Sherlock Holmes: Speckled Band

Sherlock Holmes: Speckled Band

This time I would like to introduce one of my favorite short stories written by Sir Arthur Doyle. The title is called “Speckled Band” so as to provoke readers from literal meaning. Once I scrutinized the name, the first question popped in my head.

“What the heck is “speckled band (for Buddha’s sake)”?

I guess it should be related to some kind of clothes protecting us from the blustery weather; at least it should matter with “circular” shape. I had no idea at the moment, but isn’t it this fact that stimulate us to identify with the story.

Once I glimpsed at the first  paragraph, I instinctively knew that “it is, again, narrated by Holmes’ colleague, Dr. Watson.” The scenarios were recounted through Dr. Watson’s journal and that were described through singular perspective. It is magnificent that the word “speckled” was manipulated and intentionally distracted by Doyle’s intelligence. This story can be considered as one of the most peculiar cases by Holmes because the victimizer’s plot is unique.

(***Spoiled***) For the one who doesn’t know how this story goes on, I am about to address that readers should focus on details, illustrations, actions brought about by Dr.Watson’s hindrance. The murder scene was carefully planned through a peculiar pattern of the mansion. Those juxtaposed triple rooms were created to point out foreboding elements. I want to say more about these rooms. The rooms were described as the ones in the east wings where, on the contrary, the west wing, were utterly abandoned. The first one on the far right, owned by the father, the second on the middle, inhabited the protagonist’s sister, and the last one, the protagonist’s room, suggest to palisade cells. According to the story, the protagonist’s sister was killed in the middle room whereas the witnesses said that she was toning down the volume of her scream until the last breath of her life. During her death, there were claims that there was a metal clicking voice in her father’s room and, after this metallic voice, the sister seemed to scream, and her deafening voice seemed to be gradually decreased. The last word that the sister said to the protagonist is “speckled band“.

After the incident, Holmes and Dr. Watson came to the mansion and they scrutinized all three furnished rooms. The sister’s room was quite strange as they noticed an abandoned vent above her irremovable bed as well as the non-utilized bell rope (I think this rope was used as a part of a bell chime as we can see from all abbeys). Holmes’s conjecture was that there must have been obscure relationship between the rooms’ position, the abandoned vent, the unnecessary rope and her last word of “speckled band”. Up until this moment, I think it should be a moment of detective stories’ lovers to consider all of these elements, simultaneously with Dr. Watson and Holmes, and make their own deductions.

Well, I won’t tell how this story would reveal at the final, however, I only want to sparkle "spatiality" which might escape from our eyes. 

By all means, I love this episode because it gives me creepy moments –throughout– by the author’s choice of ominous words as well as of depicting the investigation scenes around the nighttime. I hope this episode would help readers to become more passionate to Doyle’s style of writing, alongside to his unpredictable semi-non-violent scheme. 

P.S. This episode of Sherlock Holmes can be achieved in every famous bookstore. Attempt to glimpse under the name Arthur Conan Doyle: Short Stories of Sherlock Holmes. It seems astounding to me overtime when I spend less amount of money on invaluable fictions.:D