"The Speckled Band" is a classic
locked-room mystery that deals with the themes of parental greed, inheritance and freedom. Tinged with Gothic elements, it is considered by many to be one of Doyle's finest works, with the author himself calling it his best story.[1] The story, alongside the rest of the
Sherlock Holmes canon, has become a defining part of
detective fiction. It has been adapted for television, film, theatre, radio and a video game. It is part of the exhibit at the
Sherlock Holmes Museum. The
theatrical adaptation was written and produced by Doyle himself, directed by and starring
Lyn Harding as Grimesby Roylott. The role of Holmes was played by
H. A. Saintsbury. Doyle famously clashed with Harding over several details of the script, but later reconciled with him after the universal success of the play.[2]
Plot summary
In April 1883,
Sherlock Holmes and
Dr Watson rise early one morning to meet a young woman named Helen Stoner, who fears that her stepfather, Dr Grimesby Roylott, is threatening her life. She explains that Roylott is a violent doctor of great physical strength who practised in
Calcutta,
India; he is the impoverished sole survivor of a formerly wealthy but ill-tempered and amoral
aristocraticAnglo-Saxon family in
Surrey; and was married to Helen's late mother, a wealthy widow, 30 years prior. After serving time in an Indian prison for killing his Indian butler in a rage, Roylott had moved to England to reestablish his practice, but retired after his wife was killed in a railway accident eight years prior.
Furthermore, Helen's twin sister Julia died two years prior, shortly before her wedding day. Despite hearing her last words, "The speckled band!", Helen cannot make sense of them. Now that she is engaged, she has also begun hearing strange noises and observing strange activities around her heavily
mortgaged countryside home of Stoke Moran, which Roylott has made extensive modifications to even before Julia's death. Of particular note, he is having an outside wall repaired, forcing Helen to move into the room where Julia died.
After Holmes agrees to take the case, he is visited by Roylott, who threatens to harm him if he interferes. Undaunted, Holmes leaves for the courthouse to examine Helen's mother's will before joining Watson in traveling to Stoke Moran, where he scrutinizes the premises. Within Helen's room, he discovers her bed is anchored to the floor, an unconnected bell cord has been installed, and a ventilator hole connects her room to Roylott's. Holmes and Watson arrange to stay the night in Helen's room.
At three a.m., a slight metallic noise and a dim light through the ventilator prompts Holmes to light a candle. He soon sees the "speckled band", a venomous
snake, on the bell cord and strikes at it with his riding crop. Agitated, it flees back through the ventilator and kills Roylott, who had sent it to kill Helen and was awaiting its return. Holmes identifies the snake as an Indian swamp adder and reveals to Watson that the mother's will initially provided an annual income of £1,100 before dropping to £750 sterling when she died, of which each her daughters could claim one-third [£250] upon marriage. Desiring all of the income for himself, Roylott schemed to murder his step-daughters. Though Holmes also admits to indirectly killing Roylott, he does not foresee it troubling him and chooses not to tell the police Roylott's full motive to spare Helen any further grief.
Inspirations
Richard Lancelyn Green, the editor of the 2000 Oxford paperback edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, surmises that Doyle's source for the story appears to have been the article named "Called on by a Boa Constrictor. A West African Adventure" in Cassell's Saturday Journal, published in February 1891.[1] In the article, a captain tells how he was dispatched to a remote camp in
West Africa to stay in a tumbledown cabin that belonged to a Portuguese trader. On the first night in the cabin, he is awoken by a creaking sound, and sees "a dark queer-looking thing hanging down through the ventilator above it". It turns out to be the largest Boa constrictor he has seen (more likely a python because there are no boas in Africa). He is paralysed with fear as the serpent comes down into the room. Unable to cry out for help, the captain spots an old bell that hung from a projecting beam above one of the windows. The bell cord had rotted away, but by means of a stick, he manages to ring it and raise the alarm.
Identity of 'the speckled band'
"It is a swamp adder!" cried Holmes; "the deadliest snake in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten."
The key characteristics to be considered in identification of the snake are:
A fast-acting neurotoxic venom, as opposed to the common haemotoxic venom of most snakes
Ability to climb well
Appearance described as a "yellow band with brownish speckles", a "squat, diamond-shaped" head, and a "puffed" neck
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" was first published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in February 1892, and in the United States in the US edition of the Strand in March 1892.[4] The story was published with nine illustrations by
Sidney Paget in The Strand Magazine.[5] It was included in the short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,[5] which was published in October 1892.[6]
Adaptations
Theatre
Conan Doyle wrote an adaptation for the stage in 1910, The Speckled Band.[7] It premiered at the Adelphi Theatre, London, on 4 June 1910, under the name The Stonor Case.
