The Sign of Four Summary

The Sign of Four takes place in London in 1888. It started with the circumstance in which Edward Watson watches Sherlock Holmes inject cocaine three times a day for the past several months. Edward Watson is afraid to ask Holmes to stop using them. Finally, he got the courage and told him to stop taking them but Holmes simply told him that it elucidate his lethargic mind. Then Ms. Morstan comes to Sherlock Holmes and explains her unusual situation. Her father was in India. He sent a letter to his daughter saying that he had a twelve months leave and was coming home. She went to go meet him but he was not there. The hotel he stayed at said that he was staying there, but had left and had not yet come back. A few years later, there was an ad in the newspaper asking for Mrs. Morstan’s home address. Accepting her employer’s advice, she revealed her address. The day she gave the anonymous person her address, she received a very valuable pearl by mail. She had six pearls in total ever since then. Now, she received a letter asking her to meet the anonymous pearl sender with two people that were not police. Watson and Holmes agree to accompany her. The three characters eventually found out the identity of the pearl sender and his father’s fate, which ultimately provides an evidence of Captain Morstan’s disappearance. During the ride, Mrs. Morstan shows Sherlock Homes a piece of paper she found with her father’s things which looked like a map and written on it was “the sign of four” with three Indian names and one English name. Once they met reach the home of Thaddeus Sholto, Holmes asks Thaddeus questions about his father and his father being scared of the men with the wooden leg. On his deathbed, Major Sholto told his sons that while in India, he and Captain Morstan had had a large possession of treasures. Sholto brought back the wealth to England with him and Morstan returned he came immediately to Sholto’s house to demand his shares. Once he came back, Major