Helen Stoner Roylett's Desire To Kill

As many people have said, “What comes around, goes around.” Karma has been a major idea for many ideas for many books worldwide. For instance, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a Sherlock Holmes murder mystery and an example of karma. In the story, Dr. Roylett murdered Julia Stoner, his step-daughter, with a venomous snake and planned on killing Helen Stoner, his other step-daughter. At the end, Dr. Roylett was murdered by his own snake, while planning on killing Helen Stoner. In reality, karma happens and the villain meets his end, which he plans for another.
Cr. Roylett’s history of violence affected his desire to kill. Dr. Roylett is an aristocratic country gentleman, who was ruined by mortgage and robberies. “In a fit of anger, he beat his native butler to death…” (110).

Afterwords, Dr. Roylett was sent to jail for a few years and married Helen’s mother, Mrs. Stoner, in India. When Mrs. Stoner died in a railway accident after their return to England, Dr. Roylett physically abused Julia and Helen. Dr. Roylett became the terror of the village. In addition, he threw a local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream. In the past, Dr. Roylett had both uncontrollable strength and anger to murder.
Dr.

Roylett’s plan to kill Helen was very well-thought out. He had a venomous snake, whose venom can not be discovered, hidden in a safe in Dr. Roylett’s room. Additionally, his room was right next to Julia’s room, the first victim, and a ventilator connected both rooms. In Julia’s room, the bed is clamped to the floor and beside the bed is a fake bell-rope, which hangs on the ventilator. In Dr. Roylett’s room, there is a chair, which was stood on to reach the ventilator, a saucer of milk for the snake, and a lash, that is tied to make a loop of whipcord. Dr. Roylett’s plan to murder Helen begins when Helen had to go to Julia’s room due to fake repairs in Helen’s room. He would use the lash on the snake in the safe, so he wouldn’t be bitten, and use the chair to put the snake into the vent. Then, the snake would slither into Julia’s room, use the fake bell-rope as a bridge to the bed, and poison Helen. Lastly, Dr. Roylett would put the saucer in the vent, blow on a whistle to make the snake come back, and use the lash to put the snake into the safe. The brilliant plan to kill Helen Stoner would have made many detectives uncertain of Helen’s

death.
When Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, his assistant, gets involved with the case, Dr. Roylett’s plan backfires. Before Dr. Roylett got the chance to murder Helen, she went to Holmes, seeking help on Julia’s death. Holmes and Watson looked for clues around Dr. Roylett’s mansion and decided to sneak into the mansion at night and wait in Julia’s room, while Helen stayed in her own room. As Holmes and Watson waited, Holmes heard a snake’s hiss and used his cane to attack the source. “Some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw” (Sherlock 133). The first person that the snake saw was Dr. Roylett. At that night, Dr. Roylett died by his own snake on his chair. Karma has many ways of working and Dr. Roylett’s death was one.
In truth, assault is given to the assaulter and the murderer falls into his grave, which he makes for another. In the story, Dr. Roylett, the murderer with a dark past, got killed by his own snake, with the attempt to kill Helen, his step-daughter. What caused the snake to betray its master was Mr. Holmes. At the end, “I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Roylett’s death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience” (Sherlock 133).