It is typical of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes
stories that the great detective explains his whole line of reasoning--almost invariably
to his friend and biographer Dr. Watson--near the very end of the story. This is
understandable, since the usual pattern of these stories is to describe what Holmes says
and does through the eyes and ears of Watson, but not to tell what Holmes might be
thinking. Watson himself usually sees the same things as Holmes, since they are both
together at the scene, but Watson is not capable of making the same kinds of deductions
as his friend. Since the reader is getting the whole narrative from Watson, the reader
is challenged to make his own deductions from the evidence. These deductions may be
correct or incorrect, or partially correct and partially incorrect, but the reader
cannot be sure about his suspicions or conclusions until he reaches the end of the
story. In "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," Sherlock Holmes explains all of his
observations and deductions in detail as follows:
"The presence of the gipsies, and the use of the
word ‘band,’ which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to explain the appearance which
she had caught a hurried glimpse of by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me
upon an entirely wrong scent. I can only claim the merit that I instantly reconsidered
my position when, however, it became clear to me that whatever danger threatened an
occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the door. My attention was
speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this ventilator, and to the
bell-rope which hung down to the bed. The discovery that this was a dummy, and that the
bed was clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was
there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and coming to the bed. The idea
of a snake instantly occurred to me, and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the
doctor was furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I was probably
on the right track. The idea of using a form of poison which could not possibly be
discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and
ruthless man who had had an Eastern training....It would be a sharp-eyed coroner,
indeed, who could distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where the
poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the whistle. Of course he must
recall the snake before the morning light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it,
probably by the use of the milk which we saw, to return to him when summoned. He would
put it through this ventilator at the hour that he thought best, with the certainty that
it would crawl down the rope and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the
occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but sooner or later she must
fall a victim.
"An inspection of his chair showed me that he
had been in the habit of standing on it, which of course would be necessary in order
that he should reach the ventilator. The sight of the safe, the saucer of milk, and the
loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The
metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her stepfather hastily
closing the door of his safe upon its terrible
occupant.
The presence of the
gipsies was intended to put the reader as well as Sherlock Holmes "upon an entirely
wrong scent." It was only too obvious from the beginning that the terrible Dr. Roylott
must be the villain in the piece. The gipsies make it just vaguely possible that someone
other than Roylott was responsible for Julia's death and is planning to murder her
sister Helen. But even if the gipsies are directly responsible for killing Julia, that
still doesn't exonerate Dr. Roylott. He is on exceptionally friendly terms with this
"band" of gipsies who camp on his estate. He could have paid them to kill Julia, and he
could be paying them to kill Helen.
It is only when
Sherlock Holmes, accompanied by his faithful friend Dr. Watson, inspects the room in
which Helen is now sleeping, along with the room directly next door which is occupied by
her stepfather, that he is able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. In Helen's
room he first notices the ventilator and the bell-rope. He quickly discovers that the
bell-rope is a dummy, which suggests that it is there for some sinister purpose. Then
when he finds that the bed has been bolted to the floor so that it cannot be moved to
any other part of the room, the idea of a snake, as he says, occurs to him instantly.
Holmes is expecting to find evidence of the existence of a poisonous snake even before
he enters Dr. Roylott's room. A man with Roylott's scientific background and knowledge
of Indian animals could possess a snake whose venom would not be detected upon
autopsy.
Then Holmes and Watson go into Dr. Roylott's room.
There the detective finds clues that convince him he has solved the mystery. The four
most important clues in the room are the chair, the safe, the saucer of milk, and the
whipcord with a loop on the end. Holmes could see that Roylott had been standing on the
chair in order to put the snake through the ventilator. Holmes assumes that Roylott
keeps the snake in the safe and that the snake must be there inside it right now. The
milk must have been used to train the snake to return through the ventilator, and the
whipcord must have been used to handle the dangerous swamp
adder.
Holmes already knew before coming down to Stoke
Moran that Dr. Roylott was having financial troubles and that he was legally bound to
pay either stepdaughter one-third of the income from the girls' mother's estate when
either of them got married. That would have meant financial ruin for Roylott. Julia died
shortly before she was to be married. Helen was not in danger for two full years--but
then she became engaged to be married within a month or six weeks. It was right after
Roylott learned of Helen's engagement that he found an excuse to move her into the room
next to his, and she had only been occupying the room for two nights when she first
heard the whistle which, as she tells Holmes, had been the herald of her sister's
death.
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