44 pages • 1 hour read
Arthur Conan DoyleThe Sign of the Four
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1890A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Episode of the Barrel”
Watson takes Mary back home (she is a governess who lives with her employer, Mrs. Forrester). In the carriage ride, Mary’s self-control falters, and she cries while Watson attempts to comfort her. Watson struggles with his feelings, fearing that he will be accused of being a fortune-hunter if he tries to court her now that she is an heiress and believing it would be dishonorable to say anything when she is so vulnerable. They arrive at Mrs. Forrester’s home, where Mrs. Forrester greets Mary and hugs her. Watson is charmed to see that Mrs. Forrester does not treat Mary as a mere employee but as “an honoured friend” (60).
Watson then visits Holmes’s colleague to borrow the dog, Toby. He returns to the Sholto family home, where Holmes awaits him. Holmes informs Watson that Jones has arrested not only Thaddeus, but also the housekeeper and the Indian servant. Together, they investigate more footprints, then Holmes sets Toby to follow the smell of the creosote to track the accomplice.
They follow the dog through London until Toby stops at a street corner, suddenly confused. After a moment, Toby chooses a direction and continues. As they walk, Holmes explains his deductions to Watson, concluding that the wooden-legged man Sholto shot at, and the man at the window the night he died, are both the same man who entered Bartholomew’s room and left the peg-leg print on the carpet. As Thaddeus described the stranger as a white man, Holmes also concludes that it must be Jonathan Small, the only non-“Hindu” or “Mohammedan” name on the “sign of the four” diagram.
Toby eventually leads them to a man carrying a large barrel full of creosote for delivery. Holmes and Watson realize that Toby is confused and laugh.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Baker Street Irregulars”
Holmes and Watson realize that the creosote footprints must have crossed paths with the man carrying the barrel back on the street corner where Toby had first become confused. They return to the street corner, then continue along the second path until they lose the trail at a small wharf on the river. Holmes supposes that the culprits must have rented a boat to travel by water. Nearby is a sign for boat rentals from Mordecai Smith. Pretending to be merely curious, Holmes speaks with Mr. Smith’s wife, who tells him that Mr. Smith took two men out on his boat the Aurora and gives a description of the craft.
They return Toby to his owner and go home. In the morning, the newspaper describes Jones’s arrest of Thaddeus and his prevailing theory about Bartholomew’s murder, which Holmes finds amusing. Holmes sends a message to an informant. Soon, a dirty, scruffy boy named Wiggins arrives with some other boys. These are a group of working-class street kids whom Holmes calls his Baker Street Irregulars. He tasks them with finding the Aurora.
Meanwhile, Holmes finally explains to Watson his conclusions about Small’s mysterious accomplice. He reminds Watson of the evidence and Watson realizes that the accomplice must be a “savage” from India. Holmes amends this conclusion by reminding Watson of Small’s known history as a prisoner on the Andaman Islands. Thus, he states, the accomplice is likely to be a native of the Andaman Islands. He reads a description from a book:
The aborigines of the Andaman Islands may perhaps claim the distinction of being the smallest race upon this earth [...] They are naturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small fierce eyes, and distorted features. [...] They have always been a terror to ship-wrecked crews, braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs or shooting them with their poisoned arrows (83-84).
Though Holmes does not know how Small acquired such a companion, he is certain the accomplice will fit this description.
Chapter 9 Summary: “A Break in the Chain”
The next day, there is still no news about the Aurora. Holmes is frustrated that they can do nothing but wait. In the meantime, Watson returns to Mrs. Forrester’s home to give Mary an update on their progress. When he returns to Baker Street, he finds Holmes pacing in his room, “his keen spirit […] chafing against the involuntary inaction” (88). The following morning, Holmes is “haggard” from lack of sleep. Another day goes by with no news.
