"The Sign of the Four" By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)

You read the second Holmes novel as an eBook, just like the first one. This one took you over a year to read. It's not that the book is particularly long, it's that you only read it when you were stuck in a line or caught waiting somewhere without whatever actual book you were reading at the time. God bless public domain free book apps on smartphones. There is probably a patron saint for those, right?

"The Sign of the Four" (also titled just "The Sign of Four") has a slightly different feel from "A study in Scarlet." Conan Doyle has no more need for introductions. He settles easily into developing his famous characters and their relationship with one another. The book opens, to your surprise, on Sherlock Holmes shooting up cocaine. It's fairly common knowledge that the most famous fictional detective in the world had a drug habit, but it was still odd to read about his track marks on his forearm. Watson says Holmes injects himself three times a day for months. But this drug habit isn't truly Holmes' addiction. Cocaine proves to be a poor substitute for the rush he truly craves, the rush he gets when he is on a case. Holmes prides himself on being an intellectual being, a man of pure logic and reasoning, but he's not. He needs to feel the visceral thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of solving difficult puzzles, the emotional high of living the life he is meant to live. He is addicted to adrenaline rushes.

And Dr. John Watson serves as Holmes' great enabler. Watson helps Holmes in his investigations, to get his fix. Holmes introduces Watson to a life that has taken him out of his post traumatic stress induced depression. In "The Sign of the Four" the two partners investigate a complicated series of mysteries, just the kind to satiate Sherlock's need and keep Watson engaged. Most importantly for the mythology of the Holmes/Watson story line, Mary Morstan enters the picture. By the end of the book, she and Dr. Watson are engaged.

Unlike the first book, the action of "The Sign of the Four" stays with the two detectives, never leaving Watson's First Person accounting to tell the other side of the story. By the climax of the novel, the two are involved in a heart-pounding boat chase on the river Thames. People die. A pygmy African native tries to kill Holmes with a poisoned dart from his blow gun. The true criminal, Johnathan Small, jewel thief and murderer, is eventually caught and spills his guts. His story involves the East India Company, betrayal, revenge, and a rebellion in colonial India.

Holmes is revealed as a retired bare-knuckle boxer (and a damn good one, too). He is a man of his era, smoking cigars, drinking from a flask, carrying a pistol. Holmes becomes much more of a real person in "The Sign of the Four" than in the first book. His energy is boundless in his quest to solve the mysteries he finds.

As soon as the crime is solved, Holmes visibly deflates. His manic energy evaporates with the end of the adventure. Dr. Watson reflects that he got a wife out of the adventure and the police got their murderer. He wonders out loud what there is left for Holmes. "For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine bottle."

This flaw in his character makes Sherlock Holmes seem more real, more convincing of a character. It is a good reminder both that perfection is not required to make someone worthy of admiration and also that our flaws, our individual struggles, are what make each of us who we are.




On to the next book!