The Adventure of the Speckled Band that of Dr Roylott. Holmes and Watson arrange to spend the night in Helen's room. In darkness they wait; suddenly, a slight metallic noise and a dim light through the ventilator prompt Holmes to action. Quickly lighting a candle, he discovers on the bell cord the "speckled band"—a venomous snake. He strikes the snake with a stick, driving it back through the ventilator. Agitated, it attacks Roylott, who had been waiting for it to return after killing Helen. Holmes identifies the snake as a "swamp adder" and reveals to Watson the motive: the late wife's will had provided an annual
The Killers (Bukowski short story) The Killers (Bukowski short story) "The Killers" is a short-story by Charles Bukowski collected in his 1973 collection "South of No North", originally published by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press. The story elucidates Bukowski's publicly acknowledged artistic debt to Ernest Hemingway, the writer who had the most influence on American writers of Bukowksi's generation. Like "The Killers", Bukowski's story of the same name has as its thematic trope Murder in a nihilistic universe. Unlike Hemingway, the killers actually accomplish their act in the time-frame of the story. Bukowski's authorial point of view in his version of "The Killers" also is