Six years later, Bartholomew found and withheld it Thaddeus has contacted Mary so they can both confront Bartholomew and demand their shares. Thaddeus began sending Mary the pearls to make things right, and the brothers searched for the treasure. The man fled, but the brothers later found a note reading 'The Sign of the Four' pinned to their dead father's body.

On his deathbed, he confessed the truth to them he was about to reveal to them where the treasure was hidden, when a bearded man appeared at the window and the Major died of sheer fright. Thaddeus and his twin brother Bartholomew knew nothing of these events, until an unexpected letter from India caused their father to faint, and sicken to his death. Afraid he would be suspected of murder, Major Sholto buried the body and hid the treasure, leaving out a small gold chaplet studded with twelve pearls. The two men quarreled, and Captain Morstan suffered a heart attack and died, striking his head on the brazen treasure box as he fell. Thaddeus explains that Morstan had visited Major Sholto, to demand his half of a great treasure that Sholto had secretly brought back from India. Holmes, Watson, and Mary meet with Major Sholto's son Thaddeus, the anonymous sender of the pearls. The only further clue Mary can give Holmes is a map of a fortress found in her father's desk, appended with the words 'The Sign of the Four: Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, and Dost Akbar'.

Holmes takes the case, and soon discovers that Major Sholto had died in 1882 within a week of his death, Mary received the first pearl. With the sixth pearl, she received a letter asking for a meeting, claiming she has been 'wronged'. She then received a large and valuable pearl in the post, a gift repeated once a year for six years. Four years later, Miss Morstan answered an anonymous newspaper advertisement, asking for her whereabouts. Mary contacted Major John Sholto, a former convict guard who had known her father and was now living in England however, he denied having seen Morstan, and Morstan was never heard from again. He requested her to meet him at the Langham Hotel, but he was not there when she arrived. Miss Morstan explains that, in December 1878, her father, Captain Arthur Morstan, had arrived in London, on leave from his post as a convict guard in the Andaman Islands. Holmes claims he needs a problem to solve and is bored shortly thereafter, Miss Mary Morstan arrives with a case. Watson remonstrates with Holmes about his cocaine usage. Doyle wrote four novels and 56 short stories featuring the fictional detective. The Sign of the Four (1890), also called The Sign of Four, is the second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

The sign of the sherlock