Showing results for title "The Sign of Four", by author "Arthur Conan Doyle" in All Categories

A dense yellow miasma swirls in the streets of London as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson accompany a beautiful young woman to a sinister assignation. For Mary Marston has received several large pearls - one a year for the last six years - and now a mystery letter telling her she is a wronged woman. If she would seek justice she is to meet her unknown benefactor, bringing with her two companions. But unbeknownst to them all, others stalk London's fog-enshrouded streets: a one-legged ruffian with revenge on his mind.

The story is set in 1888. The Sign of the Four has a complex plot involving service in India, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a stolen treasure, and a secret pact among four convicts ("the Four" of the title) and two corrupt prison guards. It presents the detective's drug habit and humanizes him in a way that had not been done in the preceding novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887). It also introduces Doctor Watson's future wife, Mary Morstan.

From the alkali plains of Utah to the battlefields of colonial India and then back to the confines of 221B Baker Street in London, the stories in this collection are among the favorites of Sherlockians the world over. In this volume, we are introduced to the world's greatest unofficial consulting detective—Sherlock Holmes—and his trusty companion and chronicler Doctor Watson, who set off on various adventures; from the moment of their first meeting in A Study in Scarlet to the mystery of the Great Agra Treasure in The Sign of the Four.

The Sign of the Four is the thrilling follow-up to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's premiere novel, A Study in Scarlet in which he introduced the world's first unofficial consulting detective, the legendary and brilliant Sherlock Holmes.

When a young lady approaches Sherlock Holmes looking for help in finding out what happened to her father when he disappeared 10 years earlier, both Holmes and Watson are sent on a mission involving stolen treasure, service in colonial India, and a secret pact among four ex-convicts.

The Sign of Four (SIGN) is a Sherlock Holmes novel written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Lippincott's Magazine in February 1890. This is the 2nd Sherlock Holmes story. In the 7 and 14 June 1890 issues of The Bristol Observer appeared the first illustrations of Sherlock Holmes wearing a deerstalker, before the well-known Sidney Paget ones.