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 Merry Men (short story) The Merry Men (short story) "The Merry Men" is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson first published in 1882 in "Cornhill Magazine" 45-6 (June–July 1882). The story was later published in Stevenson's collection "The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables" (1887). It is set on the fictional island Eilean Aros, based on the Isle of Erraid. The title derives from the local name given to a group of waves in the story, not from the Merry Men of Robin Hood and his merry men The narrator, Charles Darnaway, a recent graduate of Edinburgh University, travels to the remote