# The Sign of the Four — Character guide

> Key figures in The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle.

- [Sherlock Holmes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/sherlock_holmes.md): Holmes takes the Agra mystery as a personal duel of intellect, and when the trail goes cold on the Thames he turns feverish, sleepless, and sharp with his own landlady. Watson and Mrs. Hudson watch him chafe against enfo
- [Dr. John Watson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/dr_john_watson.md): Watson narrates the case while navigating his own feelings for Mary Morstan, torn between admiration and a half-pay surgeon's pride. When she weeps in the cab after the night's terrors, he holds back his affection, feari
- [Mary Morstan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/mary_morstan.md): Mary Morstan arrives at Baker Street with a decade-old mystery and a string of anonymous pearls, carrying herself with a resolute calm that impresses even Holmes. When suspicion falls on Thaddeus Sholto, she defends him 
- [Jonathan Small](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/jonathan_small.md): Small haunts the edges of the Agra mystery as a shadowy figure whose history with the treasure predates everyone now chasing it. His physical loss and long-nursed grievance give him a motive that the drawing-room heirs o
- [Thaddeus Sholto](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/thaddeus_sholto.md): Thaddeus Sholto lives in a strangely appointed suburban house and greets his guests with trembling eagerness, eager to unburden a conscience weighed down by his father's dealings. When his brother is found dead and the j
- [Athelney Jones](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/athelney_jones.md): Jones begins the case as a brusque, masterful professor of common sense, certain that Thaddeus Sholto is his man. When the alibi holds and his net tears open, he arrives at Baker Street downcast and apologetic, his profe
- [Major John Sholto](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/major_sholto.md): Sholto was the officer who brought the Agra treasure back from India and kept it for himself, a decision that poisoned his remaining years with dread of discovery. Even Jonathan Small, who admits he would have knifed the
- [Captain Morstan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/captain_morstan.md): Morstan vanished years before the story opens, leaving his daughter Mary alone in London and a chain of unanswered questions behind him. His connection to Major Sholto and the Agra treasure is the thread that pulls Holme
- [Toby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/toby.md): Toby is the scenthound Holmes borrows to follow the wooden-legged man's creosote trail across London's southern suburbs. He is fallible — a creosote barrel throws him off and Holmes gently defends him — but his nose carr
- [Tonga](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/tonga.md): Tonga is Small's silent, deadly companion, the hand that strikes while Small plans. He kills Bartholomew Sholto with a poisoned dart and later nearly kills Holmes and Watson on the Thames, yet Small speaks of him with so
- [Mordecai Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/mordecai_smith.md): Smith hires out his fast launch to Small's men for good money and asks no questions, which makes him useful and expendable in equal measure. Holmes tracks him through Jacobson's Yard and uses a sentry to watch the Aurora
- [Bartholomew Sholto](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/bartholomew_sholto.md): Bartholomew lives shut away with his chemical apparatus and his share of the Agra treasure, estranged in temperament from his anxious twin. His locked-room death — the grinning face at the peephole, the poisoned dart, th
- [Wiggins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/wiggins.md): Leader of the Baker Street Irregulars who helps track the Aurora.
- [Mrs. Hudson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/mrs_hudson.md): Holmes's landlady at 221B Baker Street.
- [Mrs. Cecil Forrester](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/mrs_cecil_forrester.md): Mary Morstan's employer and friend.
- [Mrs. Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/mrs_smith.md): Wife of Mordecai Smith, who helps run the boat business.
- [Sherman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/sherman.md): Owner of Toby the dog, who lends him to Holmes.
- [McMurdo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters/mc_murdo.md): A boatman who provides information about the Aurora.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sign_of_the_four_se/characters