The Adventure of the Speckled Band

There are other suggestive circumstances that should make the reader suspect that Dr. Roylott is responsible for the death of Julia Stoner and is trying to murder her sister Helen. These are not...

The three most important clues are all seen by Sherlock Holmes in the room at Stoke Moran currently being occupied by Helen Stoner, which had been her sister Julia's room when she died two years...

There were several strange modifications to the rooms in which both of the Roylott ladies resided. The fact that there was any work going on at all at the house was immediately suspicious: Some...

Short Answer: Julia dies after being bitten by her step-father's venomous swamp adder. At the beginning of the story, Helen Stoner visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and explains to them that...

The exposition sets up the problem for Holmes to unravel, understand and solve. In this story, it is brought to him by Miss Stoner who is newly engaged and deeply concerned about a recurrence of...

Dr Grimesby Roylott is a violent, aggressive and intimidating character- he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger. He was very antisocial and unpopular He had...

The speckled band is really a poisonous snake. It was responsible for the death of Julia Stoner, but no one realized at the time that Julia had been bitten by a snake. According to Helen Stoner,...

Dr. Roylott was guilty of murdering Julia by sending a highly poisonous snake into her bedroom, which was adjacent to his. The snake would crawl through the ventilator and down the dummy bell-rope...

"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is an example of a sub-genre of mystery stories commonly called a "Locked Room Murder Mystery." Julia was in her bedroom when she experienced the pains and...

A physical description of Helen Stoner is in paragraph 10 at the beginning of the story. It says, ".....her face all drawn and grey, with restless frightened eyes, like those of some hunted...

After Holmes has carefully examined the three bedrooms at Stoke Moran, he tells Helen that she must sleep in her old bedroom and that he and Watson will spend the night in the bedroom she has...

It is typical of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories that the great detective explains his whole line of reasoning--almost invariably to his friend and biographer Dr. Watson--near the very...

The two sounds that stand out in Helen's memory of the night of her sister's death are described by her to Sherlock Holmes at their initial meeting in the early morning. As I opened my door I...

Dr. Roylott is characterized as a strong, intimidating, and sometimes cruel man. One of the events in Dr. Roylott's life that shows both his strength and his cruelty happened while he lived in...

From reading the many Sherlock Holmes stories set in the country, we are familiar with the customary way of getting to rather remote places. Holmes and Watson frequently take a train to a rural...

"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is a story of the type sometimes called a "locked-room mystery," in which the deceased has apparently taken every possible precaution against their own death....

When Sherlock Holmes is inspecting the bedrooms at Stoke Moran, he finds many clues. In Helen Stoner's room he finds a ventilator that only leads into Dr. Roylott's room next door rather than to...

The rope, the ventilator and Julia's clamped bed all represent Dr Roylott's devilish plan to murder his own daughters for the sake of their money. He uses one of his exotic pets, a snake, to...

Most Sherlock Holmes stories are solved with the same formula. Holmes and Watson are usually sought out by someone in distress who tells them of their problem. Then the duo set out to...

When Helen Stoner first visits Sherlock Holmes, she describes sounds that she has been hearing in the night: during the last few nights I have always, about three in the morning, heard a low,...

Dr. Roylett's motive was money. His wife's will stated that the total income they would get from her estate would be 100 pounds. Due to the fact that agriculture prices had fallen, the estate was...

At the end of the story, after Helen Stoner has been saved from death and Dr. Grimesby Roylott has been killed by his own snake, Holmes tells Watson all about his deductions from the evidence found...

When Helen Stoner comes to see Sherlock Holmes at Baker Street in the early morning, she tells him, significantly: “When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner....My sister...

Holmes advises Helen to remain in her present room until Dr. Roylott retires for the night. Roylott is a violent man. He might subject Helen to verbal and even physical abuse after learning that...

In the Arthur Conan Doyle story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” Dr. Grimesby Roylott tries to kill his stepdaughter, Helen Stoner, by introducing a deadly snake into her room to bite her....

