Two hundred pounds a year would be a substantial sum of money, especially for a man like Jabez Wilson who had no dependents. The average clerk in Victorian times was earning one pound a week, or fifty pounds per year. In Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," we see that Ebenezer Scrooge was paying his clerk Bob Cratchit slightly less than a pound a week, and Cratchit was supporting a large family. In his best novel, New Grub Street, the author George Gissing, who includes many remarks about living expenses, states that a man with a wife and child needed about three hundred pounds a year to maintain a respectable middle-class lifestyle.

In a number of the Sherlock Holmes stories the great detective criticizes his friend Dr. Watson for "embellishing" (add to, exaggerate) the actual events. Holmes uses other terms to express his opinion, but it is clear that what he disapproves of is the emotional element which Watson takes the liberty of inserting into the narratives. Here are two examples:

Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern and left us in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.
"The Adventure of The Red-Headed League"

How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall....Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the direction of the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. Someone in the next room had lit a dark-lantern. I heard a gentle sound of movement, and then all was silent once more, though the smell grew stronger. For half an hour I sat with straining ears. Then suddenly another sound became audible—a very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping continually from a kettle. The instant that we heard it, Holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with his cane at the bell-pull.
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band"

It is natural for Holmes to think that Watson puts too much drama into his stories. Holmes is always portrayed as unemotional, strictly intellectual and analytical. Watson, on the other hand, is always portrayed as a person with strong feelings. He wouldn't get involved with so many of Holmes' cases if he didn't relish the thrill involved as well as the intellectual challenge. The Sherlock Holmes stories often have titles that begin with the words "The Adventure." Arthur Conan Doyle knew that some readers would appreciate the "ratiocination" involved in the mystery, while others would get more fun out of the emotional aspect. In both "The Red-Headed League" and "The Speckled Band," for example, there is a strong mixture of deduction and suspense.

Holmes and Watson make a good pair for the storyteller's art. Holmes provides the analysis, deduction, induction, ratiocination; Watson provides the more "human" element of curiosity, excitement, fear, wonder, amusement, and triumph. Together the two characters weave intellect and emotion into the stories that have remained so popular for over a hundred years.

The author emphasizes that Jabez Wilson is grossly overweight. Elsewhere he calls him "obese." This is to suggest why Wilson never thinks of going down into his own cellar to see what his assistant is doing. It would be difficult for Wilson to get up and down the steep, probably rickety cellar steps which may not even have a wooden bannister. Being obese, Wilson probably suffers from high blood pressure. He is also described as "elderly." Wilson, as Holmes observes, is a snuff taker. Snuff is a finely powdered tobacco and must have an adverse effect on the lungs just like smoking tobacco. All in all, Wilson would never be tempted by curiosity to make the trek down into his cellar and the more arduous trek back up the stairs. John Clay, his assistant, is a very dangerous man. It is lucky for Wilson that he never goes down there. Clay is quite capable of murdering him with a shovel and burying him in his own cellar. He would do so if Wilson came down unexpectedly and caught him digging a tunnel.

Watson at least notices that Wilson's clothes are of good quality but in poor condition. The frayed top hat and faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar, for instance, show he had more money once, but, as he says, he is earning less. The velvet collar on the overcoat indicates that it was an expensive garment. This “less” is important because he takes on a clerk for half-wages and also because he is so eager to join the Red-Headed League and earn four pounds per week. The condition of a man's clothing, including his shoes, tell more about him than the articles themselves. 

The author makes the landlord an accountant because such a person would be likely to provide accurate and specific information. The landlord is able to give Wilson the exact address he received from the red-headed man he knew as William Morris. The "new offices" are at 17 King Edward Street, near St. Paul's. When Wilson gets to that address and finds that no one there had ever heard of William Morris or Duncan Ross, Wilson knows the whole thing was a hoax. He doesn't think the accountant could have made a mistake because the informant was too precise in his information. Accountants are expected to be accurate.

It is hard to account for this date. Wilson must have started work on April 28, 1890 and he says he worked for eight weeks. The ad ran in The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890, and Wilson went to work the very next day. The only possible explanation, other than that it was an authorial mistake, is that the League was to be officially dissolved as of October 9, 1890 but this branch office was closed and vacated as of June 27, 1890. 

Jabez Wilson is telling an extremely long "back story" or exposition. The author uses interjections such as this to break up the narrative and remind the reader that this is an interview involving a two-way conversation. It can be noted that Conan Doyle does the same thing in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" when Holmes is listening to Helen Stoner's long tale about her mother, her stepfather, and her sister Julia. For example:

“Pray be precise as to details,” said he.

This is obviously unnecessary since Helen Stoner is giving him a very precise exposition already.

Life in Victorian times moved at a much slower pace, and readers were more patient with long passages of exposition and description. 

There seems to be some mix-up in the dates. If Wilson went to work at the Red-Headed League office on about May 1, 1890 and worked there for eight weeks, then the League would have had to have been dissolved on about July 1, 1890. However, the notice which Wilson has removed from the office-door and shows to Holmes and Watson reads:

THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
IS DISSOLVED 
October 9, 1890.

How can we account for the extra three months? 

