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= The_Sign_of_the_Four =
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Introduction
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'The Sign of the Four', also called 'The Sign of Four', is an 1890
detective novel, and it is the second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes
by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle wrote four novels and
56 short stories featuring the fictional detective.
Plot
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In 1888 Miss Mary Morstan arrives with a case. She explains that ten
years earlier, her father, Captain Arthur Morstan, disappeared
immediately after arriving in London. Mary contacted his friend, Major
Sholto, who denied having seen him. Four years later, she received a
valuable pearl in the post, a gift repeated once a year for six years.
With the sixth pearl, she received a letter asking for a meeting,
claiming that she is a "wronged woman".
Holmes takes the case, and soon discovers that Major Sholto had died a
week before Mary received the first pearl. The only further clue Mary
can give Holmes is a map of a fortress found in her father's desk,
appended with the words "The Sign of the Four: Jonathan Small, Mahomet
Singh, Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar," and four small cross-like symbols.
Following the letter's instructions, Holmes, Watson, and Mary go to
the Lyceum Theatre; there, they meet a coachman who takes them to the
house of Major Sholto's son Thaddeus, the anonymous sender of the
pearls. He reveals that Captain Morstan did, in fact, visit Major
Sholto, demanding his half of a treasure that Sholto had secretly
brought back from India. In the ensuing quarrel, Captain Morstan
suffered a heart attack and died, striking his head on the treasure
box as he fell. Afraid he would be suspected of murder, Major Sholto
buried the body and hid the treasure, leaving out a small gold chaplet
studded with twelve pearls. Thaddeus and his twin brother Bartholomew
only learned of this when their father revealed it while on his
deathbed; he was about to reveal to them where the treasure was
hidden, when a bearded man appeared at the window and the Major died
of fear. The brothers tried and failed to catch the intruder; later
on, they found a note pinned to the Major's body, which read "The Sign
of Four". Thaddeus began sending Mary the pearls to make things right,
and the brothers searched for the treasure. Six years later,
Bartholomew found and withheld it; Thaddeus then contacted Mary so
they could both confront Bartholomew and demand their shares.
The party, now accompanied by Thaddeus, heads to Bartholomew's house,
Pondicherry Lodge, Upper Norwood. As they enter the house, the worried
housekeeper reveals that Bartholomew has locked himself in his
laboratory and refuses to come out. Mary Morstan stays downstairs to
comfort the housekeeper, while the others rush up to the laboratory
door; through the keyhole, they can see Bartholomew Sholto slumped in
his chair, with a "fixed and unnatural grin" upon his face. Holmes
and Watson break down the door, to discover Bartholomew in a state of
'rigor mortis'. Upon further inspection of the body, Holmes discovers
a poisonous thorn above Bartholomew's ear. The treasure box is also
gone, though there is a hole in the ceiling where it used to be.
While the police wrongly take Thaddeus in as a suspect, Holmes deduces
from footmarks and other clues that there are two persons involved in
the murder: a one-legged white man named Jonathan Small, and a small
Andamanese accomplice, who accidentally stepped in creosote. Borrowing
Toby, a trained scent hound, from a naturalist, Holmes traces the pair
to a boat landing. Learning that Small has hired a steam launch named
the 'Aurora', Holmes, with the help of the Baker Street Irregulars and
his own disguises, traces the boat to a repair yard. In a police
launch, Holmes and Watson pursue the 'Aurora' when it flees the yard;
the islander attempts to shoot a dart at Holmes, and is shot dead
himself. Small attempts to flee, running the 'Aurora' aground, but is
captured. However, the treasure box is now empty; Small, not wanting
to surrender the gems, had scattered them into the Thames during the
chase.
Small confesses that he was once a soldier of the Third Buffs in
India, and lost his right leg to a crocodile while bathing in the
Ganges. He then became an overseer on an indigo plantation; the 1857
rebellion occurred, and he was forced to flee to the Agra fortress.
