Talk:The Sign of the Four

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[edit] Wider Publications?

Can anyone inform me of the several regional British journals that Sign of Four was published in? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks Cw142 17:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Doyle & Wilde?

Doyle was reputedly commissioned to write the story over a dinner with one of the magazine's agents, J.M. Stoddart, which was also attended by Oscar Wilde. At the dinner Wilde was also commissioned to write a novel, in his case The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Can anybody shed more light on this dinner meeting? It sounds extraordinary interesting to fancy Wilde and Doyle sitting at the same table... -- Syzygy 15:00, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Good idea: Done! - DavidWBrooks 15:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Whoa, Dude. I just checked out Doyle's memoirs at Amazon Germany, and they sell for like 200 US$ -- nota bene, a reprint from 1989! Amazon US doesn't seem to be appreciatably cheaper. Any idea where this absurd price comes from? (But thanks for the edit, Dave! Most interesting...) -- Syzygy 08:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title question

Is the correct title The Sign of Four or The Sign of the Four? I have seen both titles used for editions of the book. Why has this title confusion happened? Did the second published edition have a different title than the first published edition? —Lowellian (reply) 14:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The above question was answered on Talk:Sherlock Holmes (thanks to User:Shimgray!), and has now been added to this article. —Lowellian (reply) 05:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Plot holes

I have removed the "plot holes" section.

The first two are reasonably logical, but unfortunately also completely wrong.

  • It's a bit surprising that it took the Sholto brothers six years to find the treasure -- considering the fact that it was hidden in a kind of attic which had a trapdoor to the roof. That trapdoor would have been visible from the outside, and the brothers should have noted it had to lead somewhere.
Why would it be visible from the ground 74 feet below?
  • The room in which Bartholomew Scholto was found dead was obviously in constant use. Yet there appears to be a dust layer on the floor thick and undisturbed enough that Holmes can deduce who was in the room and what they were doing.
The foot prints are seen in the room above that where they found the treasure, a room quite obviously not in constant use, as it was sealed up for many years.

The latter three are worse. They account to "I don't think this character should have acted this way, and I would have written it this way instead," and have no references. This is original research and pure speculation. Rather ridiculous.

  • Jonathan Small, who seems a lively person with no suicidal tendencies, unaccountably puts his own neck in the noose by gratutiously admitting to murdering a prison guard and even providing the police with the murder weapon. At the very least he would face being returned to the same unpleasant Andaman prison colony which he escaped. Had he avoided giving his real name, the London police would hardly connect him with an escaped convict in faraway India. Of course, it is necessary for Small to tell his story in order to solve the mystery, but Doyle could have easily enough found a way for him to do it without incriminating himself (for example, to have him get killed during the final chase and let Holmes and Watson find his story written down beside the body, or to have him severely wounded and dying so that he has nothing to lose by telling all).
  • It displays a very touching belief in human nature for four hardened robbers and murderers to confide the secret of a hidden treasure to their prison guard without asking for any guarantee whatsoever that he would fulfill his part in the deal, set them free and give them their share of the treasure. Their confidence in Sholto is all the more surprising considering that they themselves had no hesitation in betraying and murdering a man for the sake of the selfsame treasure.
  • Jonathan Small proclaims repeatedly and loudly his loyaty to his three Indian co-conspirators. Indeed, this is the main redeeming feature which makes him a sympathetic character albeit a criminal. Yet when he found a way of escaping from the Andamans he did not share it with them, nor did he later make any effort whatsoever to set them free.
Doyle could have set right the last two points, without substantially changing the story line, by having Sholto help the four prisoners escape, come with him to Agra and point out the treasure - whereupon he betrays them to the British authorities, in battle with whom the three Indians are killed and Small is returned to the Andamans while Sholto makes off with the entire treasure. With that in the past of the story, Small would do exactly the same things he did in the course of the book - indeed, he would have an even stronger motive for doing them.

The plot needs to be expanded, since all it was was these silly "plot holes." Atropos 23:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Check your language, Atropos, "silly" and "ridiculous" isn't the vocabulary asked for. To the points you address --
  • It is reasonable to assume that if you're looking for a hidden treasure for six years, you once check out the roof.
  • Footprints were found both in the "attic" and in Sholto's laboratory.
  • If a person in a story acts seriously "out of character", obviously only to serve the plot's needs, don't you think this qualifies for a plot hole? It is extremely far-fetched to assume a prisoner would share a treasure secret with a guard without having any means to put pressure on the guard, to release them and share the booty. -- Syzygy 06:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] more Plot holes?

Possibly More plot holes?

