THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS1

In “The Five Orange Pips,” which takes place in 1887, Sherlock Holmes tells his
client that he has been beaten only four times in his career. When Holmes fails to
take immediate steps to protect his client, however, we must conclude that Holmes
has been beaten again. Yet the case is a favourite among readers, not least for its
tantalising mention of cases that Watson never records, including those of the
Paradol Chamber, the Grice Patersons “in the island of Uffa,” the Camberwell
poisoning, the loss of the barque “Sophy Anderson,” and the Amateur Mendicant
Society. Repeating his formula from A Study in Scarlet, Watson shrewdly selects an
adventure with an American setting featuring vengeance by a secret society. In the
former case, Holmes tracks down a killer who took revenge on the avengers. Here,
Holmes himself seeks revenge on the wrongdoers. We are left to wonder whether
Holmes truly seeks justice or is merely trying to soothe his bruised ego.

W HEN I GLANCE over my notes and records of the

Sherlock Holmes cases between the years ’82 and ’90,2 I am faced
by so many which present strange and interesting features, that it is
no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some,
however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and
others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my
friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of
these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill,
and would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while
others have been but partially cleared up, and have their
explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on
that absolute logical proof which was so dear to him. There is,
however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and
so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it
in spite of the fact that there are points in connection with it which
never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.
 “The Five Orange Pips.”
Staff artists “Cargs” and E. S. Morris,
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 5, 1911

The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or

less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under
this one twelve months, I find an account of the adventure of the
Paradol Chamber,3 of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a
luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts
connected with the loss of the British barque Sophy Anderson, of the
singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and
finally of the Camberwell poisoning case.4 In the latter, as may be
remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead
man’s watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours ago,5 and
that therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a
deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the
case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of
them present such singular features as the strange train of
circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.
It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales6
had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed
and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in
the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our
minds for the instant from the routine of life, and to recognize the
presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind
through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage. As
evening drew in the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried
and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily
at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, whilst
I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories,7
until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text,
and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the
sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother’s,8 and for a few
days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.
“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the
bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?”
“Except yourself I have none,” he answered.9 “I do not encourage
visitors.”
“A client, then?”
“If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on
such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to be
some crony of the landlady’s.”
Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there
came a step in the passage, and a tapping at the door. He stretched
out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the
vacant chair upon which a new-comer must sit. “Come in!” said he.
The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the
outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement
and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in
his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather
through which he had come. He looked about him anxiously in the
glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes
heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great
anxiety.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his
eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some
traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.”
 “He looked about himself anxiously.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1891

“Give me your coat and umbrella,” said Holmes. “They may rest
here on the hook, and will be dry presently. You have come up from
the south-west, I see.”
“Yes, from Horsham.”10
“That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe-caps is
quite distinctive.”11
“I have come for advice.”
“That is easily got.”
“And help.”
“That is not always so easy.”
“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast
how you saved him in the Tankerville Club Scandal.”
“Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards.”
“He said that you could solve anything.”
“He said too much.”
“That you are never beaten.”
“I have been beaten four times—three times by men, and once by
a woman.”12
“But what is that compared with the number of your successes?”
“It is true that I have been generally successful.”
 “Then you may be so with me.”
“I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire, and favour me
with some details as to your case.”
“It is no ordinary one.”
“None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of
appeal.”
“And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have
ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events
than those which have happened in my own family.”
“You fill me with interest,” said Holmes. “Pray give us the essential
facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as
to those details which seem to me to be most important.”
The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out
towards the blaze.
“My name,” said he, “is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have,
as far as I can understand it, little to do with this awful business. It is
a hereditary matter, so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must
go back to the commencement of the affair.
“You must know that my grandfather had two sons—my uncle Elias
and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry,13
which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a
patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met
with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a
handsome competence.
“My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man,
and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have
done very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson’s army,
and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel.14 When
Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he
remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back
to Europe, and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had
made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for
leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the
Republican15 policy in extending the franchise to them. He was a
singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he
was angry, and of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that
he lived at Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a
garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would
take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never
leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy, and smoked very
heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any friends, not
even his own brother.
“He didn’t mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time
when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. That would
be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in England.
He begged my father to let me live with him, and he was very kind to
me in his way. When he was sober he used to be fond of playing
backgammon and draughts16 with me, and he would make me his
representative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so
that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite master of the house. I
kept all the keys, and could go where I liked and do what I liked, so
long as I did not disturb him in his privacy. There was one singular
exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber room up
among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would
never permit either me or any one else to enter. With a boy’s curiosity
I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more
than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be
expected in such a room.
“One day—it was in March, 1883—a letter with a foreign stamp lay
upon the table in front of the colonel’s plate. It was not a common
thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in ready
money, and he had no friends of any sort. ‘From India!’ said he, as he
took it up, ‘Pondicherry17 postmark! What can this be?’ Opening it
hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips,18 which
pattered down upon his plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh
was struck from my lips at the sight of his face. His lip had fallen, his
eyes were protruding, his skin the colour of putty, and he glared at
the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand. ‘K.K.K.!’ he
shrieked, and then, ‘My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!’
“ ‘What is it, uncle?’ I cried.
“ ‘Death,’ said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room,
leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope, and saw
scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter
K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five dried
pips. What could be the reason of his overpowering terror? I left the
breakfast table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down
with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one
hand, and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.
“ ‘They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he
with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and
send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’

“Death!” said he.

