World classic, retold in simple Mandarin
Sherlock Holmes: The Speckled Band
福尔摩斯：花斑带
Sherlock Holmes: The Speckled Band (福尔摩斯：花斑带, Fú'ěrmósī: huābān dài) is a classic by Arthur Conan Doyle, retold in simple Mandarin as a 5-chapter story with audio for learners at about HSK 3 (Intermediate).
Retold from Arthur Conan Doyle's 1892 story: a terrified young woman begs Sherlock Holmes to explain her sister's last words, 'the speckled band', before she too sleeps in that room.
Meet the voices
- Narrator · 旁白 — The warm storyteller who sets the scene.
- Sherlock Holmes · 福尔摩斯 — The famous detective who reads clues that no one else sees.
- Dr. Watson · 华生 — Holmes's loyal friend and doctor, always amazed and always hungry.
- Helen Stoner · 海伦 — A frightened young woman who fears the same fate as her sister.
- Dr. Roylott · 罗伊洛特 — Helen's angry, powerful stepfather, who loves money more than his family.
5 chapters, one journey
Chapter 1: The Frightened Visitor
清早的客人
A trembling young woman arrives at Baker Street before dawn with a chilling story: her sister died saying two strange words, and now she hears the same eerie sound.
Free to read
Chapter 2: The Stepfather
继父
Helen explains her stepfather's temper and the money that leaves his house when she marries, until Dr. Roylott himself storms in with a warning nobody forgets.
SayMei Stories
Chapter 3: The Empty Room
空房间
Holmes searches the room where Julia died and finds a bed bolted down and a bell-rope tied to nothing. Then he explains what they will do tonight.
SayMei Stories
Chapter 4: The Night Watch
守夜
In pitch darkness, Holmes and Watson wait in Julia's old room for something to come down the bell-rope. When it does, a cry rings out and everything goes quiet.
SayMei Stories
Chapter 5: The Speckled Band
花斑带
Behind the door of Dr. Roylott's room waits the answer to Julia's last words. Holmes explains everything, and a new letter is waiting for him.
SayMei Stories
Key words in Sherlock Holmes: The Speckled Band
Behind the story
'The Adventure of the Speckled Band' was published by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1892 in The Strand Magazine and later collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle himself is said to have named it among his favorite Holmes stories.
Chinese readers know Sherlock Holmes as 福尔摩斯 (Fú'ěrmósī). The stories were first translated into Chinese more than a hundred years ago, and Holmes remains one of the best-known foreign fictional detectives in China, in books, TV and film.
Did you know?
- Holmes's friend and helper Dr. Watson is called 华生 (Huáshēng) in Chinese.
- Baker Street, where Holmes lives, is called 贝克街 (Bèikè Jiē) in Chinese, and fans around the world still visit it.
- Doyle set the story in the 1880s, when horse carriages and steam trains were the main ways to travel from London into the countryside.