L Lawliet

Hi there! I'm new to the forum, so excited to meet you all! I've been reading the Sherlock Holmes stories since I was little, but no matter how hard I try, I never figured out the case before Holmes. I recently reread The Adventure of the Speckled Band to find out why, and I want to share my findings with you. (I'm using images from the Jemery Brett adaption of the story – great adaptation, btw) Hiding evidence? The simplest way to keep the ending a secret is to hide important evidence from the readers, but I don't think this is true for Speckled Band. We are actually given a lot of hints that the killer was a snake. The snake is the puzzle piece that connected everything together – the dummy bell-pull, the ventilator, the milk, the whip, and the unknown cause of death. There are hints spread all across the story for the snake. We know at the start of the story that Dr. Roylott (the culprit) keeps Indian animals around, and it's brought up a few times in the story. Holmes and Watson even run into the baboon at some point. Holmes talks about the milk and the safe being for a "cat", too. Red herring Instead of simply hiding evidence, the story uses more subtle strategies to mislead us. The famous red herring, the gypsy people on the estate, threw me off the track a lot. I remember both Helen Stoner (the client) and Holmes suspected them at some point. Of course, Holmes changed his mind after seeing the room for himself, but he didn't tell us that he changed his mind, so we are left thinking that the gypsy people are somehow connected to the case. Holmes's thoughts Another interesting thing I found is that we know less and less of Holmes's thoughts as the story goes on. At the start of the story, Holmes makes his usual sharp deductions about his client, and perfectly explains how he arrives at those conclusions. But as the story goes on, we start to only see him do things without much explanation. We see him examine the window, the bed, the bell-pull, and so on, but he doesn't say what he sees in them. I think this is a clever way to hide things from the readers without making us feel left out – we are still on the scene with him, but we don't know what exactly he is thinking anymore. Let me know what you think about the story! If you have also tried to figure out the case before Holmes, please tell me know how it went!