I'm Hugh Bonneville. Welcome to Sherlock Holmes' short stories, the series where we delve into the files of fiction's most brilliant detective, following his keen mind and unerring instincts from the first subtle clue to the final dramatic revelation.

We begin with what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called his very best story,

the adventure of the speckled band.

Over three spine-chilling episodes, we'll take you inside that famous smoke-filled sitting room

at 221B Baker Street.

You'll walk the shadowy corridors of a crumbling manor house

that holds a dark secret,

and join Holmes and Watson as they set a deadly trap for an unlikely killer.

There will be exotic beasts, twisted family secrets,

and a death so mysterious

that even the great detective himself will be tested to his limits.

From the Noyser Network, this is the Adventure of the Speckled Band, part one. Part One.

On glancing over my notes of the 70-odd cases in which I have, during the last eight years, studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes.

I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace.

For working as he did, rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth,

he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual and even the fantastic.

Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features

than that which was associated with the well-known

Surrey family of the Roylots of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the early

days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street.

It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before,

but a promise of secrecy was made at the time,

...