Artist unknown, Chicago Inter-Ocean, November 7, 1891

“I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to

step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate
there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the
brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced at the box I
noticed, with a start, that upon the lid were printed the treble K which
I had read in the morning upon the envelope.
“ ‘I wish you, John,’ said my uncle, ‘to witness my will. I leave my
estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages to my brother,
your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If you can enjoy
it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my advice, my
boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. I am sorry to give you such
a two-edged thing, but I can’t say what turn things are going to take.
Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham shows you.’
“I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with
him.19 The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest
impression upon me, and I pondered over it, and turned it every way
in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I could not
shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind it, though the
sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed, and nothing
happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I could see a
change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever, and he was
less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his time he would spend
in his room, with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he
would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy, and would burst out of the
house and tear about the garden with a revolver in his hand,
screaming out that he was afraid of no man, and that he was not to
be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by man or devil. When these hot
fits were over, however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door,
and lock and bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no
longer against the terror which lies at the roots of his soul. At such
times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture
as though it were new raised from a basin.
“Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to
abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those
drunken sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when
we went to search for him, face downwards in a little green-scummed
pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There was no sign of any
violence, and the water was but two feet deep, so that the jury,
having regard to his known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of
suicide.20 But I, who knew how he winced from the very thought of
death, had much ado to persuade myself that he had gone out of his
way to meet it. The matter passed, however, and my father entered
into possession of the estate, and of some fourteen thousand pounds
which lay to his credit at the bank.”
“One moment,” Holmes interposed, “your statement is, I foresee,
one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me
have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date
of his supposed suicide.”
“The letter arrived on March the 10th, 1883. His death was seven
weeks later, upon the night of the 2nd of May.”
“Thank you. Pray proceed.”
 “We found him face downwards in a little green-scummed pool.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1891

“When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my

request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been
always locked up. We found the brass box there, although its
contents had been destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a paper
label, with the initials of K.K.K. repeated upon it, and ‘Letters,
memoranda, receipts, and a register’ written beneath. These, we
presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had been
destroyed by Colonel Openshaw.21 For the rest, there was nothing of
much importance in the attic, save a great many scattered papers
and note-books bearing upon my uncle’s life in America. Some of
them were of the war time, and showed that he had done his duty
well, and had borne the repute of a brave soldier. Others were of a
date during the reconstruction of the Southern States, and were
mostly concerned with politics, for he had evidently taken a strong
part in opposing the carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down
from the North.
“Well, it was the beginning of ’84 when my father came to live at
Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the January of
’85. On the fourth day after the New Year I heard my father give a
sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast table. There
he was, sitting with a newly-opened envelope in one hand and five
dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one. He had
always laughed at what he called my cock-and-bull story about the
colonel, but he looked very puzzled and scared now that the same
thing had come upon himself.
 “ ‘Why, what on earth does this mean, John?’ he stammered.
“My heart had turned to lead. ‘It is K.K.K.,’ said I.
“He looked inside the envelope. ‘So it is,’ he cried. ‘Here are the
very letters. But what is this written above them?’
“ ‘Put the papers on the sundial,’ I read, peeping over his shoulder.
“ ‘What papers? What sundial?’ he asked.
“ ‘The sundial in the garden. There is no other,’ said I; ‘but the
papers must be those that are destroyed.’
“ ‘Pooh!’ said he, gripping hard at his courage. ‘We are in a civilized
land here, and we can’t have tomfoolery of this kind. Where does the
thing come from?’
“ ‘From Dundee,’22 I answered, glancing at the postmark.
“ ‘Some preposterous practical joke,’ said he. ‘What have I to do
with sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such nonsense.’

“What on earth does this mean?”

Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1891

“ ‘I should certainly speak to the police,’ I said.

“ ‘And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.’
“ ‘Then let me do so?’
“ ‘No, I forbid you, I won’t have a fuss made about such nonsense.’
“It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man. I
went about, however, with a heart which was full of forebodings.
“On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from
home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is in command
of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill.23 I was glad that he should
go, for it seemed to me that he was further from danger when he was
away from home. In that, however, I was in error. Upon the second
day of his absence I received a telegram from the Major, imploring
me to come at once. My father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-
pits which abound in the neighbourhood, and was lying senseless,
with a shattered skull. I hurried to him, but he passed away without
having ever recovered his consciousness. He had, as it appears,
been returning from Fareham24 in the twilight, and as the country was
unknown to him, and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no
hesitation in bringing in a verdict of ‘death from accidental causes.’
Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death, I was
unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder.
There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record
of strangers having been seen upon the roads. And yet I need not tell
you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I was well-nigh
certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.
“In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me
why I did not dispose of it? I answer because I was well convinced
that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my
uncle’s life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house
as in another.
“It was in January, ’85, that my poor father met his end, and two
years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time I
have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this
curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended with
the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon, however;
yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had
come upon my father.”
The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and,
turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange pips.
 “Shook out five little dried orange pips.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1891

“This is the envelope,” he continued. “The postmark, is London—

eastern division.25 Within are the very words which were upon my
father’s last message: ‘K.K.K.’; and then ‘Put the papers on the
sundial.’ ”

“This is the envelope.”

Sherlock Holmes in America

“What have you done?” asked Holmes.

