Читать книгу A Study in Sherlock - Raymond G. Farney - Страница 8

The Sign of Four

The Problem of the Sholtos

 Publication & Dates:Lippincott’s Magazine, London & Philadelphia (serialized in nine parts) February 1890Book form October 1890Illustrations: Charles H.M. KerrConan Doyle’s 2nd storyHolmes 19th case

 Story Introduction:Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, for day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject; but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me different and backward in crossing him.Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer.“Which is it today,” I asked, “morphine or cocaine?”He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. “It is cocaine,” he said, “a seven -per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?”“No, indeed,” I answered brusquely. “My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it.”He smiled at my vehemence. “Perhaps you are right, Watson,” he said. “I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.”“But consider!” I said earnestly. “Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue-change and may at least leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable.”He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation.“My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.”“The only unofficial detective?” I said, raising my eyebrows.“The only unofficial consulting detective,” he answered. “I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way is their normal state—the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist’s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience in my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case.”“Yes, indeed,” said I cordially. “I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure, with the somewhat fantastic title of ‘A Study in Scarlet.’”He shook his head sadly.“I glanced over it,” said he. “Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”“But the romance was there,” I remonstrated, “I could not tamper with the facts.”“Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unraveling it.”I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been especially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and though it did not prevent me from walking it ached wearily at every change of the weather.“My practice has extended recently to the Continent,” said Holmes after a while, filling up his old brier-pipe. “I was consulted last week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will and possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857 and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance.”He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of adoration, with stray magnifiques, coup-de-mâitres and tour-de-force, all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.“He speaks as a pupil to his master,” said I.“Oh, he rates my assistance too highly,” said Sherlock Holmes lightly. “He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He’s only wanting in knowledge, and that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into French.”“Your works?”“Oh, didn’t you know?” he cried, laughing. “Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here for example is one ‘Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos.’ In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco, with coloured plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder had been done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows the field search. To the trained eye there is as much difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird’s-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato.”“You have an extraordinary genius for the minutiae,” I remarked.“I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footprints, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the influence of a trade on the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, cord-cutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the scientific detective—especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby.”“Not at all,” I answered earnestly. “It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deductions. Surely the one to some extent implies the other.”“Why, hardly,” he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. “For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you dispatched a telegram.”“Right!” said I. “Right on both points! But I confess that I don’t see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no one.”“It is simplicity itself,” he remarked, chuckling at my surprise—“so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken out the pavement and thrown up some earth, which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction.”“How, then, did you deduce the telegram?”“Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards. What could you go into the post office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all the other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”“In this case it certainly is so,” I replied after a little thought. “The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?”“On the contrary,” he answered, “it would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any problem what you might submit to me.”“I have heard you say it is difficult for man to have any object in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the late owner?”I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the test was, as I thought an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and handed it back.“There are hardly any data,” he remarked. “The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.”“You are right,” I answered. “It was cleaned before being sent to me.”In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward the most lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could be expected from an uncleaned watch?“Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,” he observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy lack-lustre eyes. “Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elderly brother, who inherited it from your father.”“That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. on the back?”“Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation. Jewellery usually descends to the eldest son and he is most likely to have the same name as your father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of the eldest brother.”“Right, so far,” said I. “Anything else?”“He was a man of untidy habits—very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.”I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness in my heart.“This is unworthy of you, Holmes,” I said. “I could not have believed that you would have descended to this. You have made inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind and, to speak plainly, has your touch of charlatanism in it.”“My dear doctor,” said he kindly, “pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, I never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch.”“Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They’re absolutely correct in every particular.”“Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of probability. I did not expect to be so accurate.”“But it was not mere guesswork?”“No, no, I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend. For example I began by stating that your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of the watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins and keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched inference that a man that inherits one article of such value is pretty well provided for in other respects.”I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning“It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference—that your brother was often at low water. Secondary inference—that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not have redeemed the pledge. Finally I ask you to look at the inner plate, which contains the keyhole. Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole—marks where the key has slipped. What sober man’s key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard’s watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all this?”“It is as clear as daylight,” I answered. “I regret the injustice which I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvelous faculty. May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?”“None. Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field on which to expert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.”I had opened my mouth to reply to this triade, when with a crisp knock, our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.“A young lady for you, sir,” she said addressing my companion.“Miss Mary Morstan,” he read. “Hum! I have no recollection of the name. Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don’t go, Doctor. I should prefer that you remain.”“It is the wooden-legged man.”Case Information

 Date:September, Morning.

 Duration:4 Days

 Crime:Murder. “Poisoned with a dart from a blow gun” “I never raised a hand against Mr. Sholto. It was the little hell-hound, Tonga, who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir.”

 Client:Mary Morstan. * “A firm step and an outward composure of matter. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited means. The dress was a somber grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which extends over many nations in three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature. I could not but observe that as she took the seat which Sherlock Holmes placed for her, her lips trembled, her hand quivered, and she showed every sign of intense inward agitation.”Her mother is dead. Attended a boarding school in Edinburgh until seventeen.“You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition.”“She was seventeen at the time of her father’s disappearance, she must be seven-and-twenty now.”“Miss Morstan has done me the honor of accepting me as a husband in prospective.”“I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she preserved the Agra plan from all the other papers of her father.”“After the angelic fashion of women, she bore trouble with a calm face as long as there was someone weaker than herself to support. I had found her bright and placid by the side of the frightened housekeeper.”“She was clearly no mere paid dependent but an honoured friend” of Mrs. Forrester’s.“It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed no sign of elation at the prospect. On the contrary, she gave a toss of her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took small interest.”“She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and waist. The light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet grave face, and tinting with a dull metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant hair. One white arm and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy.”

 Victims:Bartholomew Sholto, favorite son of Major Sholto. Thaddeus’ twin brother & finder of the Agra treasure hidden at Pondicherry Lodge.“Nothing would annoy brother Bartholomew more than any publicity.”“There hung a face—the very face of our companion Thaddeus. There was the same high, shining head, the same circular bristle of red hair, and the same bloodless countenance. The features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and unnatural grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more jarring to the nerves than any scowl or contortion. He pointed to what looked like a long dark thorn stuck in the skin just above the ear. “It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful for it is poisoned.”Holmes said, “Just put your hand here on the poor fellow’s arm, and here on his leg. What do you feel?” — “The muscles are as hard as a board.”—“They are in a state of extreme contraction far exceeding the usual rigor mortis. Coupled with distortion of the face, his Hippocratic smile.”—“Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid, some strychnine like substance which would produce tetanus.”“I discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no great force into the scalp.”“As far as the death of Bartholomew Sholto went, I had heard little good of him and could feel no intense antipathy to his murderers.”Achmet, a pretend merchant, who three members of the sign of four murdered at Agra fort for the treasure. A little fat, round fellow with a great yellow turban and a bundle in his hand, done up in a shawl. He seemed to be all in a quiver with fear, for his hands twitched as if he had the ague and his head kept turning to left and right with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he ventures out from his hole.”

