While Lionel was running ragged in Paris dealing with Thunderstorm, London was rocked by a massive uproar caused by the serialization of The Sign of Four.
The installment in the late March 1881 issue of Good Words pushed the plot to a small climax.
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, guided by the seemingly unremarkable but incredibly keen-nosed mixed-breed hound—"Toby"—at Sherman's place.
Lionel used vivid strokes to describe Toby tracking the scent of creosote, leading Holmes and Watson step by step closer to the suspect hiding the wooden leg.
[...Toby dashed out without hesitation, and we followed close behind.
His stocky body weaved agilely under the dim streetlamps, his nose pressed close to the ground, emitting sharp sniffing sounds.
His short tail wagged rapidly with excitement, like a wound-up metronome.
At times he paused by a fence to carefully discern the direction of the scent; at others, he charged through puddles, splashing muddy water.
But his objective remained clear—that unique smell of creosote.
Holmes whispered to me:
"Look, Watson! This is the real expert; his world consists only of scents and tracking, utterly focused."]
This brilliant description of Toby immediately sparked a huge reaction among readers.
Initially, it was admiration and affection.
In a coffee shop, a young clerk slapped the table and exclaimed:
"God, Toby is amazing! Much more reliable than any Scotland Yard detective!"
His companion chimed in:
"Look at his focused demeanor! I bet all the detectives in London put together couldn't match this one Toby!"
As he spoke, he mimicked Toby's sniffing action, drawing laughter from those around them.
In the clubs, gentlemen stroked the pet dogs resting on their laps, their sense of identification stronger than that of ordinary people.
Someone asked with interest:
"My 'Whiskey' is also a good hound, but I'm afraid he doesn't have a nose as magical as Toby's."
An old gentleman shook his head:
"The key is training, my dear friend. Holmes knows how to utilize its talent, whereas our Scotland Yard..."
Soon, this admiration and affection for Toby, fueled by word-of-mouth and newspaper commentary, gradually turned into ridicule and questioning of Scotland Yard's inefficiency.
The Daily News, in a lighthearted social column, wrote half-jokingly:
[ ...Since using trained hounds to track specific scents has a history of several centuries of success in hunting, why has this never been considered by our vast Metropolitan Police Force? Is identifying and tracking a criminal somehow simpler than tracking a fox or a hare?
Perhaps the gentlemen at Scotland Yard should take a lesson from the consulting detective's four-legged assistant.]
Following this article's lead, other newspapers chimed in, some seriously discussing the potential value of police dogs in criminal investigation, while others resorted to heavy sarcasm.
The satirical cartoon section of The Pall Mall Gazette published a drawing:
[A spirited hound wearing a deerstalker hat runs along a scent trail, while behind him, a group of uniformed policemen mill about like headless flies.]
The caption read—The Real Detective in London Is...?
In streets and taverns, the public also happily joined this "fun discussion."
"If you ask me, they should have used dogs long ago! Those policemen only know how to set up roadblocks and question passersby; their inefficiency is maddening!"
"My uncle is a gamekeeper in the countryside; his dog can track footprints three days old! If Scotland Yard had that skill, those robbers would have been on the gallows long ago!"
"Hey, maybe next time we report a case to Scotland Yard, we'll have to bring our own hound!"
These discussions carried goodwill and jest, but also vented long-standing public dissatisfaction with police effectiveness.
The saying, "A Scotland Yard detective is not as good as a dog," quickly spread, becoming the most fashionable joke among London citizens that spring.
This trend naturally spread to the internal workings of Scotland Yard.
Young detectives in the Criminal Investigation Department couldn't help but whisper to each other during their lunch break.
A newly joined detective murmured:
"Honestly, using a dog for tracking... that's not a bad idea. Some crime scenes have such chaotic smells; if only we had a dog like Toby..."
His colleague looked around nervously:
"Shh! Keep your voice down! Do you want Colonel Vincent to invite you to his office for coffee? We're the laughingstock of the nation right now!"
In Colonel Howard Vincent's office, the atmosphere was indeed unpleasant.
The secretary carefully placed several newspapers featuring related commentary and cartoons on his desk.
"Colonel, the public opinion outside... is not in our favor," the secretary chose his words cautiously.
Colonel Vincent glanced at the cartoon on the paper; instead of exploding as usual, he simply waved his hand:
"I know. You can go."
He took out several stacks of pre-prepared documents from his drawer, pulled out another stack of paper, and began writing a report.
The content of the report was already clear in his mind—after all, that Frenchman had spent quite some time chatting with him in the office...
The controversy surrounding Toby the hound was somewhat jocular, but another element in the latest serialization of The Sign of Four triggered an extremely intense and serious debate.
Lionel vividly depicted the dark side of British colonial rule in India within The Sign of Four.
He sharply exposed how this treasure came from the plunder of the wealth of Indian princes and the greed of colonizers taking advantage of chaos.
In the original novel, this part was only revealed in the final chapter through the testimony of Jonathan Small.
However, just like the new version of A Study in Scarlet, in this version of The Sign of Four, the origin of the treasure is gradually uncovered during the decryption process.
New clues found by Holmes let the readers know that this fortune came from the Indian soldiers' uprising in 1857.
Lionel depicted the cruel suppression suffered by the Indian people and how British soldiers claimed as their own the massive wealth that did not belong to them.
["That wasn't a battle at all; it was a massacre. Flames consumed the houses, blood flowed in the streets, sparing neither soldier nor civilian..."
"There was one man still breathing, dragging half his body, crawling forward, his intestines trailing behind him; next to him was a child, perhaps just running out of curiosity, with a black hole right in his forehead, his eyes still open..."
"The rebels were besieged in the fort. Several heavy cannon bombardments lasted the entire day until no decent sound of gunfire could be heard from inside, and only then did the soldiers enter. That place could no longer be called a 'place.' A Sikh man sat propped against half a collapsed wall, looking untouched, but when touched lightly, he collapsed entirely—his insides had been shaken into mush..."
"During the siege, several deep wells were filled, not with stone or earth, but with corpses. Men, women, children... thrown in like discarded cargo, layer upon layer, blocking the well water. Those on the upper layers were already swollen and blackened, with flies swarming like dark clouds..."]
These descriptions starkly exposed the brutality of colonial plunder to the British readers.
The treasure was no longer a romantic symbol in an adventure story, but stolen goods stained with the blood and pain of the colonized.
The British press immediately could not remain silent.
(End of Chapter)