🪙 The Sign of Four Treasure
The Agra treasure: a rajah's iron box of gems that ruined every hand it passed through, finally scattered along six miles of Thames mud. Its loss is the canon's happiest ending — it frees Mary Morstan to marry a doctor of modest means.
A treasure that curses every hand
The Agra treasure is a rajah's iron box of pearls, diamonds, emeralds and rubies — half a million pounds of gems that bring nothing but ruin to everyone who touches them, from the four convicts who swore a pact over it to the Sholtos who stole it in turn. It is the engine of The Sign of the Four and a study in how wealth corrupts.
The canon's happiest loss
In the climactic launch chase down the Thames, the convict Jonathan Small — cheated of it once too often — flings the whole treasure overboard, scattering it across six miles of riverbed rather than let his betrayers have it. And its loss is a blessing: it removes the fortune that stood between Watson and Mary Morstan, freeing a doctor of modest means to marry the woman he loves.