I recently acquired a copy of
The Illustrated
Speckled
Band. Why did I wait so long?
This 2012 volume from Wessex Press (still in print), edited by Leslie S.
Klinger, is more than just the script of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s play,
although it is that. This beautifully designed book also includes more than 100
photographs of the original 1910 stage production with H.A. Saintsbury as
Sherlock Holmes and Lyn Harding as Dr. Grimesby Rylott (Roylott in the short
story).
Including his starring role in the famous William Gillette
play, Saintsbury played Holmes on stage about 1,400 times. Harding reprised his
role as the villainous Roylott in the 1930 film version of The Speckled Band,
with Raymond Massey as Holmes, then graduated to playing Moriarty against Arthur Wontner’s Holmes in The
Triumph of Sherlock Holmes in 1935.
The Illustrated Speckled Band includes a
contemporary review of the play that lauds Conan Doyle as a dramatist “who has
the gift of characterization, crisp dialogue, and telling situations.” And all that is true! Although I’d read it
before, I’d forgotten that it’s simply a wonderful play, with some great lines.
For example:
Watson is newly engaged, and Holmes asks what Miss Morstan
would say about him going with Holmes on a dangerous quest. “She would say that
a man who deserts his friend would never make a good husband,” Watson responds.
There is some great humor—mostly at Watson’s expense. Such
as:
HOLMES: An inquest, was it not, with a string of most stupid
and ineffectual witnesses?
WATSON: I was one of the witnesses.
HOLMES: Of course—so you were, so you were.
Holmes in disguise as a workman complains about the mess
that is 221B. “I’ve ’eard say he was as tidy as any when he started, but he
learned bad ’abits from a cove what lived with him. Watson was his name.” “You
impertinent fellow!” the doctor explodes. “How dare you talk in such a fashion.
What do you want?” But by this time Holmes has slipped into his bedroom to
remove the disguise. Wasn’t that episode inserted into one of the Basil
Rathbone films?
The play includes Billy the page (a creation of William
Gillette), Charles Augustus Milverton, an Indian servant named Ali, and a
delightful local rustic called Mr. Armitage.
An example of ACD’s crisp dialogue comes at the end in an
exchange that doesn’t appear in the short story. “The brute is dead,” Watson
says, looking at the snake. “So is the other,” Holmes replies, meaning Rylott.
Then he assures his client, “Miss Stonor, there is no more danger for you under
this roof.” Curtain!