Usually the sleuth is presented as a streetwise, perceptive and analytically brilliant man. In most "cosy" crime fiction texts, these characteristics are often deposited into the one "ideal" persona. Examples of such characters include Edgar Allen Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, who exhibits brilliant incisiveness and Sherlock Holmes, whose appeal to logic is well renowned. In The Real Inspector Hound, Stoppard successfully "spoofs" this convention, by having multiple detectives, each unknown to the other. In the course of the investigation, the role of the sleuth is originally undertaken by the original Inspector Hound, but is replaced by Moon following the death of Birdboot. The real Inspector Hound himself, disguised in the form of Magnus Muldoon, the supposedly crippled half brother of the Late Lord Muldoon, is the last character to take the form of the sleuth:.
MAGNUS: I am not the real Magnus Muldoon! - It was a mere.
subterfuge! - And (standing up and removing his moustache) I now.
reveal myself as-.
CYNTHIA: You mean-?.
MAGNUS: Yes! - I am the real Inspector Hound!.
Stoppard both conforms to and subverts this convention to a certain degree by having the sleuth included, however the main sleuth (Birdboot) is upstaged and eventually killed by the real Inspector Hound, who came "out of the shadow" to successfully eliminate his counterpart.
A detailed setting is an integral part of any crime fiction text. In his play, Stoppard makes use of one of crimes most famous settings, the secluded country mansion, which bequeaths within it a supposedly "upper class" society. The first line spoken by Mrs Drudge: "Hello, the drawing-room of Lady Muldoon's country residence one morning in early spring" manages to give information regarding characters, time, season and location in one sentence. Indeed, Simon Gascoyne comments on " the treacherous swamps that surround this strangely inaccessible house". This setting is used to convey the convention of a "closed" setting, where no one in the play, most notably the criminal, can escape.