The Sign of the Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2)

The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the earlier Sherlock Holmes and has all the elements you would expect.  There are the Baker Street Irregulars, good old Toby and the 7% solution, and one unusual element, a romance.

Miss Mary Morstan comes to Sherlock Holmes with a problem.  Her father, an officer in India, disappeared on the day he reached London, and was never found.  He had been a convict guard on the Andaman Islands.  Six years later, on the 4th of May, 1882, Mary received a very large pearl and had received one every year since.  There was never any message until the day she called on Holmes.  She and two friends were to be outside the Lyceum Theater at precisely 7 o'clock.

Thus begins an adventure with murder, poisoned darts, a peg-legged man, tiny footprints in the dust of the attic, a steamboat race and numerous other twists and turns.  I think this is one of Doyle's best.


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