Presumably the two crooks have been working frantically on the tunnel ever since they got rid of Wilson. It seems as if they should have been able to finish the job, which John Clay had already started, in the eight weeks that Wilson worked at copying the Encyclopedia Britannica. In other words, they should have been ready to rob the bank by around the end of June.

When Wilson shows Holmes and Watson the newspaper ad says, "It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890, just two months ago." Those would have been the eight weeks he has been working at the League office. So he should be talking to Holmes and Watson on June 27, 1890. 

Wilson's assistant needs more than the advertisement to get his employer to apply for the spurious opening at the Red-Headed League. Wilson is, as he calls himself, a stay-at-home sort of person. He is not aggressive or enterprising, and he is sedentary and old. He immediately objects:

"But...there would be millions of red-headed men who would apply."

Spaulding (John Clay) has to reassure Wilson of his chances with a lot of false information about this League. Where did he get it? He has to pretend that the whole thing was big news when the eccentric red-headed American millionaire inaugurated it and that what he is telling his employer is well known. That is why Wilson would have had to be far away from England at that time, as far away as China. Spaulding-Clay must know that Wilson was abroad at the time the League was supposedly formed. Otherwise he and his partner could not have made up the ruse. In those days of wooden sailing vessels, a voyage could take several years. But Wilson may have remained in the Far East even longer than that. Wilson is not surprised that his assistant knows so much about this "League of Red-Headed Men," since is would have been big news if it had really happened.

Both the crooks are described as small and agile. Their small size and agility are perfectly suited for their enterprise of digging a long tunnel into a bank storage vault and hauling away thirty-thousand gold coins. As usual, the author Arthur Conan Doyle creates his characters to suit the needs of his plots.

The 30,000 gold Napoleons are evidently worth one pound each. A pound was equivalent to approximately five American dollars in those days, and five dollars was worth at least ten times or twenty times as much in purchasing power. So the treasure the thieves are after is equivalent to at least one-and-a-half million dollars. There would have to be a large amount at stake in order to justify the enormous amount of work these two crooks put in to dig a tunnel at least as long as a whole city block.

He has a thick finger because, as Holmes observes, his right hand has grown larger from all the manual labor he did as a ship's carpenter, and naturally his fingers would have grown along with the rest of his hand. Furthermore, Wilson is described by Watson as "very stout." Doyle wanted to make it plausible that Wilson would never go down into his own cellar out of curiosity to see what his assistant was doing down there. Since Wilson is "a very stout, florid-faced elderly gentleman," he is not likely to want to venture down the step, dark stairs and then have to climb back up again. It is a good thing for Wilson that he doesn't go down there, because John Clay is known to Holmes to be a murderer, and he would think nothing of killing his employer if Wilson discovered that he was digging a tunnel instead of developing photographs.

The fact that Jabez Wilson has a tattoo seems appropriate since he was a seaman for many years. He tells Holmes he worked as a ship's carpenter. Sailors were well known for getting themselves tattooed. The author, Arthur Conan Doyle, uses the fact that Wilson was away from England on long voyages partially to explain why he might not have heard about the origin of the Red-Headed League, in it had indeed existed. In many ways Doyle shapes his character to fit his plot needs. 

Sherlock Holmes never carries a pistol, although, like many Victorian gentlemen, he uses a walking stick when he goes out and takes his hunting crop when he thinks he might need some sort of weapon. He often asks Watson to bring his army revolver along if there seems to be a possibility of serious danger. Earlier in this story, for example, Holmes adds: "And, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.” The fact that Holmes is never armed with a gun is intended by the author to emphasize his detective character's heroism and resourcefulness as well as his customary reliance on his intellect. In the climax of "The Red-Headed Men" it is Holmes who actually catches John Clay and who disarms Clay of his pistol. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle intended his Sherlock Holmes stories to include adventure as well as impressive detection and ratiocination. That is why many of the Sherlock Holmes stories are titled "The Adventure of..." one thing or another. The stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) include:

• The Adventure of the Red-Headed League
• The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
• The Adventure of the Speckled Band
• The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
• The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
• The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
• The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Conan Doyle evidently assumed that the detective work would interest some readers but the adventure aspect would appeal to others.

Note that Sherlock Holmes makes the capture himself. He is the hero of the story, and it seems more heroic for him to take the lead in seizing John Clay than to wait for the policeman to do it. Holmes has to act quickly because Clay spots the waiting men by the light of the lantern which "streamed" through the "gaping hole." Clay might have gotten away temporarily if his retreat had not been blocked by his partner who was right behind him in the narrow tunnel. Doyle would not have wanted both crooks to be captured when they retreated to the pawnshop. The arrest had to be dramatized with action and dialogue.

Doyle has to explain why John Clay doesn't recognize the famous Sherlock Holmes.

By getting Wilson out of the way, it would be possible for both Clay and his partner to work on the tunnel for at least four hours a day. Otherwise Clay could not have gotten any assistance at all from the other man. Obviously Wilson has never met the man who calls himself Duncan Ross before the day he is employed by him, which means that this man with the flaming red hair has never been near Wilson's shop. Time is of the essence. The French gold will not remain in the bank's underground storeroom indefinitely. Mr. Merryweather tells Holmes that the bank managers have had "misgivings" about keeping so much bullion in a branch bank. They will undoubtedly wish to move it as soon as possible. 

