======================================================================
= The_Sign_of_the_Four =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
'The Sign of the Four', also called 'The Sign of Four', is an 1890
detective novel, 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
======================================================================
In 1888 Miss Mary Morstan arrives at the flat of Sherlock Holmes with
a case. She explains that, ten years earlier, her father Captain
Arthur Morstan disappeared immediately after arriving in London from
his military service abroad. 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 every year for six years. With the
sixth pearl, she also 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, where 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 and later on, 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 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;
through the keyhole, they can see Bartholomew 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
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, but 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, but when
the 1857 rebellion occurred, 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 made a deal with the officers, that 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 (death to
Achmet and Bartholomew, fear and guilt to Major Sholto, imprisonment
to Small himself).
Mary is left with no treasure, except the pearls, however, she and
Watson have fallen in love over the course of the adventure. The loss
of the treasure has removed any barriers there might have been between
them and Watson reveals that he has proposed to Mary and she has
accepted, much to the annoyance of Holmes.
Publication history
======================================================================
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, the novel was 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
initially. 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
=====================
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
========================
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
=======
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
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sign_of_the_Four
