There is one Sherlock Holmes story that excels above all others for me. It is 'The Sign of the Four' (TSOTF, Four), with 'The Speckled Band' as a close follow up. While 'Four' is the second story written it is the first, and perhaps the last to truly capture the character of Sherlock Holmes, defining him as it does outside of his work and the periods of ennui that assaulted the fictional Great Detective between cases. It is also the story that truly grants Watson status as a lead character as opposed to the narrator. It is the balanced narrative between Watson and Holmes that drives this to being the ultimate Sherlock Holmes story, as well as the preponderance of story elements that would be repeated in subsequent tales.
Within 'The Sign of the Four' we find an incompetent police detective, Watson noticing the female client (and marrying her!), an exotic theme to the mystery, a simple And difficult problem, and of course a stunning final chase. It's really the tour de force of adventure/mystery stories with no exceptions. 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' is legendary for perhaps slightly different reasons, it being far more of a Watson story and merging mystery with horror instead of adventure. While 'A Study In Scarlet' originated Watson and Holmes as characters it also featured an incredibly dull historical flashback relating the story of the 'villain'. This story has no truck with that nonsense, with a brief backstory told by the criminal in interview instead of narrative, and magnificent opening and ending sections. You can almost perceive the whole career and existence of Holmes and his career in one tale, and the demons that plague him.
The problem with talking about good things, as I know from extensive Film Bin experience, is that there are no details to dissect. Quality entertainment has no interesting cracks to look at and dissect. 'The Sign of the Four' is iconic and introduces - I think for the only time in the canon - Sherlock's explicit drug use, which is an incredibly minor part of the canon but is massively overrepresented in other media. There are no screen versions of Sherlock that don't at least mention the cocaine and many over egg the pudding ridiculously. It's probably because this is the novella that introduces the effective screen versions of Holmes and Watson, and the dynamic that allows them to endure through the rest of the stories. It's ironic because 'The Sign of the Four' is a tremendous adventure that would be a wonderful movie if not for the midget dart-blowing native, while 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' has been made numerous times despite being less exciting and in many ways a far weaker story for the character of Sherlock. It's interesting that the very strength of 'Four' is what makes it unsuitable for adaptation into other media; Exoticness not really translating well into film or television.
One of the most impressive facets of 'Four' is that it was published in 1890, which as of this post is 123 years ago. While you can expect quality writing from any era, the language here is concise and modern, and fantastic. The first person narrative is well constructed, as it allows Sherlock to spin his solutions and deductions using data that Watson hasn't noticed, which by proxy you are totally unaware of. You can't even pretend to try and solve the problem because Watson is unreliable in his narration, or rather very reliable in his inability to notice anything of any value.
I'm reasonably sure that this has been mostly waffle on the subject of Sherlock Holmes and 'The Sign of the Four' but it's a story that really doesn't get talked about enough. It is one of the most influential stories ever written, both in the cleanness and modernity of the language, and the scope of the plot. It's the best Sherlock Holmes story, with the second place being taken by 'The Speckled Band', which also has strong Indian connections. It might be time to read the canon again and check for linkage between quality and Subcontinental connections. Almost none of them, though, have Watson as a strong lead character in addition to being narrator. For that you need 'The Four'.
O.
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