The Five Orange Pips [short story]

Sherlock Holmes is consulted by the nephew and heir of a man who had lived in Florida during the Civil War and had served in the confederate army. He had suddenly moved back to England in 1869, where he had lived quietly until he received a mysterious letter marked K.K.K. and containing five orange pips. Soon afterward, the uncle died. Then his brother (the nephew’s father) received a similar communication and died shortly thereafter. Now the nephew has received a similar letter. Holmes knows that there is no time to waste.

This story recounts one of Sherlock Holmes’s few failures. He deduces the identity of the sender and the meaning of the five orange pips, but not in time to save his client’s life. Perhaps that’s why I find it show more unsatisfying compared to most of the other Holmes stories. While modern readers immediately understand the KKK association, its history was not as well-known at the time of its initial publication. show less

This is a very well written story with a very interesting and captivating plot: A young Sussex gentleman named John Openshaw has a strange story: in 1869 his uncle Elias Openshaw had suddenly come back to England to settle on an estate at Horsham, West Sussex after living for years in the United States as a planter in Florida and serving as a Colonel in the Confederate Army.
Not being married, Elias had allowed his nephew to stay at his estate. Strange incidents have occurred; one is that although John could go anywhere in the house he could never enter a locked room containing his uncle's trunks. Another peculiarity was that in March 1883 a letter postmarked Pondicherry, in India, arrived for the Colonel inscribed only "K.K.K." with show more five orange pips enclosed.
More strange things happened: Papers from the locked room were burnt and a will was drawn up leaving the estate to John Openshaw. The Colonel's behavior became bizarre. He would either lock himself in his room and drink or he would go shouting forth in a drunken sally with a pistol in his hand. On 2 May 1883 he was found dead in a garden pool.
On 4 January 1885 Elias's brother Joseph receives a letter postmarked Dundee with the initials "K.K.K" and instructions to leave "the papers" on the sundial. Despite his son's urging, Joseph Openshaw refuses to call the police. Three days later, Joseph Openshaw is found dead in a chalk-pit. The only clue John Openshaw can furnish Holmes is a page from his uncle's diary marked March 1869 in which orange pips have been sent to three men, of whom two flee and the third has been "visited".
Holmes advises Openshaw to leave the diary page with a note telling of the destruction of the Colonel's papers on the garden sundial. After Openshaw leaves, Holmes deduces from the time that has passed between the letter mailings and the deaths of Elias and his brother that the writer is on a sailing ship.
Holmes also recognizes the "K.K.K" as Ku Klux Klan, an anti-Reconstruction group in the South until its sudden collapse in March 1869 – and theorizes that this collapse was the result of the Colonel's maliciously taking their papers away to England.
The next day there is a newspaper account that the body of Openshaw has been found in the River Thames and the death is believed to be an accident. Holmes checks sailing records of ships who were at both Pondicherry in January/February 1883 and at Dundee in January 1885 and recognizes a Georgia sloop named The Lone Star. Lone Star may refer to the Lone Star State, Texas, although the boat is registered to Georgia. Furthermore Holmes confirms that The Lone Star had docked in London a week before. Holmes sends five orange pips to the captain of The Lone Star, and then sends a telegram to the Savannah police claiming that the captain and two mates are wanted for murder. The Lone Star never arrives in Savannah due to a severe gale. The only trace of the boat is a mast marked "L.S." sighted in the North Atlantic.
I recommend this book to any reader who appreciates mysteries and Sherlock Holmes in particular. You will not be disappointed. show less

In this classic Sherlock Holmes mystery the famous Baker Street detective is confronted with one of the most baffling cases of his entire career. Members of the Openshaw family are one-by-one being murdered. Holmes must find a pattern and a motive to these crimes before another member of the family is killed....but there are very few clues. Will the great man fathom the meaning of the five orange pips in time?

Great story, read it as a kid.

At the time of writing the actual Ku Klux Klan was indeed broken and effectively defunct, and it would be decades before its 20th-century revival. Conan Doyle's taking it up in this story was in line with his recurrent theme of wild and violent Americans and other foreigners exporting their power struggles to Victorian Britain – which had already formed the basis to A Study in Scarlet, the very first Holmes mystery. This is also one of only two Sherlock Holmes short stories where Holmes' client dies after seeking his help, the other being "The Adventure of the Dancing Men".