While standing guard one night, he was overpowered by Sikh troopers,
who gave him a choice; be killed, or help them waylay Achmet, a
disguised servant of an outlawed rajah, who had sent Achmet with a box
of jewellery to the British for safekeeping. The robbery and murder
took place, but the crime was discovered, although the hidden jewels
were not. Small and his accomplices got penal servitude on the Andaman
Islands.
Some years later, Small learned that Major Sholto and Captain Morstan,
who were guards at the convict barracks, had lost money playing cards.
Small saw his chance, and made a deal with the officers; Sholto would
recover the treasure, and in return send a boat to pick up Morstan,
Small, and the Sikhs so they could all meet and divide it. However,
Sholto stole the treasure for himself, returning to England after
inheriting a fortune from his uncle. Morstan went after Sholto but
never returned, and Small vowed vengeance against Sholto. Four years
later, Small escaped prison with the help of Tonga, an islander whose
life he had once saved. It was the news of this escape that shocked
Sholto into his fatal illness. Small arrived too late to hear of the
treasure's location, but left the note in the room anyway as revenge
for the treatment of himself and the Sikhs. When Bartholomew
eventually found the treasure, Small only planned to steal it;
however, a miscommunication led Tonga to kill Bartholomew before Small
could stop him. Small decides the treasure brings nothing but bad luck
to anyone who has it; to Achmet and Bartholomew, death; to Major
Sholto, fear and guilt; and for Small himself, penal servitude for
life.
Mary is left with no treasure, save the pearls; however, she and
Watson have fallen in love over the course of the adventure, and the
loss of the treasure has removed any barriers there might have been
between them. Watson reveals that he has proposed to Mary and that she
has accepted, much to the annoyance of Holmes.
Publication history
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described how he was commissioned to write the
story over a dinner with Joseph Marshall Stoddart, managing editor of
the American publication 'Lippincott's Monthly Magazine', at the
Langham Hotel in London on 30 August 1889. Stoddart wanted to produce
an English version of 'Lippincott’s' with a British editor and British
contributors. The dinner was also attended by Oscar Wilde, who
eventually contributed 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' to the July 1890
issue. Doyle discussed what he called this "golden evening" in his
1924 autobiography 'Memories and Adventures'.
The novel first appeared in the February 1890 edition of 'Lippincott's
Monthly Magazine' as 'The Sign of the Four; or The Problem of the
Sholtos', appearing in both London and Philadelphia. The British
edition of the magazine originally sold for a shilling, and the
American for 25 cents. Surviving copies are now worth several thousand
dollars.
Over the following few months in the same year, the novel was then
republished in several regional British journals. These
re-serialisations gave the title as 'The Sign of Four'. The novel was
published in book form in October 1890 by Spencer Blackett, again
using the title 'The Sign of Four'. This edition included a
frontispiece illustrated by Charles H. M. Kerr. The title of both the
British and American editions of this first book edition omitted the
second "the" of the original title.
A German edition of the book published in 1902 was illustrated by
Richard Gutschmidt. An edition published by George Newnes Ltd in 1903
was illustrated by F. H. Townsend.
Different editions over the years have varied between the two forms of
the title, with most editions favouring the four-word form. The actual
text in the novel nearly always uses "the Sign of the Four" (the
five-word form) to describe the symbol in the story, although the
four-word form is used twice by Jonathan Small in his narrative at the
end of the story.
As with the first story, 'A Study in Scarlet', produced two years
previously, 'The Sign of the Four' was not particularly successful to
start with. It was the short stories, published from 1891 onwards in
'Strand Magazine', that made household names of Sherlock Holmes and
his creator.
