Trollheart

Title: The Sign of the Four
Year first published: 1890
Type: Novel
Chronology: Second novel, second Holmes story
Location(s): Baker Street; The Lyceum Theatre, the Strand (in passing) Rochester Row, Vincent Square, Vauxhall Bridge Road, Wordsworth Road, Priory Road, Larkhall Lane, Stockwell Place, Robert Street, Cold Harbour Lane; Norwood; Pondicherry Lodge; Lower Camberwell; Lambeth; Millbank Penitentiary; India* - Muttra*, Agra*, Madras*; Andaman Islands*
Date: September 1888
The crime or the mystery: The disappearance of Captain Arthur Morstan and the appearance, over six years, of a pearl sent in a box every year to Miss Morstan anonymously. Also a note received the above date, asking her to meet someone who will give her information on her father’s fate. The focus quickly shifts to that of a murder, but not of the father.
The time (if given): 11 PM (for the murder, or at least, the discovery of same)

(*in flashback; Small’s story)


The Players
The client(s): Miss Mary Morstan
The victim(s): Bartholomew Sholto
The accused or suspected: Thaddeus Sholto, his brother
The arrested: Thaddeus Sholto. McMurdo, Lal Rao
The investigating officer(s): Inspector Athelney Jones
The advocate(s): Holmes and Watson. Mary Morstan
The real culprit(s): Jonathan Small and Tonga, an islander from the Andamans (a pygmy)
Others: Mrs. Bernstone, housekeeper at Pondicherry Lodge; McMurdo, the gatekeeper at the Lodge; Lal Rao, Indian servant at the Lodge; Sherman the taxidermist; Mrs. Cecil Forrester, with whom Miss Morstan lodges; Toby the dog; Mordecai Smith, boat owner; Mrs. Smith, his wife; Wiggins, leader of the Baker Street Irregulars

The clues: A poison dart, small footprints in Sholto’s room, the note bearing the Sign of the Four
The red herring(s): None
The breakthrough: Holmes figures out where the Aurora has been hidden, and is lucky enough to be there when Smith comes calling for it.
The result: The treasure is lost, but Small is taken. Tonga is killed and Watson is engaged to Mary Morstan.
[b[]How the case is solved:[/b] Realising there have been two people in the room when Bartholomew Sholto was murdered, and seeing the name Jonathan Small on the paper with the Sign of the Four on it, Holmes searches for the launch which he has determined is to take Small to a ship which will enable him to get out of the country. Having located it, he and the police chase it till they run the criminal down and take him in.

Famous Firsts

First mention of Holmes’ use of cocaine
First mention of the monographs he has written
First “review” by Holmes of Watson’s chronicling of his cases
First mention of Mrs. Hudson by name (in A Study in Scarlet she is just referred to as “the landlady”)
First meeting of Watson with his soon-to-be wife
First time Holmes plays the violin
First participation in a case by Holmes of Inspector Athelney Jones


Deductions made by Holmes which have nothing to do with the case:

That Watson has been out to post a telegram

That the watch Watson hands him belonged to his brother, who had a bad life and squandered his inheritance, fell into debt, out of which he occasionally rose. He was clumsy and careless, took to drink and has passed on.

Before the case

Watson is arguing with Holmes about the damage he is doing to his body and brain by taking cocaine. Holmes argues that he gets bored when there is no case, and this is his alternative. He lets Watson know about the monographs he has written, then he examines Watson’s watch, whereupon Mary Morstan is shown in.

Synopsis:

Mary Morstan arrives to request Holmes’ help. She has been receiving, for six years now, a pearl sent in a box, from an anonymous source. She has lost her father, whom she went to meet in London after he had returned from service in India, but he never turned up and she has not seen him from that day to this. She now has received a letter to ask her to meet a mysterious person who he says will tell her what happened to her father. She is allowed bring two friends, but no police, so Holmes and Watson accompany her to her meeting. In the cab she shows them a piece of paper she has found in her father’s desk, marked with four crosses and the legend “The Sign of the Four - Jonathan Small, Mohammed Singh, Dost Akbar and Abdullah Khan.” This means nothing to Holmes, though he notes it is written on Indian paper and was once pinned to a board, but has since been carried in a pocketbook.

On meeting the writer of the letter, they find it to be a small, nervous man called Thaddeus Sholto, who tells them that he and his brother Bartholemew are the sons of Major Sholto, who was in the same regiment as Miss Morstan’s father. He further enlightens them that his own father had a terrible fear of men with wooden legs, and that he received a letter from India which shocked and frightened him so that he sickened and never recovered. The night he died he told his sons how Captain Morstan had died, of a heart attack after the two men had quarrelled about his share of what he called the Agra treasure. Fearful that he would be blamed for the man’s death, he had his body buried and said nothing. The decision weighed heavily upon him for the rest of his life, and he now told his sons that he had wronged Mary Morstan and that half the Agra treasure was hers. He was about to reveal its location, when he spotted someone looking in the window and died of fright. The next morning the room had been turned over, and a piece of paper was found pinned to the dead man’s chest with “The Sign of the Four” scrawled on it.