Clay and his partner probably did not expect such an enormous turnout of applicants for the fictitious position offered in their newspaper ad. It tended to discourage Wilson and to make it difficult to get to the office of the partner who called himself Duncan Ross. Of course, the crooks would have no way of foreseeing the effects of such an unusual ad. The flood of applicants suggests how much unemployment there must have been in London in those times. 

Throughout the story Jabez Wilson shows that he is not entirely a fool. He is naturally suspicious of strangers. Perhaps this is because of the business he is in. He does not want to be cheated by people who come to his pawnshop, and there are many ways in which they could do so. For example, a thief might want to pawn a stolen item such as a piece of jewelry. Wilson could have the item confiscated by the police and even be accused of receiving stolen property.

Doyle's reason for making Wilson both gullible and cagey is to lend credence to the Red-Headed League. Wilson has to be gullible--but not too gullible. Wilson has doubts about the "League" both before he goes to apply and after he has been accepted. As he tells Holmes and Watson:

“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 Encyclopaedia Britannica."

The author, Arthur Conan Doyle, knew that his readers would also be skeptical about the existence of such an zany institution, so by making Jabez Wilson skeptical himself, Doyle manages to cope with the skepticism of the reader. If Wilson could be convinced, then it must be plausible and legitimate. We readers do not realize that the whole thing must have been a hoax until Wilson gets to the point in his story where he says he found the notice on the office-door reading:

THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS
DISSOLVED.
October 9, 1890. 

The major question presented to Sherlock Holmes is: Why would anyone wish to play such an elaborate and expensive hoax on a simple man like Jabez Wilson? 

This helps to characterize John Clay, alias Vincent Spaulding, as an extremely bold, aggressive, strongly motivated and determined man. Wilson is depicted as being old and in poor physical condition. If he had gone to the League office by himself he would have either been immediately dismayed by the crowd of applicants or else would have grown exhausted from the long wait and given up. Watson describes Wilson early in the story as "a very stout, florid-faced elderly gentleman." 

It was the coincidence that John Clay's partner in crime, who calls himself Duncan Ross, happens to have blazing red hair that inspired them to invent the Red-Headed League. Wilson tells Holmes and Watson:

“There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a deal table, behind which sat a small man with a head that was even redder than mine."

Clay could have arranged to get Wilson to apply for an opening in the fictitious Red-Headed League without running an ad in the newspaper. But he and his partner must have decided that bringing a whole mob of red-headed men to the office would make the hoax more convincing. If all these redheads believe the job offer is legitimate, then it must be legitimate. Wilson may never have heard of this Red-Headed League, but he would assume that many of the redheads in the crowd of applicants must know about it and may have even applied for other openings in the past.

Rightly or wrongly, red-haired people, both men and women, are commonly thought to be quick-tempered. The red hair suggests "hot" temper, and most red-headed people have fair skins and blush, or flush, easily, as Wilson does when he becomes angry. Jabez Wilson is more than just a gullible stooge. He has been around the world and dealt with all kinds of people. He shows a certain amount of courage to be so aggressively pursuing the man or men he feels have injured him. The author, Arthur Conan Doyle, uses Wilson's reaction to the "roar of laughter" from both Holmes and Watson to characterize Wilson as the type of man who might become sufficiently outraged by the abrupt closure of the Red-Headed League, and the hoax he suspects was played on him, to investigate the League himself and then go so far as to take his case to the great Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle uses his characterization of Wilson to get over a sticky plot point. Why should anyone bring such a trivial matter to Sherlock Holmes and then expect him to investigate it for nothing? Jabez Wilson is the exceptional type of man who would do just that. He doesn't like to be the object of anyone's laughter or ridicule. No doubt growing up with such flaming red hair has made his somewhat defensive and self-conscious, because there are many people who would make fun of him for having hair of such an unusual color. His hypersensitivity may also explain why he seems to be such a recluse. So it is because Jabez Wilson has flaming red hair and a touchy disposition that Sherlock Holmes gets drawn into a case involving the attempted theft of a fortune in gold coins and apprehends the notorious "murderer, thief, smasher, and forger" John Clay, who will surely go to the gallows.

Arthur Conan Doyle always has Watson describe Sherlock Holmes this way whenever Watson offers any physical description of his friend. Holmes has been portrayed many times by actors in motion-picture adaptation of the tales and is invariably played by a tall, thin, angular man such as Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett. His face and physique seem appropriate to a man whose life is totally absorbed in his cerebral functions. All Sherlock Holmes fans must visualize him in approximately the same way. 

Holmes is probably thinking that the first three smartest men in London are:

• Himself
• Professor Moriarty
• Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother

He may also be thinking that John Clay could rank as third for daring because Mycroft is lazy and phlegmatic.

Vincent Spaulding/John Clay must keep the front door locked so that customers will have to knock on the door and give him time to pop up out of the cellar. Jabez Wilson has described his assistant as "very quick in his ways." Most small shops do not keep their doors locked during business hours in our times and probably did not do so in Victorian London. However, because Wilson is a pawnbroker and has a lot of small items on display which could be easily pilfered, he may do things differently. 

