The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle A Sherlock Holmes Mystery
Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 56 detective stories about the adventures of the
fictional Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is the most famous of all literary
detectives. His character is based on Dr. Joseph Bell, a diagnostician who was
one of Conan Doyle’s instructors when he was a medical student. The detective is
just as the instructor had been: he is brilliant and eccentric. He has encyclopedic knowledge and excellent
powers of observation. He is able to figure out a large amount of information
about people and situations by keenly observing the tiny details that most people
would have overlooked. He is always able to use that keen ability of observation
to logically figure out the answer to the mystery at hand. Holmes
supposedly lives in London in the late 1800s when people still used horses and
buggies for transportation and trains are powered by steam engines. Holmes is
accompanied on his detective adventures by Doctor John Watson who acts as the
narrator of the stories. Before Watson marries (in a later story), he lives
with Holmes as a roommate. They live upstairs in a rooming house owned by old
Mrs. Hudson who brings them their meals and greets their visitors at the front
door.