Lovely Cat's Bookcase~The Sign of Four
Last Updated:18Aug2002

Name of the book: The sign of four
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd

(A) Summary of the Story

There is only one story in this book, it calls “The sign of four”.
One afternoon, Miss Morstan visited Sherlock Holmes, and hoped he could help her. Miss Morstan’s father was an army of India. One day, her father went back London. But then he disappeared. After that, she received one pearls each year on the same day. This morning, a letter received her. It said “You go to the theatre tonight. You can learn the truth.” So she, Holmes and Watson went there. Before they arrived, she gave Holmes a paper, which had a building plan and ’The sign of four’. A man waited them, and took them to a house. They met Thaddeus Sholto. Sholto said his father was the friend of Morstan’s father. His father said he had the Great Agra Treasure, and told him the torch about her father’s dead when he became ill. Sholto said his father wanted to share the treasure with Morstan, so he received six pearls to her. Before his father dead, he saw a man with a wild face.

The day before they met, Sholto’s brother found the treasure in he secret room in the place he lived, Pondicherry Lodage. So they went there to share the preasure with Morstan. But when they arrived, they saw Sholyo’s brother was dead in his room, and the treasure lost. Before the police arrived, Holmes found some details about the murder. There were two murders, the wooden-leg people and the pygmy. When the police arrived, he thought Sholto was the murder. So he arrested Sholto. And Holmes promised he could find the murder.

Watson asked a man, who was the friend of Holmes, to bring a dog. Holmes used the dog to find the murders because there was some creosote on the murders. So they ran with the dog, until they arrived a wooden jetty. They visited a shop that did business for the steam launch for hire. Two murders and Mr. Smith drove the Aurora, which was the fastest steam launch of the shop. They wanted to escape! Next day, Holmes knew Aurora was hidden in a boatyard. So they and the police drove the police launch to chase the murders.

Finally, the pygmy dead, Mr. Smith disappeared and the police arrested the wooden-leg people. When Watson gave back the treasure to Morstan, the treasure was lost. The metal box was empty! The murders put all the treasure into the bottom of river. No one could have it.

(A) Comment on the story

In this story, it showed Holmes was very clever. He found footprints in the room where the treasure in. So he knew how could the murders came in the room. Then he used these details to identify who were the murders. He also found some bottle with creosote was broken. So he used the dog to find the murders.

Sherlock Holmes was kind. He didn’t care if his clients were rich or poor. So many people when they were in a trouble or needed help, they came to Holmes. He enjoyed solving their interesting problems. He was very happy when he was working. He was the most famous private detective in London.

I like the story books which about Holmes very much.

(Written in F.1, 17May,2001)