Jabez Wilson describes both Vincent Spaulding and Duncan Ross as "small." This feature would make it somewhat easier for them to dig a tunnel, because they would not need as much head room as larger men and thus would not have to remove as much dirt. Vincent Spaulding is also "stout-built," suggesting that he is strong, and as "very quick in his ways," which suggests, among other things, that he would be adept at scrambling in and out of his tunnel and also that he could get upstairs quickly if a customer entered. 

It seems hard to understand why the newspaper should be in that condition. It might be wrinkled because Wilson had been carrying it around inside his overcoat pocket for a long time. It may have been "dirty" because John Clay had been handling it down in the cellar while he was in the process of digging his tunnel, in which case it would be a good clue. Clay might even have been using the entire edition to kneel on while he was burrowing down there. No doubt he would have made a practice of kneeling on something while working in order to protect his trousers as well sd he could manage. Even so, it would have been impossible to keep entirely neat and clean. Towards the end of the story, Holmes explains why he called at the shop on the pretext of asking for directions:

I hardly looked at his face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of burrowing. 

Why should anyone have "a great sympathy for all redheaded men"? Is having red hair some kind of a stigma? Or handicap? One possibility is that red hair might suggest Irish ethnicity, and the Irish who were emigrating to America were often victims of discrimination. Ezekiah Hopkins (if he had really existed) might have felt sympathy for redheaded men if they came to America. As a matter of fact, there may have been hostility towards Irishmen who came to England looking for work. But Jabez Wilson is not Irish, and not all redheaded men, or women, are of Irish extraction. What other reason would there be for all redheaded men, or women, to deserve sympathy?

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote fifty-six Sherlock Holmes stories as well as four Sherlock Holmes novels. He must have had great difficulty inventing new kinds of cases for his detective to solve, which may explain why at one time he tried to kill his hero off at Reichenbach Falls. In this whole paragraph Doyle is evidently speaking for himself through his character Sherlock Holmes. Just as Holmes is always on the lookout for unusual problems, so Doyle too was trying to think of problems other than the run-of-the-mill types involving stolen jewels, unsolved murders, or purloined documents. It seems likely that what sparked the idea for "The Red-Headed League" was Doyle's noticing a man who caught his attention because of his "blazing red hair." For a creative mind like Doyle's, it wouldn't take more than a hint to start him constructing an entire plot in his imagination. Since few men have hair of such a striking color, the idea of a "league" might have occurred to the author as one of the first steps in constructing his plot. When Holmes says, "...the facts are, to the best of my belief, unique," he is certainly correct, since the whole story is such an "unique," non-formulaic literary creation.

Doyle immediately introduces the most important factor in the story--that Jabez Wilson has an unusually striking shade of red hair. It was Wilson's red hair that gave John Clay the inspiration to invent a League of Red-Headed Men, which is an indication of Clay's cleverness and audacity. Wilson's unusually "bright, blazing, fiery red hair" is the first thing any stranger would notice about him.

Jabez Wilson may be naive and gullible, but he is shrewd enough when it comes to money. His pawnbroker business consists almost entirely of dealing in small sums--evaluating, lending, charging interest, selling unclaimed pledges--so he must be thinking about money most of the time. He may never have heard the word "nominal" before. As used here it means "existing in name only." It is not really work at all, since nothing will ever be done with all the handwritten pages he produces. This is one of the aspects of the situation that make Wilson feel suspicious. He tells Holmes and Watson:

“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."

Holmes does not caution Wilson against mentioning to his assistant that he has consulted the famous private detective about the Red-Headed League. But Holmes already expects the matter will come to a head that very Saturday and presumably would not be concerned if the crooks thought they had the whole weekend to carry out their burglary. In fact, if John Clay thought that Sherlock Holmes might be getting involved in the case it would prompt him to act quickly and assure Holmes of being able to catch him and his partner redhanded that Saturday night. Conan Doyle probably did not have Holmes warn Wilson to keep this meeting a secret from Spaulding because, for story purposes, the author did not want to emphasize that the detective knew John Clay and suspected him of planning to commit a serious crime very soon.

The author emphasizes in many ways that Jabez Wilson has been out of the country for years and that he seldom leaves his shop and attached living quarters now that he is established in London. This is to make it credible that Wilson would never have heard of the Red-Headed League before his new assistant showed him the advertisement and explained the League's history. The assistant, who calls himself Vincent Spaulding, expresses surprise that Wilson has never heard of this entirely fictitious organization, but Wilson never reads newspapers and rarely talks to anyone except on business with pawnshop customers and to Spaulding. Being a Freemason, Wilson would not even go to church and would thus have no fellow parishioners to gossip with on Sundays. Conan Doyle has created exactly the kind of character who is needed for the plot of his story. Wilson is reclusive, not "over bright," as Holmes says of him, so thrifty that he comes close to being a miser, and has flaming red hair which inspires Spaulding (John Clay) to invent the Red-Headed League. Wilson is also elderly, fat, and lethargic, which would explain why he has never gone down into his own cellar to see what Vincent Spaulding might be doing down there. Wilson is a heavy user of snuff, which must have had a harmful effect on his lungs. His florid complexion suggests to Watson, a doctor, that the man has high blood pressure, adding to the unlikelihood that he would want to climb up and down steep cellar stairs.

