THIS GUY SUCKS.

 We had a meeting of our local library discussion group tonight, focusing on "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box." I love my local discussion group and their perfect balance of personalities, insights, and just letting everyone talk with no one unknowingly dominating the conversation. And I always come away with such lovely ideas from their insights. Tonight, however, I suddenly had an insight about Mr. Jim Browner that I could not get past.

THIS GUY SUCKS. (Trigger Warning: THIS GUY SUCKS, and if you don't like to read of abusive males, stop right here. THIS GUY SUCKS.)

For a full three pages at the end of "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box," we get to read Jim Browner's verbatim account of the murder of his sister and her seaman friend. Browner's words are very sympathy-inducing, and even though he's a horrible murderer with some really sick ideas on what to do with body parts, his statement has evoked a certain sympathy in many a reader. But as with all murderers getting to tell their story in court or in the press, there's another story we never get to hear: That of the victim. Or, in this case, of any of the victims. Mary Cushing Browner. Alec Fairbairn. Sarah Cushing.

Jim Browner's version is ripe for a pointed cross-examination, from the very start.

He's living with his wife Mary and her slightly older sister Sarah. Sarah is "fine," "tall," and "proud," but Browner says "when little Mary was there I had never a thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God's mercy."

What kind of statement it that? "I never thought about my wife's sister when my wife was there, honest!"

So he didn't want a three-way, but . . .

"It seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me," Browner begins his very weird account of a time when he and Sarah were left alone together. According to Browner, they have a restrained Victorian flirty conversation, and Browner just moves his hand toward Sarah "in a kindly way," which she grabs in her hands that are, according to Jim, hot with implied desire. "I looked into her eyes and I read it all there. There was no need for her to speak . . ." And he, being a faithful husband, pulls his hand away.

At which point, Sarah Cushing laughs like a super-villain and hates Jim forever, plotting to make everyone else hate him, make his wife cheat on him . . . all because he wouldn't let her hold his hand.

Now, knowing what we know of men and women, how likely was that whole scenario versus a very different scenario.

Browner says he "had never a thought" of Sarah while his wife was around, and now his wife wasn't around. Was he drinking? I don't trust that he wasn't. Did he try to force himself on Sarah Cushing, who had previously seemed so proud and tall to Jim? That would certainly be a very real cause of the sister hating him and trying to get his wife to see her side of things. Much more likely than spurned hand-holding. 

Sarah avoids him after that incident. "She had some reason to be disgusted with me now," Browner says so innocently, like he just has no idea how that could happen. Sarah starts bringing her own sailor friend in, and then moves out to surround herself with sailors . . . almost like she's trying to protect herself from someone while staying near enough to her younger sister to try to help her.

Browner's tale moves forward, and eventually he sees his wife talking to Alec Fairbairn on the street, then going for a boat ride. He blames what follows on drunken rage, but here's the thing. He stabs two people to death in what seems like a jealous range, but is somehow not thinking of them or blaming them as he IMMEDIATELY starts thinking of Sarah Cushing and how he can send her those ears.

As we've seen a lot in modern politics, there's this little thing called "transference," which someone sees someone else as guilty of the very evil they themselves are doing. Jim Browner claims that Sarah Cushing was out for revenge after he rejected her. But everything Jim Browner is going to jail for seems like the vengeance of a man who was rejected by his wife's sister.

Sarah Cushing never gets to tell her story because she's traumatized by the whole thing into "brain fever," which was a catch-all name that probably covered all sorts of post-traumatic issues. Like the abuse and constant dread of learning a man she feared had finally acted out as she feared and was likely coming for her next. Because that guy sucked.

I'm even kind of angry with Watson for getting lazy and just including Browner's bull crap story verbatim in his own story, without verifying any details or even attempting to talk to Sarah Cushing. And with Sherlock Holmes for just taking in that story and going "What is the meaning of it, Watson?" and just being all whiney about the state of humanity instead of looking for the real truth of the matter.

Because Jim Browner? THIS GUY SUCKS.