The Sign of the Four
Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of the Four
7 chapters
3.88from 185,259 ratingson Goodreads
"The Sign of the Four" by Arthur Conan Doyle is a detective novel published in 1890. When Mary Morstan seeks Sherlock Holmes's help regarding her missing father and mysterious annual gifts of pearls, the investigation leads to a buried treasure, a vengeful one-legged man, and murder. Holmes and Watson must pursue suspects through London, unraveling a decades-old conspiracy that stretches from India's colonial past to the Thames. The case tests both Holmes's deductive powers and Watson's loyalty to their intriguing client.
About the book
Published in 1890, The Sign of the Four is the second Sherlock Holmes novel. Mary Morstan brings Holmes and Dr Watson a puzzle: for six years she has received a single pearl each year from an unknown sender, and now a letter asks her to a mysterious meeting. The case leads them to a murder in a locked room, a missing treasure and a chase down the Thames. Arthur Conan Doyle's story reaches back to India and the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and gives Holmes some of his most famous reasoning, including the principle that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth. It also introduces Watson to the woman he will marry.
Characters
Sherlock Holmes — Detective
The consulting detective, restless without a problem to solve.
Dr John Watson — Holmes’s friend
Holmes’s friend and chronicler, who narrates the case.
Mary Morstan — Client
A young governess whose father vanished years ago and who receives a pearl every year.
Thaddeus Sholto — Son of Major Sholto
A nervous, eccentric man who knows something about the pearls.
Bartholomew Sholto — Thaddeus’s twin
Thaddeus’s brother, who lives at Pondicherry Lodge.
Athelney Jones — Scotland Yard
A self-important police inspector who is quick to make arrests.
Toby — Tracking dog
A mongrel with a remarkable nose, borrowed to follow a trail across London.
About the author
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician who began writing Sherlock Holmes stories while waiting for patients who did not come. He modelled the detective on Joseph Bell, an Edinburgh surgeon who could name a stranger's trade and recent travels from the state of his hands and boots. Doyle thought his historical novels the serious work, killed Holmes off at the Reichenbach Falls in 1893, and was pushed into resurrecting him by public protest and a great deal of money. He spent his last decades campaigning for spiritualism, and twice for men he believed wrongly convicted.