“The Sign of the Four” Chapter 1: The Science of Deduction
Channel: Story Time by Richard Slater
Date: 22/03/2024

“The Sign of the Four” Chapter 1: The Science of Deduction
Sherlock Holmes is at the peak of boredom, not having any case for months, when a young governess, Miss Mary Morstan arrives at his doorstep with the most singular case he has ever encountered. Naturally, Dr. Watson gets involved in the case and an unexpected feeling of romance stirs in his heart.

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Welcome back to our channel! Our new story is another Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, “The Sign of the Four.” We picked this story since it was next in chronological order after “A Study in Scarlet.” You can see that these familiar characters are developed here. In this novel, you learn how Dr. Watson meets his future wife, Miss Mary Morstan. One of the interesting side notes in this novel is that Watson’s Jezzail bullet injury from the Afghan war was mentioned as in his shoulder in A Study in Scarlet, but it is now described as being in his leg. We wonder what made the author change this? Please enlighten us if you know something more about it!

We learned that these earlier novels, prior to the short stories, were not as popular when they came out. They got more attention after the adventures series of Sherlock Holmes became super popular. That made readers want to read more stories about Sherlock Holmes. That is exactly how we read A Study in Scarlet and The sign of the Four! Now you can learn all about the characters’ background by listening to these novels, if you haven’t done so yet. You won’t have to experience them one-a-month, as the original readers did!

Since this was the second Sherlock Holmes novel, there are no illustrations existing done by Sidney Paget yet, as is the case for most of the other Holmes stories. We added some of Paget’s images here as a base and created some more. We hope you enjoy Richard's take on this classic detective story!


Our website: https://www.storytimebyrichardslater.com

About Copyright: 
At Story Time by Richard Slater, we create videos of classic books of our choice that are public domain. 

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About the channel:
Here at "Story Time by Richard Slater," Richard reads his favorite books from the past, and his lovely wife creates images. Our goal is to read the many copyright-free books out there that we like for those who enjoy them. Please let us know what you would like Richard to read next, and we may add it to our list!

About Richard Slater:
Richard is an actor and a voice actor who is active in community theater, radio productions and commercial recordings. You can contact him with an email or through our website.

Credits:
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Illustrations: Sidney Paget, and other images by T. Slater added
Voice and audio editing: Richard Slater
Images and music: T. Slater