“Nothing.”
 “Nothing?”
“To tell the truth”—he sank his face into his thin, white hands—“I
have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when the
snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some
resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can
guard against.”
“Tut! tut!” cried Sherlock Holmes. “You must act, man, or you are
lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.”
“I have seen the police.”
“Ah?”
“But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that the
inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical
jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as
the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings.”
Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. “Incredible imbecility!”
he cried.
“They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in
the house with me.”
“Has he come with you to-night?”
“No. His orders were to stay in the house.”
Again Holmes raved in the air.
“Why did you come to me,”26 he said; “and, above all, why did you
not come at once?”
“I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major
Prendergast about my trouble, and was advised by him to come to
you.”
“It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted
before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which
you have placed before us—no suggestive detail which might help
us?”
“There is one thing,” said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his
coat pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted
paper, he laid it out upon the table. “I have some remembrance,” said
he, “that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed
that the small, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of
this particular colour. I found this single sheet upon the floor of his
room, and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers
which has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that
way have escaped destruction. Beyond the mention of pips, I do not
see that it helps us much. I think myself that it is a page from some
private diary. The writing is undoubtedly my uncle’s.”
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper,
which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a
book. It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following
enigmatical notices:

4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.27

7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St. Augustine.
9th. McCauley cleared.
10th. John Swain cleared.
12th. Visited Paramore. All well.

“Thank you!” said Holmes, folding up the paper, and returning it to

our visitor. “And now you must on no account lose another instant.
We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. You
must get home instantly, and act.”
“What shall I do?”
“There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must
put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box
which you have described. You must also put in a note to say that all
the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only
one which remains. You must assert that in such words as will carry
conviction with them. Having done this, you must at once put the box
out upon the sundial, as directed. Do you understand?”
“Entirely.”
“Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I think
that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web to
weave, while theirs is already woven. The first consideration is to
remove the pressing danger which threatens you. The second is to
clear up the mystery, and to punish the guilty parties.”
“I thank you,” said the young man, rising, and pulling on his
overcoat. “You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall certainly do
as you advise.”
“Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in the
meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are
threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go
back?”
“By train from Waterloo.”28
“It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that you
may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.”
“I am armed.”
“That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.”
“I shall see you at Horsham, then?”
“No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it.”
“Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to
the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every particular.”
He shook hands with us, and took his leave. Outside the wind still
screamed, and the rain splashed and pattered against the windows.
This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the
mad elements—blown in upon us like a sheet of seaweed in a gale—
and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.
Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence with his head sunk
forward, and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he lit
his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smoke
rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.
“I think, Watson,” he remarked at last, “that of all our cases we
have had none more fantastic than this.”
 “His eyes bent upon the glow of the fire.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1891

“Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.”

“Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw
seems to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the
Sholtos.”29
“But have you,” I asked, “formed any definite conception as to what
these perils are?”
“There can be no question as to their nature,” he answered.
“Then what are they? Who is this K.K.K., and why does he pursue
this unhappy family?”
Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes, and placed his elbows upon the
arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. “The ideal reasoner,”
he remarked, “would, when he has once been shown a single fact in
all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which
led up to it, but also all the results which would follow from it. As
Cuvier30 could correctly describe a whole animal by the
contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly
understood one link in a series of incidents, should be able to
accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. We have
not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to.
Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those
who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the
art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner
should be able to utilize all the facts which have come to his
knowledge, and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a
possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free
education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.
It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all
knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I
have endeavoured in my case to do. If I remember rightly, you on one
occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits in a
very precise fashion.”31
“Yes,” I answered, laughing. “It was a singular document.
Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I
remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud
stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry
eccentric,32 anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime
records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-
poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.33 Those, I think, were the main
points of my analysis.”
Holmes grinned at the last item. “Well,” he said, “I say now, as I
said then, that a man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all
the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in
the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it. Now,
for such a case as the one which has been submitted to us to-night,
we need certainly to muster all our resources. Kindly hand me down
the letter K of the American Encyclopædia which stands upon the
shelf beside you. Thank you. Now let us consider the situation and
see what may be deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with
a strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong
reason for leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change all
their habits, and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida
for the lonely life of an English provincial town. His extreme love of
solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of some one
or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that it was
fear of some one or something which drove him from America. As to
what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by considering the
formidable letters which were received by himself and his
successors. Did you remark the postmarks of those letters?”
“The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the
third from London.”
“From East London. What do you deduce from that?”
“They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship.”
“Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that the
probability—the strong probability—is that the writer was on board of
a ship. And now let us consider another point. In the case of
Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its
fulfillment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days. Does that
suggest anything?”
“A greater distance to travel.”
“But the letter had also a greater distance to come.”
“Then I do not see the point.”
 “There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or
men are is a sailing ship. It looks as if they always sent their singular
warning or token before them when starting upon their mission. You
see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came from
Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they would
have arrived almost as soon as their letter. But as a matter of fact,
seven weeks elapsed. I think that those seven weeks represented the
difference between the mail boat which brought the letter, and the
sailing vessel which brought the writer.”
“It is possible.”
“More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly
urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to
caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which it
would take the senders to travel the distance. But this one comes
from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay.”
“Good God!” I cried. “What can it mean, this relentless
persecution?”
“The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital
importance to the person or persons in the sailing ship. I think that it
is quite clear that there must be more than one of them. A single man
could not have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a
coroner’s jury. There must have been several in it, and they must
have been men of resource and determination. Their papers they
mean to have, be the holder of them who it may.34 In this way you
see K.K.K. ceases to be the initials of an individual, and becomes the
badge of a society.”
“But of what society?”
“Have you never—” said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and
sinking his voice—”have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?”35
“I never have.”
Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. “Here it
is,” said he presently:

Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from a fanciful resemblance to the sound produced by
cocking a rifle. This terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate
soldiers in the Southern States after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches
in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas,
Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political purposes, principally for the
 terrorizing of the negro voters, and the murdering and driving from the country of those
who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent
to the marked man in some fantastic but generally recognized shape—a sprig of oak-
leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. On receiving this the
victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country. If he
braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some
strange and unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organization of the society, and so
systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon record where any man
succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home
to the perpetrators. For some years the organization flourished, in spite of the efforts of
the United States Government and of the better classes of the community in the South.
Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there
have been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.
“You will observe,” said Holmes, laying down the volume, “that the
sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the
disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may
well have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he and his
family have some of the more implacable spirits upon their track. You
can understand that this register and diary may implicate some of the
first men in the South, and that there may be many who will not sleep
easy at night until it is recovered.”36
“Then the page we have seen—”
“Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, ‘sent the
pips to A, B, and C’—that is, sent the society’s warning to them. Then
there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or left the country,
and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a sinister result for C. Well, I
think, Doctor, that we may let some light into this dark place, and I
believe that the only chance young Openshaw has in the meantime is
to do what I have told him. There is nothing more to be said or to be
done to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for
half an hour the miserable weather, and the still more miserable ways
of our fellowmen.”

It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a
subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great
city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came down.
 “You will excuse me for not waiting for you,” said he; “I have, I
foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young
Openshaw’s.”
“What steps will you take?” I asked.
“It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. I
may have to go down to Horsham after all.”
“You will not go there first?”
“No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell, and the maid
will bring up your coffee.”
As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and
glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a chill to
my heart.
“Holmes,” I cried, “you are too late.”
“Ah!” said he, laying down his cup, “I feared as much. How was it
done?” He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved.
“My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading ‘Tragedy
Near Waterloo Bridge.’ Here is the account:

“Holmes,” I cried, “you are too late.”

Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1891

Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the

H Division,37 on duty near Waterloo Bridge,38 heard a cry for
help and a splash in the water. The night, however, was
extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help of
several passers-by, it was quite impossible to effect a rescue.
The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of the water
 police,39 the body was eventually recovered. It proved to be that
of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from an
envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw,
and whose residence is near Horsham. It is conjectured that he
may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from
Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and the extreme
darkness, he missed his path, and walked over the edge of one
of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body
exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that
the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident,
which should have the effect of calling the attention of the
authorities to the condition of the riverside landing stages.”

We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and

shaken than I had ever seen him.
“That hurts my pride, Watson,” he said at last. “It is a petty feeling,
no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me
now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand upon this
gang. That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him
away to his death—!” He sprang from his chair, and paced about the
room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks,
and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long, thin hands.
“They must be cunning devils,” he exclaimed, at last. “How could
they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment40 is not on the
direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too crowded,
even on such a night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, we shall see
who will win in the long run. I am going out now!”
“To the police?”
“No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may
take the flies, but not before.”
All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in
the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes had
not come back yet. It was nearly ten o’clock before he entered,
looking pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard, and, tearing a
piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a
long draught of water.
 The Embankment.
The Queen’s London (1897)

“You are hungry,” I remarked.41

“Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since
breakfast.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a bite. I had no time to think of it.”
“And how have you succeeded?”
“Well.”
“You have a clue?”
“I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not
long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish
trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!”
“What do you mean?”
He took an orange from the cupboard, and, tearing it to pieces, he
squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five, and
thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote “S.H.
for J.O.” Then he sealed it and addressed it to “Captain James
Calhoun,42 Barque Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia.”
“That will await him when he enters port,” said he, chuckling. “It
may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursor of
his fate as Openshaw did before him.”
“And who is this Captain Calhoun?”
“The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first.”
“How did you trace it, then?”
He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with
dates and names.
 “I have spent the whole day,” said he, “over Lloyd’s registers43 and
files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel
which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in ’83. There
were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reported there during
those months. Of these, one, the Lone Star, instantly attracted my
attention, since, although it was reported as having cleared from
London, the name is that which is given to one of the States of the
Union.”
“Texas, I think.”
“I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must
have an American origin.”
“What then?”
“I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque
Lone Star was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became a
certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the
port of London.”
“Yes?”
“The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the
Albert Dock, and found that she had been taken down river by the
early tide this morning; homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to
Gravesend,44 and learned that she had passed some time ago, and
as the wind is easterly, I have no doubt that she is now past the
Goodwins,45 and not very far from the Isle of Wight.”46

Cleopatra’s Needle.
The Queen’s London (1897)

“What will you do then?”

 “Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates are, as I
learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others are
Finns and Germans. I know also that they were all three away from
the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore, who has been loading
their cargo. By the time that their sailing ship reaches Savannah the
mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have informed
the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly wanted
here upon a charge of murder.”
There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and
the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange
pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute
as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very severe were
the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for news of the Lone
Star of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that
somewhere far out in the Atlantic, a shattered stern-post of the boat
was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters “L.S.”
carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of
the Lone Star.

1 “The Five Orange Pips” was published in the Strand Magazine in November 1891 and in
the American Strand Magazine in December 1891.

2 Why is 1881, the year in which the events of A Study in Scarlet occurred, omitted? Gavin
Brend suggests that Watson spent most of his time that year writing up his account of that
case, the only one in which he participated. He would be ignorant of any other case of
Holmes’s that occurred during or before that year. “It was only at the beginning of 1882 that
systemized records of the cases came into existence.”

