INDEX

1. 1. Summary
2. 2. Analysis of characters
3. 3. Places
4. 4. Time
5. 5. Opinion

Jabez Wilson, a red-haired London businessman and pawnbroker, comes to ask Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson for help. He tells them that some weeks before, his young assistant, Vincent Spaulding, urged him to respond to a newspaper want ad offering work to only red-headed male applicants.

During the selection, which took place the following morning, he was chosen among the several competitors: his task, well paid with four pound a week, consisted in staying in his office and copying the British Encyclopedia. He was chosen for his perfect red hair coloring by Ducan Ross, the boss of The Red-Headed League.

SUMMARY

Then Wilson goes to the building owner, who said that he'd never heard of Duncan Ross but he knows that man with the name of William Morris, a lawyer just moved to another address. The boss gives Wilson a card that directs him to an artificial knee company. But, going to that address, he doesn’t find anything. Wilson ends the story very frustrated having lost his four pounds a week.

Holmes assures him that within Monday they would solve the case. 

This work makes Wilson more and more curious and busy, but one morning he finds the office door locked with a notice that says:

"THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED." 

After Holmes' client leaves (having given a description of Spaulding to the detective), Holmes decides to go and visit Spaulding and notices that the men has dirty knees. Then Holmes taps on the pavement in front of the pawnbroker's shop. With the case solved, he calls Police Inspector Jones and Mr. Merryweather, the director

of the bank located next door. 

The four men hide themselves in the bank vault waiting for the thiefs, John Clay, who has a long history of criminal activity, and his helper Archie. Under the alias of Spaulding and Ross, they had contrived the 'Red-Headed League' to keep Wilson out of his shop in order to dug in the basement, to break into the bank vault next door. 

Back at Baker Street, Holmes explains to Wilson how he solved the case.

ANALYSIS OF CHARACTERS

SHERLOCK HOLMES, A man of great cunning, known for his ability to solve the mysteries and the great knowledge of the crime. Holmes has a good relationship with Dr. Watson, while he looks emotionally very detached and disinterested by others.

DR. WATSON, Sherlock Holmes’s partner, he is the narrator of the story

JABEZ WILSON,  A London pawnbroker. He is an elderly gentleman whose only and known feature is the color of fiery red hair. He is a commonplace British tradesman, "obese, pompous and slow". He has an expression of extreme confusion and unhappiness.

He is a foolish man, who too tied up with his work, doesn't understand the deception of his assistance.

He has a tatoo of a fish above his right wrist.