Miss Mary Sutherland was Sherlock Holmes' client in "A Case of Identity," published in 1891. It is the third story included in the collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The motive of the villain, the client's stepfather, in "A Case of Identity" was to prevent Mary Sutherland from marrying and causing him to lose control of her fortune. The story is therefore somewhat similar to the much more sinister "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," in which Dr. Grimesby Roylott murders his stepdaughter Julia to prevent her from getting married and to keep control of her capital, and is attempting to murder his other stepdaughter Helen when she becomes engaged to be married. 
"The Spectacled Band" was also included as one of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Wilson describes Duncan Ross as "a small man" and "the little man" in this paragraph. The pawnbroker has already told Holmes that his assistant is a small man. The author, Conan Doyle, made both men small in order to simplify their work in digging such a long tunnel. Bigger men would have to have a bigger tunnel and would have more dirt to dispose of. It would also obviously be easier for small men to go back and forth through a tunnel on hands and knees in order to remove all that French gold from the bank's strong room. No doubt it would require several round trips dragging heavy bags filled with gold coins.

Holmes is in high spirits because he is delighted to have an unusual new puzzle to work with. He actually wriggles in his chair.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle freely acknowledged his indebtedness to Edgar Allan Poe, whose amateur detective hero C. Auguste Dupin he imitated. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" Poe describes the kind of person who has strong "analytical" powers and delights in using them. Here is the opening paragraph of that famous story:

THE MENTAL FEATURES discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability,...so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the o**rdinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.

Sherlock Holmes frequently takes on clients who are unable to pay him a fee for his services. He often does this because he loves solving puzzles--the more unusual, the better. This enabled the author to invent a much wider range of stories than would have been possible if the great detective only worked for clients who could afford to pay what his services were worth. In the case of "The Red-Headed League" Holmes is working for Jabez Wilson for nothing, and he doesn't even ask the banker Mr. Merryweather to reward him for saving the fortune in French gold.

C. Auguste Dupin does not receive any payment for solving the locked-room murder mystery in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." However, he receives a reward of fifty-thousand francs for recovering the letter in "The Purloined Letter." Thus he is able to live in luxurious indolence most of the time. The same is true of Sherlock Holmes, who occasionally receives big fees for his services and never has to worry about money. In "The Adventure of the Priory School," for instance, Holmes receives a check for six thousand pounds, which was a small fortune in Victorian times.

Watson had shared the rooms on Baker Street with Sherlock Holmes for many years. Watson describes the rooms and the detective in the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887).

WE met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so moderate did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession. That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.

Holmes was just getting started as a "consulting detective" and needed someone to share the rent. Eventually Watson got married and resumed private practice as a physician, while Holmes became sufficiently prosperous to keep the rooms by himself.  The two men continue to keep up their friendship, and Watson continues to get involved in some of Holmes' cases, as he does in "The Red-Headed League."

Doyle has Sherlock Holmes explain why he is interested in this case in which there is no fee involved and "room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed." This characteristic, or idiosyncrasy, of his detective-hero enabled Doyle to create all sorts of strange stories in which Holmes is motivated by sympathy, curiosity, patriotism, or something else rather than money. Holmes will prove the correctness of this statement when he establishes that the Red-Headed League was fabricated in order for two crooks to steal a huge fortune in French gold coins.

Holmes is referring to the "view" he expresses in the story "A Case of Identity," which is contained in the opening paragraph:

"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man can invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction, with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions, most stale and unprofitable."

Holmes believes that reality is stranger than fiction. Watson says that is "A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting." Watson chronicles Holmes' cases but believes that his manner of "embellishing them" is necessary to make them more interesting to the reader. This is the subject of a friendly ongoing argument between the two friends. It provides a minor conflict which enhances the dramatic interest of some of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Obviously Holmes only cares about the cold facts, whereas Watson is of a more emotional and imaginative disposition. Thus they serve as foils by contrasting with each other in the ways in which they perceive the same incidents and the persons involved in them. Their contrasting views also serve to give the stories greater realism and depth.

The presence of so many red-headed men helps to reassure Wilson that the League of Red-Headed Men is a legitimate and well-known institution. Perhaps some of these other men might never have heard of it, but surely there must be some in the crowd who know all about it. They are not all necessarily responding to a single ad in the newspaper. Wilson would assume that some had heard from friends or had even read a newspaper article about how some member of the League had died and they would immediately be seeking a replacement. The crowd of red-headed men also serves to fool the reader at this point, because Wilson has not yet told Holmes and Watson that the League had been dissolved. It was Doyle's intention for the reader to be just as surprised as Wilson that the Red-Headed League had been dissolved. Then, of course, the reader will understand that it was a hoax and begin wondering about the real reason it was started in the first place. The reader does not necessarily think that Clay knew anything about the hoax. The ad in the newspaper was legitimate because Clay had placed it, and he could have come across it for the first time when he was reading the newspaper that morning.