Dr. Ryloth trained his snake, the “swamp adder” to bite his niece Julia so he did not have to give her the family fortune when she married. Dr. Ryloth was a sinister criminal. Sherlock Holmes...

When Dr. Grimesby Roylott comes to 221B Baker Street from Stoke Moran to confront Sherlock Holmes, he warns Holmes not to meddle in his affairs: "See that you keep yourself out of my grip," he...

In the short story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a woman named Helen Stoner approaches Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in fear that her life is threatened by her...

Holmes caught Dr. Grimesby Roylott in the act of attempting to murder his niece Helen Stoner by using a deadly poisonous snake he had obtained from India. Holmes had instructed Helen not to sleep...

The short answer to this is that Helen Stoner, in the story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” comes to see Sherlock Holmes because she fears that someone is going to try to kill her. The...

In "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," the principal crime occurred two years ago when Helen Stoner's sister Julia was murdered by their stepfather Dr. Grimesby Roylott. He was also guilty of the...

When Helen Stoner arrives at 221B Baker Street to meet with Sherlock Holmes, he notes several things about her appearance. The first thing he sees is that she is shivering, and when he mentions it,...

It's fair to say that Holmes isn't exactly all cut up over Dr. Roylott's death. He knows just what kind of a nasty, thieving, murderous brute of a man he really was. One night, Holmes and Dr....

"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" begins in the familiar setting of 221B Baker Street in London, where so many of the Sherlock Holmes stories begin and end. It is still a time when Watson is...

After examining Helen Stoner's bedroom, Sherlock Holmes has concluded that Dr. Roylott is sending a snake through their communicating ventilator. He tells Watson later: My attention was speedily...

This last line of the short story is spoken by Sherlock Holmes. He is explaining how he got the poisonous snake Dr. Grimesby Roylott was using as a murder weapon to turn on Roylott and bite him....

No, the gypsies had nothing to do with the death of the girl. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put the gypsies in the story to lead the reader astray. In fact, it led Sherlock Holmes astray too. The...

The answer to your question comes near the beginning of the story, when Miss Helen Stoner comes to visit Sherlock Holmes to present her mystery. She is the stepdaughter of Dr. Roylott, and speaks...

1. The speckled band pertains to the stripes, or bands, on the extremely poisonous snake from India, a swamp adder. Its owner, Sir Grimesby Roylott, killed his wife with this snake which he sent...

Holmes brings Watson’s pistol. A woman named Helen Stoner comes to hire Holmes to say that her sister was killed and she is afraid she is next, because she is the heir to a will and has an evil...

The point of view in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," as in other Sherlock Holmes stories, is first person limited. Specifically, the narrator, Dr. John Watson, is a first person witness...

Before Julia died she had told her sister Helen about hearing a strange whistling but could not tell exactly where it was coming from. Helen explains to Holmes and Watson why she is presently...

Watson, the narrator of nearly all the Sherlock Holmes stories, tells us that "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" took place at a time in the past when he was still sharing rooms at 221B Baker...

By using his powers of deduction, Sherlock Holmes eventually solves the earlier murder of Julia Stoner and prevents the murder of her twin sister, Helen Stoner. Unfortunately for their homicidal...

After talking with Helen Stoner for a long time in the early morning, and after the tumultuous intrusion of her stepfather Dr. Roylott, Holmes goes to Doctors' Commons to do some research. When he...

As is always the case, Holmes arrives at the solution to the mystery by a lengthy process of deduction. Quite early on, he figures out that someone must have sneaked into Julia's bedroom to kill...

Helen Stoner is afraid Sherlock Holmes will refuse to help her because she does not have enough money to pay his fee. She tells him: Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me, too, and at...

With Dr. Roylott out of the house and unlikely to return to Stoke Moran before evening, it's a good opportunity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to go snooping around his bedroom to see if they...

Helen Stoner tells Holmes that her stepfather is a violent and quarrelsome man. Helen Stoner comes to see the detective Sherlock Holmes when her sister is killed. She feels that her sister died in...

Julia Stoner's last words involved a speckled band, which might lead people to think a gypsy did it. Helen Stoner comes to hire Sherlock Holmes because her twin sister died in suspicious...