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The eccentric hero of the story, Sherlock Holmes is a detective with hypersensitive abilities of observation and deduction. As this story comes after the publication of dozens of other popular stories starring Holmes, Doyle is assuming that the reader already has some familiarity with the biographical details of Holmes life. In this story, Doyle gives only passing hints about Holmes’s life: he shares an apartment with Watson, he tends to be a late riser in the mornings, he has a sharp sense of humor, and is rather strong despite his slim build. He is also prone to reverie, as he frequently stares off into space or takes quick naps throughout his investigation. Most importantly, though, he is an excellent detective. In his chosen profession, he works more “for the love of his art than for acquirement of wealth” and he only takes cases that “tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.” His dedication to the job goes above and beyond what a typical detective might be willing to do in order to solve a murder.
Sherlock Holmes Quotes in The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The The Adventure of the Speckled Band quotes below are all either spoken by Sherlock Holmes or refer to Sherlock Holmes. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Adventure of the Speckled Band Quotes
…working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.
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As Watson opens the narrative, he is quick to tell the reader that Sherlock Holmes is no ordinary detective. Unlike others in his field, Holmes is attracted to the most bizarre kinds of cases and refuses to do the kind of traditional procedural work that many other detectives might routinely perform. In addition to his inclination to take on rather unusual cases, he also works purely for the love of the deductive process, not to simply make a living. For Holmes, detective work is both a means to practice heightened intellectual engagement and to balance the moral scale in the Dolorem et
He must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone more cunning than himself upon his track.
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As a detective whose passion for the job exceeds his desire to make money from it, Holmes loves the process of solving a crime through his heightened skills of reasoning and deduction. For him, a sense of cunning is superior to any kind of physical violence. (This is demonstrated earlier, too, when Roylott bends a fire poker with his hands in front of Holmes, but the detective refuses to be intimidated by this show of brute force.) Holmes is confident that his sharp detective skills will defeat Roylott in the end, no matter how threatening the doctor might be. Furthermore, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus volup
There are one or two very singular points about this room. For example, what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with the same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air!
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There are two telling clues that Holmes is able to notice in Julia’s former room: a fake bell-pull above the bed and a ventilator hole that leads into Roylott’s room. Though Julia and Helen should have been able to see that these were strange additions to a room, their general isolation from their surroundings, imposed upon them by Roylott, made it so that they were unable to piece together the sinister ambitions behind these architectural tricks. Only by reaching out to Holmes, with his superior observational skills, was Helen able to see the strangeness of her sister’s room.
When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.
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Holmes is making the case that doctors, with their heightened intellect and ability to handle extreme stress, are perhaps the most skilled variety of criminal. As he himself possesses the traits of nerve and knowledge in his detective work, crime-inclined doctors are the perfect match for Holmes’s own skill set. After examining Julia’s room, he begins to piece together the crime and no longer sees Roylott as simply a thuggish brute, but rather as an exceedingly clever murderer and a kind of intellectual match for himself, thus a greater threat than he initially imagined.
“It is a swamp adder!” cried Holmes; “the deadliest snake in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.”
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Holmes, whose intellectual breadth covers many disciplines and fields of study, immediately sees upon entering Roylott’s room that the so-called “speckled band” refers not to the gypsies but to the spotted skin of the swamp adder snake coiled upon the doctor’s head. As he sees himself as an arbiter of morality in the eternal battle between good and evil, Holmes posits that violent people will inevitably bring violence upon themselves. In saying this, he is claiming that justice always overpowers injustice in the world and that criminals will always be taken down, whether by him or by themselves.
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Sherlock Holmes Character Timeline in The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The timeline below shows where the character Sherlock Holmes appears in The Adventure of the Speckled Band. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
...Watson, the story’s narrator, noting that, of the nearly seventy cases that he and Sherlock Holmes have embarked on together as a detective duo, the one that he is about to...
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...events that Watson recounts start early one morning in April of 1883, when he and Holmes were living as roommates in an apartment on Baker Street in London. Watson wakes up...
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Holmes notes that young women would only be wandering the streets of London at such an...
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...a young woman, clad in black and wearing a veil, is sitting near the window. Holmes notes that the woman is shivering, and he says she should sit next to the...
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Holmes makes the quick observation that she must have started her travels early that morning (he...
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Helen tells Holmes that he was recommended by an acquaintance who had used the detective’s services for an...
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Helen then recounts the incidents that led her to seek Holmes’s help. She lives with her stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott, the sole remaining descendent of the...
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Helen tells Holmes and Watson that Roylott has no friends aside from the group of wandering gypsies who...
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Two years ago, Helen tells Holmes and Watson, her sister got engaged. Roylott had no objection to the marriage, but Julia...
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...convulsions, Julia said, “It was the band! The speckled band!” and then died. Helen tells Holmes and Watson that she saw a charred match and a match box in her sister’s...
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...windows and door were locked up, Julia’s death is a mystery to Helen. She tells Holmes that she assumed the “speckled band” had something to do with the band of gypsies...
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By the time she comes to visit Holmes and Watson, Helen herself has become engaged. Soon after she made the announcement to Roylott,...
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...described. Thoroughly disturbed, she decided to make the long trek to London to see how Holmes could help her.
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Holmes notices that Helen has five bruised marks on her wrist, which she says came from...
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...threatening demeanor enters the room. He announces himself as Dr. Roylott, Helen’s stepfather. He tells Holmes and Watson that he’s been tracing Helen’s movements, knows that she has just paid them...
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Before leaving, Holmes runs errands and makes some calculations about the state of the inheritance that Mrs. Stoner...
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Holmes and Watson begin their journey from London to Surrey, first by train and then by...
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Holmes and Watson then begin to inspect the manor with Helen’s help. Watson notes how the...
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...the shutters are essentially impenetrable. Inside the manor, they go to Julia’s former room, where Holmes examines every surface and notices that the bed is bolted to the floor and that...
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Holmes also remarks on the strangeness of the bell-pull, supposedly installed to call the housekeeper upstairs,...
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Back outside, the three hatch a plan for the evening. Holmes and Watson will take a room on the second floor of the inn across the...
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At eleven, Holmes and Watson see from their room at the inn that Helen has lit the lamp...
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Holmes instructs Watson to sit silently in the dark and not fall asleep. With a cane...
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...the ventilator and they smell oil, telling them that Roylott is stirring about next door. Holmes and Watson continue to sit in silence until they hear a hiss come into their...
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...low whistling sound. The glare of the light makes it so he can’t see what Holmes had been beating at with his cane, but the detective’s face has paled and a...
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...with the looped leash in his lap and a snake curled tightly around his head. Holmes immediately remarks on the speckled bands around the snake’s skin and identifies it as a...
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...moves in with her aunt. A slow official inquiry gets underway. The story closes with Holmes telling Watson what he took away from the investigation, namely how important it is to...
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At the conclusion of the story, Holmes tells Watson that he knows he is at least partly responsible for Roylott’s death, but...
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