 Crime Scene:Pondicherry Lodge, in Upper Norwood. Home of Major Sholto, where eleven years earlier he had retired, and shared with his late son Bartholomew.“The height of the building was seventy-four feet.”“Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds and was girt round with a very high stonewall topped with broken glass. A single narrow iron-clamped door formed the only means of entrance.”“Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump of a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window. The vast size of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck a chill to the heart.”“Holmes swung it (lantern) slowly round and peered keenly at the house and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the grounds.”“The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some length, with a great picture of Indian tapestry upon the right of it and three doors upon the left. The third door was to Bartholomew‘s room.”“Bartholomew Sholto’s chamber appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A double-line of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn upon the wall opposite the door, and the table was littered over with Bunsen burners, test tubes, and retorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid in wicker baskets. One of these appeared to leak or to have been broken, for a stream of dark-coloured liquid trickled out from it, and the air was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tar-like odor. A set of steps stood at one side of the room in the midst of a litter of lath and plaster, and above them there was an opening in the ceiling large enough for a man to pass through. At the foot of the steps a long coil of rope was thrown carelessly together.“By the table in a wooden armchair the master of the house was seated all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder and that ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and cold and had clearly been dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only his features but all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most fantastic fashion. By his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar instrument—a brown, close-grained stick, with the stone head like a hammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet of note-paper with some words scrolled up on it. The sign of four.”“I looked out the open window. The moon still shone brightly on the angle of the house. We were a good sixty feet from the ground, and, look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much as a crevice in the brickwork.”“He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he swung himself up into the garret.—The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way and six the other. The floor was formed by the rafters, with thin lath and plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from beam to beam. The roof ran up an apex and was evidently the inner shell of the true roof of the house. There was no furniture of any sort, and the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor.”“The square, massive house, with its black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and forlorn behind us.”

 Criminals:Jonathan Small, only member left of the sign of four, came to London to regain the Agra treasure.“A face was looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see the whitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. It was a bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of concentrated malevolence.”“His name, I have every reason to believe, is Jonathan Small. He is a poorly educated man, small, active, with his right leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the inner side. His left boot has a coarse, square-toed sole, with an iron band round the heel. He is a middle-aged man, much sunburned, and has been a convict—there is a good deal of skin missing from the palm of his hand.”“Of course, as to his personal appearance, he must be middle-aged and must be sunburned after serving his time in such an oven as the Andaman’s. His height is readily calculated from the length of his stride, and we know that he was bearded. His hairiness was the one point which impressed itself upon Thaddeus Sholto when he saw him at the window.”“I don’t like the wooden-legged man, wi’ his ugly face and outlandish talk.” (Mordecai’s wife)“This man Small is a pretty shrewd fellow.”“He was a good-sized, powerful man, and as he stood posing himself with legs astride I could see that from the thigh downward there was but a wooden stump upon the right side.”“He was a sunburned reckless-eyed fellow, with a network of lines and wrinkles all over his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who is not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill-doings.”“I am a Worcestershire man myself, born near Pershore. I dare say you would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to look. I have often thought of taking a look around there, but the truth is I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt they would be so very glad to see me. They were all steady, chapel-going folk, small farmers, well known and respected over the countryside, while I was always a bit of a rover. At last, however, when I was about eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into a mess over a girl and could only get out of it again by taking the Queen’s shilling and joining the Third Buffs, which was just starting for India. I wasn’t destined to do much soldiering, however, I had just got past the goose-step and learned to handle my musket, when I was fool enough to go swimming in the Ganges—a crocodile took me just as I was halfway across and nipped off my right leg as clean as a surgeon could have done it, just above the knee.”While imprisoned in Andaman’s, Blair Island, he was a privileged person, worked dispensing drugs for the surgeon, living mostly on his own in a hut at Hope Town on the slopes of Mount Harriet.Tonga. “There are features of interest about this ally (Tonga). He lifts the case from the regions of the commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals of crime in this country.”“Beside Small lay a dark mass, which looked like a Newfoundland dog. It straightened itself into a black man—the smallest I have ever seen—with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, disheveled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort of dark ulster of blanket, which left only his face exposed, but that face was enough to give a man a sleepless night. Never have I seen features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and burned with a somber light, and his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with half animal fury.—A unhallowed dwarf with his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light of our lantern.”“You’ll find the treasure where the key is and where little Tonga is.”“He was sick to death and had gone to a lonely place to die. I took him in hand, though he was as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got him all right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then, and would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my hut. I learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him all the fonder of me. Tonga—for that was his name—was a fine boatman and owned a big, roomy canoe of his own.”“He was staunch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more faithful mate.”“We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs and other such places as a black cannibal. He would eat raw meat and dance his war-dance: so we always had a hatful of pennies after a day’s work.”

 Punishment:Jonathan Small, “I never raised a hand against Mr. Sholto. It was the little hell-hound, Tonga, who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir.”“You must make a clean breast of it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached the room.”“I, who have a fair claim to half a million of money, should spend the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andaman’s, and am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor.”“Whatever punishment was in store for him, I felt that he might expect no sympathy from me, Sherlock Holmes and Jones.”Tonga, “Fire if he raises his hand,” said Holmes.—Even as we looked he plucked out from under the covering a short, round piece of wood, like a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips; our pistols rang out together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of choking cough, fell sideways into the stream. I caught a glimpse of his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters.—Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.Murder of Achmet; Jonathan Small “Was condemned to death, though my sentence was afterwards community to the same as the others.”The three Sikhs, penal servitude for life.

 Official Police:Mr. Athelney Jones, Scotland Yard Inspector.“When Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way is their normal state—the matter is laid before me.”“By the way, apropos of this Norwood business, you see that they had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honor of having caught one fish in his great haul.”“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?” “For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.“A very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode heavily into the room. He was red-face, burly, and plethoric, with a pair of very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from between swollen and puffy pouches.”Said the fat detective pompously.—“He can find something,” remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders; “he has occasionally glimmerings of reason. Il n’y a pas des sots si incommodes que ceux qui ont de l’esprit!”“Your presence will be a great service to me,” he answered. “We shall work the case out independently and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare’s-nest which he may choose to construct.”“No. I should probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment. He is not a bad fellow, and I should not like to do anything which would injure him professionally. But I have a fancy for working it out myself now that we have gone so far.”“Very different was he, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense who had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His expression was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic.”“Athelney Jones proved to be a sociable soul in his hours of relaxation and faced his dinner with the air of a bon vivant.”Sergeant who accompanied Jones when first arrived at the crime scene.A buff, genial inspector who accompanied Watson with the treasure, after Small’s capture, to Mrs. Forrester’s home to see Miss Morstan.Sam Brown, one of the inspectors on the police launch.Two inspectors waited in the cab at Baker St. for Jones and Small to come out and go to Scotland Yard.

