The Adventure of the Speckled Band

In “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle plays with the conventions of detective fiction. In most detective stories, the intrigue stems from watching the sleuth uncover the criminal’s identity, which is why these stories are sometimes called “whodunits.” However, in this short story, the murder weapon, not the murderer, is the mystery that Sherlock Holmes must solve. Dr. Roylott quickly emerges as the only plausible suspect, and the rest of the story seeks to discover the titular speckled band’s identity and its connection to the death of Helen Stoner’s sister.

Helen’s tale, like those of her mother and sister, thematically warns of the dangers of one-sided love and loyalty. She comes to Baker Street “in a pitiable state of agitation” (142) and tells Holmes and Watson of her past griefs and current fears. After Helen’s father died, her mother married Dr. Grimesby Roylott, “a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger” (144). Due to her misplaced faith in her second husband, Mrs. Stoner entrusted her fortune to Dr. Roylott with the stipulation that her daughters each receive a portion of the trust (£250) if they married. Two years ago, Julia found love and died “within a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding” (145). After her twin’s death, Helen remains with her stepfather, either unable or unwilling to cast off her filial loyalty to him. Following Helen’s recent engagement, Dr. Roylott initiates a construction project that forces her to move into Julia’s room, and some of the strange circumstances surrounding her sister’s death begin to reoccur. This alarming turn of events prompts Helen to seek Holmes’s help. Further demonstrating her dangerously unreciprocated loyalty, Helen does not intend to implicate her stepfather even though he has a clear motive and her wrist bears “[f]ive little livid spots” from his grip (147).

Dr. Roylott’s betrayal of his late wife’s memory and his stepdaughters shows the corrosive nature of greed, another central theme. Years ago, the doctor built a successful medical practice in India, but he lost everything because he values money over human life. Enraged by a series of robberies, he “beat his native butler to death and narrowly escaped a capital sentence” (144). Later, Dr. Roylott’s greed drives him to violence against his own family. His covetous desire to keep his stepdaughters’ inheritance for himself gives him “the very strongest motives” (149) to prevent them from marrying. Avarice drives him to murder Julia, and he attempts to take Helen’s life as well. Greed corrupts Dr. Grimesby Roylott, twisting the once accomplished medical man into an adversary worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

Doyle adds suspense and plays with genre conventions by making Holmes go toe to toe with Dr. Roylott. In earlier detective stories, sleuths like Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin arrive on the crime scene after the danger has passed. They pursue detective work as an amusing hobby and an outlet for their intellectual strengths. Doyle alters this formula by sending Holmes into the heart of the action, where he must rely on his brawn as well as his brains to solve the case. Holmes’s struggle against Roylott forms the story’s major conflict. On one level, this conflict is a battle of wits as the detective tries to prove that the doctor murdered Julia. On another level, Dr. Roylott presents an ongoing threat not only to Helen, his next intended victim, but also to Watson and even Holmes himself. Almost immediately after Helen leaves Baker Street, Watson reports how “our door had been suddenly dashed open, and […] a huge man had framed himself in the aperture” (148). Dr. Roylott’s sudden, invasive act shows that Holmes places himself at risk from the moment he accepts the case. The detective parries Roylott’s threats with sarcastic quips, but the danger is clear: The villain knows his name and home address and will not hesitate to use violence if he catches Holmes pursuing the investigation.

After the compromised safety of Baker Street, Stoke Moran provides an ominous setting for Dr. Roylott’s villainous deeds and serves as a motif for his family’s decline. The manor’s decay thematically mirrors the Roylott family’s dwindling power and status. Generations ago, the family’s “estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west” (144), but the family’s numbers and prospects wane until only Dr. Grimesby Roylott and Stoke Moran remain. As Holmes and Watson explore the manor’s grounds, the narrator calls the Roylott homestead “a picture of ruin” (150). This description also applies to Dr. Roylott’s eroding power; his late wife’s fortune is shrinking, and his violent ways have earned him an infamous reputation in society. The setting of Stoke Moran also creates a menacing mood that intensifies the story’s suspense. For example, the manor has “two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side” (150). This simile describes Stoke Moran as though it is alive and waiting to seize anyone unfortunate enough to fall into its grasp. The comparison fits because Dr. Roylott has set a trap for Helen inside Julia’s old room, a trap that Holmes and Watson enter willingly to protect their client. Even the quasi-superhuman detective experiences anxiety and shock on the night of the mystery’s conclusion. As Holmes and Watson cross the grounds of Stoke Moran, the doctor’s baboon appears. Watson describes how “Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like a vice upon my wrist in his agitation” (154). As in many moments throughout the novel, Doyle’s use of first-person narration here enhances the suspense.

Holmes solves the case by combining the traits of a detective with those of an adventurer. Like a traditional sleuth, he uses reason to deduce that the speckled band is a venomous snake that Dr. Roylott sends into his stepdaughter’s room. However, he needs more than calm rationality to save himself and Watson from the deadly serpent: The detective’s face is “deadly pale and filled with horror and loathing” as he strikes “furiously with his cane at the bell-pull” (155). The snake retreats from Holmes’s attack and directs its venomous fury against its master. Thus, the snake acts as a symbol for Dr. Roylott’s self-destructive rage and administers a fatal dose of poetic justice to the murderous doctor. Doyle’s innovative use of detective fiction’s conventions makes this story both a thought-provoking mystery and a suspenseful adventure.