The beginning of all this difficult business was a little speech which Mrs. Thresk fell into a habit of making to her son. She spoke it the first time on the spur of the moment without thought or intention. But she saw that it hurt. So she used it again—to keep Henry in his proper place.
The little speech with Henry’s dear old mum proceeds to give again and again proceeds from the point of reminding him that he has “no right to talk” since, after all, he is still dependent upon his parents for his keep. If anything should befall Henry’s dad—god forbid—what would possibly do? After all—and this is the kicker—“everything has been left to me.” So, right from the very opening words, the image if Henry Thresk is made abundantly clear. He is not just a mama’s boy, but a boy with a domineering mother who is definitely not above manipulating poor Henry’s sad financial state. And it is Henry’s obsessive need to establish financial independence which is the straw that stirs the drink and the ladle that stirs the pot of this tale’s spiral into the courtroom.
"He was shot by a bullet from a little rook-rifle which belonged to Stella, and which she was in the habit of using."
The “he” is Mr. Ballantyne, husband of Stella. Stella is the love of Henry Thresk’s life whom he sacrifices to Ballantyne because he is not yet financially dependent enough to take his eyes off that prize simply to claim victory of the spoils of romance. She goes off and marries a high-ranking official in the impenetrable hierarchy of Anglo-Indian affairs and one night in Bombay he winds up dead as a result of a bullet discharging from a rifle owned by none other than…well, you know. The determination of the circumstances and motivation and culpability for what might be simply a case of honest self-defense by an abuse woman against a husband who took things just one step too far one is the case which requires a witness on behalf of the defendant.
Chapter IV: "People get what they want if they want it enough, but they can't control the price they have to pay.”
Chapter XI: "You can get any single thing in life you want if you want it enough, but you cannot control the price you will have to pay for it.”
Chapter XI ( a few pages later): "You cannot control the price you will have to pay."
Chapter XXII: “You can get what you want, so long as you want it enough, but you cannot control the price you will have to pay."
Chapter XXVI: “Jane Repton said something to me in Bombay so true—you can get whatever you want if you want it enough, but you cannot control the price you will have to pay.”
In case it somehow got lost in translation, there is a moral to this tale and it arrives in the form of a warning against being aware that anyone can get anything in life if they truly want it enough and are willing to pay the price. The prices paid by the two protagonists are what is really at stake here. If one can figure out what it is Henry and Stella want enough to pay any price for, the deductive reasoning requiring to figure out that price is relatively easy. In the case of Henry, things are made much easier since right there on page one the reader is instantly made aware of what Henry wants most. Getting to the center of the question of what price Stella is willing to pay, however, is much trickier and a far more thorny premise. A premise upon which the entire book is constructed.