Cornwall is a county at the extreme southern tip of Britain and as far away from Scotland as it would be possible to get on the same large island.

Clay and his partner underestimated Jabez Wilson. The "not over-bright pawnbroker" could do little on his own, but they couldn't foresee that he might go straight to Sherlock Holmes, of all people, for advice! "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League" is one of the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories because of its two unusual characters, Jabez Wilson and John Clay, as well as the display of analytical genius by the great detective.

These two words suggest that the League is well funded and has been in existence for some time.

John Clay must have known when he placed this ad that it would attract a horde of red-headed men. He probably reasoned this would be a good thing because it would help to convince Jabez Wilson, when he saw the mob, that the League must be well known to the public. Although the crowd might tend to discourage Wilson from applying for the job, it would also tend to make him feel that he would be extremely fortunate if he were able to get it. The big response to the ad also shows Clay's cunning and audacity, as well as that of his partner in crime. They are willing to take the slight risk that someone in the building might deny the existence of any Red-Headed League--but the benevolent institution could be known only to men with red hair.

Doyle frequently refers to the fact that Holmes is subject to ennui, or boredom. This helps to explain his motivation in many of his cases. He would rather be working and using his brain than doing nothing. It also helps to explain why Holmes will take on cases which involve no prospect of payment for his services. Since Holmes works for all kinds of people, rich and poor, Doyle is able to create a much broader variety of characters, problems, and stories than would be the case if Holmes only worked for clients who could afford to pay equitably for his valuable services. Holmes occasionally is richly rewarded by a wealthy client, as in "The Adventure of the Priory School," which enables the detective to take on other cases pro bono, without pay.

It was typical of the Sherlock Holmes stories for the detective to explain his line of reasoning at the conclusion in order to keep the story itself as fully dramatic as possible as well as to preserve the mystery element. Edgar Allan Poe invented this convention, as can be seen especially in "The Purloined Letter" and "The Gold Bug."

Mr. Merryweather exists as a character in the story mainly to give Holmes and Watson official conduct into the bank cellar and to provide some insider information  about the French gold. Doyle keeps these scenes dramatic by creating some conflict between Merryweather and Holmes. Merryweather complains about missing his usual whist game on what he expects to be a "wild goose chase.". He is very skeptical about Holmes prediction of an attempted break-in, especially since Holmes is not an official detective. Then Holmes has to admonish him about rapping on the floor with his stick and order him to sit down and shut up. 

This is intended to inform the reader that the robbers plan to break the crates open and put all the coins into bags. The crates would be harder to drag through the tunnel and harder to conceal in a wagon.  

This identifies Clay's partner as the man who called himself Duncan Ross and posed as an official with the League of Red-Headed Men. The whole scheme is obviously a two-man job which can be wrapped up quickly.

John Clay is not a serious physical threat. Neither is his partner. Doyle does not want the reader to think that Holmes should have more policemen present in the cellar to arrest two men. Clay is dangerous because of his brain. Once he is caught he is no serious problem to handle. The other man tries to escape through the tunnel, so Doyle does not have to describe two arrests being made; the other will occur offstage, so to speak. This is a case of brain against brain and not brain against brawn. 

Doyle differentiates these two minor characters by contrast. Jones is big and strong, while Merryweather is thin, rather elderly and sedentary. 

That is, outside the front door of Wilson's pawnshop, which is the only available exit for Clay's partner. Arthur Conan Doyle realized that more than one police officer should be involved in such a major crime, but he did not want to introduce them all or to have large number of officers in the bank vault. This would tend to weaken the feeling of danger and suspense. 

The gold is going to be moved because of the directors' doubts (misgivings) about keeping so much in a single branch office. This puts Clay and his partner under time pressure. They know the gold will soon be moved if they don't get to it quickly.

Since there are 30,000 gold coins, there must be fifteen crates full of gold.

If they are going to steal the French gold that weekend, they have to do it at night when Wilson is asleep. If they waited until Sunday night the robbery might be discovered as early as Monday morning.

Doyle wishes to impress the reader with the impregnable appearance of the bank on the outside. 

Jones can not only handle the arrest but will give official sanction to the apprehension of Clay and his confederate. This enables Doyle to handle the ending cleanly and swiftly. Jones can also assign other police officers to arrest Clay's partner when he retreats through the tunnel and tries to exit through the front door of the pawnshop.

Sherlock Holmes has great mental self-discipline. From years of developing and training his mind, he has become capable of focusing on a single problem for hours and to shift to something else at will. His humming also shows that he has great self-confidence because he has handled so many hundreds of cases successfully. The fact that he is humming the violin tunes he heard that afternoon is intended to remind the reader that all of this is happening on the same day. Jabez Wilson comes to him on Saturday morning and John Clay is carried off to jail that night. Watson does not ask any questions on the ride because he does not want to interrupt Holmes in his meditations and his humming the tunes they both heard at the St. James's Hall. Eventually Watson will see the crime in progress and hear Holmes' deductions when they return to Baker Street.