 Characters:Thaddeus Sholto, son of Major Sholto, and twin brother to Bartholomew. Placed ad to locate Mary Morstan & told story about their father’s involvement.— “A small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all around the fringe of it, and a bald shining scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk—now smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and two visible lines of yellow and irregular teeth, which he strove to conceal by constantly passing his hands over the lower part of his face. In spite of his obtrusive boldness he gave the impression of youth. In point of fact, he had just turned his thirtieth year.”“Blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery blue eyes.”“A very long befogged topcoat with Astrakhan collar and cuffs. This he buttoned tightly up in spite of the extreme closeness of the night and finished his attire by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which covered the ears, so that no part of him was visible save the mobile and peaky face.”“It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,” she said. “Nothing else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most kindly and honorably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful and unfounded charge.”The Baker Street Irregulars. The Baker Street division of the detective police force. I could hear Mrs. Hudson, raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and dismay.— “It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.” As he spoke there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged little street Arabs. There was some show of discipline among them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in line and stood facing us with expectant faces. One of their number, taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little scarecrow.“They can go everywhere, and see everything, overhear everyone.”“My boys had been up the river and down the river without result.”Wiggins “That wire was to my dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and his gang will be with us before we have finished our breakfast.” -----“One of their number, taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little scarecrow.”Old Mrs. Bernstone, Bartholomew’s housekeeper for ten years and only woman in the Pondicherry Lodge.Mrs. Cecil Forrester, Mary Morstan’s employer. Holmes had once unraveled a little domestic complication. She was much impressed by his kindness and skill. In lower Camberwell. “A middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how tenderly her arm stole around Miss Morstan’s waist and how motherly was the voice in which she greeted her.”Mrs. Hudson. Announces Miss Morstan.— I could hear Mrs. Hudson, raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and dismay. “It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.”Khitmutgar, Thaddeus Hindu servant. “Clad in a yellow turban, white loose-fitting clothes, and a yellow sash. There was something strangely incongruous in this Oriental figure framed in the commonplace doorway of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house.”Lal Rao, Bartholomew Sholto’s butler, an inside confederate of Jonathan Small.McMurdo, Bartholomew porter who answered the door at Podicherry Lodge when Thaddeus, Holmes, Watson and Miss Morstan arrived. Also a prize-fighter who four years earlier had fought three rounds with Holmes at Alison’s rooms.Mordecai Smith, hired by Small to take them upriver with the treasure. Owner and captain of the Aurora. “Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this Norwood business.”— “Neither he did,” cried our prisoner, “not a word. I chose his launch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing; but we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we reached our vessel.”— “Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see no wrong comes to him.”Mrs. Smith, Mordecai’s wife. A stoutish, red faced woman— “The main thing with people of that sort,” said Holmes, “is never to let them think that their information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you listen to them under protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want.”Jack Smith, Mordecai’s son. A little curly-headed lad of six.Sherman “a bird stuffer’s” ---”The old naturalist’s” (Holmes tells Watson.) “Knock old Sherman up and tell him, with my compliments, that I want Toby at once.”Williams, Major Sholto’s porter and coachman. Prize fighter, was once lightweight champion.Sent by Thaddeus to pick up Miss Morstan, Holmes, and Watson at the Lyceum Theatre.A small, dark, brisk man.—A pair of wonderful penetrating and questioning eyes.—Toby (a dog), “I know a dog that would follow that scent to the world’s end. If a pack can track a trailed herring across a shire, how far can a specially trained hound follow so pungent a smell as this?”“A queer mongrel with the most amazing power of scent. I would rather have Toby’s help than that of the whole detective force of London.”— “Toby lives at No.7 on the left here.”“Toby proved to be an ugly, long-haired, brown and white in colour, with a very clumsy, waddling gait.”“Here you are, doggie! Good old Toby! Smell it, Toby, smell it!” He pushed the creosote handkerchief under the dog’s nose, while the creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with the most comical cock to his head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of a famous vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a stout cord to the mongrel’s collar, and led him to the foot of the water-barrel. The creature instantly broke into a succession of high, tremulous yelps and with his nose on the ground and his tail in the air, patterned off upon the trail at a pace which strained his leash and kept us at the top of our speed.“Toby never hesitated or swerved but waddled on in his particular rolling fashion. Clearly the pungent smell of the creosote rose high above all the other contending scents.”“Toby looked neither to the right nor to the left but trotted onward with his nose to the ground and an occasional eager whine which spoke of a hot scent.”“Toby has lost his character for the infallibility.” “He acts according to his lights,” said Holmes.— “Poor Toby is not to blame.”“Toby could eat the scraps, I dare say.”

 Others Mentioned:Captain Arthur Morstan, Mary’s late father, 34th Bombay infantry. “He had suffered for years from a weak heart, but he concealed it from everyone. Died of a heart attack after arriving in London ten years earlier while at Pondicherry Lodge with Major Sholto. “He suddenly pressed his hand to his side, his face turned a dusty hue, and he fell backwards, cutting his head against a corner of the treasure-chest.”Major John Sholto, friend of and served with Captain Morstan of the Thirty-fourth Bombay Infantry. Retired eleven years earlier to Pondicherry Lodge, Upper Norwood, bringing from India a considerable sum of money and a large collection of valuable curiosities.Father of Thaddeus and Bartholomew. “Died upon twenty-eighth of April, 1882.”Left the army after inheriting a fortune from his uncle.Went to India to verify the treasure existed, took it, didn’t return to Andaman but went to England.— “The scoundrel had stolen it all without carrying out one of the conditions on which we had sold him the secret.”Uncle of Major Sholto died, leaving him a fortune.Lieutenant Bromley commanded native soldiers with Major Sholto and Captain Morstan at Blair Island in Andamans.Lal Chowdar, Major Sholto’s servant who helped the major dispose of Captain Morstan’s body. He had died before Major Sholto.Dawson & his wife, coworkers of Small at the plantation, did the book-work and managing. Both killed in the uprising.Freinghee, what Europeans inhabiting India were called.Street Arab held the four-wheeler for Williams, the driver, while he spoke to Miss Morstan, Holmes and Watson at the Lyceum Theatre “He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street Arab led across a four-wheeler and opened the door.”Hindoos or Mohammedans Holmes thought were three of the Sign of Four, and Jonathan Small the fourth.— “The Hindoo proper has long and thin feet. The sandal-wearing Mohammedan has the great toe well separated from the others because the thong is commonly passed between.”Sergeant John Holder saved Small from drowning in the Ganges when his leg was bitten off by a crocodile.Jim, Mordecai’s oldest son, who went with his father, Small, and Tonga on Aurora.A rajah, in the northern provinces, the original owner of the treasure which he had inherited from his father. He had been deposed and driven out of India.Malay pilgrims, the cargo of the trader ship that picked up Small and Tonga at sea.Nana Sahib, leader of the mutiny. “Made himself scarce over the frontier.”Pandies, name of the Sepoys taking part in the mutiny.A vile Pathan, a convict-guard to Small killed with his wooden leg, guarded the wharf where Small was to meet Tonga with his canoe for escape.Sepoy, what native Indian soldiers for the Britain are called.Dr. Somerton, surgeon, “a fast, sporting young chap” who Small worked with in the Andamans, Blair Island prison.The three Sikhs, members of the sign of four. Abdullah Khan, “the taller and fiercer.” Dost Akbar, “an enormous Sikh with a black beard which swept nearly down to his cummerbund. I have never seen so tall a man.” Klan’s foster-brother, and accompanied Achmet on his travel to the fort Agra and Mahomet Singh stood guard with Small at the gate.“I tell you that no living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the Andaman convict-barracks, and myself.”Jean Paul Richter & Carlyle, two writers mentioned by Holmes and Watson.Wilson, Sir Colin, Lucknow, and Colonel Greathed, who put down the mutiny.Abel White, an indigo-planter who Small worked for after being discharged from the army. Killed in the uprising.“Mr. Abel White was an obstinate man. He had it in his head that the affair had been exaggerated, and that it would blow over as suddenly as it sprang up. There he sat on his veranda, drinking whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the country was in a blaze about him.”Winwood Reade, a writer that Holmes quotes.

