The year 1890 was a special time for the readers of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. Two legends in the making, Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, agreed to write stories for this American magazine making its British debut. Wilde produced The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Doyle gave us his second Holmes outing, The Sign of the Four (its title now popularly shortened to four words—seems appropriate).
In spite of the decade-and-a-half that has passed since I last read The Sign of Four, much of it came back to me as I was reading. There was hardly a twist or turn I had forgotten, in part due to the incredible Jeremy Brett adaptation that I am sure I watched as many times as I read the book. The lady in distress (Watson’s crush), the brothers Sholto, the amusing Inspector Jones, and “Toby” all returned readily to memory, a strange mix of book and film blended together. My reading experience was a bit worse for being devoid of surprise, but it was pleasant enough to spend time with Holmes and Watson again.
Once again, any fledgling author should take heart in this peculiar novel. Holmes was not at this point a household name; his debut novel had fared badly. Why Doyle was asked to write another is something I still don’t understand, but we can be grateful he was given another chance to iterate on his eccentric character.
He begins the story audaciously with Holmes and his infamous needle. Victorian sensibilities are saved by our narrator Watson, who (in one of the few controversial scenes that has aged well) condemns Holmes’s use of cocaine and admonishes him for putting his mental capacities on the line with repeated drug use. Not long after this, Miss Mary Morstan shows up to Baker Street in search of two friends (don’t we all?). She is a humble governess who has been receiving mysterious messages and gifts in the mail. For John Watson, it’s love at first sight, but first they must solve a string of mysteries, and he must hide his feelings under lock-and-key of professionalism and his lowly station.
What I always liked about The Sign of Four in the past, and which it still deserves credit for, is its sheer variety. Quirky characters, moody landscapes, chase scenes, silly inspectors—it has it all. Doyle also brought back an elaborate, historically framed backstory for his villain, although in a briefer narration than we got in the first novel. Knowing as I do that Doyle had a heart for historical fiction, it’s interesting to see him struggle to let go of this pet subject of his. It works much better here than in Scarlet, as it weaves in the Indian Rebellion of 1857—presumably Doyle’s readers would have been far more familiar with that setting than the American West. As one might imagine, the treatment of ethnic minorities in this book is pretty dated and carries similar sensationalism of dubious accuracy.
While rereading this novel was somewhat of a letdown compared to past readings, I think it is still very worth a first reading, and it is fun to see Doyle’s “Baker Street-verse” really start to come into its own.
Classics Considered 
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