camera pan on the detective saying a horribly written phrase. Not in this case. In The Hound of the Baskervilles Holmes end up allowing a person not involved in the crime (Selden), a Hound that "was savage and half-starved" and the criminal (Stapleton) to drown to his death in marshlands of the moor. Its like when I would attempt to solve a Rubik's cube although I had already gone over the time limit I had set for myself. I was still interested (like Holmes and Watson) in how the puzzle unravel itself, but I had failed at actually solving the puzzle in time (representing Holmes and Watson's failure to save Selden's life and apprehend Stapleton).

Holmes and Watson were "at close grips at last" near the end of the novel but they still let this case escape them (Doyle 181). Holmes and Watson are detectives. These are the people that are meant to solve and investigate crimes that have occurred to protect the lives of others that are at risk. While Holmes and Watson did manage to protect Sir Henry Baskervilles (the next generation down from Sir Charles Baskerville) from being a subject of Stapleton's murders, he let 2 others die. It is by a lucky fluke that Holmes and Watson happened to allow Seldon (a criminal living in the moorlands) and Stapleton to die who are two infamous criminals. Even though Holmes and Watson luckily eliminated the criminal, it is still a failure because they did not actually bring justice to Stapleton. For all they know, Stapleton could have survived what looked to be a "mud bath" which "sucked him in" to be "for ever buried" (Doyle 208). Stapleton's body was never found which does not prove necessarily prove Holmes' theory. As stated earlier, Stapleton was a very clever man which leads to me thinking that Stapleton could have thrown off Holmes and Watson by planting sort of scarecrow in the mud to allow them to think he had perished in the mud. Therefore, Stapleton could still be out there, trying to hijack someone else's fortune meaning Holmes and Watson were not successful in solving their case.

Another reason why they were not successful in solving their case is because they killed two non essential members to the case. There was the who hound in which Holmes "emptied 5 barrels into the creature's flank" and there was Selden who was killed by the hound. This is the same situation as in Afghanistan. Soldiers are not supposed kill civilians in the pursuit of their goals. For example, Australian soldiers killed a civilian which was considered an "incident" hence it is considered a negative act by these soldiers(ABC News).

In conclusion, no, Holmes and Watson were not successful in solving the case of the Baskervilles due to the unnecessary deaths of Selden, the hound, and Stapleton. In a grander sense, they failed because they had not protected the public from the Stapleton (who was not even captured or jailed). This leads me to start to doubt their actual value as detectives.