3 Numerous pastiches have explored this strange reference, but Klas Lithner, in “A Key to
the Paradol Chamber,” identifies the chamber as the residence of Lucien-Anatole Paradol, a
French journalist and political figure.

4 As early as July 1901, the editor of The Bookman complained that the Adventures and the
Memoirs were replete with “allusions to affairs of which the reader knows nothing” and
demanded that the author “clear away the mystery of all the titles.” There are over 110
“unrecorded cases” mentioned in the Canon, according to Christopher Redmond, but John
Hall, in The Abominable Wife, points out that there is meaningful information about only
thirty-nine of these cases.

5The word “ago” becomes “before” in American editions. Lord Donegall, in “The Horological
Holmes,” observes, “Dr. Watson’s statement as it stands is palpable nonsense. Holmes
would have had to wind the watch and let it run down completely before being able to tell
how many turns of the key or pendant represented 2 hours—even approximately. . . .
Watson must have omitted some essential link in the chain of reasoning.”

6 The autumnal equinox is an imaginary event, occurring annually about September 23,
when the sun first travels southerly across the celestial equator. Of course, an equinox, as a
mere convenience of reference, cannot actually cause any storms. However, seasonal shifts
of air masses may create unusually violent weather, and the belief in “equinoctial gales”
likely originated with sailors who observed West Indian hurricanes occurring most often at
the time of the autumnal equinox.

7 William Clark Russell (1844–1911) was an American novelist, the writer of many nautical
tales. Between 1867 and 1905 he published 65 titles of fiction, most of them in three
volumes, and 15 nonfiction titles. Russell’s novels included The Wreck of the Grosvenor
(1877), The Frozen Pirate (1887), and The Romance of a Midshipman (1898).

8 The Doubleday edition’s version of “The Five Orange Pips” follows the Strand Magazine
version in using the word “mother.” In the first book publication of “The Five Orange Pips,”
the word “mother” has been replaced with “aunt.” The latter was adopted as the “definitive
text” by Edgar W. Smith for the Limited Editions Club publication of the Adventures in 1950
and has been widely copied.
Based in part on the reference to Watson’s “wife,” some chronologists reject Watson’s
explicit date of September 1887 and put the case after The Sign of Four, following which
Watson married Mary Morstan. However, this is a shaky foundation, for according to Mary
Morstan in The Sign of Four, her mother died before 1878, and she had no living relatives in
England (“My father was an officer in an Indian regiment, who sent me home when I was
quite a child. My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England”). Ian McQueen states:
“Let us say here and now that we no more believe in the existence of Mary Watson’s aunt
than we do in the orphan-girl’s mother. Both were figments of Conan Doyle’s imagination,
erroneously inserted in the manuscript while he was editing Watson’s notes for publication.”
McQueen suggests that Conan Doyle was misled by Watson’s notes into assuming that
Watson was already married in September 1887 and invented the visit to Mary’s mother as
the most plausible explanation for his absence from home.
It has been ingeniously suggested that Mary Morstan’s relationship to Mrs. Cecil Forrester,
with whom she lodges in The Sign of Four in an unexplained relationship, was practically
that of aunt and niece. Philip Weller, in “A Relative Question,” suggests that the “mother” is
Mary Morstan’s stepmother. However, neither argument seems very convincing, and this
editor believes that this aunt/wife reference must be to a wife who preceded Mary Morstan
and died before 1888 and to whom Watson, out of delicacy for the feelings of his current
wife, makes little or no reference.

9Indeed, Holmes is not exaggerating here—there is no report in the entire Canon of any
person with whom Holmes has regular social intercourse, save for Dr. Watson, his brother
Mycroft, and his professional colleagues Inspector Lestrade and Inspector Stanley Hopkins.

10 A small town in the county of West Sussex. In “The Sussex Vampire,” Holmes and
Watson visited Lamberley, which is south of Horsham. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on
the outskirts of Horsham in 1792. According to Baedeker’s Great Britain (1894), the town’s
Free Library was opened in 1892 as a memorial to Shelley, and the Horsham Museum now
has an extensive collection of first and early editions of his works, as well as memorabilia of
his life and career.
11 The editors of the Catalogue of the 1951 Sherlock Holmes Exhibition in London dispute
this deduction, suggesting that Holmes made a rare error, Watson’s notes were incorrect, or
Openshaw was not wholly honest about his movements. According to the editors, Horsham
sits atop the Tunbridge Wells Sands, surrounded on three sides by the Weald Clay. “Apart
from material deposited by builders or from some similar artificial source, it would have been
quite impossible for Openshaw to get chalk on his toe-caps in or around Horsham. Sand and
clay, perhaps; chalk and clay, no.” To the north of Horsham, however, is a zone in which may
be found “the Lower Greensand, Gault Clay, Upper Greensand (a very narrow strip) and the
Chalk. . . . In this zone even a short walk could provide a mixture of chalk and clay.” Perhaps
Holmes actually said “south,” and Watson embellished Holmes’s statement when writing up
his notes.
The editors offer three possible explanations for Openshaw’s acquisition of clay and chalk
on his boots. First, Watson may have changed a reference to Dorking, for example, to
Horsham, either erroneously or to disguise the actual location. Second, Openshaw may
have “acquired the chalk on a previous journey and had simply omitted to clean his boots.”
Third, Openshaw may have passed through Dorking, for reasons undisclosed, and
neglected to mention it to Holmes. The editors of the Catalogue profess a preference for the
first theory, blaming Dr. Watson’s report, inasmuch as the second conflicts with Watson’s
description of Openshaw as “well-groomed and trimly clad” and the third would have been
penetrated by Holmes.

