The Red-Headed League (Adapted)

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One autumn morning, Dr. Watson found Sherlock Holmes talking with a stout, red-faced man with flaming red hair. The man was Jabez Wilson, a pawnbroker whose small shop stood near the City of London. "Mr. Wilson has a story that I think you will enjoy," said Holmes. "Please tell it again from the beginning."

Wilson explained that his only assistant, a young man named Vincent Spaulding, had pointed out an advertisement in the newspaper. It said that a wealthy American had left money to found a League of Red-Headed Men, and that any man with red hair could apply for a position paying four pounds a week. The work was easy: he had to copy the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the league's office, from ten until two, every day.

"The next morning," said Wilson, "the street was full of red-headed men. But a little man at the office took one look at my hair, and he chose me at once." For eight weeks, Wilson copied the encyclopedia and was paid every Saturday. His assistant looked after the shop in his absence. Then, one morning, he arrived to find a card on the office door: "The Red-Headed League is dissolved."

Holmes asked a few questions. He wanted to know about the assistant, and Wilson said that Spaulding was a good worker who took half wages. "His only fault," said Wilson, "is that he is always taking photographs, and that he goes down to the cellar like a rabbit to its hole." Holmes leaned back with his eyes closed. "That will do," he said. "Your assistant has very small white scars on his forehead, and the knees of his trousers are dirty and worn."

That evening, Holmes, Watson, and a police inspector waited in the dark cellar of the bank that stood behind Wilson's shop. "The man we want," said Holmes, "is John Clay, a very clever criminal. The Red-Headed League was invented to get Mr. Wilson out of his shop for four hours a day, so that Clay could dig a tunnel from the shop's cellar to the bank's strongroom. The league was dissolved because the tunnel is finished, so the robbery must be tonight."

They waited for over an hour in silence. Then, a thin line of light appeared in the floor, and a stone moved. A hand came up, and then a pale face with light hair: it was Spaulding. Holmes jumped up and seized him by the collar. The man tried to run, but the police were already waiting in the tunnel. "It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes. "You have been outwitted."

Later, Wilson asked how Holmes had known. "The moment you mentioned the cellar and the dirty knees of the trousers, I knew what he was doing," said Holmes. "A man does not accept half wages for a pawnbroker's shop, unless he has another reason for being there." The pawnbroker shook his head. "Well," he said, "at least the copying improved my handwriting."