The author does not want all four men riding together because that would necessitate some conversation including questions which Doyle would prefer to be left unanswered until the answers could be shown dramatically inside the bank cellar. Mr. Merryweather and Jones the police agent know that John Clay is supposedly going to attempt to break in and steal all the French gold, but they don't know how Holmes thinks he intends to do it. The reader will be shown, rather than told. 

Everything in the story takes place on the same Saturday that Jabez Wilson comes to consult Sherlock Holmes in the morning. Clay and Ross made a serious mistake in dissolving the Red-Headed League that morning. Ross would have had to pay Wilson four more pounds at two o'clock, but that was false economy, assuming that was their reason for dissolving the League when they did. They didn't anticipate that Wilson would go to Sherlock Holmes, of all people! It does seem that these two men were short of cash, even though they expected to have 30,000 French gold coins that night. Evidently by dissolving the League on Saturday morning, they were cheating Wilson out of five days wages, because Wilson stated that Ross always paid him on Saturday. 

This should be Farringdon Street, a major artery. George Gissing, a distinguished contemporary of Arthur Conan Doyle, describes it in one of his novels:

Down in Farringdon Street the carts, waggons, vans, cabs, omnibuses, crossed and intermingled in a steaming splash-bath of mud; human beings, reduced to their due paltriness, seemed to toil in exasperation along the strips of pavement, bound on errands, which were a mockery, driven automaton-like by forces they neither understood nor could resist.
The Nether World
(1889)

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Holmes is not wearing his customary overcoat, or ulster, but a thick jacket, because he wants freedom of movement if there is violence. The hunting crop will serve as a weapon, but he has asked Watson to bring his revolver.

Arthur Conan Doyle wants to keep the ending as a surprise, although Holmes has to tell the policeman and the bank director that he is expecting an attempted break-in at the bank that night. Holmes, however, does not reveal anything more to Watson, and therefore the reader does not know that Holmes is expected Clay and Ross to break in through a tunnel.

Hansoms were two-wheel carriages with only one seat to accommodate two passengers at most. The driver sat up high outside in back so that he could see over the roof. These light vehicles were easy to maneuver in heavy London traffic. They were drawn by a single horse.

Arthur Conan Doyle frequently describes Sherlock Holmes this way because it enhances reader identification. Sedentary men like to imagine themselves capable of being men of action if occasion demands. The typical Sherlock Holmes reader of Doyle's day was probably an armchair detective who liked to smoke a pipe, read escapist literature, and sip port or sherry while lounging at ease at his club.

Holmes has to be portrayed as a man capable of violent action, because the Sherlock Holmes stories are invariably presented as adventures. In this story it is Holmes who disarms John Clay with a blow of his hunting crop, just as it is Holmes who lashes the poisonous snake in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and causes it to retreat to Dr. Roylott's room where it kills him. In almost all Sherlock Holmes tales there is a combination of deep reasoning and physical activity, including travel and violence. John Clay is a very dangerous adversary.

Again Doyle establishes that this is a Saturday. Holmes assumes the thieves will plan to break into the bank on Saturday night, while will give them all day Sunday to make a getaway with the French gold. That is why Holmes is sure he can set a trap for them in the bank's basement that night. He knows they will have to wait until Wilson will be sound asleep. Holmes does expect the break-in attempt to occur until midnight.

This explains Wilson's motive for consulting a famous private detective. He is still hoping to recover his lucrative job somehow, and he wants to understand why he was the victim of an "expensive prank." He only consults Holmes because he has heard that the great detective will take some cases for nothing, on a pro bono basis. Wilson obviously doesn't intend to part with the 32 pounds he has earned for eight weeks work.

Wilson finds the announcement that the League is dissolved when he comes to work on a Saturday morning. He goes to see Holmes that same day, after trying to do a little investigating on his own. A lot is accomplished in that one day. Holmes deduces that Clay and his partner will break into the bank that very night, but they will have to wait until Wilson is sound asleep in his room up above the pawnshop. Holmes does expect them to attempt the break-in until midnight.

Ross and Clay are not sure that even Wilson will fully believe in their preposterous Red-Headed League. Wilson might talk to someone else in the building and learn that the Red-Headed League is unknown. Someone might drop into the office while Wilson was working, and word would get around that a man was doing nothing but copying articles out of the Encyclopedia Britannica. This would create gossip and arouse curiosity throughout the building with unforeseeable consequences. Ross and Clay are a little afraid Wilson might sneak away from the League office and come back to see if there was something funny going on in his shop. So Ross comes into the office once each morning and finally quits coming altogether. Ross is undoubtedly assisting Clay with digging the tunnel. They are under time pressure. The French gold will only be at the bank for a short time, as Mr. Merryweather later explains.

People worked six days a week in Victorian times. In fact, a six-day week was common in England and America until the 1920s or 1930s at least.

The author goes to great lengths to persuade the reader to believe that anyone could be taken in by his idea of a Red-Headed League. Doyle creates a character who is gullible, uninformed, and unintelligent; and yet the author makes it clear that even such a man as Jabez Wilson is skeptical about the League, which he had never heard of before Vincent Spaulding told him about it and showed him the ad. Wilson thinks "the whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud." He can't belief that anyone would make such a strange will, or that they would pay four pounds a week for copying articles from the Encyclopedia. Doyle wanted his character to be naive but not impossibly naive. After all, Wilson is a businessman and deals with all sorts of people. However, Wilson becomes convinced after the first week when he is paid in gold coins.