12 Chronologists such as H. W. Bell and Ernest Bloomfield Zeisler are quick to identify this
woman with Irene Adler and use the remark to find Watson’s September 1887 date in error,
instead assigning the case to a date after the March 1888 events of “A Scandal in Bohemia.”
A few proponents of the year 1887 for “The Five Orange Pips” propose other candidates for
the woman purported to have beaten Holmes. Gavin Brend, for example, nominates Effie
Munro (of “The Yellow Face,” which Brend places in 1882). Tempting as such speculation is,
however, it seems that the best that can be said is that if Watson’s dating is correct, plainly
the victorious woman was not Irene Adler; perhaps one of the unreported cases was the
source of this defeat. As Brend wisely notes, “After all, we do not know who the three men
were who beat Holmes. Why should not the woman be equally anonymous?” For more
questions on the dating of this case, see note 29.

13 Baedeker describes Coventry in 1896 as “an ancient city with 54,740 inhab., possesses
extensive manufactories of ribbons, dress-trimmings, coach-lace, and watches, and is
famous for its artistic work in metal. It is also the headquarters of the manufacture of bicycles
and tricycles.” However, Coventry is perhaps most famous for a legendary horseback ride. In
the eleventh century, Lady Godiva bargained with her husband, a powerful noble, to reduce
taxes in the district. He promised to do so if she rode naked on horseback through the
Coventry marketplace at midday. Lady Godiva made her now-famous ride, and the taxes
were eliminated. The story was recorded several times before 1400. In later accounts,
probably at the urging of churchmen, the account was embellished with the tale of “Peeping
Tom,” who was struck blind (or dead) when he alone gazed upon Lady Godiva. Another later
invention was the detail of the story, often added, that Godiva was covered totally, except for
her legs, by an enormous and improbable quantity of hair. Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
commemorated a visit to Coventry with a poem about the legend entitled “Godiva” (1842).

14Openshaw was far from the only Englishman participating in America’s Civil War. Of
course, the vast majority of Americans at the time of the Civil War were of British descent,
and many in England had family connections in America, on both sides of the war. Although
England remained officially neutral in the war, the British aided the Confederacy with the
building and manning of commerce raiders and blockade running to Southern ports. There
were pro-Confederate and anti-slavery movements and politicking in England itself, as well
as natural concern for the security of its colony Canada. Thousands of Britons, including
Irishmen Captain John J. Coppinger, Major Myles Walter Keogh, and Joseph A. O’Keeffe
(recruited by Secretary of War Seward for the Union), and Englishmen Sir Percy Wyndham
(the flamboyant Union cavalryman), Currie, Morley, Jenkins, Gordon, Broud, and Major John
Carwardine (Union), came to America to fight.

15 In an era when “Republican” implies “conservative,” it is perhaps hard to remember that

the Republican Party was organised in 1856 on the basis of opposition to the growth of
slavery.

16 The board game referred to by Americans as “checkers,” so-called as early as 1400.

17 A town on the eastern coast of India, part of the French colony of Pondicherry until 1954.
It was said to have the purest water in southern India. Major Sholto and his son
Bartholomew (The Sign of Four) lived in Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood.

18 The seeds of an orange or any small fruit.

19 “I am not a lawyer,” W. G. Daish writes in “Ponderings and Pitfalls,” “but I have sometimes
wondered how far young Openshaw would have got with the will he witnessed . . . under
which he was eventually to be a beneficiary and which, meanwhile, made his own father, his
closest relative, the sole legatee.” In the United States, however, more modern laws do not
automatically invalidate a will witnessed by an interested witness if there are sufficient other
disinterested witnesses. Furthermore, if a witness is an “interested” witness, there is merely
a presumption that the witness caused the person whose will was witnessed to make gifts to
the witness by means of undue influence, menace, fraud, or duress. This presumption may
be rebutted by adequate proof to the contrary.

20 “[This is] surely an extraordinary verdict, under the circumstances,” observes Benjamin
Clark in “The Horsham Fiasco,” “for who, drunk or sober, would ever attempt to end his life
by lying face down in a two-feet-deep puddle?”

21 Why the colonel took the records is never explained. Was he perhaps contemplating
blackmailing fellow members of the K.K.K.?

22 A former royal burgh in Scotland, it was made a city in 1892. This industrial seaport was
the site of the 1879 Tay Bridge disaster, in which the two-mile bridge—then the longest in the
world—collapsed in heavy winds, killing all seventy-five passengers and crew aboard the
evening train from Edinburgh. It stands as perhaps the worst rail disaster in British history.
Support for the nomination of poet William McGonagall, a native of Dundee, as Scotland’s
(and perhaps the world’s) worst poet can be found in his memorable 1890 poem, “The Tay
Bridge Disaster,” which ends with the lines:

“Oh! Ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,

I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
 At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.”

23 A hill in southern Hampshire, just north of Portsmouth, overlooking the Solent. Six forts
were constructed there in 1868 to defend against possible attack by the French. The
invasion never came, however, and the forts became known as “Palmerston’s Folly,” after
the British prime minister who ordered them built.

24 A market town and English Channel seaport in Hampshire, at the head of a creek opening
into the north-western corner of the major harbour of Portsmouth. Arthur Conan Doyle knew
this area well, having lived for several years in nearby Southsea and later purchasing a
cottage in the neighbouring New Forest (Bignell Wood). This fondness for the area was
apparently shared by Doctor Watson, who, when the weather was hot, longed for the glades
of the New Forest and the shingle of Southsea (“The Cardboard Box”).

