The Sign of the Four

Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes novel: Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before and who has since received a pearl every year from an unknown sender, asks Holmes and Dr Watson for help.

Start reading12 chapters, about 44,000 words

Famous quotes

• My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.

  Chapter IIn context

  • Thinking
  • Work

• I never guess. It is a shocking habit,⁠—destructive to the logical faculty.

  Chapter IIn context

  • Thinking

• The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.

  Chapter IIIn context

  • Character
  • Emotion
  • Thinking

• I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.

  Chapter IIIn context

  • Thinking

• How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

  Chapter VIIn context

  • Thinking
  • Truth & Lies

• Winwood Reade is good upon the subject,” said Holmes. “He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant.

  Chapter XIn context

  • Science
  • Thinking

Contents

1. Chapter IThe Science of Deduction
2. Chapter IIThe Statement of the Case
3. Chapter IIIIn Quest of a Solution
4. Chapter IVThe Story of the Bald-Headed Man
5. Chapter VThe Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge
6. Chapter VISherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration
7. Chapter VIIThe Episode of the Barrel
8. Chapter VIIIThe Baker Street Irregulars
9. Chapter IXA Break in the Chain
10. Chapter XThe End of the Islander
11. Chapter XIThe Great Agra Treasure
12. Chapter XIIThe Strange Story of Jonathan Small