When Helen visits Holmes and Watson, for instance, she asks whether she can pay him at a later point for his detective services. This is clear in his constant ruminations about the nature of justice and his personal concern for Helen’s safety. In this particular case, his ambition is less to make sure that whoever murdered Julia Stoner is caught and taken to court than it is to personally stop an inherently evil person from doing harm again. More than a mere detective solving crimes, Holmes see himself as a conduit for justice. Roylott, Doyle suggests that justice is a natural condition of human life and that goodness or fairness will always prevail in the end. Through the triumph of the eminently good Holmes and Watson over the evil Dr. Doyle’s stories depict a straightforward division between good and evil, in which characters are generally not nuanced blends of both characteristics, but rather embodiments of either extreme. One of the overarching ideas of most Sherlock Holmes stories, including “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” is that justice and goodness must triumph over evil and injustice.
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