Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Questions for "The Speckled Band" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: 1. What does the opening scene tell us about...

It's the norm to post only one question per Q&A post. But I'll answer these this time as the answers are short. But for future, post one (maybe two) per post.


1. The opening scene reveals that Dr. Grimesby-Roylott has trouble with anger, as he has beaten a servant to death in a fit of rage. He is quite a loner and isolates himself in his home except for when he engages in arguments and fights with people in the village. People fear him.


2. Some work is being done on the house, which has involved breaking part of Helen's bedroom wall. Because of this, she sleeps in her dead sister's room. 


3. In the middle of the night, Helen hears the very same whistling sound she heard the night her sister died. She is so shaken by this sound (which she hasn't heard since the death of her sister) that she immediately prepares to leave for London.


4. Dr. Grimesby-Roylott is not Helen's birth father. He met and married Helen's mother, a widow, in India. Shortly after the family returned to England, Helen's mother died in a railway accident.


5. Helen's sister Julia died two years before the story takes place. Julia was recently engaged to be married when she died mysteriously. Helen, too, is recently engaged to be married. It is also strange that before her death, Julia heard the whistling sound several nights in a row.


6. A pet cheetah and baboon run wild on the property at night, so it is not safe for anyone to go out of doors. 


7. Helen's stepfather, Dr. Grimesby-Roylott follows Helen to 221B Bakery Street and visits Holmes after Helen has left. He threatens that if Holmes and Watson "meddle" by investigating the Doctor, they will have to face his danger. He even makes a show of strength by bending a fire poker in half.


8. Julia's old room is described as small, with a low ceiling, and a large fireplace. It was not well taken care of, as the walls were paneled in worm-eaten oak. There are a few pieces of furniture like the bed, a chest of drawers, and some wicker chairs.


9. Dr. Grimesby-Roylott's room is larger than Helen or Julia's and has very basic furniture- including a camp bed, a bookcase, and a safe. The family keeps a cheetah and a baboon, so they leave out a saucer of milk for them. It is later revealed that the milk is a sort of treat used to train a snake to return to its owner.


10. The story does not say what Sherlock Holmes thinks about Helen and Julia's greying hair, but Helen does allude to nervous shocks. Stress can cause premature greying of the hair.

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