The last heir of the noble but decayed family of the old Stoke Moran in Surrey. While working as a doctor in India, he beat his native servant to death and returned to England in a sullen, bitter state. After his wife died, he began living with his stepdaughters in his old mansion. He concocts sinister plans to control a modest annual inheritance and prevent his daughters from marrying, thereby seizing the money entirely. With his terrifying strength and ungovernable temper, he has intimidated everyone in the local town. He allows gypsies to reside on his property and keeps a cheetah and a baboon he brought from India. He uses a very poisonous Indian snake (the Speckled Band) as a weapon that leaves no physical trace, spending his intelligence on these murderous ends to become, as Holmes describes him, a consummate and educated criminal.
He comes from a well-established family that went bankrupt during his days as a ward. He married the widow of a Bengal Artillery officer in India. After she passed away, he resorted to murderous methods to seize the rights of his stepchildren.
A large man wearing a long coat and high gaiters, carrying a large hunting crop. He is so tall that his hat brushes the top of the doorframe; he has a face lined with hundreds of wrinkles, sun-scorched skin, and restless, sharp, dull eyes reminiscent of a bird of prey.
Helen Stoner
His stepdaughter whom he cruelly terrifies and whom he intended to make a murder victim for her fortune.
Sherlock Holmes
His enemy, whom he threatened by bending a fireplace poker because he was sticking his nose into his plans.