Year 8 - English - 18.4.14

Summary of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”

Sherlock Holmes roused Dr. Watson early in the morning. A lady named Helen Stoner had come to the famous detective in a state of desperate fright. The two men went down to the sitting room to talk with her.

Helen's parents had died, and she was living at Stoke Moran with Grimesley Roylott, her stepfather. Grimesley belonged to a family that had once been well-to-do, but the family fortunes had fallen. Grimesley was an irascible man, and his anger sometimes got him into trouble. He had been a successful doctor in India, but he served a prison sentence after beating a butler to death. When he was released, he returned to England. He had a pet cheetah and a pet baboon.

Her twin sister Julia had died two years before under mysterious circumstances. On the night on which she died, she had left her bedroom because her stepfather was smoking an Indian cigar in his bedroom, which was right next to hers. She went to the bedroom of Helen and conversed with her for a considerable length of time. Julia had recently become engaged, so she had plenty to talk about.

She returned to her room at 11:00 P.M. Just before leaving, she asked Helen if she had ever heard a low whistle at night. For several nights, a whistling sound had awakened her. Helen had not heard it, but she was a heavier sleeper than Julia. There were gypsies on the premises, so the two sisters concluded that one of them had whistled.

After Julia left her sister's room, she entered her own bedroom and locked her door. After a while, Julia screamed. Helen went out into the corridor. As she emerged from her room, she thought that she heard a low whistle and then the sound of clanging metal.

Her sister also came out of the corridor. She was suffering severe pain. Before she died, she screamed: "It was the band! The speckled band!"

The authorities investigated the case carefully, but they could find no evidence of violence or poison. In addition, no one could have entered the room. Julia had locked the door from the inside. There was a window facing the outside, but the shutters were barred when Julia died. It was Helen's opinion that Julia had died of fright.

Helen had become engaged about a month before she came to seek the help of Sherlock Holmes. Now she had to sleep in the same room in which her sister had died, since her stepfather had decided to make some repairs in her own bedroom. During the previous night, she had heard the same low whistle that her sister had heard before her death. She immediately got dressed and slipped away to see Sherlock as soon as daylight appeared.

Sherlock wanted to conduct an investigation at Stoke Moran. Since the stepfather of Helen would probably be in town all day, he decided to go to the residence that afternoon.

After Helen had left, Grimesley rushed into the room. He wanted to know why his stepdaughter had paid him a visit. When Sherlock did not tell him, Grimesley threatened him and left.

As Sherlock had learned during his discussion with Helen, her mother had bequeathed all her money to Helen's stepfather, but the will specified that Helen would receive some money as soon as her wedding took place. Sherlock spent the morning finding out the details of the will. He learned that each sister was to receive 250 pounds when she got married. Thus Grimesley would lose 500 pounds if both of his stepdaughters got married. So Grimesley had a motive for murdering his stepdaughters when they got engaged.

In the afternoon, Sherlock and Dr. Watson went to Stoke Moran. He told Helen about Grimesley's visit.

While still outside, Sherlock noted that the part of the house in which Helen's room was situated did not really need any repairs. Helen thought that the repairs were probably an excuse to induce her to move into her sister's old bedroom. Sherlock also checked the window and found that it was impossible to enter that way when the shutters were barred.

Sherlock noticed that Julia's bedroom had a ventilator in the wall between her room and the room of her stepfather. He also noticed a rope that led from the ventilator to the pillow of the bed. Both the ventilator and the rope had been installed shortly before the death of Julia. Moreover, the bed was fastened to the floor, so that it could not be moved.

Sherlock noticed that the ventilator was useless. To ventilate effectively, it would have to let in air from outside the building. He also noticed that the rope was useless. It was supposed to be a bell rope, but there was no bell attached to it. Sherlock suspected that the real reason for the rope and the ventilator was to allow something deadly to crawl from the ventilator to the bed and kill whoever was sleeping there. He immediately thought of a poisonous snake. Since Grimesley had a cheetah and a baboon, he might have a snake also. Moreover, since he was a doctor in India, he would know whichpoisons could not be detected by current chemical tests. Sherlock concluded that Grimesley must have a snake with an undetectable poison.

When Sherlock entered the stepfather's room, Sherlock noticed a saucer of milk. The family had no cat except the cheetah. A little saucer of milk would not be enough to feed a cheetah, but it would be enough for a snake. Sherlock also noticed a safe and a dog-whip with an unusual loop tied in it. He suspected that Grimesley might be keeping the snake in the safe and using the dog-whip to handle the snake.

