Finally Finished!

Part 2: Chapters 5-7
John Ferrier and Lucy Ferrier were eventually captured. John was shot by Stangerson and Lucy was forced to marry Drebber. Jefferson Hope took this into stride as he vowed to seek vengeance. When Hope was taken to prison, he told the detectives his account of the story. Hope tracked down Stangerson and Drebber to London and killed them. Before he was even tried, he died of an aortic aneurism.
What I found interesting was that despite Holmes having solved the case, he still didn't know who the person was that came to retrieve the ring. Hope didn't tell him because he didn't want to be a snitch. Despite Holmes's deductive reasoning, he couldn't figure out this little detail. Holmes was very cocky in saying that "the proof of its intrinsic simplicity is, that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days." Holmes explains his method for deductive reasoning clearly in the last chapter. He notes that you have "to be able to reason backward."
The passage will probably clarify any confusion:
"Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically." - Holmes
He then goes on and describes how he solved the case. Holmes basically examines every detail of the crime scene and makes inferences and asks questions. This is basically what we all do everyday. But Holmes has the ability to go beyond this and make his own scenarios. At first, he examined the footsteps and found that there were two men involved. Then he entered the house and realized that there wasn't a robbery. He figured it might involve politics or a woman. When he saw the ring, he immediately knew that it was over a woman. He basicaly calls the police in Cleveland and inquires the marriage of Drebber. The police told Holmes that Drebber had asked for "protection of the law" against Jefferson Hope. Holmes had found his murderer. So he has his Arab squad pursue the streets of London looking for Hope and when they find Hope, they arrest him.
Even though, Holmes solves the case, the article in the newspaper gives Holmes barely any recognition. The article states, "The man was apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective line and who, with such instructors[Lestrade and Gregson], may hope in time to attain to some degree of their skill." This is ironic because Holmes's intuition definitely surpasses that of Lestrade's and Gregon's.

The story is told in the point of view of Dr. Watson, who is Holmes's roommate. And no, Holmes doesn't show any real emotion towards anything. He's like Stevens, all he cares about is work. But I suppose if he were to fall in love....then things could get interesting. Now off to my next Sherlock Holmes book.

Mystery Solved?

Part 1 Chaper 7:
Yeah, so Holmes was very laid back in the last chapter while he was listening to Lestrade's and Gregson's conclusions. Holmes has Lestrade offer his conclusion. Lestrade finds a case of pills in Joseph Stangerson's hotel room at the time of his death. Holmes cries out, "The last link, my case is complete." So apparently, Holmes wanted to seem very calm and relaxed until the other detectives revealed their errors, and then bam, he tells them that he's solved the case. I'm beginning to view Holmes as a perfectionist. He wants to be the person who solves the mystery and only him.
Holmes tests the pills by cutting one in half and feeding it to the servant's dog. The following passage will reveal more about Holmes:
"Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute foloowed minute without result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was his emotion that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this check which he had met. "It can't be a coincidence," he cried, at last springing from his chair and pacing wildly up and down the room; "it is impossible that it should be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the case of Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson. And yet they are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have been false. It is impossible!" (49).
Holmes is very impatient and he just doesn't like to be proved wrong. He's definitely a perfectionist. In this passage, he seems almost bipolar because he is crazily questioning his own thought process and almost punishing himself for being wrong. Holmes even knows who the assassin is already. He doesn't reveal the name to Lestrade and Gregson when they ask him, but he tells them that they have to take it step by step in arresting him.
The murderer was Jefferson Hope and he was the cab driver, I think, because Holmes had Hope bring up a cab and asked Hope to transport his bags. Then he arrests Hope.

Part 2 Chapters 1-4
These chapters don't include Sherlock Holmes. I think they're explaining why Hope murders Enoch Drebber and Joseph Staggerson. For example, John Ferrier and his adopted daughter, Lucy Ferrier, were about to die in the desert when a caravan of wagons rescued them. The leader of the Mormons, Brigham Young demanded that Ferrier adopt their beliefs in return for their rescue. Lucy grows up and falls in love with a christian man, name Jefferson Hope. Young finds out and demands that Ferrier have his daughter choose young Drebber or Stangerson as the husband for Lucy. Hope comes back and helps them get out of the land of the saints.

Part 1 Chapter 6

Holmes didn't ask the cab driver what happened. He was observing from a distance and didn't want to be seen. I agree, I also think that the cab driver was staged. But then again the cab is a horse carriage and the driver sits in the front, outside of the carriage. So he probably didn't notice anything and it was probably noisy because of the horses' walk.

Part 1 Chapter 6
So Tobias Gregson visits Holmes and tells him that he's solved the case. He's arrested someone named, Arthur Charpentier. Gregson tells Holmes that the person who was murdered, Enoch J. Drebber, was renting a room at the Charpentiers' house. Arthur supposedly chased down Drebber because Drebber wanted his sister to runaway with him. Arthur didn't like it and beat him somewhere in the stomach with a stick, which according to Gregson killed him immediately "without leaving any mark." He drags the body into the Brixton house and Gregson believes the ring and the blood are just traps for the police.
What I continued to notice the fierce competition between the detectives. Gregson mocks Holmes for not inquiring more about the hat that was left behind at the scene. Gregson visited the person who made the hat and found the address to the Charpentiers' house. Being the smart man he is, Holmes had already noticed the hat, but didn't visit the maker. In his conversaton with Gregson, Holmes seemed to be pretty laid back having found out that Gregson solved the case. Holmes probably knew something was wrong with Gregson's theory. In addition, Gregson makes fun of Lestrade because he believed Lestrade "had started off upon the wrong scent." However, Lestrade shows up and presents his findings. He tried to search for a secretary, Joseph Stangerson, who was also involved in the crime, but he finds out that he was murdered at six o'clock in the morning. So the case isn't solved! But Holmes didn't apply his incredible method of deduction this time around. The chapter ends with the cliffhanger.

More on Holmes's character: He takes advantage of other people, especially children. He had his own little group called the Baker Street division of the detective police force. The members were "the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs," and they were children too. Apparently, Holmes believes that these children are "sharp as needles" who "go everywhere and hear everything." I think this group may play a big part in solving this mystery.