The Sign of the Four or The Problem of the Sholtos

Deeply
bored by the lack of mental stimulus and the dull routine of existence,
Sherlock Holmes is about to resort to his daily dose of cocaine in order to
get a thrill, when an elegantly dressed young woman called Mary Morstan
enters his room and presents her case to him and Watson. Her father has
mysteriously disappeared ten year ago, and after answering, four years later,
a newspaper advert enquiring for her, she has begun to receive each year, on
the same date, a precious pearl in the post from an unknown benefactor. Now,
with the last pearl, she has also received a message, telling her she is a
wronged woman and asking for a meeting that very night outside the Lyceum
Theatre. Will the great detective accompany her and help her unravel the
mystery?

First published in 1880, The Sign of Four - the second Sherlock Holmes
novel after A Study in Scarlet, published three years earlier - will sweep
the readers away into a story of murders, betrayals, double-crossings and
stolen treasures, and is an enduring testament to the storytelling genius of
Arthur Conan Doyle.