 Locations:Baker Street.Thaddeus Sholto’s Home, “Our guest does not appear to take us to very fashionable regions.” We had indeed reached a questionable and forbidding neighborhood. Long lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by the coarse glare and tawdry brilliancy of public-houses at the corner. Then came rows of two-storied villas, each with a fronting of miniature garden, and then again interminable lines of new, staring building—the monster tentacles which the giant city was throwing out into the country. At last the cab drew up at the third house in a new terrace. None of the other houses were inhabited, and that at which we stopped was as dark as its neighbours, save for a single glimmer in the kitchen window.“A third-rate suburban dwelling-house.”“We were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which he invited us. In that sorry house it looked as out of place as a diamond of the first water in a setting of brass. The richest and glossiest of curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back here and there to expose some richly mounted paintings or Oriental vase. The carpet was of amber and black, so soft and so thick that the foot sank pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss. Two great tiger-skins thrown athwart it increased the suggestive of Eastern luxury, as did a huge hookah which stood upon a mat in the corner. A lamp in the fashion of a silver dove was hung from an almost invisible gold wire in the centre of the room. As it burned it filled the air with a subtle and aromatic odor.”Lower Camberwell, home of Mrs. Cecil Forrester.Jacobson’s Yard, where Aurora was hidden for two days.Lyceum Theatre, “Be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theater tonight at seven o’clock. If you are distrustful bring two friends. You are a wronged woman and shall have justice. Do not bring Police. If you do all will be in vain. Your unknown friend.”No. 3 Pinchin Lane. Home of Toby and Sherman “a bird stuffer’s” down near the water’s edge at Lambeth, the third house on the right-hand side. “Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby, two-storied brick houses in the lower quarter of Lambeth.”St Paul’s, where the sun crossed its summit as they passed on the way to the Tower.A small brick house of Mordecai Smith, at a wharf on the water’s edge.Streatham, Brixton, Campberwell, Kensington Lane, east of Oval, Bond St., Miles Street, Knight’s Place. Locations Holmes and Watson passed as Toby followed the scent.Down Nine Elms to Broderick and just past White Eagle Tavern to Nelson’s lumber yard. Where Toby had taken them on the false scent.Belmont Place and Prince’s street. At the end of Broad Street it ran down to the water’s edge where there was a small wooden wharf. Route taken by Toby when he regained correction scent.Milbank Penitentiary, where Holmes and Watson passed after leaving Mordecai’s wife, and Great Peter Street post-office, where Holmes dispatched a wire to Wiggins.The Tower of London, where Holmes, Watson, and Jones waited in the police launch watching Jacobson’s Yard for the Aurora.Westminster Stairs, where Holmes, Watson, and Jones met the police launch.West India Docks down the long Deptford Reach, and up again rounding the Isle of Dogs. Route of the police launch as it chased the Aurora. At Greenwich they were about three hundred paces behind, at Blackwell not more than two hundred and fifty. Barking Level upon one side and the melancholy Plumstead Marshes upon the other.Vauxhall Bridge, Holmes, Watson, Jones, and Small passed on the way to Baker St.Vauxhall, where Watson was dropped off with an inspector by Holmes and Jones to go to Miss Morstan with the treasure to show her and take her to Baker St.

 Locations Mentioned:Afghanistan, Watson tells stories of his time there, to cheer and amuse Miss Morstan while in the carriage on the way to Thaddeus Sholto’s house.Agra, city & old fort in India where Small and other Europeans took refuge during the rebel uprising.“The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce devil-worshippers of all sorts. Our handful of men were lost among the narrow, winding streets. Our leader moved across the river, therefore, and took up his position in the old fort of Agra. I don’t know if any of you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of the old fort. It is a very queer place—the queerest that ever I was in, and I have been in some rum corners, too. First of all it is enormous in size. I should think that the enclosure must be acres and acres. There is a modern part, which took all our garrison, women, children, stores, and everything else, with plenty of room over. But the modern part is nothing like the size of the old quarter, where nobody goes, and which is given over to the scorpions and centipedes. It is all full of great deserted halls, and winding passages, and long corridors twisted in and out, so that it is easy enough for folk to get lost in it. For this reason it is seldom that anyone went in it, though now and again a party with torches might go exploring. The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects it, but on the sides and behind there are many doors, and these had to be guarded.”Alison’s rooms, where Holmes had fought three rounds with Bartholomew’s porter, McMurdo, four years earlier.Andaman, Blair Island, where Small was imprisoned, worked dispensing drugs for the surgeon, and he and Tonga had escaped from. Captain Morstan had curiosities from amongst his things at the hotel.Andaman Islands situated 340 miles to the north of Sumatra, in the Bay of Bengal. Port Blair, convict barracks, Rutland Island. Where Holmes thought that Tonga was most likely from.Ballarat, where Watson said he had seen something of the sort left by prospectors. Referring to the dugout grounds at Pondicherry Lodge.Calcutta and Madras, Small wanted Sholto and Morstan to get a small yacht from there to use for an escape.Cawnpore, Indian city where women and children were slaughtered by the rebels.Delhi, Wilson took back from the mutineers.Esmeralda, at Gravesend, the vessel Small and Tonga were heading to in the Aurora to escape from London.Ganges River, where Small lost his right leg to a crocodile.Gravesend or in the Downs, where Holmes thought Small had arranged for passage to America or the Colonies.Hope Town, a small place on the slopes of Mount Harriet, where Small lived in a hut. “It is a dreary, fever-stricken place.”India and Senegambia, places Holmes thought had parallel cases.Madras, Small was there when being transferred from Agra to Andamans, Blair Island.Muttra, near the border of the Northwest Provinces. Where the Abel White plantation where Small worked was located.Upper Norwood, home of Major Sholto.Poplar, where Holmes sent Jones a telegram asking him to go to Baker St. at once.Rajpootana, states of India under British control that Achmet had crossed on his way to Agra.Richmond, as far as the search-party had gone looking for the steam launch Aurora.Rutland Island, where Sholto and Morstan were to have the small yacht for Small.Singapore to Jiddah, the route of the trader ship that picked up Small and Tonga at sea in the canoe.South America, Watson thought the possible origin of the murderer.Shahgunge, where Small fought the rebels after leaving the plantation.Rochester Road, Vincent Square, Vauxhall Bridge Road (making way for Surrey side), Wordsworth Road, Priority Road, Lark Hill Lane, Stockwell Place, Robert Street, Cold Harbor Lane. Places Holmes called out while he, Watson, and Miss Morstan were in the cab en route to meet Sholto. “I guess it does not appear to take us to very fashionable regions.”Woolwich and Gravesend, places Mordecai’s wife said that he had at one time been with his boat Aurora.

