The sign of four

In this novel Sherlock holmes solves the mystery related to treasury of Agra,

Setting: london 1888, sherlock holmes lives in 221 B baker street london,

Characters: 1) sherlock holmes: A famous detectives

2) Dr john watson : he is sherlock holme’s friend.

3) Miss Mary Morstan : Brings her case to sherlock holmes

4) captain Arthur Morstan : he is father of miss mary morstan and he is an officer in british army

5) major shorto : he is officer in british army and he is friend of captain Arthur morstan, they both are
serving in british army .

6) thaddeus shorto and barthelomew shorto: they both are son of major shorto and they both are twins

7) inspector jones and jonathan small : both are antagonist of the story, jonathan small has beard and
his one leg is of wooden prosthetic

8)tonga : he is closest/important person of jonathan small who helps jonathan small, tonga is animalistic
who lives in andaman and nicobar island.

Summary:

Sherlock holmes and Dr john watson were in sherlock’s flat at 221 B baker street london,

So dr watson was very dissapointed with sherlock holmes because of his excessive cooking, and he says
that sherlock holmes cooks 3 times a day and tells him the bad effects of cooking, but sherlock holmes
replies that by cooking he feels good, and helps him to solve the cases.

Then miss mary mortan arrives there with her case, she says that her father arthur morstan was
dissappeared myteriously 10 years ago she tried a lot to search him, but he was not found, she
continues that her father was in india since he is british officer he was serving in india at that time , she
says that she got a letter of her father that he is going to come for taking a hoilday of 12 months , so
when she went to see him in hotel he was not there, so when she asked the hotel staffs about her father
they told her that her father had came but he went afterwards and he didn’t returned after that.

So now she says that she went went to major shorto who is friend of captain arthur, and major shorto
was retired at that time, so she went asking for her father to major shorto whether he had seen her
father captain arthur, but major shorto even he did not knew where miss mary mortans father was.

Now she says to sherlock holmes that after many years she saw one article where her address was being
asked so she gave her address to that newspaper publishers, since that time it is about may 1882, she
receives one pearl every every year on her address, but on this year along with that pearl she also
received a letter , it is written in a letter that someone wants to meet her at lisium theater at evening 7
pm , and she can bring 2 more person if she feels insecure/feel threatened, but he should not be police,
Then only that person who wrote a letter will tell her about her father and much more about her,

So sherlock homes and Dr john watson gets ready to got at that place of theater along wit miss mary
mortan, now all 3 are waiting outside a lisium theater waiting for that mysterious person,

Now there comes one carriage(a vehicle with four wheels that is usually pulled by horses ), now miss
mary shows sherlock holmes a paper which she says that she got that from her fathers bags where his
things were kept, so when sherlock holmes watches that paper it seems like a kind of a map,

And it was written in that paper “THE SIGN OF FOUR” in that paper there were 3 indian names and 1
english name , And those 3 indians names were mehmat singh, abdullah khan, akhbar and 1 english
name was jonathan small,

