Mystery Collection Discussion Questions

Select a story to view the corresponding discussion questions

A Terribly Strange Bed

How It Happened

In the Tube

The Club-Footed Grocer

The Creeping Man

The Eight-Mile Lock

The Mystery of the Circular Chamber

The Signal-Man

The Well

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A Terribly Strange Bed

1. Do you enjoy gambling? If so, what is your favorite game? Should gambling be legal everywhere?
2. The narrator describes being intoxicated from winning at the tables. Are there other pursuits that can make you feel intoxicated?
3. Was the main character's success at Rouge et Noir part of the scam, or was he legitimately lucky that night?

How It Happened

1. The story is told to us via a spiritual medium, who is somehow able to communicate with the dead. Who do you think asked the medium to attempt this communication?
2. Some analyses of this story suggest Doyle is make a statement about class divides. Considering that the main characters are the owner of the car and his driver, do you agree? What might that statement be?
3. Explain the seeming disconnect between the affable, amiable tone of the story and the gruesome ending?

In the Tube

1. Anthony claims that a crime is not committed when the criminal completes the actions of the crime, but when he determines that he will commit the crime. Do you agree with this assessment? Are our intentions as important as our actions?
2. Would you want to be used by a spirit full of remorse, like Anthony was, to rectify some deeply wrong action it had committed?
3. Anthony tells his friend that if he believes in coincidences, he shouldn't. Do you believe in coincidences, or do you think everything happens for a reason?

The Club-Footed Grocer

1. What does it say about the uncle that he involved his nephew in his sordid business with the diamonds and sailors? What else can you conclude about the uncle?
2. What is the moral to this story?
3. Would you help a family member you had never met and knew to be involved in questionable dealings? Is blood thicker than water?

The Creeping Man

1. Do you think that Holmes is right when he says that when man tries to rise above nature, we often fall below it? Or is it the opposite? Have we risen above nature or fallen below it?
2. If you had the chance to stay young forever, would you?
3. Did you expect a different ending? Did the author purposely mislead you into thinking there was some other supernatural reason for the professor's changes?

The Eight-Mile Lock

1. Do you think Lady Ridsdale was foolish to wear her diamonds in public? And if so, why own them?
2. Do you have a favorite gemstone?
3. Did the Ridsdales do the right thing in not prosecuting Mr. Vyner? Would you have done the same thing?

The Mystery of the Circular Chamber

1. Would you have had Bell's courage to stay at a haunted inn to solve this mystery?
2. What kind of environment is the most frightening to you? A haunted house? A dark forest? Creepy basements?
3. Can everything we don't immediately understand be explained rationally, through science and investigation?

The Signal-Man

1. Do you believe that sometimes coincidences happen, or do you believe that everything happens for a reason?
2. There is plenty of foreshadowing of more disaster to come in the story. Did you expect it to happen to the signal man?
3. If you had to work in the signal man's bleak, solitary conditions, how would you fare mentally or emotionally? Psychologically?

The Well

1. What do you think happened to Wilfred Carr?
2. What do you believe caused Jem Benson's death when he got to the bottom of the well?
3. Did both men get what they deserve?