The Sign of Four
Complete textMary Morstan asks Holmes to investigate her father’s disappearance and a series of valuable gifts from an unknown sender. A new invitation brings Watson into the inquiry as mysteries of inheritance and treasure unfold. The pursuit carries the investigators across London and toward a history reaching beyond England.
Continue readingAbout The Sign of Four
Watson’s growing personal interest complicates his role as an admiring observer of Holmes’s methods. The detective seeks an intellectual problem while others seek security, recognition, or restitution. Read the treasure’s history alongside its immediate attractions, and consider how testimony from different positions changes an apparent adventure in discovery into a question about competing claims and responsibility.
Reading focus
Follow the treasure’s history and Watson’s changing involvement as a missing-person inquiry develops into a contest of knowledge and competing claims.
This reading edition contains 43,043 words in 12 original sections. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.
Contents
All sections- Chapter I The Science of Deduction14 min
- Chapter II The Statement of the Case9 min
- Chapter III In Quest of a Solution8 min
- Chapter IV The Story of the Bald-Headed Man18 min
- Chapter V The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge12 min
- Chapter VI Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration15 min
- Chapter VII The Episode of the Barrel19 min
- Chapter VIII The Baker Street Irregulars16 min
- Chapter IX A Break in the Chain17 min
- Chapter X The End of the Islander16 min
- Chapter XI The Great Agra Treasure10 min
- Chapter XII The Strange Story of Jonathan Small47 min
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Is this the complete The Sign of Four?
This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 12 sections and 43,043 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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