The Five Orange Pips
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In The Five Orange Pips, a young Sussex gentleman named John Openshaw tells the strange story of his uncle Elias Openshaw, who came back to England after living in the United States as a planter in Florida and serving as a colonel in the Confederate Army. His uncle begins receiving threatening letters inscribed KKK and including five orange pips. He is killed shortly thereafter. The job of unraveling this sordid transatlantic mystery falls to Holmes and his trusty companion Dr. Watson. The fifth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this is also one of only two Sherlock Holmes short stories where Holmes' client dies after seeking his help.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859. He trained to be a doctor at Edinburgh University and eventually set up a medical practice in Southsea. During the quiet periods between patients, he turned his hand to writing, producing historical novels such as Micah Clarke and adventure yarns including The Lost World, as well as four novels and fifty-six stories involving his most celebrated creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Doyle was knighted in 1902. In later life he devoted much of his time to his belief in Spiritualism, using his writing and celebrity as a means of providing funds to support activities in this field. He died in 1930.
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