What unusual items does Holmes discover in Dr. Roylott's room?
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 can pick up any clues that will help them solve this most perplexing mystery.
As they're looking around, Holmes's eye is caught by a saucer of milk sitting on top of a safe. No one at Stoke Moran owns a cat; not a domestic cat, anyway. There's a cheetah in the house, but such a small saucer of milk would be woefully inadequate for such a large creature. Nor would it be much use for Dr. Roylott's baboon. This leads Holmes to conclude that the Stoner sisters' wicked stepfather must have another exotic creature on the premises.
Holmes's attention is also drawn to another strange item in Roylott's bedroom: a dog leash with a...
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loop fashioned to the end of it. It doesn't take someone with the deductive abilities of Holmes to work out that the leash is unsuitable for either a cheetah or a baboon. Once again, it would appear that there is a much smaller, but no less exotic, creature, lurking around somewhere at Stoke Moran.
As it transpires, Holmes's deductions are, as always, correct. Roylott was using the saucer of milk as a reward for the swamp adder he'd been training to slither through the ventilator and attack the Stoner sisters. And the dog leash was used by him to control the snake and return it to the safe once it had performed its grisly task.
What interesting points does Holmes find in Roylott's bedroom?
In "The Adventures of the Speckled Band," Holmes actually investigates both Helen's room (the same room which her sister had earlier died in) and, later, Roylett's rooms. Details concerning both rooms provide key clues which he uses to discern the nature of the case, which he clarifies at the end of the story, in his explanation for Doctor Watson.
By the time he's begun searching Roylett's room, he's already seen Helen's room—and so he already has some suspicions, thanks to the dummy bell-rope, the ventilator, and the bed which was clamped to the floor. As he inspects Roylett's room, he finds further evidence which confirms much of his theory as to the nature of Roylett's crimes. As Sherlock tells Watson at the story's end: "an inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of standing on it."
Furthermore, there's the saucer of milk which had been used as a means of training the snake. As Holmes tells Watson, "the sight of the safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipchord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which may have remained."
When Sherlock Holmes goes in to Dr Roylott’s room, he observes that it is very sparsely furnished.
A camp-bed, a small wooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an armchair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a round table, and a large iron safe were the principal things which met the eye.
Holmes is suspicious of the locked safe in the bedroom. The first strange item is a saucer of milk placed next to the safe. The second item is a dog leash at the end of the Doctor’s bed. It is unusual in the way in which it is coiled –
The lash, however, was curled upon itself and tied so as to make a loop of whipcord.
When searching Miss Stoner's room, he is suspicious of the dummy bell pull, and the fact that the bed is secured to the floor.