Sherlock also examined the seat of the chair and noted that someone was accustomed to stand upon it. Grimesley would have to stand on something before he could insert the snake into the ventilator.

Sherlock did not explain his conclusions at this time, but he warned Helen that she was in grave danger. He instructed her to lock herself in Julia's bedroom as soon as her stepfather came home. As an excuse, she could say that she had a headache. As soon as her stepfather went to bed, she should signal Sherlock and Dr. Watson by opening the shutter and putting her lamp in the window. Then she should quietly leave Julia's bedroom and spend the night in her own room. Sherlock and Dr. Watson would then slip through the window into Julia's bedroom and spend the night there.

Sherlock and Dr. Watson took a room at the Crown Inn, from where they could see the window of Julia's room. Sherlock told Dr. Watson that he knew in advance that there would be a ventilator between the two rooms. Otherwise, Julia would not have smelled cigar smoke during the night in which she died.

When the signal was given, they stole silently into the bedroom of Julia. They had to sit in the dark, since a light would have been seen through the ventilator.

Sherlock and Dr. Watson had to sit in the dark room for a long time. Suddenly they heard a hissing sound. Sherlock, who was sitting on the side of the bed, got up, lit a match, and started lashing at something with his cane. At the same time, they heard a low whistle. After a little while, they heard a horrible cry in the adjacent room.

By the time Sherlock and Dr. Watson entered the adjacent room, Grimesley was dead. A speckled snake was coiled about his head. It was a deadly swamp adder. Irritated by Sherlock's attack, it had bitten its master after it retreated through the ventilator.

Sherlock used the dog-whip to return it to the safe.

They took Helen to her aunt. The stepdaughter did not want to expose the crime of her stepfather to the public, so Sherlock did not tell the police what had happened. The coroner's jury concluded that Grimesley had died while playing with a dangerous pet.

Sherlock later explained to Dr. Watson that Julia's use of the word "band" originally made him suspect that the gypsies had been responsible for her death. However, he abandoned that conclusion after he had ascertained that her death could not have come through the window or through the door. He then explained to Dr. Watson how he had arrived at the correct conclusion. He also explained how the low whistle fit into the picture. Grimesley had trained the snake to come when he whistled, probably by rewarding it with milk when it obeyed the summons. If the snake did not bite the victim before the approach of dawn, he would call it back by a whistle and try again the following night. The metallic sound that Helen had heard on the night of Julia's death was made when Grimesley put the snake back into the safe and banged the door shut.

I was surprised to read that cheetahs and baboons were supposed to be Indian creatures. I had never run across any reference to either of these animals living in India.

I do not have the type of material that can definitively solve this problem. However, I found that a type of cheetah used to live in India, and I am confident that it was there when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this story, since the decline of cheetah populations is a twentieth century phenomenon.

As far as baboons are concerned, I checked out every species of baboon that I could find, and none of them currently live in India. I could not find any evidence as to whether baboons lived in India in the past.

I decided to check whether there were swamp adders in India. After checking the Internet, I doubt it. However, I am not acquainted with this snake. So I would have to inspect some dependable materials before I could judge the accuracy of the conflicting statements that appear on the Internet.

Plot Summary

In "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" Arthur Conan Doyle presents, for the reader's consideration, one of the most unusual cases in the long, illustrious career of Sherlock Holmes. The narrator, Holmes' friend and right hand man, Dr. Watson, fills us in on Holmes' legendary detective abilities, for the benefit of those readers who have not yet heard of the famous sleuth.

This case is brought to Holmes' attention by a distraught young woman named Helen Stoner. Miss Stoner seeks out Holmes in the early hours of the morning on a fine spring day in 1883. In her urgency, she wakes up the entire household because she must speak to Holmes right away. Holmes and the faithful Watson, always eager to hear an interesting mystery, invite her to share her problem.

Helen Stoner recounts for them the sad story of her life. Her mother, killed eight years ago, left Helen and her twin sister with a healthy inheritance and a violent stepfather. The stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott, comes from a noble but tragic bloodline. The Roylott family wealth has been squandered over time by the reckless and violent male heirs of the Roylott line. Since the death of Helen's mother, Dr. Roylott has been content to live off his dead wife's income. He indulges his violent nature frequently with his stepdaughters and with the surrounding villagers, who all fear the dreaded Roylott. His only friends are a band of gypsies who frequent Roylott's family home at Stoke Moran, as well as a cheetah and a baboon that are allowed to roam freely over the grounds.

