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mariana-oconnor · 1 year

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The Cardboard Box pt 3

OK, so this was mostly solved last part, with a few hanging threads, mainly being the motive and who the second ear belongs to. Our working theory is a man that Mary's husband thought she was having an affair with. But how that all relates to Sarah Cushing and why he sent the ears to her specifically. My best guess is she was encouraging Mary to leave him and 'befriend' this other guy in some way?

“Lestrade has got him all right,” said Holmes, glancing up at me.

Welp, that was quick. I guess no one is dying in a mysterious shipwreck this week, even though there are actual sailors involved this time.

“In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our theories” [“the ‘we’ is rather fine, Watson, is it not?”]"

Are we going to get Holmes' commentary throughout? That would be fun. Throwing shade at Lestrade here for taking partial credit for everything. Fair.

@ameliahcrowley did the research about May Day and apparently it wasn't in use as a distress signal yet at this time, which surprised me. So this ship name is just retroactively ironic, which is one of the best flavours of irony.

"I found that there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner and that he had acted during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to relieve him of his duties."

This guy has zero chill, which we already knew because he was going around murdering his wife and sending ears to her relatives, but he fails so completely at getting away with it, it's kind of farcical.

I guess it makes sense that he'd be a bit weird after killing his wife. But at the same time, the kind of effort it takes to cut off ears, pack them in salt and send them off to women in Croydon indicates a level of thought and planning that is clearly not evident anywhere else in his crime. So weird.

"He jumped up when he heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of river police, who were round the corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out his hands quietly enough for the darbies."

This reads as though the guy is feeling guilty or remorseful, but please see prior notes about taking the time to pack ears in salt. The remorse was a really delayed reaction, huh?

Mr Browner's understanding of what he did dawning:

"...bar a big sharp knife such as most sailors have..."

If he has a big sharp knife, why did he use a blunt one to cut the ears off? Unless the blunt just meant 'not as sharp as a scalpel', which seems an unfair benchmark of sharpness to put on a knife. Not everyone can be a scalpel.

"The affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but I am obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation."

This isn't exactly a lie. Except it kind of is. Lestrade at least claimed to think it was just the medical students the whole time, but at the same time he called Holmes in, which seems like a weird thing to do if he was convinced it was a prank?

"I tell you I've not shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don't believe I ever will again until I get past all waking."

Again, this is strange to me. Like did he get through the whole posting of the ears and did the guilt set in immediately after that, or did he do that while feeling guilty? which makes no sense. I do not understand this man.

"Ay, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her before."

And this does not read like the words of someone who feels remorse. I feel like Jim Browner is a very disturbed individual. This is very creepy. Anyone who compares another person to a 'white lamb' is instantly ten times creepier than they were before. I'm already getting 'my wife drove me to it' delusional self-justification from his language.

"For Sarah Cushing loved me—that's the root of the business—she loved me until all her love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife's footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul."

Oh, I did not see that coming. Although thinking back, the way her interactions with him were referred to were a bit weird. I thought it was just a Victorian flare for language coming through, but no.

I said last time that Mary needed better sisters. She really needed better sisters.

"The old one was just a good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married."

A devil and an angel? Right, this guy has unrealistic expectations of the women in his life, I can tell you that right away. The Madonna-Whore complex called, Jim, it thinks you might have a problem.

For someone who is so guilty he can't sleep, Jim Browner is trying very hard to seem like the victim here. Dude murdered two people and cut off their ears and he's determined that it's Sarah's fault. I'm not saying she had nothing to do with it, but seems like he's having a little trouble with accountability here.

Also, her seduction of him is very... like she took hold of his hand and looked at him? That's all she did? I was expecting something more overt. Although this is the Victorian era, I guess maybe that's pretty overt by their standards? Or he misread the entire situation.

"Things went on much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand such follies."

This whole thing reads very strangely. 'so trusting and so innocent', and the pedestal he seems determined to put his wife on. It's all a little icky. He seems like a remarkably unreliable narrator.

OK, maybe it happened like he says. We have no evidence in the text contradicting him as of yet. But at the same time we only have his word for any of this and it's possible that he hit on Sarah rather than the other way around, she told Mary. OR that neither of them was hitting on each other, but they both thought the other one was hitting on them and things... spiralled.

"I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife's mind against me."

If this story hadn't ended with him murdering people and mutilating their corpses, I'd be more inclined to believe him at face value, but knowing the extremes he went to, I feel like this is just massive paranoia.

"And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things became a thousand times blacker."

Ah, we finally get to the owner of the second ear. Alas, poor Alec. You were doomed by the narrative.

