Our old friend Sherlock Holmes’s plans for snookering the villainous Dr. Grimasby Rylott

Nottingham Guardian, Tuesday 22 August 1911

AMUSEMENTS IN NOTTINGHAM.

THEATRE ROYAL.

Although you have to wait until the last act for the big thrill in “The Speckled Band,” the moment when it arrives more than fulfils expectations. The spectacle of a healthy python wriggling down a bellrope, immediately above the bed of the heroine is creepy enough, and it rounds off the play in sensational fashion. Prior to this, two acts have been taken up with the development of our old friend Sherlock Holmes’s plans for snookering the villainous Dr. Grimasby Rylott, the Anglo-Indian medico, who, during his residence in the East devoted more study to the finer arts of murder than to medical science. Rylott covets the fortune of his stepdaughter, Enid Stonor. He has already killed her sister by the horrible method above described, and intends a similar fate for Enid, but Holmes unravels the previous mystery, and guesses what is in store for the surviving sister. The scene in which Enid, Holmes, and the indispensable Watson watch for the appearance of the reptile is breathlessly exciting. As played by Mr. Arthur Hardy’s Company at the Theatre Royal, the piece is made tellingly effective, with Mr. A. Corney Grain incisive and characteristic as Holmes, Mr. Walter Ringham the clever impersonator of the picturesque villain, and Miss Alice Leigh an attractive Enid.