The animals are imported from India, where Roylott had a medical practice for many years. Helen confides that back in India, Roylott killed their butler over a stolen property dispute and spent quite some time in prison for it. Nowadays he continues to cause trouble and terrorize the neighbors with his violence. Helen has wasted considerable money paying off the villagers after each one of these incidents. Helen appeals to Holmes to help her because she fears her stepfather is plotting against her life. However, she has absolutely no proof, and even her fiancé thinks her fears are groundless.

Helen fears for her life because her twin sister, Julia, died mysteriously two years ago at the family home in Stoke Moran some two weeks before her wedding. Helen's wedding date is now approaching, and as she relates the story of Julia's death, we see similarities to Helen's current situation. On the night she died, Julia mentioned to Helen that for the past several nights, she'd been woken by the sound of a low whistle in the dead of night. The same night she told Helen about the whistle, Julia died mysteriously in her locked room. Julia's last words referred to a "speckled band." Helen believes she died of fright but cannot imagine what frightened her sister so.

Helen's current agitation stems from the fact that her stepfather has begun repairs on Helen's bedroom, which has forced Helen to move into her dead sister's bedroom until the repairs are completed. Helen insists to Holmes that her room was never in need of repair at all and believes it's a ploy to move her into Julia's room. Finally, late last night while Helen was lying in bed, she heard it - the sound of a low whistle in the dead of night. Helen came straightaway to see Holmes and hire him to assist her. She explains to Holmes that she cannot pay him until after her wedding. She gets control of her inheritance only when she marries; until then it is in her stepfather's hands.

Holmes, always the gentleman, puts her mind at ease about his fee and agrees to meet her at Stoke Moran later that afternoon. Relieved, Helen leaves, and Holmes discusses the case with Watson. Holmes' initial theory is that Roylott has hired a gypsy friend to break into the bedroom and in some way cause his stepdaughters' deaths. Just then Roylott bursts through the door. He threatens Holmes by bending a steel poker in half. Roylott admits to having followed Helen there this morning and tells Holmes to stay out of his business. Holmes laughs off the encounter and bends the steel poker back in place.

Holmes goes off to research his theory that morning; in the process he reviews Helen's mother's will. Holmes and Watson travel through the English countryside, first by train and then by carriage to reach Roylott's house. During the trip, Holmes tells Watson that the provisions of the will give Roylott a very good motive for murder indeed. When they arrive at Stokes Moran, Helen shows them the rooms where she and Dr. Roylott sleep. Holmes exams the shuttered bars on the windows and immediately realizes his gypsy theory is wrong; the windows are impassable. Inside Julia's old room, he finds a fake bell-pull next to the bed attached to a tiny ventilator shaft which leads, not to the outside air, but straight to Dr. Roylott's bedroom next door. In Dr. Roylott's bedroom they find a saucer of milk standing on top of a safe and a tiny dog leash looped into a noose. Holmes has seen enough, but he needs to prove his theory. He gives Helen some instructions, then he and Watson high-tail it out of there before Roylott gets back.

Holmes and Watson keep watch from an inn across the way that has a clear view of the house. They watch as Roylott returns, and they are still watching several hours later as Helen gives the all-clear signal. They steal up to the house, seen by no one but the baboon, and enter through the window to Julia's bedroom, which Helen has left open. They seal themselves inside with a gun, a cane, and a candle, but no lamp because Roylott would see the light glow through the ventilator. Holmes warns Watson not to make a sound, and the men wait in silence.

Hours later, they see light through the ventilator shaft and then hear a soft hissing. Holmes lights the candle and attacks the bell-rope with his cane. They hear a low whistle from the next room. Watson can only watch helplessly; he has no idea what's going on. Suddenly, they hear a blood-curdling scream come from Dr. Roylott's room. Rushing to his room, they find him dead, in his chair, with a speckled bandana on his head. The head band moves, it hisses at them. Holmes warns Watson that the speckled band is a swamp adder from India, and that its venom kills in ten seconds. Holmes slips the noosed dog leash around the snake and throws it back into the open safe.

