<p>“Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low
spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair must be
some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine.
It seemed altogether past belief that anyone could make such a will, or that
they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the
<i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>. Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer me
up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in
the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny
bottle of ink, and with a quill-pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I
started off for Pope’s Court.</p>
<p>“Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as possible.
The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was there to see that I
got fairly to work. He started me off upon the letter A, and then he left me;
but he would drop in from time to time to see that all was right with me. At
two o’clock he bade me good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I
had written, and locked the door of the office after me.</p>
<p>“This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager came
in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week’s work. It was the
same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I was there at ten,
and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in
only once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come in at all.
Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an instant, for I was not
sure when he might come, and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so
well, that I would not risk the loss of it.</p>
<p>“Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and
Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with diligence that I
might get on to the B’s before very long. It cost me something in
foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my writings. And then
suddenly the whole business came to an end.”</p>
<p>“To an end?”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual at
ten o’clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square of
cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here it is, and
you can read for yourself.”</p>
<p>He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of note-paper.
It read in this fashion:</p>
<p class="letter">
“THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED. October 9, 1890.”</p>
<p>Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face
behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every
other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter.</p>
<p>“I cannot see that there is anything very funny,” cried our client,
flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. “If you can do nothing
better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere.”</p>
<p>“No, no,” cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which
he had half risen. “I really wouldn’t miss your case for the world.
It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying so,
something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps did you take when you
found the card upon the door?”</p>
<p>“I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the
offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it. Finally, I
went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the ground floor, and I
asked him if he could tell me what had become of the Red-headed League. He said
that he had never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross
was. He answered that the name was new to him.</p>
<p>“‘Well,’ said I, ‘the gentleman at No. 4.’</p>
<p>“‘What, the red-headed man?’</p>
<p>“‘Yes.’</p>
<p>“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘his name was William Morris. He
was a solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new
premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.’</p>
<p>“‘Where could I find him?’</p>
<p>“‘Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17
King Edward Street, near St. Paul’s.’</p>
<p>“I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a
manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard of either
Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross.”</p>
<p>“And what did you do then?” asked Holmes.</p>
<p>“I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my
assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say that if I
waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough, Mr. Holmes. I
did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle, so, as I had heard that
you were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came
right away to you.”</p>
<p>“And you did very wisely,” said Holmes. “Your case is an
exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you
have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than
might at first sight appear.”</p>
<p>“Grave enough!” said Mr. Jabez Wilson. “Why, I have lost four
pound a week.”</p>
<p>“As far as you are personally concerned,” remarked Holmes, “I
do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On
the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some £ 30, to say nothing of
the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject which comes under
the letter A. You have lost nothing by them.”</p>
<p>“No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what
their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me.
It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and thirty
pounds.”</p>
<p>“We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first, one or
two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called your
attention to the advertisement—how long had he been with you?”</p>
<p>“About a month then.”</p>
<p>“How did he come?”</p>
<p>“In answer to an advertisement.”</p>
<p>“Was he the only applicant?”</p>
<p>“No, I had a dozen.”</p>
<p>“Why did you pick him?”</p>
<p>“Because he was handy and would come cheap.”</p>
<p>“At half wages, in fact.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?”</p>
<p>“Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though
he’s not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his
forehead.”</p>
<p>Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. “I thought as
much,” said he. “Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced
for earrings?”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a
lad.”</p>
<p>“Hum!” said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. “He is
still with you?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him.”</p>
<p>“And has your business been attended to in your absence?”</p>
<p>“Nothing to complain of, sir. There’s never very much to do of a
morning.”</p>
<p>“That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon
the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday, and I hope that
by Monday we may come to a conclusion.”</p>
<p>“Well, Watson,” said Holmes when our visitor had left us,
“what do you make of it all?”</p>
<p>“I make nothing of it,” I answered frankly. “It is a most
mysterious business.”</p>
<p>“As a rule,” said Holmes, “the more bizarre a thing is the
less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes
which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to
identify. But I must be prompt over this matter.”</p>
<p>“What are you going to do, then?” I asked.</p>
<p>“To smoke,” he answered. “It is quite a three pipe problem,
and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.” He curled
himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose,
and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out
like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that he had
dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of
his chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind and put his pipe
down upon the mantelpiece.</p>
<p>“Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” he
remarked. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a
few hours?”</p>
<p>“I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing.”</p>
<p>“Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we
can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of German
music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or
French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!”</p>
<p>We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took us
to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to
in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines
of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure,
where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel bushes made a hard
fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a
brown board with “JABEZ WILSON” in white letters, upon a corner
house, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his business.
Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side and looked it
all over, with his eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Then he walked
slowly up the street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly
at the houses. Finally he returned to the pawnbroker’s, and, having
thumped vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went
up to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking,
clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step in.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” said Holmes, “I only wished to ask you how you
would go from here to the Strand.”</p>
<p>“Third right, fourth left,” answered the assistant promptly,
closing the door.</p>
<p>“Smart fellow, that,” observed Holmes as we walked away. “He
is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am not
sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something of him
before.”</p>
<p>“Evidently,” said I, “Mr. Wilson’s assistant counts for
a good deal in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you
inquired your way merely in order that you might see him.”</p>
<p>“Not him.”</p>
<p>“What then?”</p>
<p>“The knees of his trousers.”</p>
<p>“And what did you see?”</p>
<p>“What I expected to see.”</p>
<p>“Why did you beat the pavement?”</p>
<p>“My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are
spies in an enemy’s country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg Square. Let
us now explore the parts which lie behind it.”</p>
<p>The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner from the
retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to it as the front of
a picture does to the back. It was one of the main arteries which conveyed the
traffic of the City to the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the
immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while
the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was
difficult to realise as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately
business premises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and
stagnant square which we had just quitted.</p>
<p>“Let me see,” said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing
along the line, “I should like just to remember the order of the houses
here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. There is
Mortimer’s, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the Coburg branch
of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane’s
carriage-building depot. That carries us right on to the other block. And now,
Doctor, we’ve done our work, so it’s time we had some play. A
sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is
sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex
us with their conundrums.”</p>
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