“‘It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife's face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, and she turned away with a look of disappointment."

His entire motive is based on two moments when he saw a look in a woman's eyes? Are you kidding me, Mr Browner? Are you a telepath? Can you read their minds? You have no evidence of literally anything and you just murdered people?

Maybe we're getting to the evidence. Maybe you're going to walk in on them in a compromising position, or find a love letter, or overhear a incriminating conversation. But so far all we have is 'my sister-in-law was upset I didn't enjoy her company and held my hand and made eye contact with me' (which I agree was a bit weird, but not conspiracy worthy) and 'my wife looked like she was looking forward to talking to someone who wasn't me'.

“You can do what you like,” says I, “but if Fairbairn shows his face here again I'll send you one of his ears for a keepsake.”

OK, no. You're just going straight to threats of violence. No further proof needed.

“‘Well, I don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave.'"

The paranoia and entitlement is so strong in this one. He's completely irrational. We're all agreed on that, right? Maybe he was right about everything, but he's based all of his conclusions on...

heh...

He's based all his conclusions on vibes.

I played myself.

At least I didn't kill anyone over it.

"'How often she went I don't know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper.'"

This is slightly more incriminating, but given that there was a threat made to cut off the man's ears, that seems enough reason for him to run away. And death threats are never cool.

"'The thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from the footpath.'"

Honestly, at this point if she was having an affair with him I'm kind of okay with that. Mr Browner is clearly paranoid, violent and unstable. Divorce wasn't really an option for her because Victorian divorce laws were sexist and terrible, and from Browner's earlier description Fairbairn seems like a pretty cool guy. I hope she at least had fun before her husband brutally murdered her.

OK, point of Victorian etiquette, was it considered scandalous to be alone in a cab together? To me that's far less intimate than being found alone in a house together. But chatting in a cab? I suppose there isn't a chaperone, so maybe.

“‘Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen.'"

Either you couldn't think straight OR you could think straight enough to be cunning. You can't have it both ways. That's not how it works. EITHER you're blinded by jealousy and commit a crime of passion, OR you're thinking through your plan. My dude, you're undermining your own argument (although, as mentioned, the ear thing already did that).

They do seem to be having a very nice date. Good for them. Pity about the murderer lurking in the shadows.

And he's spending an entire day stalking them. Yeah, no, Mr Browner, we're way outside of 'blind jealous rage' murder. You hired a boat specifically to hunt them down and kill them without witnesses. This is now officially premeditated.

"'I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast'."

Yeeeaaah, those are not the actions of a remorseful person.

You're just a dick.

If only she'd had good sense and just run the fuck away with Mr Fairbairn and changed her name. Genuinely, usually I'm super against infidelity in all forms, but you seem like a real piece of work. Your story is so full of inconsistencies and irrational jealousy and paranoia that I can't believe half of it.

"'I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at me—staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze. I killed them quick, but they are killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or dead before morning.'"

Can confirm: you are already 'mad'. Your actions were not those of a mentally stable person. Not that that's why you did it. You clearly have problems, but loads of people deal with problems without killing people. You just suck, my dude. And honestly, zero sympathy.

'I feel super guilty about the crime I threatened to commit, then deliberately set up so as not to get caught, then followed up with acts of bodily mutilation, cover-up, and terrorising of the victim's relatives. But now I feel super guilty.'

Yeah, this whole account is just one long rant about how he's not really responsible. It was the women who drove him to it. By... talking to men and... looking at him funny.

“What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

Super philosophical at the end there Holmes. Seems like Holmes at least is taking Browner at his word about Sarah, or else the cycle doesn't really make any sense here. Even if Sarah did put events in motion, it's not really a cycle. It's just... a couple of rather horrible people being horrible to each other.

Or maybe he's referring to the death penalty?

Well, this one was weird. Given ACD's predilection for spiritualism and the afterlife, it's possible he intended the guilt plaguing Browner here to be the spirits of the people he murdered, which - given his lack of accountability throughout his own narrative - actually makes more sense. But there's no evidence of that in the text, so that's just me. But mark it down as another score on the 'supernatural Holmes universe' tally.

#Letters from Watson #Sherlock Holmes #The Cardboard Box #long post #I really tried to take everything at face value here #I just couldn't #'seldom looked on her with anything but love' rings false when you look back on it #You threatened to kill her #Browner reads as a completely unreliable narrator #Maybe Sarah was obsessed with him but we literally have nothing to support that except his word #It seems likely that his wife was emotionally involved with Fairbairn #but given what we know of him I can't really blame her

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