He says they must go to see his brother, Bartholomew, but when they get there they find to his distress and their worry that the man is dead, seemingly having been killed without anyone entering the room he is in. It’s locked and the windows are closed. There is a poison dart in Bartholomew Sholto, and his brother additionally bemoans the theft of the Agra treasure. Holmes sends him to alert the police, while he figures out how the assassin got in. Fairly quickly he deduces it was through a hole in the roof, with no doubt a companion to lower him down and pull him back up with the aid of a rope. The footprints left by the companion are very small though, which sets the detective thinking.

Seeing that the footprint leads into some creosote, Holmes sets a dog on the companion’s trail, but unfortunately all it does is lead them to a timber yard, where the creosote probably came from. Thaddeus, meanwhile, is, as he worried he might be, arrested, along with the rest of his household, by the investigating officer, Inspector Athelney Jones. Holmes continues his own investigation and concludes that the real killer, whom he now knows to be a man called Jonathan Small and a tiny savage from the Andaman Islands, have booked passage on a launch called Aurora, but there is no sign of her. He sets the Baker Street Irregulars to track it down.

When Thaddeus Sholto is proven to have an alibi Jones has to let him go, and turns to Holmes for help. Holmes has him commandeer a police launch and they set off after Small and his companion, having located the launch in a shipyard and been lucky enough to be there when Mordecai Smith came back shouting for it to be ready for eight o’clock. There ensues a high-speed chase down the Thames, during which the pygmy is shot by Watson as he readies a poison dart to blow at them, and Jonathan Small tips out the treasure into the river before being caught.

In custody, he tells his story, of how he lost his leg to a crocodile and therefore had, as Holmes had deduced, a wooden one, how he had served in the army during the Indian Mutiny, and how he had fallen in with three others (Dost Akbar, Mahomet Singh and Abduallah Kahn, you’ll now doubt be unsurprised to hear) who had set about a envoy of a rajah, who was carrying his master’s treasure, killed him and hid the chest away, until the mutiny had been put down. But the murder of the envoy had been witnessed and all four of them were arrested and convicted. Moved eventually to the Andaman Islands, Small confided in Major Sholto, who was posted there in command and due to go home on leave, and broke from his gambling debts, about the treasure. He and Morstan then agreed to Small’s terms, to help all four escape - for they had sworn an oath to always act together, and this agreement marked with the Sign of the four of them - and they should both have a fifth share of the loot. Sholto however betrayed them all, and left without helping them, but did help himself to the treasure, which he brought back to England.

Small eventually managed to secure his escape by befriending Tonga, a pygmy who had fallen ill and whom he nursed back to health, and who was then fanatically loyal to him. Back in England, he then shadowed Major Sholto until finally he heard he was dying, got into his room and stole the treasure. He says he had not intended to kill him, but Tonga did that himself. This does not of course save him from prison. There is good news for Watson though, when Mary Morstan accepts his offer of marriage.

After the case

Not a lot. Watson announces his intention to marry Mary Morstan, and Holmes groans that he is about to lose his friend so soon.


Comments:

I don’t know if he did it on purpose, but damn if that chasing the launch down the Thames scene wasn’t made for TV adaptation! You’d have to say this novel has more overall excitement, or at least a more powerful denouement than the previous; whether Doyle learned from it or not I don’t know but it’s a real crowd-pleaser. So much happens here, and it’s odd in a way that having gone to the trouble of getting Holmes and Watson together he pulls them apart in the next novel, leaving the latter having to visit or be called in by Holmes whenever there’s a case. I mean, if this was his plan, why have them living together in the first place? Or if he was going to split them up, why not wait till later, when they’d had a bunch of adventures? Anyway the special relationship between them will continue, but there’s an element of it being dampened now, as a) they’re no longer living in the same rooms and b) one of them is no longer a bachelor.

This novel does much to solidify the idea of Holmes as an unemotional calculating crime-solving machine. This comes through strongest when, at the beginning of the novel, he’s asked by Watson what he can glean from the watch he’s handed, and goes into some detail about the owner, his late brother’s troubles, upsetting Watson. He remarks that he saw it as a problem to be solved and had not taken into account the personal side of things. He does apologise, but it’s illustrative of how little Holmes considers people’s feelings, even those of his friend. When Mary Morstan has left Watson remarks on her beauty and Holmes grunts that he didn’t notice. Not only that, but when his friend tells him of his engagement he groans that it will be the ruin of him; this is quite selfish of the man. He’s thinking now Watson will move out and I will have nobody to bounce ideas off and go for walks with. A bit childish really, a bit petulant.

We’re introduced here too to a second inspector, whom again I think we don’t hear from after this; as I say, and as everyone knows, Lestrade ends up being the main police contact for Holmes. I suppose it makes sense just to have one. I think this is the first real instance we hear too of Holmes’ use of cocaine, quite a controversial subject I would have thought in the nineteenth century. Here we’re told he uses it only when he’s bored and has no cases, as it relieves the everyday humdrum, which is I suppose how most people look on cocaine use: an escape, a way to ignore or to not to have to deal with the world they can’t face or don’t like.

