In Sherlock Holmes’s “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” the mystery occurs at the estate called Stoke Moran.
Stoke Moran is the decaying Surrey property of Dr Grimesby Roylott. His stepdaughter Helen Stoner consults Holmes after the unexplained death of her sister Julia in a locked bedroom. Helen is frightened because she has begun sleeping in the same room where her sister died and has heard a mysterious whistle.
Holmes and Watson investigate the bedroom and discover that the apparently supernatural “speckled band” is connected with a deadly animal and a deliberately altered room. The setting’s old estate, barred window, ventilator, and bell rope are essential physical clues rather than decorative background.
The story was first published in 1892. Stoke Moran is fictional, and it should not be confused with Baskerville Hall, the Devon estate in The Hound of the Baskervilles.