 Evidence & Clues:Only friend Captain Morstan had in London was Major Sholto.“Envelope post-mark, London, S. W. dated, July 7 man’s thumb-mark on corner, probably postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at sixpence a packet. Particular man in his stationery. No address.”“Our father would never tell us what it was he feared, but he had a most marked aversion to men with wooden legs.”“Twice as we ascended, Holmes whipped his lens out of his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to me to be mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the coconut-matting which served as a stair-carpet” (leading to Bartholomew’s room).The door to Bartholomew’s room was locked on the inside by a broad and powerful bolt.A torn sheet of note-paper with some words scrolled up on it. “The sign of four.”The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked foot.“Your toes are all cramped together. The other print has each toe distinctly divided.”“A small pocket or pouch woven out of coloured grasses and with a few tawdry beads strung around it. In shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. Inside were half a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the other, like that which had struck Bartholomew Sholto.”“Now, do consider the data. Diminutive footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked feet, stone-headed wooden mace, great agility, small poison darts.”

 Motive:Agra treasure. “He computes value of the jewels at not less than half a million sterling.”“For weeks and for months we dug and delved in every part of the garden without discovering its whereabouts.”“He had come to the conclusion that it was somewhere indoors, so he worked out all the cubic space of the house and made measurements everywhere so that not one inch should be unaccounted for. Among other things, he found that the height of the building was seventy-four feet, but on adding together the heights of all the separate rooms and making every allowance for the space between, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring total to more than seventy feet. There were four feet unaccounted for. These could only be at the top of the building. He knocked a hole, therefore, in the lath and plaster ceiling of the highest room, and there, sure enough, he came upon another little garret above it, which had been sealed up and was known to no one. In the centre stood the treasure-chest resting upon two rafters.”“You’ll find the treasure where the key is and where little Tonga is.”“The man that was clever enough to hunt me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of the river.”“There were one hundred and forty-three diamonds of the first water, including one which had been called, I believe, ‘The Great Mogul,’ and is said to be the second largest stone in existence. Then there were ninety-seven very fine emeralds, and one hundred and seventy rubies, some of which, however, were small. There were forty carbuncles, two hundred and ten sapphires, sixty-one agates, and a great quantity of beryls, onyxes, cat’s-eyes, turquoises, and other stones, the very names of which I did not know at the time, though I have become more familiar with them since. Besides this, there were nearly three hundred very fine pearls, twelve of which were set in a gold coronet. By the way, these last had been taken out of the chest, and were not there when I recovered.” (Six of the twelve were ones sent to Miss Morstan.)Treasure Chest“ A solid iron chest of Indian workmanship.”“It is Benares metal-work.”“There was in the front a thick and broad hasp, wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha.”“No wonder that it was heavy. The ironwork was two-thirds of an inch thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest constructed to carry things of great price.”

