Moran, the impoverished and heavily mortgaged estate where she and her stepfather live. Dr. Roylott also keeps strange company at the estate. He is friendly with a band of Gypsies on the property, and he has a cheetah and a baboon as pets. For some time, he has been making changes to the house. Before Helen's sister's death, he had modifications made inside the house and is now having the outside wall repaired, forcing Helen to move into the room where her sister died. Holmes listens carefully to Helen's story and agrees to take the case. He plans a visit to the manor later in the day. Before he can leave, he is visited by Dr. Roylott himself, who threatens him should he interfere. Undaunted, Holmes proceeds to the courthouse, where he examines Helen's late mother's will, and then to the countryside. At Stoke Moran, Holmes scrutinizes the premises inside and out. Among the strange features that he discovers are a bed anchored to the floor, a bell cord that is not attached to any bell, and a ventilator hole between Helen's temporary room and that of Dr. Roylott. Holmes and Watson arrange to spend the night in Helen's room. In darkness, they wait until about three in the morning; suddenly, a slight metallic noise and a dim light through the ventilator prompt Holmes to action. Quickly lighting a candle, he discovers on the bell cord the "speckled band"—a venomous snake. He strikes at the snake with his riding crop, driving it back through the ventilator. Agitated, it fatally attacks Roylott, who had been waiting for it to return after killing Helen. Holmes identifies the snake as an Indian swamp adder and reveals to Watson the motive: the late wife's will which had provided an annual income of £1,100 but had dropped to annual income of £750 sterling [when she passed way], of which each daughter could claim one third (£250) upon marriage. Thus, Dr. Roylott plotted to remove both of his stepdaughters before they married to avoid losing most of the fortune he controlled. Holmes admits his attack on the snake may make him indirectly responsible for Roylott's demise, but he does not foresee it troubling him. Inspirations Richard Lancelyn Green, the editor of the 2000 Oxford paperback edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, surmises that Doyle's source for the story appears to have been the article named