The treasure is handled in a different way too. It’s supposed to belong to Mary Morstan, but Watson sees it as an obstacle to his love for her. If she were to marry him he would feel that she might think he was doing it for money, and even if she didn’t, society would. Apart from that, as a woman of means and wealth she would surely suddenly have many suitors, and he doesn’t consider himself as having much to offer. When the chest is found empty, Athelny Jones is angry, Holmes really doesn’t care as long as he has solved the mystery, and both Watson and Mary are happy, as there is now no barrier to their love, which is reciprocal. So it’s almost a macguffin I suppose: something that moves the plot along but in the end is actually not important to it. Well, apart from poor old Bartholomew Sholto being killed for it, I guess.

Character Study

Thaddeus Sholto: Although much is made of his description, and after Mary has engaged Holmes he is the agency by which Holmes and Watson are brought into the mystery, he doesn’t actually figure that much in the story. He sort of fades out of it once the body is discovered and he is arrested on suspicion of murdering his own brother. We hear later that he has been released as he has an alibi, but we hear no more of him after that.

Mary Morstan: In similar fashion, though she acts as the conduit for Holmes to get involved in the mystery, she’s a sort of peripheral figure, being brought news of the progress of the case by Watson, but not involved in it. Of course, she does play an important part at the end when she agrees to marry Watson.

Inspector Athelney Jones: And a third time, pretty much peripheral. Jones is, like much of the police input to Holmes stories, used really as a way to show how the official force bollocks things up, and how Holmes has to show them where they go wrong. Although he engages the police launch and does take part in the chase down the Thames, he’s mostly a sort of spectator and then a listener as Small pours out his story. He gets it wrong, has to turn to Holmes and is relegated to watching more or less while the consulting detective solves the mystery.

Jonathan Small: I suppose you’d have to say that of all the characters here other than Holmes and Watson, Small has the largest (sorry) part to play, but even so it’s only at the end that we even know his story, and it is told rather quickly, just a sort of tying up of loose ends and explanations. Unlike Jefferson Hope, who takes up the entire second part of A Study in Scarlet, Small does not have the lion’s share of the narrative, despite being the unintentional murderer and intentional thief.

Better than you

Holmes as always smiles when he sees Athelney Jones arrest Thaddeus Sholto, along with most of the rest of the household. He knows the inspector is on the wrong track, but then things do not go entirely his way either. Witness his comedic bumbling effort to track down Tonga via the creosote and Toby the dog, or his frustration when he can’t find the launch. He even admits at the end that he believed the islander out of darts, and when he is told that Tonga retained one in his pipe, shrugs that he had not thought of that. So he’s not infallible, but in fairness never claimed to be. You’d have to say that in one way though his break in the case comes about purely by luck. Yes, he methodically searches the shipyards along the docks until he finds the one that took in the Aurora, but he would have had no idea either that it was leaving that night or what time, had Smith not chanced to stumble along with the information rather helpfully. So there is an element of chance in his solving the mystery.

I guess that’s good, as it shows us that the mighty detective, with all his powers of reasoning and deduction, can be as susceptible to the vagaries of fate and chance as any of us, and like all cases, it’s often pure dumb luck, being in the right place at the right time that gives you the answer and allows you to solve it.

The story in 100 words or less.
(The Tealdeer version)

After a lady comes to Holmes to ask him to accompany her in finding out what happened to her father, a murder results. This turns out to be due to the theft of a great box of treasure by the man who originally stole it, and who was betrayed by the father of the dead man. Holmes catches him but the treasure is lost overboard in the case. Watson marries the client.

Holmes’ Hit List

Jonathan Small, Tonga

Total: 2
Running total: 3

The Holmes Body Count

Direct: 1 (Tonga)
Indirect: 1 (Bartholomew Sholto)
Incidental: 0
Historical: 4 (Major Sholto, envoy, soldier killed by Small in his escape bid, Captain Morstan)
Note: it would be ridiculous to add in all the soldiers and civilians killed in the Indian Mutiny, so it should be understood that the Body Count only covers specific characters in the story whom we are told died or were killed, and either were named or described - in the latter case, the soldier Small kills as he escapes from the Andaman Islands.
Total: 6
Running total: 11

Satisfied Customers?

In this section I will ask the question, did Holmes give value for money/time, and did he solve the case in a way that satisfied the client? Did he do all he could on behalf of them, or did he leave them hanging? Were they, in the end, glad to have sought out his services, or did they perhaps wonder they they had bothered?

Some of these will be nowhere near as straight-forward as asking was the case solved? In many stories, the answer is in the affirmative but this does not always necessarily mean that the client’s best interests have been served, or that the outcome is a satisfactory one. I will be explaining my reasoning and why I make the determination I do.

Hard to call this one really. Essentially, you would say no, as the object the client had in mind was to find her father, and he is dead, but then, she finds perhaps something more important, love with John Watson, so on balance I would say YES, though in fairness not through any agency, and indeed against the personal preference of Holmes.

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