The Sign of the Four is a mystery novel whose main character, Sherlock Holmes, is extremely good at unraveling mysteries. Given the accuracy of Holmes's observation skills and deductive reasoning, nearly everything that Holmes comments or observes throughout the story foreshadows a revelation later.
A small but significant early example comes in Chapter 2, when Holmes observes that the letter Mary Morstan has received and the address of her pearl-box are in the same handwriting:
'They are disguised hands, except the letter,' he said presently; 'but there can be no question as to the authorship. [...] They are undoubtedly by the same person."
This discovery about the handwriting, coupled with Mary's assertion that neither example resembles her father's writing, foreshadows the arrival of the letter's actual author, Thaddeus Sholto, in the very next chapter.
Two more examples of Holmes' foreshadowing occur in Chapter 5, at the scene of the murder of Bartholomew Sholto at Pondicherry Lodge. It doesn't take Holmes long to identify a "wooden-legged friend" (revealed to be Jonathan Small) as the apparent culprit:
'As a minor point, it may be noted,' he continued, fingering the rope, 'that our wooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens discloses more than one blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I gather he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin off his hands.'
These observations flag for the reader that they should be on the lookout for any character with a wooden leg—or, for that matter, with a wound on his hand—and foreshadow the discovery of the peg-legged sailor Jonathan Small as the murderer later in the novel.
While examining the scene, Holmes and Watson also note that this wooden-legged man must have had an accomplice:
The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked foot—clear, well-defined perfectly formed, but scarce half the size of those of an ordinary man.
'Holmes,' I said in a whisper, 'a child has done this horrid thing.'
While the first examples of foreshadowing speak to the impressive accuracy of Holmes's observations, this instance is a case in which the detective duo inadvertently mislead the reader: the smaller footprints will turn out to be those of Tonga, who is small but very much an adult—and who will become a deadly opponent of Holmes and Watson.
These kinds of foreshadowing—the blatant, straightforward predictions that prove true as well as the more subtle observations that present the reader with clues that only paint a partial picture—are essential to driving Doyle's narrative forward in The Sign of the Four. Clues like these build the suspense of the plot and encourage the reader to pore over the pages like a detective in their own right, discovering their own sets of evidence and anticipating the action to come.
The Sign of the Four is a mystery novel whose main character, Sherlock Holmes, is extremely good at unraveling mysteries. Given the accuracy of Holmes's observation skills and deductive reasoning, nearly everything that Holmes comments or observes throughout the story foreshadows a revelation later.
A small but significant early example comes in Chapter 2, when Holmes observes that the letter Mary Morstan has received and the address of her pearl-box are in the same handwriting:
'They are disguised hands, except the letter,' he said presently; 'but there can be no question as to the authorship. [...] They are undoubtedly by the same person."
This discovery about the handwriting, coupled with Mary's assertion that neither example resembles her father's writing, foreshadows the arrival of the letter's actual author, Thaddeus Sholto, in the very next chapter.
Two more examples of Holmes' foreshadowing occur in Chapter 5, at the scene of the murder of Bartholomew Sholto at Pondicherry Lodge. It doesn't take Holmes long to identify a "wooden-legged friend" (revealed to be Jonathan Small) as the apparent culprit:
'As a minor point, it may be noted,' he continued, fingering the rope, 'that our wooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens discloses more than one blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I gather he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin off his hands.'
These observations flag for the reader that they should be on the lookout for any character with a wooden leg—or, for that matter, with a wound on his hand—and foreshadow the discovery of the peg-legged sailor Jonathan Small as the murderer later in the novel.
While examining the scene, Holmes and Watson also note that this wooden-legged man must have had an accomplice:
The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked foot—clear, well-defined perfectly formed, but scarce half the size of those of an ordinary man.
'Holmes,' I said in a whisper, 'a child has done this horrid thing.'
While the first examples of foreshadowing speak to the impressive accuracy of Holmes's observations, this instance is a case in which the detective duo inadvertently mislead the reader: the smaller footprints will turn out to be those of Tonga, who is small but very much an adult—and who will become a deadly opponent of Holmes and Watson.
These kinds of foreshadowing—the blatant, straightforward predictions that prove true as well as the more subtle observations that present the reader with clues that only paint a partial picture—are essential to driving Doyle's narrative forward in The Sign of the Four. Clues like these build the suspense of the plot and encourage the reader to pore over the pages like a detective in their own right, discovering their own sets of evidence and anticipating the action to come.