  • Small gives the impression of being a barely-educated man-yet he manages to receite the total contents of the Agra treasure without a mistake!
  • The Agra Treasure box itself is described as being about 12 inches square and iron bound-yet in realty could it have really held that much treasure as described by Small? Also it seem to be unaccountably heavy-yet Small manages to lug it around Londown without dificulty!
  • Thirdly after being captured Small claims to have thrown the treasure out over the river during the 5 mile chase. Yet Watson's account does not tell of Small leaning out over the boat sides! The Grenada TV Version implies the treasure was dumped overboard by Small after Toga was killed and fell overboard-not over a five mile stretch!
  • Small claims part of the treasure included a diamond called The Great Mogol. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.53.145.163 (talk) 21:38:46, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "whom many regard as..."

"whom many regard as the best-known literary character ever invented"

As always, either source it or delete it. (isn't there a bot who can autodelete these?) 85.227.226.168 19:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


I concur. I have tagged this article for "weasel words." Trixen 18:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jonathan Small acting out of character?!

Okay, several problems here:

The section starting with "The greater tautness and unity of the second book are, however, achieved at the price of having Jonathan Small act very much out of character" should at the very least be in its own section. The Scarlet page calls this section "inconsistencies".

But the main problem, of course, is that the entire reasoning isn't sourced and reads in a biased way (I was asking myself what wikipedia has against Doyle's story, before I caught myself realizing it's because it's deliberately not neutral language). Even if you reply saying you can prove this (as a matter of just stating an opinion) that only makes in original research.

I propose a) that this entire section is removed, or if not, b) is pruned and cleaned-up, retaining only those specific plot items that we can agree are strange, and at the very least c) it is moved into its own section (it is definitely inappropriate under the general "plot" header) and given some sort of tag indicating it's controversial, speculative or equivalent.

85.227.226.168 19:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, this section isn't a plot summary, it's just pretty much comparing "A Study in Scarlet" to "The Sign of Four". I agree with you that the section seems to be biased.

[edit] pure speculation

I was bold and removed the following section:

Doyle could have set right the last two points, without substantially changing the story line, by having Sholto help the four prisoners escape, come with him to Agra and point out the treasure - whereupon he betrays them to the British authorities, in battle with whom the three Indians are killed and Small is returned to the Andamans while Sholto makes off with the entire treasure. With that in the past of the story, Small would do exactly the same things he did in the course of the book. Indeed, he would have an even stronger motive for wanting to revenge himself upon the perfidious prison officer.

This reads as if written by a would-be detective story writer that's decided to rewrite the story himself, and is so far from the desired tone of Wikipedia I could not keep myself from removing it immediately. 85.227.226.168 19:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

We are going in circles here. Over the course of time, the abovementioned paragraphs have been written, removed, reinserted in a different form and removed again. Personally I feel that Small's behaviour is indeed a significant plot hole, because he has no motivation to act like he did, and pointing out alternatives is only reasonable -- this is more akin to stating the obvious than "original research", but YMMV. --Syzygy 13:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
We're only going in circles if people do not respect the Wiki guidelines.

Restricting yourself to stating that Small's behaviour is odd/strange/unexplained is probably okay as an expression of common sense.

Stating that his behaviour is a "significant plot hole" needs a source (even if it is only your Sherlock Holmes page)

Giving alternatives may also be fine, provided it is clear it's only an example given for purposes of illustrating the so-called holes in the plot, but I do believe they should still be sourced. That is, don't add in an example you came up with just for this page - that's simply unencyclopaedic. (Playing "the game" has no place on Wikipedia)

195.24.29.51 12:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Punjabi or Sikh - Identity crisis

  • Conan Doyle has written that the three friends of Small are sikhs. He has given their names as Mahomet Singh, Dost Akbar and Abdullah Khan. I think he cannot distinguish between "Punjabi"(native of Punjab, Much like an englishman, french, or a scott) and a "Sikh" (follower of the religion "Sikhism"). A Punjabi can be either a Sikh, Hindu or Muslim. As anyone can see, the names Dost Akbar and Abdullah Khan are muslim names. They may have been Punjabis but definitely not sikhs. Also I have never seen a Sikh named "Mahomet" (apparently the greek/latin distortion of the name of the muslim prophet "Mohammed").
  • The matter of footmarks, our detective hero says

"The hindoo proper has long and thin feet. The sandle wearing Mohammedan has the great toe well seperated from others." This is rubbish. The physical characteristics of an Indian native depends largely on the geographical location or race which he belongs. Not on his religion. For example nearly all Kashmiris have fair skins and most south Indians are of darkish complexions. The difference in footwear is also dependant on the geographical location not religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.98.29.108 (talk) 09:55, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with you on both counts.-xC- 10:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I wish we had a criticism/plot holes kind of section in this article. So that these kind of things can go there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zs32 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)