Television and film
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There have been multiple film and television adaptations of the book:
Year !! Media !! Title !! Country !! Director !! Holmes !! Watson
1905 Film (silent) 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for
Ransom' US J. Stuart Blackton Gilbert M. Anderson Kyrle Bellew
1913 Film (silent) 'Sherlock Holmes Solves the Sign of the Four'
US Lloyd Lonergan Harry Benham Charles Gunn
1923 Film (silent) 'The Sign of Four' UK Maurice Elvey
Eille Norwood Arthur Cullin
1932 Film 'The Sign of Four' UK Graham Cutts Arthur Wontner
Ian Hunter
1968 TV (series) 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes' -
"The Sign of Four" UK William Sterling Peter Cushing Nigel
Stock
1974 TV 'Das Zeichen der Vier' ('Le signe des quatre')
France/West Germany Jean-Pierre Decourt Rolf Becker Roger Lumont
1983 TV (film) 'The Sign of Four' UK Desmond Davis Ian
Richardson David Healy
1983 TV (series) 'Sherlock Holmes and the Sign of Four'
(animated) Australia Ian Mackenzie Alex Nicholas Peter O'Toole
(voice) Earle Cross (voice)
1983 TV (series) 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr.
Watson' - 'The Treasures of Agra' () USSR Igor Maslennikov Vasily
Livanov Vitaly Solomin
1987 TV (film) 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' US Kevin
Connor Michael Pennington ('n/a')
1987 TV (series) 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' - "The Sign of
Four" UK Peter Hammond Jeremy Brett Edward Hardwicke
1991 Filmed play 'The Crucifer of Blood' US Fraser Clarke
Heston Charlton Heston Richard Johnson
1999 TV (series) 'Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century' - "The
Sign of Four" (animated) US/UK Paul Quinn Jason Gray-Stanford
(voice) John Payne (voice)
2001 TV (film) 'The Sign of Four' Canada Rodney Gibbons
Matt Frewer Kenneth Welsh
2014 TV (series) 'Sherlock' - "The Sign of Three" UK Colm
McCarthy Benedict Cumberbatch Martin Freeman
2014 TV (series) 'Sherlock Holmes' - "The Adventure of the
Cheerful Four" () Japan Kunio Yoshikawa Kōichi Yamadera (voice)
Wataru Takagi (voice)
Radio and audio dramas
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A radio adaptation of the story was broadcast on New York radio
station WGY on 9 November 1922. The cast included Edward H. Smith as
Sherlock Holmes, F. H. Oliver as Dr. Watson, and Viola Karwowska as
Mary Morstan. It was produced as part of a series of adaptations of
plays, so it is likely that the script was based on an existing stage
adaptation of the story (one was written by John Arthur Fraser in 1901
and another by Charles P. Rice in 1903).
A six-part adaptation of the novel aired in the radio series 'The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'. Adapted by Edith Meiser, the episodes
aired from 9 November 1932 to 14 December 1932, with Richard Gordon as
Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson.
The book was adapted by Felix Felton for the BBC Light Programme in
1959. Richard Hurndall played Holmes and Bryan Coleman played Watson.
On Saturday 2 March 1963, the story was dramatised by Michael Hardwick
for the BBC Home Service as part of the 1952-1969 radio series, as a
ninety-minute episode on 'Saturday-Night Theatre', with Carleton Hobbs
as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson.
'CBS Radio Mystery Theater' aired a radio version of the story in
1977, starring Kevin McCarthy as Holmes and Court Benson as Watson.
'The Sign of the Four' was adapted for radio by Bert Coules in 1989 as
part of BBC Radio 4's complete Sherlock Holmes 1989-1998 radio series,
with Clive Merrison as Holmes, Michael Williams as Watson, and
featuring Brian Blessed as Jonathan Small.
In 2016, the story was adapted as an episode of the American radio
series 'The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', with John Patrick
Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Watson.
In 2024, the podcast Sherlock&Co adapted the story in a
ten-episode adventure called "The Sign of Four", starring Harry
Attwell as Holmes, Paul Waggott as Watson, Marta da Silva as Mariana
"Mrs. Hudson" Ametxazurra and Acushla-Tara Kupe as Mary Morstan.
Stage
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Paul Giovanni's 1978 play 'The Crucifer of Blood' is based on the
novel. The Broadway premiere featured Paxton Whitehead as Holmes and
Timothy Landfield as Watson. The 1979 London production featured Keith
Michell as Holmes and Denis Lill as Watson.
License
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sign_of_the_Four
