The Five Orange Pips
A Short story penned by Conan Doyle early in 1891. It was not actually published in The Strand Magazine until November 1891 due to Conan Doyle being struck down by an attack of influenza.
It is the 5th SS in The Adventures of SHs, and is known to be one of Conan Doyle’s favourite Holmes adventures, despite the fact that unusually, Holmes fails to save his client from a mysterious death by drowning and also fails to capture the culprit.
The story focuses John Openshaw, his father Joseph and his shady and Uncle Elias. The latter made a fortune as a plantation owner in the Florida, fought in the American Civil war (for the Confederacy), and returned to live as a recluse on a secluded Sussex estate.
The reclusive Elias is terror stricken after receiving 5 ‘orange pips’ by post in an envelope marked with a ‘KKK’, sent from Pondicherry, India. On receipt of this unusual epistle, Elias is thrown into panic and burns the contents of a metal strongbox (initialled ‘KKK) which had been locked away in the attic. Elias is subsequently found drowned in a shallow pool 7 weeks later. The family estate passes to his brother Joseph, who himself receives a similar letter 2 years later containing the orange pips and a demand to ‘put the papers on the sundial’, this time postmarked Dundee, Scotland. 3 days later, he too is found dead, having apparently fallen into a chalk quarry.
Hi son, John Openshaw, inherits, and for a while all is all is good. Then he too receives and identical envelope (to his father), this time posted in London, which prompts him to seek advice of the eponymous SH. Holmes realises that his client is in imminent danger (from the Ku Klux Klan or ‘KKK) and advises him to follow the letters instructions and place the remaining documents on the sundial with a note stating that the other documents had been destroyed. Tragically, despite complying, John Openshaw is soon found drowned in the Thames near Waterloo Bridge.
Holmes is devastated at his perceived ‘failure’ and sets about bringing the perpetrators, and their clandestine organisation to justice. Unfortunately, his efforts are frustrated further when ‘Mother Nature’ intervenes and the ship carrying his 3 prime suspects, sinks in a violent storm in the Atlantic on the way to America.
My favourite dramatization of this SH masterpiece is ‘The House of Fear’, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce released in 1939.