Student Question
What two observations does Holmes make about his client and what facts support them?
Quick answer:
Sherlock Holmes makes two key observations about his client, Helen Stoner. First, he deduces she traveled by train and dog-cart due to the train ticket stub in her glove and mud spatters on her jacket. Second, he observes bruises on her wrist, suggesting abuse by her stepfather, Dr. Roylott. These deductions reveal Holmes's keen observational skills and the abusive environment Helen endures, setting the stage for solving the mystery of her sister's death.
Holmes tells Helen Stoner first observations about her.
"You have come in by train this morning, I see....You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station.”
When she reacts with surprise, he explains that he can see the second-half of a return train ticket in the palm of her glove. As far as the dog-cart is concerned, he explains:
“The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver.”
We learn from her story that she lives with her stepfather Dr. Grimesby Roylott at his estate at Stoke Moran. She had to take a dog cart from the nearby...
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inn to get to the train station at Leatherhead, which is only a short distance from London. She adds that she took a cab from Waterloo Station to Holmes' address at Baker Street. She had gotten his name and address some time earlier from a friend whom Holmes had assisted professionally.
During their conversation, Holmes does something which seems unusual for a man of his undemonstrative character.
“You must not fear,” said he soothingly, bending forward and patting her forearm. “We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt."
Later we learn that he must have done this because he wanted to get a look at her wrist. Ladies in those Victorian days wore dresses with long sleeves that covered their arms all the way down to their hands. When Holmes patted her forearm, he must have intentionally moved her sleeve back enough so that he could see her all of her wrist. He had already detected something there.
“You have done wisely,” said my friend. “But have you told me all?”
“Yes, all.”
“Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed the hand that lay upon our visitor's knee. Five little livid spots, the marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed upon the white wrist.
“You have been cruelly used,” said Holmes.
This constitutes Holmes' second observation regarding his client and explains the facts on which he bases it. The author's purpose in including this observation and dialogue is not merely to characterize Dr. Roylott as a violent man. Conan Doyle wishes to show that Helen is protective of her stepfather. At the beginning of the story Watson writes:
The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given.
Helen had gotten Watson to promise not to write about the adventure with the speckled band because she was being protective of her stepfather even after he was killed by his own poisonous snake. She is concerned about protecting the family name. Evidently she met with an "untimely death" which freed Watson to write the whole story under the title of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." Watson does not explain how Helen died, but since she was engaged to be married it is possible that she died in childbirth, which was far more common in earlier times than it is today.
Conan Doyle's whole purpose in showing Helen Stoner's concern about her stepfather's and her own reputation seems to be to explain why Watson is writing about an incident that occurred a long time ago. Watson must specify that this was an old case because he was still living at 221B Baker Street when Helen Stoner paid her early-morning visit. There was no way that Watson could have gotten involved in the case if he hadn't been present when Helen first arrived. As a matter of fact, he was sound asleep in his room when Holmes woke him up. Because of Victorian inhibitions, both men had to get fully dressed and meet with Helen in the downstairs sitting-room, since a young lady could not possibly meet with two men in their own rooms. And Helen has to arrive at Baker Street very early in order to fit the needs of the plot.
The whole case is settled in less than twenty-four hours. Holmes and Watson travel down to Stoke Moran that afternoon. Holmes inspects the premises. The two friends rent a room at the nearby Crown Inn, where they could see Helen's candle signaling that her stepfather was asleep. They hide in Helen's room until shortly after three-thirty in the morning, and then Holmes drives the snake back up the bell-rope and through the ventilator, where it kills its unprepared owner Dr. Roylott with one lethal bite. In a single day Holmes has not only saved his client from being murdered, but he has solved the two-year-old "locked room murder mystery" of her sister Julia's death.