The Adventure of the Speckled Band the snake wrong, a theory that the swamp adder was an artificial hybrid between the Mexican Gila monster ("Heloderma suspectum") and "Naja naja". His speculation suggests that Doyle might have hidden a double-meaning in Holmes' words. What Holmes said, reported by Watson, was "It is a swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India"; but Klauber suggested what Holmes really said was "It is a "samp-aderm", the deadliest skink in India." "Samp-aderm" can be translated "snake-Gila-monster": "Samp" is Hindi for snake, and the suffix "aderm" is derived from "heloderm", the common or vernacular name of the Gila monster generally used by
The Speckled Band (1931 film) felt that Massey didn't at all look the part opining "he looked like almost any nice, young, brown-haired college boy, wrapped in a dormitory dressing gown, smoking a bulldog pipe." Mordaunt Hall of "The New York Times" disagreed saying "Mr. Massey's performance is pleasing, intelligent and restrained" and said of the film ""The Speckled Band" succeeds in being moderately interesting." The Speckled Band (1931 film) The Speckled Band is a 1931 British film directed by Jack Raymond and an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's original story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and the play he adapted from it, "The