The Sign of the Four

The Sign of the Four, the second Sherlock Holmes novel (1890), opens with Holmes at his cocaine and moves to a vanished army officer and a treasure from India. A young governess brings the puzzle to Baker Street: her father disappeared ten years ago, and for six years someone has sent her a single fine pearl on the same date. The trail runs from a strange house in Norwood to the Thames at night. Its view of colonial India carries the racial prejudices of its day, and they remain on the page.

In Vietnamese, Holmes and Watson keep to tôi and anh even when quarrelling, yet a bad-tempered animal keeper shouting tao and mày from a window switches to ngài on hearing Holmes's name. Most chapters are compact and quick with talk. The last is more than twice as long as any other, nearly all one man's colloquial account of his years in India, and demanding mainly for its length.