The next day, he and Watson see Helen safely off to her aunt's house to continue her life and her wedding plans. The coroner's inquiry officially lists Roylott's death as an accident; he was careless with his tropical pet. Holmes explains, for Watson's benefit, the scientific method which led him to suspect the murder weapon was a swamp adder, and he fills in all the details we might have missed about Dr. Roylott's wicked plan. As usual with a Sherlock Holmes story, the villain is apparent from the beginning. The pleasure in reading Conan Doyle's work comes from following Holmes as he unravels the puzzle. Through Watson's eyes, the reader is able to get inside the mind of the great Holmes and to learn to think like a master detective.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The Speckled Band Summary

• Now we go back even further in time, says Watson, to a case that Holmes investigated while he and Watson were still bachelor-ing it up together at the 221B Baker Street apartment.
• Watson sets the stage: it's early April 1883, and Holmes wakes Watson at the ungodly hour of 7:15am to tell him that a young lady has come to Holmes with a case.
• And indeed, in the sitting room is a lady of around thirty, dressed in black with a black veil, who's shaking with fear. She is pale and drawn, and her hair has strands of premature grey. She's desperate for help, and promises Holmes that, while she can't pay him anything now, she'll be married soon and have control of her own income. So she's good for the money, if he'll give her time.
• Holmes says that it's no problem. He's in this business for the pleasure of the hunt, though he'll be happy to let her pay him back for any expenses he works up, at her convenience. So, he says, let's hear your story.
• The lady's name is Helen Stoner, and she's living with her stepdad.
• This stepdad is the last living member of a great English family, the Roylotts. The Roylotts once controlled huge tracts of land, but after generations of spending lots of money, nothing is left of the estate except an old house, heavily mortgaged.
• The current (and final) Roylott, seeing that there's nothing left of his inheritance, goes to India to make his fortune on his own. Hedoes succeed in making some cash – but Roylott also manages to get into trouble. He flies into a rage when his house gets robbed and beats his Indian butler to death, for which he is sent to prison for a while. Eventually, though, he goes back to England.
• Roylott was pretty busy while he was in India: not only does he set up his own medical practice and beat his butler to death, but he also finds the time to marry Miss Stoner's mother, a young widow at the time. Miss Stoner also has a twin sister, Julia.
• Miss Stoner's mother was left with quite a lot of money – one thousand pounds per year (about U.S. $132,000 now) – which she left to Roylott upon her death eight years prior. But her will does allow for some of that money to go to Miss Stoner and to Julia if/when the girls get married.
• With the money his wife has left him, Roylott takes Miss Stoner and Julia away from London and to his old family home in Stoke Moran. For their part, Miss Stoner and Julia are psyched to go: they think they'll be happy there.
• But then – Roylott changes. He becomes violent and starts frightening away all the neighbors. He has no friends except for a group of Roma (known kind of negatively throughout the story as "gipsies") who camp on the lawn. Roylott also keeps a cheetah and a baboon to roam the grounds.
• Because of Roylott's hideous temper, Miss Stoner and Julia can't get any servants to stay at the house. The work, Miss Stoner says, contributed to Julia's death two years before.
• The thing is, before her death (obviously, since she's not a zombie), Julia had gone to visit her mother's sister. It's there that she meets a guy who wants to marry her.
• Roylott doesn't object openly to the marriage, but exactly two weeks before the date of the wedding, Julia is killed.
• That fatal night, Roylott goes to bed early, but he isn't sleeping yet: the smell of his heavy Indian tobacco is bothering Julia, whose bedroom is right next to his. So Julia goes over to Miss Stoner's room, which is on the other side of Julia's room, to chat about her upcoming wedding.
• At about 11pm, Julia heads back to her room to sleep, but before she goes, she asks Miss Stoner if she has ever heard anyone whistling in the middle of the night.
• Miss Stoner says no.
• Julia tells her sister that, for the past few nights, always at around 3am, she has heard a low whistle that has awakened her. But she can't hear where it's coming from.
• Miss Stoner thinks it must be the people camped out on their lawn.
• Julia supposes so. She heads off to sleep.
• Miss Stoner mentions that she and Julia have always locked their doors before sleeping because they're afraid of the cheetah and the baboon.
• That night, Miss Stoner can't sleep. She is certain that something bad is going to happen. And sure enough, in the middle of the night, she hears a woman screaming: it's Julia!
• Miss Stoner throws open her door; as she does so, she hears the low whistle Julia described, followed by a metal clanging sound.
• Miss Stoner runs to Julia's room, where the door is curiously unlocked.