In autumn 2013, a new stage adaptation, Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band, by Max Gee premiered at Treasurer's House, York and Ripley Castle, Ripley, North Yorks. The play was produced by Theatre Mill, directed by Samuel Wood, and starred Liam Tims as Holmes and Adam Elms as Watson.[8]
Film
The short story was also adapted for the now-
lost 1912 British–French short film The Speckled Band as part of the
Éclair film series featuring
Georges Tréville as Sherlock Holmes.[9][10]
The 1944 film The Spider Woman is based on several Holmes stories, among them "The Speckled Band".[13]
Radio and audio dramas
The premiere episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes featured an adaptation of the story on 20 October 1930 and starred
William Gillette as Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Watson.[14] The production was adapted by
Edith Meiser. A remake of the script aired on 17 September 1931, with
Richard Gordon playing Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell again playing Dr. Watson.[15] Another dramatisation of the story aired in February 1933 with Gordon and Lovell, though it is unclear if this was a repeated recording or a new production.[16] A remake of the script aired on 1 February 1936, with Gordon as Holmes and Harry West as Watson.[17]
A half-hour radio adaptation starring
Basil Rathbone and
Nigel Bruce was broadcast as an episode of the series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on 16 October 1939, again adapted by Edith Meiser.[18] Other episodes adapted from the story also aired in March 1941,[19] October 1943,[20] and November 1945, again with Rathbone and Bruce playing Holmes and Watson respectively.[21][22] A half-hour radio adaptation starring
Tom Conway as Holmes and Bruce as Watson was broadcast on 23 June 1947.[23][24] A half-hour radio adaptation starring John Stanley as Holmes and
Wendell Holmes (using the pseudonym "
George Spelvin") as Watson aired as an episode of the same series on 19 December 1948, and was adapted by
Max Ehrlich.[25][26]
A 1948 radio adaptation on the Home Service, also adapted by John Dickson Carr, featured
Howard Marion-Crawford as Holmes, with Finlay Currie again playing Watson.[27] Howard Marion-Crawford later played Watson in the 1954–1955 television series Sherlock Holmes.
In 1970, an audio drama based on the story was released on
LP record, as one of several recordings starring
Robert Hardy as Holmes and
Nigel Stock as Watson. It was dramatised and produced by Michael Hardwick (who also adapted the 1962 radio adaptation) and
Mollie Hardwick.[30]
A one-hour radio adaptation was broadcast as an episode of the series CBS Radio Mystery Theater on 28 June 1977.[31] The episode starred
Kevin McCarthy as Sherlock Holmes and Court Benson as Dr. Watson.[32]
In June 2011
Big Finish Productions produced a reading of the story as Sherlock Holmes: The Speckled Band starring
Nicholas Briggs as Sherlock Holmes and Richard Earl as Dr. Watson.[34]
A half-hour television adaptation starring
Alan Napier and
Melville Cooper was broadcast as the tenth episode of the
NBC Television series Your Show Time on 25 March 1949.[36] This is one of the earliest known television appearances of Holmes.
The pilot episode of the BBC's 1964–1965 series Sherlock Holmes was a new version of "The Speckled Band", airing in May 1964 as part of the Detective anthology series. The episode was written by
Giles Cooper, was directed by Robin Midgley, and starred
Douglas Wilmer as Holmes,
Nigel Stock as Watson and
Felix Felton as Roylott.[37]
"The Speckled Band" was adapted as part of the 1984–85 anime series Sherlock Hound. In this version, Moriarty poses as Roylott to steal Helen's money, and Hound gets involved when his motorcar breaks down and must stay at their home for the night.
Kōki Mitani adapted "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and "
The Creeping Man" to an episode in the NHK puppetry series Sherlock Holmes. One night a swamp adder with
crocus-shaped speckles is found in Beeton School. On the next day, trainee teacher Helen Stoner visits Holmes and Watson in 221B of Baker Dormitory and tells them about the strange behaviour of Grimesby Roylott who teaches chemistry. That night they find out what his behaviour means but Sherman, a female pupil is attacked by the adder.[39]
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures adapted "The Speckled Band" into the game's second episode, "The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band". In the episode, the protagonist, Ryunosuke Naruhodo, aids
Herlock Sholmes (named "Sherlock Holmes" in the original Japanese released; changed in localisation for legal reasons) in the investigation, the protagonist's best friend, Kazuma Asogi, takes the place as the victim, and the culprit's true identity is changed to a Russian asylum seeker who was only going by the alias of Roylott to hide her identity. In the middle of the case, Sholmes deduces the story's original conclusion. However, Ryunosuke's partner, Susato Mikotoba, points out the numerous issues regarding the biology of snakes. Thanks to Ryunosuke, it is eventually deduced that the victim's death was caused by him tripping over a cat after being shoved, breaking his neck on a bedpost, and that the "speckled band" refers to a cat teaser toy.[citation needed] Later in the game's fourth episode; "The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro," Herlock's assistant, Iris Wilson, adapts the events into "The Speckled Band", but changes some details around to make it more interesting to the audience such as by making the snake the murder weapon, fully aware that this wouldn't make sense considering the biology of snakes.[citation needed]
^Payton, Gordon; Grams, Martin Jr. (2015) [1999]. The CBS Radio Mystery Theater: An Episode Guide and Handbook to Nine Years of Broadcasting, 1974-1982 (Reprinted ed.). McFarland. p. 214.
ISBN9780786492282.
^Shinjiro Okazaki and Kenichi Fujita (ed.), "シャーロックホームズ冒険ファンブック Shârokku Hômuzu Boken Fan Bukku", Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2014, pp. 46-48, p. 53 and pp. 82-83.(Guidebook to the show)