On the third day, Holmes announces he is going out to search on his own and leaves dressed like a sailor. Watson reads the newspaper and sees that Jones has been forced to release Thaddeus and the housekeeper, who have been given alibis. While Holmes is gone, Jones arrives at Baker Street. Together, Watson and Jones wait for Holmes to return. However, an old man wearing a worn sailor’s coat with a scarf wrapped around his face arrives first, claiming to have new information. When Watson looks away and then back again, he suddenly finds Holmes standing there. Confused, Watson asks where the old man has gone, and Holmes shows him a wig and fake eyebrows, revealing that he was disguised as the old man.
Holmes explains that he wore this disguise to search the wharfs along the river, and he has at last found evidence of the missing boat. He requests a fast police boat from Jones to capture the culprits.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Chapters 7 through 9 showcase the bulk of the action, as far as Holmes’s investigation is concerned. In these chapters, Holmes and Watson do the “leg work” associated with many detective stories—following clues, enlisting help from informants, and exhausting all options. While the Holmes stories are not particularly known for their humor, small scenes with a more light-hearted tone are occasionally injected into the investigation, as in the case of the tracking dog chasing a creosote barrel. The fact that Holmes and Watson laugh over this mistake demonstrates both their friendship and their resilience; they do not despair over the mishap but simply refocus and continue their search. Other Holmes stories will showcase the friendship between the two more explicitly, but this scene is a pleasant moment of levity in an otherwise rather dark story.
Additionally, Chapter 7 develops the romance between Watson and Mary. Because the narrative is told from Watson’s point of view as he looks back on the case, he can interject with details that happened long after the main events of the plot. For instance, in the carriage ride when Watson returns Mary to her home, Watson is preoccupied by his feelings for Mary and his fear of being seen as a fortune hunter. He adds, with a touch of irony, that long after the fact (that is, after he and Mary are married), Mary says that she felt him to be cold and distant in that moment, though Watson did not feel himself to be at the time. The elapsed time between the events themselves and Watson’s written account of them is necessary for this kind of self-reflection.
Chapter 8 introduces a recurring element of several Holmes stories, the Baker Street Irregulars. Though seen only briefly here, the Baker Street Irregulars are an important part of Holmes’s process. They are all poor, working-class boys, including some who are likely unhoused, which makes them streetwise, tough, and invisible to the middle- and upper-class people around them. They respect Holmes, both because he pays them for their services and because he does not speak down to, or ignore, them. Their assistance is often invaluable, though they do not immediately find the Aurora in this case. The big break in the case comes, instead, when Holmes himself goes out in search of the boat.
The scene with the old man who reveals himself to be Holmes in disguise is another small moment of levity in the story. It also demonstrates one of Holmes’s greatest strengths, his talent for disguises and subterfuge. This skill is used extensively throughout the Holmes stories. He is so adept at disguises that he often tricks even his closest friend, Watson, and he takes great pride in this.
Chapter 8 suffers from offensive and racist stereotypes about native populations in India and Asia. First, Watson uses the term “savage” in reference to a man he assumes to be Indian. Furthermore, the book that Holmes reads from (not, as far as historians can tell, a real book) presents a racist caricature of the native populations of the Andaman Islands in the guise of “historical fact,” which Doyle probably fabricated wholesale, rather than relying on genuine accounts of the region (Klinger, Leslie S. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Vol 3. Norton & Co, 2006. 307). This offensive stereotypical description relies on racist ideas of tribal culture and Indian/Asian physical characteristics, and highlights a third major theme of the work, Criminality, Monstrosity, and Fear of the Other. Even though Holmes had previously claimed that physical characteristics could be misleading, he readily attributes violent crime to the Andamanese natives, as if their “monstrous” appearance logically leads to that conclusion. This theme continues in the final three chapters.
The many references to India reinforce the theme of British Imperialism and Its Impact. Though the effects of British imperialism and colonialism are never witnessed first-hand in this novel, the many references to India collectively speak to Britain’s impact on its colonies. The theft of the Agra treasure may itself be understood as an analogy for British imperialism, with British soldiers committing murder to steal India’s natural resources and profit from the spoils. The novel portrays British imperialism as violent, exploitative, and driven by greed.
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