 Timeline:Five months Jonathan Small spent in the hospital recovering from losing his leg.Early July, when Small fought the rebels at Shahgunge.Twenty long years, Jonathan Small was in Andaman convict barracks.Eleven days Small and Tonga were at sea in the canoe before being picked up by a trader ship going from Singapore to Jiddah.Three or four years before, 1885 / 1884, Small and Tonga arrive in England.1877Major Sholto retires to Pondicherry Lodge, in Upper Norwood, bringing from India a considerable sum of money and a large collection of valuable curiosities.1878Captain Morstan is given a twelve-month leave, and comes to London, staying at the Langham Hotel.Arriving, he telegraphs his daughter, Mary, to come at once.December 3, 1878, when Mary Morstan is about seventeen, Captain Morstan disappears after just arriving in London.Night before Mary is to meet her father, he leaves the hotel and never returns.Next day, after receiving her father’s telegraph, Mary arrives at the hotel to discover her father had gone out the night before and never returned. She waits there all day for him.That night, on the advice of the hotel manager, Mary contacts the police.Next morning, Mary advertises in all the papers for information about her father.Four years later, 1882Early in 1882, Major Sholto receives a letter from India, which is a great shock to him.Mary begins as a governess for Mrs. Cecil Forrester.Toward the end of April, Thaddeus and Bartholomew are informed that their father, the major, is beyond all hope and wishes to make a last communication with them.April 28, 1882, Major Sholto dies.Morning after Major Sholto’s death, his sons find the window in their father’s room open; The room had been searched and affixed to his chest is a torn piece of paper with the words “The sign of four.”May 4, 1882, an advertisement appears in the Times asking the address of Miss Mary Morstan, stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward.Same day (within a week of Major Sholto’s death) Mary posts her address in the paper, she receives a small box containing a very large and lustrous pearl, and has every year since.1882 to 1888Six years Thaddeus and Bartholomew search Pondicherry Lodge for the Agra treasure.10 years later, 1888Morning, July 7, Mary Morstan receives letter postmarked London SW.10:00, the night before Bartholomew’s murder, Thaddeus was with him in his room at Pondicherry Lodge and helped him lower the treasure from its hiding place in the ceiling above his bedroom.September, 1st DayMary Morstan arrives at Baker St. seeking Sherlock Holmes’ advice. She tells her story and also just that morning, receives a letter saying: “Be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre tonight at seven o’clock. If you’re distrustful bring two friends. You are a wronged woman and shall have justice. Do not bring police. If you do, it will be in vain. Your unknown friend.” Holmes agrees that he and Watson will accompany her, and will leave together from Baker Street at six o’clock.3:00 p.m., Holmes bids Miss Morstan Au revoir, and she leaves. Holmes goes out; he has a few references to make.5:30 p.m., Holmes returns to Baker St. in good spirits and with information about Major Sholto he feels is helpful. While they wait for Miss Morstan they pass the time discussing the case.A little past 6:00 p.m., Miss Morstan arrives. Holmes taking his revolver, and Watson his heaviest stick, they leave for the Lyceum Theatre appointment. Along the way Miss Morstan hands Holmes a curious paper she found in her father’s desk. He spends some time examining it.7:00 p.m., At the Lyceum Theatre they are approached by a driver sent by Thaddeus Sholto who takes them to meet with Sholto. After meeting briefly, Thaddeus tells them they must leave for Norwood to see brother Bartholomew to demand to share the treasure. On the way Thaddeus tells them the whole story.10:00 p.m., Mrs. Bernstone, worried that Bartholomew isn’t responding to her knocking, peeps through the keyhole, seeing Bartholomew’s face as she has never seen before.11:00 p.m., Arriving at Pondicherry Lodge, they are greeted at the gate by McMurdo, Bartholomew’s porter. Before entering the house they hear the sounds of a very upset housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone. She tells them she is worried, Bartholomew is not answering when she knocks at his door. Holmes and the others ascend the three flights of stairs to his room. Finding the door locked they break it down. Inside they discover Bartholomew dead and the treasure gone. Holmes sends Thaddeus for the police.Next half an hour, Holmes, while waiting for the police, examines the crime scene.Inspector Jones with a sergeant arrives, and he quickly analyzes the situation, mostly incorrectly. Jones arrests Thaddeus for the murder, McMurdo as an accessory, and most of the rest of the household: the gatekeeper, the housekeeper, and the Indian servant. Thaddeus becomes very upset. Holmes tells him not to worry, he will clear him. Holmes has Watson take Miss Morstan home to Mrs. Forrester’s, and then to see Sherman to pick up Toby the dog and return with him to Pondicherry Lodge. Holmes in the meantime will interview Mrs. Bernstone, the Indian servant, and continue the investigation.2nd Day2:00 a.m., Watson and Miss Morstan arrive at Mrs. Cecil Forrester’s home. She has been waiting up for Miss Morstan. From there Watson goes to Pinchin Lane, home of Toby and Sherman.3:00 a.m., Watson returns to Pondicherry Lodge with Toby. “It had just struck three on the Palace clock when I found myself back once more at Pondicherry Lodge.” He finds Holmes retracing the murderer’s steps out on the roof and then climbing down the rain pipe to the ground.Past 3:00 a.m. (Tuesday morning) Mordecai leaves with his oldest son Jim, Small, and Toga on Aurora.Early dawn. “The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some distance in the cold gray light.” “How sweet the morning air is!” Holmes and Watson leave Pondicherry Lodge with Toby following the scent of creosote left by the murderer, now about twenty-eight hours old, through the streets of London. Toby takes them eventually, after once following a wrong scent, to a wooden wharf at the water’s edge of Mordecai Smith’s house. Speaking with his wife they learn that her husband, oldest son, and two others had left on the river the morning before, and she has not heard from them since. Holmes and Watson leave for Baker St. and on the way Holmes dispatches a wire to Wiggins.Between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m., Holmes and Watson arrive at Baker St. over breakfast and while waiting for the Baker St. Irregulars to arrive, Watson reads the Standard newspaper’s account of the murder. Wiggins and the Irregulars arrive, receive their instructions from Holmes to search the river, both sides, for the Aurora and they leave. Holmes refers to his bookshelf to research information on the barefooted assailant. Watson sleeps on the couch, dreams of Miss Morstan, and Holmes plays his violin.Late in the afternoon, Watson awakes feeling refreshed to find Holmes has set aside the violin and is again deep in a book. Watson asks Holmes if there is any news. Only that Wiggins has just reported no sign of the Aurora, Holmes replies. Watson leaves for Camberwell to visit Miss Morstan, and along the way returns Toby to Pinchin Lane. Holmes remains at Baker St. on guard for any news.Evening, Watson returns to Baker St. to find Mrs. Hudson worried about Holmes’ health; he has been acting strange, constantly pacing the floor, talking and muttering to himself, she says.3rd DayBreakfast the next day. Watson tells Holmes, “You’re knocking yourself up, old man.” Holmes replies, “This infernal problem is consuming me.”The remainder of the day, there is no further news about the case.That evening, Watson walks over to Camberwell to report to Miss Morstan. Returning to Baker St., he finds Holmes dejected and morose, and he will work into the small hours of the morning on chemical analysis.Evening, Thaddeus Sholto and his housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone, are released by the police.4th DayNext day, the inquest of the murder is held.Early morning, next day, Watson is woken by Holmes dressed as a sailor, saying that he is going “off down the river.” Holmes asks Watson to remain at Baker St. to wait for any news, if there is any, act on his own judgment.Breakfast, Watson reads in the Standard newspaper about the release from police custody of Thaddeus Sholto and his housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone.12:00 p.m. Holmes sends Jones a telegram from Poplar asking him to go to Baker St. at once.3:00 p.m. Athelney Jones arrives at Baker St. in answer to Holmes’ telegram. He sits with Watson waiting for Holmes to return. Holmes arrives; they have dinner and a relaxed conversation.6:30 p.m., Holmes, Watson, taking his revolver, and Jones leave Baker St. in a cab for Westminster wharf to meet the police launch.7:00 p.m., Holmes, Watson, and Jones leave on the police launch for Jacobson’s Yard.8:00 p.m. sharp, when Smith told the foreman at Jacobson’s Yard to have Aurora ready.It is twilight when the police launch reaches the Tower of London across the river from Jacobson’s Yard, to wait for Small in Aurora. After “a wild chase down the Thames,” Tonga is killed, Small captured, and the treasure chest is recovered. All leave for Baker St. On the way Watson and an inspector are dropped off at Vauxhall to bring the treasure to Miss Morstan and tell her of what has happened.At so late an hour, a quarter of an hour drive from Vauxhall, Watson arrives at Mrs. Forrester’s accompanied by an inspector. He tells Miss Morstan of the night’s events and presents the treasure chest. Opening it they discover the treasure is gone. Watson and Miss Morstan leave for Baker St. to join Holmes, Jones, and Small.All at Baker St., Small tells them the story of the Arga Treasure and his past history, and then Inspector Jones takes him to Scotland Yard.

 Story Conclusion:“A very remarkable account,” said Sherlock Holmes. “A fitting windup to an extremely interesting case. There is nothing at all new to me in the latter part of your narrative except that you brought your own rope. That I did not know. By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had lost all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat.”“He had lost them all, sir, except one which was in his blow-pipe at the time.”“Ah, of course,” said Holmes. “I had not thought of that.”“Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?” asked the convict affably.“I think not, thank you,” my companion answered.“Well, Holmes,” said Athelney Jones, “you are a man to be honoured, and we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime; but duty is duty, and I have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend asked me. I shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller here safe under lock and key. The cab still waits, and there are two inspectors downstairs. I am much obligated to you both for your assistance. Of course you will be wanted at the trial. Good-night to you.”“Good-night, gentleman both,” said Jonathan Small.“You first, Small,” remarked the wary Jones as they left the room. “I’ll take particular care that you don’t club me with your wooden leg, whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the Andaman Isles.”“Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” I remarked, after we had sat some time smoking in silence. “I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honuor to accept me as a husband in prospective.”He gave me a most dismal groan.“I feared as much,” said he. “I really cannot congratulate you.”I was a little hurt.“Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?” I asked.“Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she preserved the Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But love is an emotional thing and whatever is emotional is opposed to the true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.”“I trust,” said I, laughing, “that my judgment may survive the ordeal. But you look weary.”“Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week.”“Strange,” said I, “how terms of what in another man I shall call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour.”“Yes,” he answered, “there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe:Schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf, Denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelman der stoff.“By the way, apropos of this Norwood business, you see that they had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honour of having caught one fish in his great haul.”“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?”“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.

 Weather:“See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses.”“It was a September evening and not yet seven o’clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the muddy street. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare.”“Arriving at Pondicherry Lodge, the night air was fairly fine. A warm wind blew from the westward, and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with a half moon peeping occasionally through the rifts.”Night before Bartholomew’s murder. “It rained a little last night.”“We have had no very heavy rain since yesterday.”“How sweet the morning air is! See that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank.”3rd Day “It is very hot for the time of year.”“It will be a clear night,” Holmes remarked as they waited on the police launch for the Aurora.