• Miss Stoner sees Julia, her face terrified, her body swaying, appear in the doorway.
• Julia starts to convulse, but is able to say, "Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!" (Speckled. 50).
• Miss Stoner rushes out to find her stepfather – he is, after all, a doctor – who's coming out of his own room while tugging on his dressing gown. He rushes to help Julia, but she's already unconscious. Julia dies.
• Holmes is very interested in this bit about the whistle and the metal clanging sound. He also asks if Julia was dressed.
• Miss Stoner says no, that her sister was in her nightgown, and that she was carrying a burned-out match and matchbox in her hand.
• She also tells Holmes that the coroner tried to find evidence that would prove Roylott was involved in Julia's death. Everyone in the neighborhood knows he's dangerous, but no one has been able to find any actual proof that he murdered his stepdaughter.
• Julia's windows were locked and barred, and there were no bruises or anything on her body. There's also no evidence of poison.
• Miss Stoner thinks Julia died of fright, and that "the speckled band" might have meant a group of people – the gypsies, with their spotted handkerchiefs?
• To get back to Miss Stoner's story, two years have passed since this terrible event. She has since gotten engaged to a guy named Percy Armitage.
• Roylott has not objected to the marriage, and they couple is supposed to be married in the spring.
• Two days ago, Miss Stoner continues, some construction on the outside wall of her bedroom made it necessary for her to switch rooms. So now she's sleeping in the room her sister Julia died in (creeeeeepy!).
• Doubling the creepiness is this: now that Miss Stoner has moved into her dead sister's room, she, too, has heard the whistle that Julia heard before she died. Miss Stoner was so freaked out that she decided to seek help. So she has come to Holmes to ask for his protection.
• Holmes says Miss Stoner's made the right choice, but she still hasn't told him everything: he reaches over and lifts a frill of lace covering Miss Stoner's wrist. On her skin are five dark bruises, shaped like fingerprints. Roylott has been abusing her.
• Holmes asks if he and Watson can come up to the house at Stoke Moran that day, without her stepdad knowing.
• Miss Stoner agrees, and they decide to meet at Stoke Moran in the early afternoon. Miss Stoner heads off.
• Holmes chats with Watson about the case for a few moments, when suddenly the door swings open.
• A tall, fierce, vicious-looking man stands in the doorway.
• He introduces himself as Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran. He demands to know what Miss Stoner has been telling Holmes.
• Holmes won't answer, and seems to find Roylott ridiculously funny.
• Roylott has heard of Holmes, and understands that Holmes likes to get involved in other people's affairs. Roylott warns Holmes not to get involved in this one: Roylott's a tough guy, and he won't be messed with.
• To prove his overall toughness, Roylott grabs a poker from the fireplace and bends it. He tosses the bent poker at Holmes as though to say, "See what a powerful guy I am!" and then flounces off.
• Holmes responds, though Roylott's unfortunately not there to see it, by bending the poker back straight again.
• Holmes is most offended that Roylott seems to have confused Holmes with the official police: he is, above all, aprivate detective.
• Before going on their afternoon journey to Stoke Moran, Holmes visits a public office to see the will of Miss Stoner's dead mother. It turns out that her estate had originally been worth about 1,100 pounds (now U.S. $131,000) a year in interest, but its value has dropped to 750 pounds (U.S. $89,000). Each of the girls, if married, is supposed to get 250 pounds in income. Which would leave Roylott with only 250 pounds a year of his own (around U.S. $30,000), enough to ruin him financially. So he's got a great motive for killing off his engaged stepdaughter(s).
• Holmes and Watson head to Stoke Moran – Watson is armed, by the way.
• They meet Miss Stoner as she's walking across a field towards the house.
• Holmes tells her that her stepdad knows she visited Holmes that morning. He tells her to keep her door locked that night.
• They reach the house, and Holmes begins his investigation. Half the house is totally falling down, but the right wing, where Miss Stoner and Roylott live, is in pretty good condition. In fact, the house repairs seem unnecessary, and Miss Stoner admits that she thinks Roylott started the construction to make her move from her own bedroom to Julia's.
• It would be totally impossible to get into Miss Stoner's current room from the outside if the shutters were closed and barred from the inside. So Holmes is confused.
• They enter the room, and there's a lot going on that seems suggestive to Holmes: the room itself is pretty bare, but there's a beautiful bell-pull, newer than all the other things in the room, that was installed just a couple of years ago. But Julia never used it, nor did she ask for it to be put in. As Holmes looks more closely, he finds that she couldn'thave used it even if she wanted to, because it's not attached to anything.