Now this carriage takes them theddius shorto who was elder son of major shorto, now
they(holmes,watson, miss mary) reaches to theddius shorto’s house, now theddius shorto start telling
her all story ,he say that her father captain arthur and major shorto are friends and they both are british
officers and they were serving in india but both of them are died, so theddius shorto’s father major
shorto was retired and came back to england from india but he brought a box full of treasury don’t
know where that treasury from , and he was always scared of person who had one leg of wooden
prosthetic (jonathan small) , and major shorto said that in that treasury miss mortan’s father also had
share, but major shorto’s had evil intension in his mind , and major shorto brought ALL treasury for
himself without informing captain arthur , but captain arthur came back to england towards major
shorto to take his share of treasury so both had fight because of this , so captain arthur got heartattack
and he died, now major shorto did not wanted anyone to know about this , so major shorto hid his body
so that no one could able to know, now major shorto was very frightened and worried , now he got
some letter from indian , and then he fall sick , then he told us(theddiuos shorto and barthomew shorto)
about the treasury , now major shorto was regreting about the treasury he did not shared with his friend
captain arthur due to his greed, so he says to both of his twin sons that share the tresury with miss mary
too (among 3 of them ), but before he could tell where he hid the tresury he saw some beard men
standing outside window and in that shock he died without disclosing the secret, now when they try to
find out what exactly he wanted to share the secret they search through things and found a letter in
which it was written “a sign of four” , now he (theddiuos shorto )says that his brother has found the
tresury in their family home , so he says to miss mary that lets go there so that we can share treasury
among 3 of us, now holmes, miss mary, watson, theddius all gets ready in the way to the barthomew’s
family home, now as they reach their home one scared housekeeper approaches to them and she says
that barthomew in opening the door of his room, he have not been out of his room whole day, so as
they opened the door they sees that the barthomew is died on the chair and on his neck there is a
wooden needle pierced on his neck, when sherlock holmes tried to find out what happened he finds
there a oil spilled on a floor, and someone’s foot steps on the floor , and one foot step was of wooden so
he gets to know that someone had a prosthetic wooden legs, and the other foot step was small , at that
moment inspector jones arrives at the scene, and they arrests the theddius shorto, so inspector assumes
that due to greed theddiuos shorto might have killed his brother barthomew shorto, holmes try to
explain to inspector that he has not killed his brother as they were along with him whole time but still dr
inspector jones do not agrees, now sherlock holmes tells the watson to drop miss mary at her home ,
and asks watson to bring the dog whose name is tobby from his home , so watson bring the tobby to the
barthomew’s home, then dog sniffs the the oil and takes them to the river themes, so they got to know
that those suspects had ran off through river themes, now there was one lady she says that she had her
husband’s boat arora and two person took that boat and went away among that two suspects one had
wooden leg, now sherlock holmes calls many childrens and gives them money to find out hwere the
boat is, now sherlock holmes was reading book and he reads that the tiny foot people belong to
andaman and they are very smart in using weapon so he doubts that barthomew had that poisonous
wooden needle pierced on neck, now as he asked the childrens to find boat they were unsuccessful in
that so sherlock homes himself decides to do something, now next day when watson were at sherlock
holmes ‘s home then one old man knocks his door and says he wants to meet sherlock holmes , so he
got to know where the suspects are going taking that boat, so he says that he will only tell sherlock
holmes where the suspects have ran off, so watson catches that old man as soon as that happens the
old man removes his mask and he was holmes, so holmes says that he found out where the suspects
had ran off, the suspects had hid the arora steam boat under a bridge, and tonight when there will be an
absolute silence and whole london will be asleep that time they’ll leave , but holmes needed good boat
as well so he seeks help from police, he had informed one man to keep watch on suspect that he will
inform to holmes when suspect will leave taking the steam arora boat, now the time comes at that night
the man gives signal so holmes follows the arora boat, now tonga throws the poisonous weapons on
holmes , but holmes shoots tonga and tonga fallsoff from a boat, and now after following the boat ,
arora boat reaches the shore, now jothan small tries to run off from that place, but as his legs wre of
wooden he could hardly able to run, and the treasury box was still on the boat, and police arrives and
they arrests jonathan small, and took away the treasury, now they took the jonathan small to 221 baker
street and everyone is gathered over there, there jonathan small makes a story, that from where he got
the treasury, and he works for the british army, and when he was taking bath on river crocodile eat off
his one leg, so the british army has did his posting as a guard in the fort of agra, so when he was working
as a guard there , 3 indians approached to him ahmed singh , abdullah khan , akhbar, they kept a knife in
his neck and asked to help themn for stealing the treasury with them, or otherwise they’ll kill jonathan
small, so 4 of them steal that treasury and hid it in a place where no one can find out, and they have
sign/promise that they will not tell this to anyone, then theses four were arrested /made slave and sent
to andaman by british government, so had no choice, and over there the officer in charge was captain
arthur morstan and major shorto , they both were friends. They use to play poker, and jothan found out
that they are in need of money, so jonathan has told the secret of hidden treasury to them, that if you
will let jonathan go then he will tell them where the treasury is hidden and we will distribute among us,
so captain arthur and major shorto agrees with that, major shorto take sthe treasury and comes to
england while jonathan still in jail, and he betrays jonathan and captain arthur, so when captain arthur
got to know he went back to england to major shorto, and now jonathan was stuck in jail and no one
was there to remove him from jail, and after a while he found a guy named tonga, citizen of andaman,
jonathan saved his life as he was about to die once, so he had the knowledge of herbs so he saved the
life of tonga, and return he asked that to remove him from jail, then all of them opens the box of
treasurry but everyone were stunned as the box was empty, now jonathan laughs loudly and says he did
that and says if the terasury cant be his he cannot let anyone else to have it either, so threw away the
treasury on river themes earlier he says, and at the end watson propose miss mary and gets married and
sherlock holmes get back to his cooking