 Payment:“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?”“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.“But you must put yourself under my orders. You are welcome to all the official credit, but you must act on the lines that I point out. Is that agreed?”“The only unofficial consulting detective,” he answered. “I am the last highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way is their normal state—the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist’s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience in my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case.”

 Quotes:Holmes“You have an extraordinary genius for the minutiae,” I remarked.“What a very attractive woman!” I exclaimed, turning to my companion. He had lit his pipe again and was leaning back with drooping eyelids. “Is she?” he said languidly; “I did not observe.”“You really are an automaton—a calculating machine,” I cried. “There is something positively inhuman in you at times.”“It is of the first importance,” he cried, “not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”“I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.”“It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager, and in excellent spirits, a mood which in his case alternated with fits of the blackest depression.”“Well, Holmes,” said Athelney Jones, “you are a man to be honoured, and we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime.”“Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair and with an abstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering eyes. As I glanced at him I could not help but think how on that very day he had complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life.”“On the contrary,” Holmes answered, “it clears every instant. I only require a few missing links to have an entirely connected case.”“You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”“My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself,” said he with a touch of impatience. “You know my methods. Apply them, and it will be instructive to compare results.”“He whipped out his lens and a tape measure and hurried about the room on his knees measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose only a few inches from the planks and beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in its defense. As he hunted about, he kept muttering to himself, and finally he broke out into a loud crow of delight.”“There are features of interest about this ally (Tonga). He lifts the case from the regions of the commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals of crime in this country.”“It’s Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the theorist. Remember you! I’ll never forget how you lectured us all on the causes and inferences and effects in the Bishopgate jewelry case.”—“It’s true you set us on the right track; but you’ll own now that it was more by good luck than good guidance.” —“It was a piece of very simple reasoning.”“Your presence will be a great service to me,” he answered. “We shall work the case out independently and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare’s-nest which he may choose to construct.”“Sherlock Holmes was on the roof, and I could see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling very slowly along the ridge.”“I assure you, Holmes, that I marvel at the means by which you obtain your results in this case even more than I did in the Jefferson Hope murder.”“I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of nature!”“It is that the chief proof of man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.”“He (Sherlock Holmes) took out his revolver as he spoke, and, having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back into the right-hand pocket of his jacket.”“The main thing with people of that sort,” said Holmes, “is never to let them think that their information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you listen to them under protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want.”“I think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being arrested for the crime.”“The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat. Here’s a day in advance. Now off you go!” He handed them a shilling each.“No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.”“He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air—his own, no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face and the rise and fall of his bow.”“Women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them.”“I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out,” I said to Mrs. Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.“No, sir. He’s gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir,” sinking her voice into an impressive whisper, “I’m afraid for his health.”“Why so, Mrs. Hudson?”“Well, he’s that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound of his footsteps. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering, and every time the bell rang out he came on the stair head with ‘What is that, Mrs. Hudson?’ And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he’s not going to be ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling medicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I didn’t know how ever I got out of the room.”“His preference for the subtle and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more commonplace one lay ready to his hand.”“You know I like to work the details of my case out.”Your friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, is a wonderful man, sir.”— “He’s a man who is not to be beat. I have known that young man go into a good many cases, but I never saw the case yet that he could not throw a light on. He is irregular in his methods and a little quick perhaps in jumping at theories, but, on the whole, I think he would have made the most promising officer, and I don’t care who knows it.”“I have oysters and a brace grouse, with something a little choice in white wine. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper.”“Holmes could talk exceedingly well when he chose, and that night he did choose. He appeared to be in a state of nervous exaltation. I have never known him so brilliant. He spoke on a quick succession of subjects—on miracle plays, on medieval pottery, on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the warships of the future—handling each as though he had made a special study of it. His bright humour marked the reaction from his black depression of the preceding days.”“Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical analysis. One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of work is the best rest. So it is. When I had succeeded in dissolving the hydrocarbon which I was working at, I came back to our problem of the Sholtos, and thought the whole matter out again.”“If I have it,” said she, “I owe it to you.”“No, no,” I answered, “not to me but to my friend Sherlock Holmes. With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a clue which has taxed even his analytical genius.”“The man that was clever enough to hunt me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of the river.”“Well, Holmes,” said Athelney Jones, “you are a man to be humoured, and we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime.”Watson“Dr. Watson is the very man. Your correspondence says two friends. He and I have worked together before.”“Miss Morstan, could we secure her rights, would change from the needy governess to the richest heiress in England. Surely it was the place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news, yet I am ashamed to say that selfishness took me by the soul and that my heart turned as hard as lead within me. I stammered out some few halting words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head drooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance.”“Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other before that day, between no word or even look of affection ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.”“Perhaps you are too tired?”“By no means. I don’t think I could rest until I know more of this fantastic business. I have seen something of the rough side of life, but I give you my word that this quick secession of strange surprises to-night has shaken my nerve completely. I should like, however, to see the matter through with you, now that I have got so far.”“Your presence will be of great service to me,” Holmes answered. “We shall work the case out independently and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare’s-nest which he may choose to construct.”“I found myself in dreamland, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan looking down upon me.”“You can be much more useful if you will remain here as my representative. I am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that some message may come during the day, though Wiggins was despondent about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and to act on your own judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon you?”“You see, a good many of the criminal classes begin to know me—especially since our friend here took to publishing some of my cases.”“I have oysters and a brace grouse, with something a little choice in white wine. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper.”Crime & Detection“Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.”“Eliminate all the other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”“Not at all,” I answered earnestly. “It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deductions. Surely the one to some extent implies the other.”“Why, hardly,” he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. “For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you dispatched a telegram.”“Right!” said I. “Right on both points! But I confess that I don’t see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no one.”“It is simplicity itself,” he remarked, chuckling at my surprise, “so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken out the pavement and thrown up some earth, which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighborhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction.”“How, then, did you deduce the telegram?”“Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards. What could you go into the post office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all the other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”“I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.”“You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”“You know I like to work the details of my case out.”Holmes’ Observation of Watson“Why, hardly,” he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. “For example, observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there you dispatched a telegram.”“Right!” said I. “Right on both points! But I confess that I don’t see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned it to no one.”“It is simplicity itself,” he remarked, chuckling at my surprise, “so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken out the pavement and thrown up some earth, which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere else in the neighbourhood. So much is observation. The rest is deduction.”“How, then, did you deduce the telegram?”“Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of postcards. What could you go into the post office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all the other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”“In this case it certainly is so,” I replied after a little thought. “The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest.”Holmes’ Observation of Watson’s Watch“I have heard you say it is difficult for man to have any daily object in use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would you have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the late owner?”I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at the dial, open the back, and examine the works, first with his naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep from smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and handed it back.“There are hardly any data,” he remarked. “The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts.”“You are right,” I answered. “It was cleaned before being sent to me.”In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward the most lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could be expected from an uncleaned watch?“Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren,” he observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy lack-lustre eyes. “Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elderly brother, who inherited it from your father.”“That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. on the back?”“Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch: so it was made for the last generation. Jewellery usually descends to the eldest son and he is most likely to have the same name as your father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years. It has, therefore, been in the hands of the eldest brother.”“Right, so far,” said I. “Anything else?”“He was a man of untidy habits—very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather.”I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with considerable bitterness in my heart.“This is unworthy of you, Holmes,” I said. “I could not have believed that you would have descended to this. You have made inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You cannot expect me to believe that you have read all this from his old watch! It is unkind and, to speak plainly, has your touch of charlatanism in it.”“My dear doctor,” said he kindly, “pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, I never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch.”“Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts? They’re absolutely correct in every particular.”“Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of probability. I did not expect to be so accurate.”“But it was not mere guesswork?”“No, no, I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend. For example I began by stating that your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of the watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places but it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins and keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched inference that a man that inherits one article of such value is pretty well provided for in other respects.“It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the case. It is more handy than a label as there is no risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case. Inference—that your brother was often at low water. Secondary inference—that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could not have redeemed the pledge. Finally I ask you to look at the inner plate, which contains the keyhole. Look at the thousands of scratches all round the hole—marks where the key has slipped. What sober man’s key could have scored those grooves? But you will never see a drunkard’s watch without them. He winds it at night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in all this?”Holmes’ Observation of Sholto’s Letter“Let us see, now.” He spread out the letters upon the table and gave a little darting glance from one to the other. “They are disguised hands, except the letter,” he said presently. “But there can be no question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will break out, and see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly by the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of your father?”“Look at his long letters,” he said. “They hardly raise above the common herd. That d might be an a, and that l an e. Men of character always differentiate the long letters, however illegibly they may be written. There is a vacillation in his k’s and self-esteem in his capitals.”Holmes’ Observation of Mary Morstan’s Father’s Curious Paper Found in his DeskHolmes unfolded the paper and smoothed it out upon his knee. He then very methodically examined it all over with his double lens.“It is paper of native Indian manufacture,” he remarked. “It has at some time been pinned to the board. The diagram upon it appears to be a plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, passages. At one point it’s a small cross done in red ink, and above it is ‘3.37 from left,’ in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse characters, ‘The sign of four—Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar.’ No, I confess that I do not see how this bears upon the matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance. It has been kept carefully in a pocketbook, for the other side is as clean as the other.”Holmes’ Observation of the Crime Scene“That is not a foot-mark,” said I. “It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a wooden stump. You see here on the sill is the boot- mark, a heavy boot with a broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the timber-toe.” — “It is the wooden-legged man.”Holmes in DisguiseIn the early dawn I woke with a start and was surprised to find him standing by my bedside, clad in a crude sailor dress with a pea-jacket and coarse red scarf around his neck.He was an aged man, clad in seafaring garb, and with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his throat. His back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing was painfully asthmatic. As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. He had a coloured scarf round his chin, and I could see little of his face save a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows and long gray side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a respectable master Mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.“What is it, my man?” I asked.He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.“Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?” he said.“No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have for him.”“It was to him himself I was to tell it,” said he.“But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai Smith’s boat?”“Yes. I knows where it is. An’ I knows where the man he is. An’ I knows with the treasure. I knows all about it.”“Then tell me, and I shall let him know.”“It was to him I was to tell it,” he repeated with the petulant obstinacy of a very old man.“Well, you must wait for him.”“No, no; I am going’ to lose a whole day to please no one. If Mr. Holmes ain’t here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for himself. I don’t care about the look of either of you, I won’t tell a word.”He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him.“Wait a bit, my friend,” said he, “you have important information, and you must not walk off. We shall keep you, whether you like or not, until our friend returns.”The old man made a little run towards the door, but as Athelney Jones put his broad back up against it, he recognized the uselessness of resistance.“Pretty sort o’ treatment this!” he cried, stamping his stick. “I come here to see a gentleman, and you two, who I never saw here in my life, seize me and treat me in this fashion!”“You will be none the worse,” I said. “We shall recompense you for the loss of your time. Sit over here on the sofa, and you will not have long to wait.”He came across sullenly enough and seated himself with his face resting on his hands. Jones and I resumed our cigars and our talk. Suddenly, however, Holmes’s voice broke upon us.“I think that you might offer me a cigar too,” he said. We both started in our chairs. It was Holmes sitting close to us with an air of quiet amusement.“Holmes!” I exclaimed. “You’re here! But where is the old man?”“Here is the old man,” said he, holding out a heap of white hair. “Here he is—wig, whiskers, eyebrows, and all. I thought my disguise was pretty good, but I hardly expected that it would stand that test.”“Ah, you rogue!” cried Jones, highly delighted. “You would have made an actor and a rare one. You had the proper workhouse cough, and those weak legs of yours are worth ten pound a week. I thought I knew that glint of your eye, though. You don’t get away from us so easily, you see.”

