The Adventure of the Speckled Band Quiz

Answer: In India

Mrs. Stoner had been an Army widow in India and had married Grimesby Roylott when her two daughters were toddlers. She had died in a railroad accident shortly after the family returned to England.

Answer: A doctor

Grimesby Roylott had been a medical doctor, working in Calcutta, India. However he had been sent to prison for murdering one of his servants, and after being released, he had been unsuccessful in reestablishing a practice. He thus returned to his ancestral home and became rather reclusive.

Answer: A cheetah and a baboon

Helen Stoner told Sherlock Holmes that her stepfather had no friends other than the gypsies, with whom he would frequently hang out. She also said that a "correspondent" would send him animals and that currently, a cheetah and a baboon roamed freely around the grounds of his property.

Answer: They were twins.

Helen and Julia Stoner were two-year-old twins at the time that their mother married Grimesby Roylott. Helen maintained that she had been unable to sleep on the night that her sister was killed because she had sensed "impending misfortune" due to the "links which bind two souls which are so closely aligned".

Answer: A low whistle

Julia had said that she had heard a low whistle for the past few nights. She said that she couldn't tell if it came from her stepfather's room or from the lawn. Helen said that it was probably the gypsies, and she herself hadn't heard it because she was a heavy sleeper.

Answer: Fear and shock

Helen had been with her sister when she died, and she had seen the look of terror on Julia's face. The county coroner had found no cause of death, so when Sherlock Holmes asked Helen what she believed had caused her sister's death, she replied "pure fear and nervous shock".

Answer: A fake bell-rope

Sherlock Holmes admitted to Dr. Watson that when he arrived at Helen Stoner's home, he expected to find one of the clues, a ventilator that led to Grimesby Roylott's room. He believed there would be one due to the fact that Julia Stoner had smelled Roylott's cigar smoke. Holmes noticed the bell-rope because it looked new, and after examining it, he realized it was a fake and was connected to the ventilator.

The other clue in the room was the fact that the bed had been clamped to the floor.

Answer: A saucer of milk

After spotting the saucer of milk, Sherlock Holmes asked Helen Stoner if the safe contained a cat. She said that they didn't keep a cat except for the cheetah, to which Holmes replied that "a saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants".

Answer: Their impending weddings

When Julia and Helen's mother died, she had left her husband an income of 1000 pounds a year (which was valued at 750 pounds a year at the time of the investigation, due to market conditions). According to the provisions of the will, 250 pounds a year would be given to each of the girls upon their marriage. Rather than lose the income, Grimesby Roylott decided to kill the girls.

Answer: A snake

The speckled band turned out to be a snake, which Sherlock Holmes described as a "swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India". Dr. Roylott had kept the snake in his safe, and at night, he would use a whip to move it to the ventilator so that it could climb down the fake bell-rope in the next room and attack the sleeping victim. Roylott would then recall the snake with a whistle. Unfortunately for Roylott, Sherlock Holmes was waiting for the snake, and when he hit it with his cane, the snake flew back through the ventilator and attacked Roylott, killing him almost instantly.