Cold case files - The Riddle Case

[wickywackywoo2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 107150

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Vanessa" <vheggie at y...> wrote:

> 
> Firstly, it's not unusual, given that the household
> `only' has three 
> servants, for them to go to bed before the family.  In the super-
> rich, super-servanted households (I'm sure that's not a
> word!)  you 
> might expect ladies' maids to assist with undressing and
> preparing 
> beds, and butlers (etc) to deal with drinks; possibly also an 
> undercook to prepare a cold cut supper, or suchlike.  But since they 
> don't exist, the pattern of sending servants to bed (or at least, 
> telling them they're dismissed) wouldn't be at all unusual.  
> Frankly, if I were the one who had to get up at 6am to heat the 
> stove and make coffee, I'd go to bed early too, even if the
> family 
> were still up drinking and smoking cigars at 11pm.  Equally, it's 
> unlikely that the servant quarters were situated close to the living 
> areas of the family; more likely they were attic rooms, or rooms on 
> the lower floor near the kitchen and scullery; mostly because, after 
> all, one would not want the servants overhearing one's
> conversation!
> Although the cook suggests it happened while "we was all
> sleeping", 
> that doesn't even indicate that the Riddles were up particularly 
> late, it just means that the family had no interaction with the 
> servants after dinner, which is quite normal.  They may well have 
> been murdered early in the evening, after the cook and maid had been 
> dismissed, and were, say, sorting out the washing up (I'm sure
> all 
> that clinking of saucepans and plates would have covered up any 
> suspicious noises).

I took the maid's declaration that they were still "wearing their
dinner clothes" really to indicate that they had never gone to bed. 
So that might well point to an earlier time of death, rather than
later.  While the servants were still up?  Maybe, but to my mind, that
would argue less that this was a pre-meditated murder.  I mean, Tom
Riddle is a smart boy; if he had a plan and didn't want to be stopped
or interfered with, he'd do it when his victims were isolated and
unlikely to be able to summon help or even have someone accidentally
blunder onto the scene.  I guess we could say that he wouldn't care
even if a servant did hear or see something - he could kill a servant
as easily as a Riddle, but he doesn't seem like a *wasteful* kind of
person.  He goes more for the surgical strike, otherwise he could just
stand at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the afternoon and
blast the whole house to smithereens from a distance.  It's just not
his style. 
> 
> The problem with this sort of enquiry is that it's a scenario
> well 
> within the bounds of tradition or stereotype, and there are a 
> *million* different explanations, all of which are quite, quite 
> plausible.
> I mean, let's face it; the servants could have seen absolutely 
> everything, and then just had their memories altered by Riddle 
> afterwards.  Or he could have put them into a state of 
> unconsciousness.  Or the family knew he was coming and waited up 
> long after the servants had gone to bed.  Or they could have been in 
> the habit of staying up late anyway.  Or they just happened to have 
> dinner early that day.  Or the cook was tired and the maid was out 
> and about in town with her "boyfriend".  Or she was sick.
> Or... it's 
> just endless!

True enough, but then, that's the case with probably 85% of the
theories we post here.  Besides, it's fun!  We could do the same thing
about any issue you like - trying to figure out Madame Rosmerta's
daily schedule and estimating how many pints of butterbeer are sold at
the pub in Hogsmeade every day.  But I like to strategize on THIS
point, because I think that Rowling deliberately wrote it with pieces
of information missing, because she is going to come back to this
scene later.  It's an extraordinary interlude in the HP books, because
it breaks the pattern of involving Harry or his POV; the followup
scene, with Voldemort and Wormtail, is in the form of a dream, but the
antecedent scene is not known to Harry at all, and is completely
outside the framework of the regular story.  Also, it's written like a
murder mystery, and murder mysteries are meant to be figured out.  And
I don't think it's accidental that the family name is "Riddle".  This
IS a riddle; something is hidden here, and I want to figure out what
it is.  That I can't do it on my own, and have to wait for the author
to finish the story, doesn't spoil the fun of trying to beat her to
the ending, just as I do when I'm at about page 130 of a 156-page
Christie mystery.

Wanda