What special bond did Helen and Julia share in The Adventure of the Speckled Band?
Helen and Julia Stoner are sisters: twins, actually. Helen Stoner comes to hire Sherlock Holmes to investigate the death of Julia, her sister, which occurred while the pair was living with their stepfather, Dr. Roylott. Years prior, in India, Dr. Roylott had married Mrs. Stoner, the mother of Helen and Julia, who had been widowed by the death of their father—her first husband, Major-General Stoner. The two girls were only two years of age when their mother remarried. Mrs. Roylott, nee Stoner, was actually quite wealthy, and she willed the vast majority of her money to her new husband upon their marriage. The only money payable to her daughters would come to them if and when they married. When the family returned to England, the girls' mother died in a railroad accident. Dr. Roylott then took the girls with him to live at Stoke Moran, the old family property. Helen...
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describes Dr. Roylott's horrific temper and violent patterns of behavior, saying that she and Julia were both unhappy for quite a long time. Then, however, Julia died mysteriously about two years ago, just two weeks before her wedding was scheduled to take place (and before some of her mother's money would have come to her). Though Dr. Roylott had behaved as one would anticipate a caring stepfather would, the coroner could find no cause of death, and in Julia's final moments, the doomed woman pointed toward her stepfather's room as if to indicate he bore some responsibility.