Seeds, pips, and murder

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a story called The Five Orange Pips, where the eponymous seeds are used to send a message to a Colonel in India. They are a warning: the KKK is coming to kill you.

Pips are the seeds in fruit, unless the fruit has a single seed and then it's known as a stone. And unless you're in South Africa, where it's pips all the way. That's not clear, but what is clear is that it's spring in England and everything is growing from wonderful little seeds, and the fruit is tasting less like hydroponic clones by the day. I'm not certain if the origin of the orange pips is really the KKK or Doyle: my Google-fu has let me down. Either way it is a weak symbol for a looming existential threat. I'd suggest someone take a literature class but Doyle is long gone and Klan members probably aren't big readers.