The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

First published: 1890

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Mystery

Time of plot: 1888

Locale: London

Principal characters

• Sherlock Holmes, a crime investigator
• Dr. John Watson, his friend
• Mary Morstan, a client
• Thaddeus Sholto, an art collector
• Jonathan Small, an escaped convict

The Story:

Miss Mary Morstan goes to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson with something of a mystery. Her father, formerly an officer in an Indian regiment, sent her word from London that she was to meet him at a certain hotel. When she kept the appointment, her father failed to appear, and he has not been heard from in the ten years elapsed since that time. His only known friend in England was Major Sholto, a brother officer, but that gentleman disclaimed any knowledge of Morstan’s presence in London. For the past six years, Mary has received one large and valuable pearl on a certain date each year. That morning, she received a note asking her to meet the writer at a certain spot near a theater. She is to bring two friends if she likes, but not the police. Apprehensive and puzzled, she turns to Holmes for help.

Holmes and Dr. Watson eagerly accept the assignment, Holmes from a need for excitement, and Dr. Watson from a newly kindled love for the young girl. When the three people keep the appointment at the theater, they are met by a coachman who drives them some distance and then deposits them in front of a house in a long row of new, dreary houses of the same design. Inside they are met by Dr. Thaddeus Sholto, the son of Major Sholto, who tells them a strange and frightening story that their father told him and his twin brother shortly before the major died.

In India, Morstan and Major Sholto came upon a large fortune that Sholto brought back to England. When Morstan arrived in London, where he planned to meet his daughter, he called on Major Sholto. In a disagreement over the division of the treasure, Morstan was stricken by a heart attack, fell, and struck his head a mortal blow. Fearing that he would be accused of murder, Major Sholto disposed of the body with the help of a servant. On his deathbed, Major Sholto wanted to make restitution to Morstan’s daughter and called his twin sons to his side to tell them where the treasure was hidden. As he was about to reveal the hiding place, however, he saw a horrible face staring in the window, and he died before he could disclose his secret.

On the following morning, his sons found the room ransacked and on the dead man’s chest a piece of paper bearing the words “The Sign of Four.” The two brothers differ over their responsibility to Mary; Thaddeus wants to help her, and his twin wants to keep everything for themselves should the treasure be found. It is Thaddeus who sends her the pearl each year, their father having taken the pearls out of the treasure chest before he died.

The day before his meeting with Mary, Holmes, and Dr. Watson, Thaddeus learns that his brother found the treasure chest in a sealed-off portion of the attic in their father’s house. Thaddeus declares his intention to take Mary and the two men to his brother and force him to give the girl her share of the wealth. When they arrive at the brother’s house, however, they find him murdered and the treasure gone. It is a baffling case, for the door to his room is locked from the inside and the wall to the window impossible to scale. Nevertheless, Holmes finds certain clues that lead him to believe there were two accomplices, one of whom pulled the other up through a trapdoor in the roof. He also ascertains that one of the men had a wooden leg and the other had exceedingly small feet.

During the ten years since Morstan’s death, various notes were found with the names of four men on them, the only English name being that of Jonathan Small. Many of the notes were signed “The Sign of Four,” the words that were written on the paper left on the late Major Sholto’s body. Using this clue and the evidence found in the murder room, Holmes goes to work. He believes that Small is the key to the mystery, and he tracks Small to a steam launch. After a harrowing chase on the river, Holmes catches up with him. Before Holmes can overtake Small, however, he has to kill the little man with the small feet. About to be taken, Small empties the treasure into the river. After his capture, he tells a story that unravels the mystery.

When he was a young man, Small fled from home because of trouble over a girl. He joined the army and went to India. Soon after his arrival there, he lost a leg to a crocodile. His accident necessitated a wooden leg, and he was discharged from the army. For a time, he worked on a plantation. When the natives staged an uprising, he accidentally came upon a treasure chest filled with precious jewels. Three natives, his partners in the discovery, swore loyalty to one another and called themselves The Four. After the uprising, the four men were imprisoned. In order to escape, they had entrusted their secret to Morstan and Major Sholto, and Major Sholto took charge of the treasure until the others could reach safety. Major Sholto, however, tricked his confederates; his treachery resulted in Morstan’s and his own conscience-stricken deaths. Holmes was right in assuming that Small left the paper with “The Sign of Four” written on it. Small escaped from prison and made his way back to England with a native companion, the man with the small feet. After Major Sholto’s death, he waited until the son found the treasure. Small did not intend violence, but his companion murdered young Sholto with a poison splinter before Small could enter the locked room by means of a rope suspended through the trapdoor.

The rest of the story is known by Holmes. Small, attempting to escape the country with the treasure, dumped it into the river rather than part with it. To Dr. Watson, the loss is a happy circumstance, for he could now tell Mary of his love for her. He would not do this while he thought her an heir. Mary accepts his proposal, and the happy pair receive the good wishes of Holmes. As for Holmes, he prefers the stimulation of mystery to the stimulation of love.

Bibliography

Carr, John Dickson. The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. New York: Harper, 1949. Based on a thorough perusal of Doyle’s private papers by one of the masters of the craft of mystery writing, this is considered the definitive biography.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. Memoirs and Adventures. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924. While this autobiography leaves many matters untouched and many questions unanswered, it does provide a valuable insight into the life and works of the author at the end of his career.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. 3 vols. Edited, with a foreword and notes by Leslie S. Klinger. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005-2006. Volume 3 in this three-volume set contains extensively annotated texts of The Sign of Four and three other novels, in which Klinger defines obscure terms and discusses various issues raised by each book. Additional information is provided in the appendixes that follow each novel.

Jaffe, Jacqueline A. Arthur Conan Doyle. Boston: Twayne, 1987. An excellent brief introduction to Doyle’s life and especially to his works. Two chapters, “The Beginnings of a Modern Hero: Sherlock Holmes” and “The Return of Holmes,” deal with Doyle’s detective fiction. At the end of the work there is a short but useful bibliography.

Kestner, Joseph A. Sherlock’s Men: Masculinity, Conan Doyle, and Cultural History. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1997. Examines aspects of masculinity in the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories. Includes an analysis of The Sign of Four.

Lycett, Andrew. The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. New York: Free Press, 2007. Comprehensive and detailed biography, based in part on materials in Doyle’s personal archive, which were not available to researchers until 1997. Lycett describes the events of the author’s life and the variety of his writings, explaining how the author who created one of the world’s most rational detectives was a believer in spiritualism and the supernatural.

McLaughlin, Joseph. “The Romance of Invasion: Cocaine and Cannibals in The Sign of Four.” In Writing the Urban Jungle: Reading Empire in London from Doyle to Eliot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000. Examines how Doyle and other British writers used words and images that defined the British Empire’s colonies, particularly those in Africa, to describe life in metropolitan London.