Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS
Sherlock Holmes helps a young woman who fears strange goings-on at her home and the odd behavior of her stepfather.
Original Air Date: December 19,1948
Starring John Stanley as Sherlock Holmes and Ian Martin as Doctor Watson
Support the show monthly at https://patreon.greatdetectives.net
Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.
Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715
Take the listener survey at http://survey.greatdetectives.net
Give us a call at 208-991-4783
Follow us on Instagram at http://instagram.com/greatdetectives
Follow us on Twitter @radiodetectives
Join us again tomorrow for another detective drama from the Golden Age of Radio.
Doyle’s “The Speckled Band” is my favorite “Sherlock Holmes” short story, a virtual horror tale. It’s not without a few flaws, however. It’s generally known that the snake used to kill in the adventure, a “swamp adder”, doesn’t exist in India (as per Sherlock Holmes’ concluding revelation), or anywhere else. And although snakes can hear, after a fashion, the reptile used would’ve been more responsive to a visual element, as employed in so-called “target training”. Snakes can navigate robes, but to depict one entering a room via an artificial ventilator pull, killing someone, then returning to where it came from by climbing the aforesaid rope in response to a whistle, along with the in-effect promise of food as a reward, is rather unlikely. Also unlikely, to me, anyway, is the client’s sister attributing her death to a “speckled band” instead of the more prosaic “snake”, as if the victim, with her dying words, would be cryptic at such a time, while this admittedly contributes to the narrative’s suspense.