Description

A bride-to-be dies a violent death as her wedding day approaches. Her grief-stricken sister, who is also engaged to be married, knocks on Sherlock Holmes’s door, desperate for help. Helen Stoner doesn’t have very many clues to give the great detective. For one, her sister Julia was set to receive an inheritance upon her marriage. This money, which would have come from their late mother’s estate, was to have been divided between the two sisters and their stepfather, a moody and distant man. Strangely, Julia was able to speak only a few cryptic words—about a “speckled band”—before she collapsed, gasping for breath, in Helen’s bedroom. The only speckled bands that come to Helen’s mind are the dotted headbands worn by gypsies, whom she fears strangled her sister. Now that Helen is staying alone at her stepfather’s home, she is afraid for her life. Strange sights and sounds around the house terrify her even further and it seems that time is running out as the perpetrator remains at large. Holmes is determined to protect this vulnerable young woman. His keen nose for the clues that no one else notices and the motivations that can stir even the most unlikely criminals to strike steer him straight on as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1905 tale unfolds.

About the Author

A doctor by profession, Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) began writing short stories as a young medical student. After setting up his first practice, he took up writing again when business was slow. It was his second foray into literature, in 1887, that brought about the debut of Doyle's beloved character Sherlock Holmes. More successful as an author than a physician, Doyle went on to write many short stories and novels featuring Sherlock Holmes. Among some of Doyle's most famous works are A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the ...