James Baquet

One day when Dr. John Watson arrives at the apartment of his friend, Sherlock Holmes, he discovers Holmes speaking with an overweight older man with flaming red hair. The man, Jabez Wilson, has brought Holmes a puzzle. This is the beginning of the story, “The Red-Headed League,” author Arthur Conan Doyle’s second favorite of his own stories.

Mr. Wilson has brought Holmes a newspaper, given to him by his young assistant Vincent Spaulding. It asks for red-headed men to come and copy by hand articles from the “Encyclopedia Britannica.” The job calls for him to be in a particular office from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; since he is free during those hours, he applies for the position, and is hired.

After eight weeks, however, he learns from a note on the office door that “The Red-Headed League is Dissolved.” So he asks Holmes to figure out what is going on.

Holmes questions Wilson closely about Spaulding, the assistant, who was hired only a month before he brought Wilson the ad. Holmes seems to be familiar with Spaulding, and tells Watson so later.

Holmes and Watson visit Wilson’s shop, ostensibly to ask directions, but actually so Holmes can observe “the knees of [Spaulding’s] trousers.” Holmes then leads Watson around the block to examine the businesses on Farringdon Street, behind Wilson’s shop, one of which is a bank. Later, Holmes dismisses Watson, but asks him to return at 10 that night, and asks him to bring his revolver.

When Watson arrives, he finds two men with Holmes: Peter Jones, from Scotland Yard, and Mr. Merryweather, a bank director. The four leave Holmes’ and arrive at Farringdon Street, where Merryweather leads them through an alley and several doors to a cellar full of boxes — containing, as it turns out, a great deal of gold borrowed from France. The four wait there in darkness.

And sure enough, over an hour later, “Spaulding,” the assistant — whom Holmes knows to be John Clay, a notorious criminal — lifts a floor paver and emerges with his accomplice, the man who had actually engaged Wilson. The “Red-Headed League” had been a ruse to get Wilson out of his shop every day so they could dig from his cellar to that of the bank and steal the gold — until thwarted by Sherlock Holmes!

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. very bright

2. a criminal’s colleague

3. a trick

4. famous for something bad

5. supposedly

6. a basement

7. a problem to be solved

8. prevented, stopped

9. brought to an end

10. a hand-gun