Peter Carey
From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Fictional character.
In the Sherlock Holmes stories
- Peter Carey was born in '45. He was a most daring and successful seal and whale fisher. In 1883 he commanded the steam sealer Sea Unicorn, of Dundee. He had then had several successful voyages in succession, and in the following year, 1884, he retired. After that he travelled for some years, and finally he bought a small place called Woodman's Lee, near Forest Row, in Sussex. There he has lived for six years, and there he died aged fifty (BLAC 62).
- In ordinary life he was a strict Puritan — a silent, gloomy fellow. The man was an intermittent drunkard, and when he had the fit on him he was a perfect fiend. He has been known to drive his wife and his daughter out of doors in the middle of the night, and flog them through the park until the whole village outside the gates was aroused by their screams. He was summoned once for a savage assault upon the old vicar, who had called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct (BLAC 69).
- He killed J. H. Neligan on the Sea Unicorn (BLAC 492).
- When Patrick Cairns came to blackmail ("squeeze") Peter Carey for hush money over the crime and the tin box (BLAC 498), they fought and Peter Carey was killed with a harpoon (BLAC 475).
