The climax to the story is actually an anti-climax because Conan Doyle builds up the tension all the way through the story giving the reader an impression of a spectacular ending but then the climax is disappointing when all the loose ends are tied up nothing is left weighing in the balance of the reader so the reader is left with nothing to think about leaving the climax extremely anti-climatic and boring. At the end everything is uncovered and nothing is left shrouded in mystery which is far too neat for a modern reader and is also unrealistic as no-one could actually end a police inquiry like that.
The Test is a court room based drama and at the end of a court room drama you expect for the guilty to be punished for what they have done wrong. The story appears to be conforming to the expectations of a detective story and then delivers a surprise because, all the way through the court room scenes Wedge is having trouble defending Benjy Blesker and it looks like he is going to be punished for the murder. But at the end of the story when Wedge goes to do the test for blood on the knife Benjy's father dips the knife in blood so you would never know if Benjy actually did stab the other boy.
In this story you are uncertain of the truth up until and including the end as you never know whether Benjy stabbed him or not. The climax to The Test is just like the Speckled Band as it is anti-climatic, this is because you think that Benjy is going to be found guilty but Wedge was bluffing about the test and the jury decided that he was not guilty although the audience would have thought that he was going to be found guilty. At the end of the story we are left questioning and uncertain as we don't know whether Benjy did it or not.
Order has not been restored either so this is the opposite of the Speckled Band. Wedge wins the case but justice is not done, but Wedge is more concerned about winning a case and keeping a good reputation than having justice prevail. The ending to The Test is much more effective than the ending of the Speckled Band because this ending is like many of those that we see in crime fiction today making it more realistic to a modern day reader. The Speckled Band is narrated by Watson. The significance of this is that not a single bad word would have been said about Holmes making him the hero.
There is an extreme lack of pace to the story and everything seems to plod along at constant pace which never changes. There is also a assortment of descriptive of descriptive detail. The characters speak very formally to one another even Watson and Holmes do it and they have lived together for several years, here is an example of this "Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,".... " But it's the common lot this morning. Mrs Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted on me, and I on you. The Test is a lot more fast moving than The Speckled Band and there are quick shifts in scene.
There is also very little descriptive detail which therefore allows the story to flow at a quicker pace than The Speckled Band. The dialogue in the story is also very punchy as it is informal American slang. I consider The Test to be more effective story but this is most likely because I am used to stories like it and not stories like The Speckled Band. The ways in which my opinion of the stories is influenced by the time in which I live are that I am not used to reading stories with a structure like The Speckled Band so therefore they do not appeal to me as a modern reader.
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