A Frightened Visitor

Early one morning in April, Sherlock Holmes woke me up. “Sorry, Watson,” he said, “but there is a young lady here. She is very frightened.”

The woman was dressed in black and wore a veil. She was about thirty, but her face was tired and gray, like the face of an old woman. She was shaking.

“Sit by the fire,” said Holmes kindly. “You are shaking with cold.”

“It is not cold that makes me shake, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “It is fear. My name is Helen Stoner. I live with my stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott, in an old house at Stoke Moran.”

She told us her story. Her stepfather married her mother in India, when Helen and her twin sister, Julia, were only two years old. Their mother had money. When she died in an accident, the money went to Dr. Roylott while the girls lived with him. If they married, each girl would get part of it.

Dr. Roylott was a violent man. He had terrible fights with the people of the village. His only friends were some traveling gypsies. He also had a passion for animals from India: a cheetah and a baboon walked freely around his land.

“Two years ago,” Helen said, “my sister Julia was going to be married. The bedrooms in our house are all on the ground floor, side by side: first my stepfather's room, then my sister's, then mine. One night, Julia came to my room and asked me a strange question.

“'Helen,' she said, 'have you ever heard someone whistle in the middle of the night? For the last few nights, at about three in the morning, I have heard a low, clear whistle.'

“I said no. She went back to her room and locked her door. Later that night, I heard a terrible scream. I ran into the corridor. I heard a low whistle and then a sound of metal falling. My sister's door opened, and she came out, white with fear. She fell to the floor and cried, 'Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!' She pointed at the doctor's room, but she could not say more. She died a few minutes later.”

“And the police?” asked Holmes.

“They found nothing. The door was locked, the windows were closed with heavy shutters. There was nobody else in the room.”