Discussion Topic
Sounds Heard Before Julia Stoner's Death
Summary:
Before Julia Stoner's death, she heard a low whistling sound at around 3 AM, which she reported to her sister, Helen. On the night of her death, Julia mentioned these sounds, speculating they might come from Dr. Roylott's room or the lawn. Helen suggested Gypsies might be responsible. Later, Helen hears the same sound and consults Sherlock Holmes, who discovers that Dr. Roylott used the whistle to control a venomous snake, the true "speckled band," to murder Julia.
What two sounds did Helen Stoner hear the night her sister Julia died?
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 seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister described, and a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen.
The reader will not understand the meaning of either of these sounds until late into the story. The low whistle was used by the evil Dr. Roylott to recall his poisonous snake, "the speckled band," from the room next to his. He had trained the reptile to return in response to his whistle. He would blow the whistle at around three o'clock in the morning in order to make sure the girl would still be sound asleep and not discover a snake in her...
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bed. But evidently he did not realize that Julia had just been bitten at the time he blew the whistle--and perhaps Julia herself did not realize it until the poison started to take its effect. She woke up and struck a match in time to see the snake slithering back up the dummy bell-rope.
The "clanging sound" was made by the door of Dr. Roylott's steel safe, which was where the captive snake spent most of its time. Roylott must have heard the commotion outside in the corridor, but he obviously had to recapture the snake and lock it in his safe before he could put in an appearance. One of the things that arouses Sherlock Holmes' suspicions when he is examining Dr. Roylott's room is that steel safe.
“What's in here?” he asked, tapping the safe.
“My stepfather's business papers.”
“Oh! you have seen inside, then?”
“Only once, some years ago. I remember that it was full of papers.”
“There isn't a cat in it, for example?”
“No. What a strange idea!”
“Well, look at this!” He took up a small saucer of milk which stood on the top of it.
Roylott was using the milk as part of his training of the snake to return at the sound of the whistle. This would appear to be an early example of Pavlovian conditioning.
What sounds did Julia Stoner report hearing before her death?
Several nights before her death, Julia hears a low whistling sound in her room at about three o’clock in the morning. On the night of her death, Julia tells her sister Helen about these whistling sounds and asks her whether she too has heard them. She is not sure where the sounds come from; she conjectures that they could be coming from Dr. Roylott’s room or the lawn outside her room. Helen suggests that the sounds could be coming from the lawn outside, perhaps from the Gypsies who live in the plantation.
Unfortunately, Julia dies mysteriously later on that night in the corridor outside her room from what appears to be fright. Before dying, she tells Helen, who runs in to help her after hearing her terrified scream, “It was the band! The speckled band!” It is not clear what she meant by these words. Julia dies a fortnight before her wedding to a major of marines.
Two years after Julia’s death, Helen, who is about to get married, also hears the same low whistling sounds in Julia’s room. She moves into this room because her own room is under repair. Upon hearing these sounds, she approaches Sherlock Holmes and requests his help in investigating the weird goings-on in her home. Holmes visits her home, accompanied by his friend Watson. The two men then decide to spend the night in Julia’s room unbeknown to the Roylott household, except Helen.
Later that night, the two men determine that the whistling sounds were made by Dr. Roylott. The doctor would use these sounds to summon a swamp adder that he would then let into Julia’s room through a ventilator on the wall between his room and Julia’s. The snake is what Julia meant when she talked about a “speckled band” in her last minutes of life.