25 In 1856, after the successful reforms of Rowland Hill (see “A Scandal in Bohemia,” note
24), the post office divided the city into eight postal districts (West Central, East Central,
East, South East, South West, West, North West, and North). Each had its district post
office, from which letters were distributed to the surrounding district.

26This sentence, repeated verbatim in the Strand Magazine and all book editions, would
seem to make more sense as “Why did you not come to me.”

27 The meaning of “ ‘Same old platform’ ” is far from clear, whether it was a literal railway
platform on which a meeting took place or was arranged or the Ku Klux Klan’s stated
“platform” of subjugating, torturing, and killing blacks and their collaborators.

28 For almost fifty years, until reconstruction of Euston Station began in 1951, Waterloo
Station was London’s most modern, the first terminus built in the twentieth century. Opened
in 1838 as “Nine Elms,” the metropolitan station of the London & Southampton Railway, in
1848, it was taken over by the South Western Railway and altered and expanded. In 1854,
the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company opened a cemetery nearby, and
strange one-way traffic began at a private “necropolis” station at Waterloo, from which
funeral trains with specially built hearse-carriages operated daily.

29 Virtually every bit of internal evidence in “The Five Orange Pips” points to 1887 as the
year in which the events occurred. Yet The Sign of Four, in which the Sholtos appeared,
seems equally unalterably set in 1888. It is clear that the remark respecting the Sholtos and
The Sign of Four is gratuitous at best. It has no relation to the flow of the story and contains
none of the critical character that Watson’s readers have come to expect in Holmes’s
comments respecting Watson’s literary efforts. What purpose does the remark serve? It
seems likely that Watson was engaged in a bit of advertising for the recently published book.
Note the proximity of publication dates: The Sign of Four, published in late 1890, and “The
Five Orange Pips,” published in late 1891. What better way to boost sales of a relatively
obscure novel than a “plug,” in modern parlance, in a “hot” new series of short stories.
Watson, of course, could expect additional royalties from further sales, but suspicion for the
marketing ploy rests heavily on Arthur Conan Doyle, who had yet to achieve marked
financial success. It may well be that Watson made a much more lucrative commission
arrangement with Conan Doyle for The Sign of Four than for the Adventures. Until the details
of this arrangement come to light, however, investigators can only speculate on the
contractual terms between this author and agent.

30 Georges (Jean-Léopold-Nicolas-Frédéric), Baron Cuvier (1769–1832), French zoologist

and statesman, established the science of comparative anatomy and palaeontology and
demonstrated that extinct animals could be “reconstructed” from fragmentary remains by
applying his law of the “correlation of growth” (later observed by T. H. Huxley to have
numerous exceptions, apparently unknown to Holmes). Holmes’s remark here is similar to
his assertion in his article “The Book of Life” (quoted in A Study in Scarlet) that “[f]rom a drop
of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen
or heard of one or the other.”

31 The incident is recorded in the second chapter of A Study in Scarlet.

32 Watson called Holmes’s knowledge of chemistry “profound” in A Study in Scarlet. Perhaps

closer observation had led Watson to amend his earlier characterisation.

33The latter seems to be “the pot calling the kettle black,” in light of Watson’s own habitual
smoking of “ship’s” tobacco (A Study in Scarlet).

34 Benjamin Clark, in “The Horsham Fiasco,” points out various irregularities in the case if
the papers were indeed of “vital importance.” Whoever murdered Elias Openshaw, for
instance, seemingly made no attempt to retrieve the papers after Openshaw’s death.
Further, the delay of almost two years before Elias’s brother was contacted proves puzzling,
writes Clark, for “while Colonel Openshaw was in possession of the papers he could not
make public their contents without implicating himself, whereas his brother, if the records
had still been in existence, ran no risk, and in fact might even, without being aware of their
significance, have turned them over to the police who in turn would have given them to the
American authorities.” Even more difficult to understand is how the murderers of John
Openshaw’s father, if they were in fact Southern-accented Americans, managed to pursue
him first to Horsham and then to Portsdown Hill without attracting his notice. With the
records still uncollected, Clark quips, “Presumably there is no end to insomnia in Dixieland.”

35 The original Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 and grew to
become the most prominent of various secret terrorist organisations (the Knights of the
White Camelia was another) promoting white resistance to post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Contrary to the information in Holmes’s encyclopaedia, the name is believed to have been
derived from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle. The Klan was officially disbanded in
1869 by order of Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate cavalry
general, after the increasing lawlessness of local chapters began to concern the society’s
leaders. Such disbanding did little to stop various splinter groups from taking violent acts in
the Klan’s name, and in 1870 Congress passed the Force Act, and in 1871 the Ku Klux Klan
Act, authorizing federal prosecutions of Klan members. During the late 1870s, Southern
political power gradually reverted to traditional white Democratic control, and the
organisations disappeared as the need for secret anti-Republican groups diminished.
A second Ku Klux Klan was formed in Georgia by William J. Simmons in 1915, inspired in
part by books about the original Klan and by D. W. Griffith’s powerful film The Birth of a
Nation, which expressed pro-Klan sentiments. This incarnation of the Klan embraced a
broader, more national agenda, expanding its targets of hate to include Catholics, Jews,
foreigners, and organised labour. At its peak, the Klan counted millions of members. While
the membership has dwindled sharply today, the organisation continues to deliver its
messages of hate throughout America and has apparently gained footholds in England and
Canada.

