THE MAP

                        THE SUMMARY

                       THE CHARACTERS

                      TIME AND PLACES

                              OPINION

                                 THE SUMMARY

Dr. Watson visits Sherlock Holmes and he finds him talking to a

client with bright red hair, Mr. Jabez Wilson. They both listen to 

the client's story; Wilson reveals that he is a pawnbroker and has

an assistant,Vincent Spaulding, who is working for half the

usual salary to learn the business. He says that Spaulding is a great guy, although he's interested in photography,he develops photos into the basement of the shop. About two months ago, Spaulding drew his attention to an advertisement in the paper for an opening in the League of Red-Headed Men. According to Spaulding,the league is a foundation established by a wealthy american to promote the interests of redheaded men by paying them to perform small tasks. Spaulding encouraged him to apply,and the two went to the meeting. After fighting through a crowd, Spaulding and Wilson made their way to the manager,

another redheaded man by the name of Duncan Ross, who promptly hired Wilson. The league paid Wilson to copy pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica, forbidding him from leaving the office during his four-hours shifts. Wilson says that he worked for the league for eight weeks and was paid handsomely for his efforts. The morning on which the story begins, however, Wilson arrived at the offices to find out that the Red-Headed League had been dissolved and that Duncan Ross was nowhere to be found. Wilson then went to Sherlock Holmes hoping he could help him. Holmes asks Wilson a few questions about  his assistant and discovers that the guy came to work for Wilson only about a month before the whole mysterious affair began. Holmes promises Wilson to look into the case and later he leaps up and asks Watson to accompany him to a concert. Along the way, they stop in front of Wilson’s shop, where Holmes thumps his walking stick on the pavement and knocks on the door to ask Spaulding for directions.

After Spaulding and Holmes finish talking, Holmes tells Watson that he believes that Spaulding is not what he seems,he also says that he saw on the knees of

Spaulding’s trousers exactly what he wanted to see. Later, he asks Watson to meet him at Baker Street at ten p.m, and to come armed. When Watson arrives, he finds two other men there: Peter Jones, an inspector from Scotland Yard, and a

Mr. Merryweather, a bank director. Holmes takes them to a branch of the City and Suburban Bank, a branch located in the same district as

Wilson’s pawnshop. Holmes says that the four men are about

to have a run-in with John Clay, a notorious criminal,they just

had to wait. Then they see a glint of light from the floor: a man’s

face appears from the hole,he climbs out, and Holmes and the

inspector seize him. He was John Clay,or better known as

Vincent Spaulding.

Holmes later explains everything: he became suspicious when he first heard that Vincent Spaulding had taken Wilson’s job offer at less than the normal wages.The business of the Red-Headed League was a trick to get the sedentary Wilson out of the shop for some hours each day so that Spaulding and his confederates could do whatever they were up to, unobserved. When, on his visit to the area, Holmes tapped the pavement and heard a hollow sound, he concluded that they were tunneling beneath the street to the branch bank in question.

                                 THE CHARACTERS

The two characters of greatest interest are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Holmes possesses a superhuman ability to read a person’s background by observing small,ingly insignificant details, and Watson states that Holmes’ powers of reasoning make him appear to be “a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals.”

Possessing a sort of split personality, Holmes swings between moods of thoughtful inactivity and intense action. Even though he's happy to help the police catch criminals when a case interests him, Holmes is more concerned with the pleasure he derives from these mental games. As he tells Watson, “My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.” 

Medical doctor and married man, Watson is willing to drop his own pursuits to follow his friend at a moment’s notice. His devotion and trust lead him to accompany Holmes to Wilson’s pawnshop and the bank vault, even though he does not understand his friend’s reason. Because Watson asks the questions that allow Holmes to reveal his knowledge and his

reasoning, Watson serves as a stand-in for the reader.

Watson confesses himself “oppressed with a sense of

my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock

Holmes,” but he is a careful observer of people and

events.