The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I was thinking about the last time I dressed up for Halloween, which was in my senior year of college. Can you guess what I was? (The title gives it away.) I already had this hat, which I love (and sort of screams "Sherlock Holmes") and I paired it with this big-buttoned jacket and a pencil skirt and tall black boots. And people knew who I was! It's always nice when you don't have to explain who or what you are dressing as for Halloween.

As kids, my brothers and I listened to all kinds of stories read aloud--on cassette tape--and one that I remember was called A Baker Street Dozen. It included 12 of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries that were read dramatically and linked by violin interludes. In particular I recall one called "The Speckled Band," and I remember being equal parts intrigued and terrified listening to this tale, which was probably at night as I was falling asleep (that's often when we listened to our beloved tapes).

So I looked up "The Speckled Band" yesterday and decided it was a perfect story to read on Halloween! You can find it here (there's an audio recording too, but it isn't terrific, so I recommend you read it). I wasn't as scared reading it this time around as I was as a little girl, but if you've never read it and you don't know how the mystery ends it might be just the thing to get you in a spooky Halloween mood.