36 Manly Wade Wellman argues that Holmes’s tale of the hounding of Elias Openshaw is a
distortion of reality. He writes, “Preservation of Klan secrets were no matter for killing men in
far countries: John C. Lester, one of the Klan’s original six founders, published a revealing
history of the order in 1884, and he was neither ambushed nor threatened nor even blamed
by his former fellows. . . .” Wellman surmises that the case of Elias Openshaw was
“something more—a history of theft or extortion or robbery. . . . The adventure
unquestionably revolved around membership in a post-Klan mob of Southern hoodlums.”
Conversely, Richard Lancelyn Green notes that after the Civil War, the leaders of the
former Confederacy still maintained their ties to the Klan and its offshoots, in many cases
fraternising with those people in charge of orchestrating murderous activitites. Thus the
existence of papers proving that the supposed “new” rough element who had taken over the
Klans were in fact the original leaders would have had politically devastating consequences
for Southern Democratic leaders, the “first men in the South.” “So the background of the
story is historically sound,” Green concludes. “What is wrong is the date. By 1891, or indeed
from the return of the Democratic party to presidential power in 1885, such revelations would
have had little effect, and ex-Confederate white power in the ex-Confederate states would
have quashed any attempt to bring prosecutions. In 1881–2, on the other hand, something
might have been made of serious proofs of participation in the Klan murders of 1867–8 by
members of the social élite.”

37 In 1891, this was one of the twenty-two administrative divisions of the Metropolitan Police,
now sixty-three districts. H Division was very generally analogous to the metropolitan
borough of Stepney, at the extreme western edge of which lie the Tower of London and the
Royal Mint. Stepney, along with the boroughs of Rotherhithe, Limehouse, and Shadwell,
borders the Thames and enclosed the docks. It was filled with lodgings for sailors,
warehouses, pubs, and other nautical necessities, as well as immigrants such as the
Huguenots and the Jews who landed there, bringing the weaving and clothing trades. There
is an old tradition that any child born on the high seas may claim to be a native of Stepney.

38 Built in 1817 over the Thames, this bridge was known as the “Bridge of Sighs” for the
numerous suicides leaping from its railings. Thomas Hood’s 1844 poem, “The Bridge of
Sighs,” mourns “One more unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, / Gone to her
death!”

39 Properly the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police, the “water police” was the oldest
of the police branches incorporated within Scotland Yard, established in 1798. Its area of
patrol included the whole of the Thames from just below Kingston to Barking. According to
Dickens’s Dictionary of the Thames, “Both night and day several boats patrol the river in
different parts; a fresh boat starting from the station hard every two hours to relieve the one
whose watch is up. Each boat contains an inspector and two men, the latter of whom do the
rowing, and a careful system of supervision is maintained by which the passing of each boat
is checked at varying points.” Steam launches of the River Police figure prominently in the
conclusion of The Sign of Four.

40 The “Victoria Embankment,” on the north bank of the Thames, stretches about one and
one-quarter miles from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge. There are various
pedestals from which to view the Thames and various statues. Its most prominent landmark
is “Cleopatra’s Needle,” an Egyptian obelisk erected here in 1878, which stands 681-2 feet in
height and is flanked by two (modern) sphinxes. The “sister” to the Embankment’s obelisk
stands in New York City’s Central Park.

41 In The Valley of Fear, likely set in 1887 or 1888, Holmes remarks that Watson is
“developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour,” implying that, in general, Watson is
not very humourous. Commentators point to this sterling bit of Watsonian understatement as
a refutation of such criticism.

42 Several scholars conclude that it is not the K.K.K. whom Holmes pursued but rather his
adversary from “The Final Problem,” Professor Moriarty, who, they contend, organised all
three murders. John Lockwood, in “A Study in White,” suggests that because “The Five
Orange Pips” was published in the Strand Magazine in 1891, Watson may have left out any
mention of Moriarty in the story so as not to prejudice the forthcoming trials of the rest of the
Moriarty gang.

43 The world’s first and largest ship-classification society began in 1760 as a register of
ships likely to be insured by marine insurance underwriters meeting at Lloyd’s coffeehouse in
London. Though it remains headquartered in London, Lloyd’s Register is now an
international nonprofit organisation focussed on maritime management and safety. Its
register book, issued annually, lists all merchant ships of 100 or more tonnes gross. Today
the register is accessible on the Internet and in CD-ROM format, a development that Holmes
would undoubtedly have appreciated!

44 A city on the Thames, known as the “gateway to the port of London.” Pocahontas, the
Indian princess who saved the life of Captain John Smith, coloniser of Virginia, is buried
there at St. George’s Church, having died of tuberculosis while visiting England with her
husband, John Rolfe, in 1616–1617. In 1896 a memorial tablet to Pocahontas was placed in
the chancel of the Church, and the Colonial Dames of America presented memorial windows
in 1914.

45 The Goodwin Sands is a dangerous line of shoals at the entrance to the Strait of Dover,
about six miles off the east coast of Kent, and a once-frequent scene of shipwrecks.
Attempts to erect a lighthouse on the shifting sands have failed, and lightships mark the
limits of the sands.

46 An island county in the English Channel, off the southern coast of Hampshire. Prince
Albert and Queen Victoria summered there at Osborne House, a thousand-acre property that
they bought and rebuilt in 1845. After Albert’s death in 1861, the queen spent even more
time at Osborne with her family; she died there in 1901.