• Something else that's pretty odd: at the same time as the fake bell-pull was installed, a new ventilating duct was placed in the wall of the room. But it doesn't go outside, oh no: it leads from Julia's bedroom to Roylott's, a strange choice if you're looking to bring fresh air into a room.
• Holmes also looks into Roylott's room, which has a safe.
• Miss Stoner says the safe must hold his business papers, but Holmes thinks otherwise – he suggests that an animal is inside, because there's a saucer of milk on top of the safe.
• He also checks out the seat of Roylott's chair and then spots a small dog whip hung on a corner of Roylott's bed, tied in a loop.
• Holmes seems to have figured it all out by looking at these clues, but Watson and Miss Stoner are still lost.
• Holmes decides that he and Watson have to spend the night in Miss Stoner's current room. She must go to bed early, pretending to have a headache, and then sneak quietly into her former bedroom (despite the repairs) for the evening.
• Holmes and Watson get a nearby hotel room, from which they can see Roylott's house.
• Holmes confesses to Watson that he feels kind of bad about bringing Watson along on this one because he'll be in some danger.
• Watson's all, "No worries!" (Dr. John Watson laughs in the face of danger.) He also admits that he has no cluewhat's going on.
• Holmes throws him a bone: first, Holmes tells Watson that he knew there was a ventilator between Julia and Roylott's bedrooms even before they saw the house. How? Because Julia was bothered by the smell of her stepdad's cigar smoke the night she died.
• Holmes also points out that it's pretty weird that the fake bell-pull and the ventilator were both put it in just around the time that Julia died. What's more, her bed has been nailed to the floor. So it can't be moved.
• All of this is evidence, Watson says, of some "subtle and horrible crime" (Speckled. 218).
• So, Holmes and Watson settle in to watch the Stoke Moran house from their local inn until 11pm, when Miss Stoner lights a lamp in her sister's bedroom window to signal to Holmes and Watson that she's heading over to her old bedroom.
• Holmes and Watson sneak onto the estate. Watson is surprised to see something that looks like a deformed child running across the grounds. It's the baboon. The cheetah's also probably around somewhere.
• Holmes and Watson creep quietly into Julia's former bedroom, through the window. They lock the shutters behind them and turn off the light for fear that Roylott will see the light through the ventilator shaft.
• They wait, wide awake. Watson has his pistol ready for action.
• Finally, around 3am, they see a brief flash of light. A smell of burning oil and heated metal wafts in, and Watson realizes that someone in the next room has lit a dark-lantern, a lamp with a special sliding panel for blocking light.
• After half an hour, there is another tiny sound, like a jet of steam from a kettle.
• Holmes strikes a match and starts beating at the bell-pull with his cane.
• Watson can't see what it is that Holmes is hitting, though he can see that Holmes's face is filled with disgust and horror.
• Holmes stops with the cane, but he's watching the ventilator carefully.
• Suddenly, they hear a terrible yell. Holmes tells Watson to bring his gun, and they enter Roylott's room.
• Roylott is dead, sitting in his wooden chair with that small leather dog whip across his chest. Around his forehead is a weird yellow band with brown spots – a band that moves! It is, in fact, a snake, an Indian swamp adder (tragically, not a real snake).
• Holmes grabs the dog whip from Roylott's body and uses the loop tied at the end as a noose to catch the snake and put it back in the safe.
• Holmes and Watson bring Miss Stoner (who's fairly freaked out) to her aunt at Harrow.
• The coroner decides that Roylott's death is the result of an accident while playing with a dangerous pet.
• Holmes explains the rest of the case to Watson: Holmes admits that he started out on completely the wrong track. He also thought the "speckled band" reference was probably to the Roma group living on Roylott's land. But Holmes realized that he was wrong when he saw how impossible it would be to get into the room from the outside.
• Once Holmes saw the ventilator, the bell-pull, and the nailed-down bed, he figured that the ventilator must be some kind of bridge for something to travel between the two rooms.
• The whole snake thing then seemed obvious, especially given Roylott's history in India.
• As for the whistle, Roylott probably trained the snake to respond to a whistle to make it return to his room before it could be seen by its potential victim, if it didn't bite her right away.
• In Roylott's room, Holmes saw signs that Roylott liked to stand on his chair (to get access to the ventilator). The safe, the milk, and the whipcord all pointed to the training and management of this dangerous animal. The clang Miss Stoner heard the night before was the sound of Roylott quickly closing the door of the safe to shut in the snake. And the rest is history!
• Holmes admits that, by attacking the snake and sending it back to its owner, he's probably responsible for it striking out at Roylott on the other side of the vent. He also can't say that he feels too bad about that.