 Notes:Originally subtitled: The Problem of the Sholtos.The sign of four symbol means the number four in Sikhs. Three of the four were Sikhs.Mary Morstan later becomes Watson’s first wife.Ballarat, where Watson said he had seen something of the sort left by prospectors. Referring to the dugout grounds at Pondicherry Lodge. Also mentioned in Boscombe Valley story where John Turner had been known as the bandit “Black Jack of Ballarat.”Miss Morstan’s pearls came from a chaplet tipped with pearls which the major had always meant to send her. On his deathbed he directed his sons to do so after his death. “You, my sons, will give her a fair share of the Agra treasure.”Aurora, Mordecai Smith’s steam launch, “She was trim a little thing as any on the water. She’s been fresh painted, black with two red streaks.” — “A black funnel with a white band.”— “We shall have to catch the Aurora, and she has a name for being a clipper.”“All is well that ends well,” said Holmes. “But I certainly did not know that Aurora was such a clipper.” — “Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should never have caught her.”Strand newspaper heading of murder. “Mysterious Business at Upper Norwood.”“ About twelve o’clock last night Mr. Bartholomew Sholto of Pondicherry Lodge, Upper Norwood, was found dead in his room under circumstances which point to foul play. As far as we can learn, no actual traces of violence were found upon Mr. Sholto’s person, but a valuable collection of India gems which the deceased gentleman had inherited from his father has been carried off. The discovery was first made by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who called at the house with Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, brother of the deceased. By a singular piece of good fortune. Mr. Athelney Jones, the well-known member of the detective police force, happened to be at the Norwood police Station and was on the ground within half an hour of the first alarm. His trained and experienced faculties were at once directed towards the detection of the criminals, with gratifying results that the brother, Thaddeus Sholto, has already been arrested, together with the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone, an Indian butler named Lal Rao, and a porter, or gatekeeper, named McMurdo. It is quite certain that the thief or thieves were well acquainted with the house, for Mr. Jones’s well-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not have entered by the door or by the window but must have made their way across the roof of the building, and so through a trapdoor into a room which communicated with that in which the body was found. The fact, which has been very clearly made out, proves conclusively that it was no mere haphazard burglary. The prompt and energetic action of the officers of the law shows the great advantage of the presence on such occasions of a single vigorous and masterful mind. We cannot but think that it supplies an argument to those who would wish to see our detectives more de-centralized, and so brought into closer and more effective touch with the cases which it is their duty to investigate.”