The two crooks, Ross and Clay, are being very economical. They have only obtained one volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica and are not even providing Wilson with ink, pens, or paper. This suggests that they are currently short of cash and will explain why they shut down the Red-Headed League before they have stolen the gold. This was a mistake, because Wilson begins investigating and goes to Sherlock Holmes before they have broken into the bank. They should have kept Wilson employed for one more week.

Spaulding had been working for Wilson for about one month before he called attention to the advertisement for the opening at the Red-Headed League, and Wilson tells Holmes that he worked at the League office for eight weeks before it was suddenly dissolved. So the work on the tunnel took approximately three months before they got to the area just below the floor of the bank's basement.

Ross should know from Clay that Wilson has no wife or family, but they want to make sure that no grown children will drop in unexpectedly. If Wilson did have a grown son or daughter, that relative might go down into the cellar. It is essential to the scheme that no one should see what they are working on down there, and a big tunnel under construction would be impossible to hide. It took them around three months of digging before they were able to break into the bank.

Clay and Ross could work on their tunnel virtually uninterrupted for four hours because there will be hardly any customers. In fact, they could put a CLOSED sign on the front door of the shop. The girl who does the cleaning would be busy on the second floor and would not notice what was going on down below. if she did intrude downstairs, Clay could give her such a tongue-lashing that she wouldn't do it again. 

Duncan Ross is clever. He doesn't want to make Wilson's getting hired seem too easy. Wilson might start wondering about that later and become suspicious. But Wilson would remember that he only seemed to get the job because Ross made an exception for him due to his unusually brilliant red hair. The fact that Ross also has red hair explains why he and Clay thought of the idea of the Red-Headed League, and it lends credence to the deception to have a redheaded man in charge of the League office and the hiring of new recruits.

This is further intended to show that Jabez Wilson is in poor physical condition. The reader might otherwise wonder why he never went down to the cellar out of curiosity. Wilson is fat, florid-faced, and elderly. Any exertion is taxing for him. 

It was a virtual necessity for Spaulding to accompany Wilson to the League office because he had to make sure his partner Duncan Ross hired the right redheaded man.

Wilson's presence was a great encumbrance. Clay had to invent some way to get rid of him for part of the day. Business was very slow in the morning and early afternoon, so that was the best time to have Wilson away at work at the office of the Red-Headed League.

One of Holmes' deductions about Wilson was that he was a snuff-taker. This confirms that Holmes was right. Holmes didn't even bother to explain how he had deduced that. It would obvious that Wilson had sprinkled some snuff on his clothing. Watson had observed that Wilson's black frock-coat was unbuttoned in the front, so the snuff would probably have been on Wilson's waistcoat (vest).

This is doubly significant. It explains why Wilson could believe that the Red-Headed League was well known although he himself had never heard about it. It also shows why Clay has to concoct some way of getting rid of him for at least four or five hours a day so he can work full-time on his tunnel. Wilson would be at the Red-Headed League office from ten to two, but it would take him a half-hour to get there and another half-hour to get back. With Wilson out of the way for all that time, Clay could get his partner to help him with the digging. The girl is young and wouldn't know or care what they were doing in the cellar.

This indicates that Vincent Spaulding and the fourteen-year-old girl all live on the premises, undoubtedly in living quarters above the shop. The girl is unlikely to go down to the cellar, but Spaulding may have warned her against doing so and threatened her with loss of her job if she did.

Jabez Wilson is not overly bright and quite naive in many ways, but he has the shrewdness of a typical British shopkeeper when it comes to money matters. He doesn't realize that Vincent Spaulding, who is really John Clay, may have an ulterior motive for working so cheaply. 

This is intended to explain why Holmes would be taking an interest in such a trivial case, since Wilson obviously wants the detective to help him for nothing. Arthur Conan Doyle frequently writes that Holmes cares little about money and only takes cases that interest him. This makes it possible for the author to involve Holmes and Watson with a much wider spectrum of the population, from the richest to the poorest, the highest to the lowest. Most private detectives would only work for affluent people who could afford to pay them for their time and expertise.

This is a further reminder that Wilson is very much overweight, which is intended to explain why he might never think of going down into his cellar and climbing back up again. His stoutness shows that he leads a very sedentary life, which would explain why the job copying from the Encyclopedia Britannica would exactly suit him.

Wilson is stout, florid-faced, and elderly. Such a man would be likely only to make a gesture of rising from his chair, and even that much effort might explain why he only gives a bob of his head to acknowledge the introduction.

Arthur Conan Doyle creates a character to suit the needs of his plot. Jabez Wilson is very stout, with a florid (or reddish) face, and he is elderly. The florid face suggests that he has high blood pressure. These characteristics are designed to explain why Wilson never goes down into the basement to see what his assistant is doing. Wilson would not only have difficulty getting down the steep stairs but more difficulty getting back up again. His age and physical condition also explain why he goes out so seldom and why he might never have heard about the Red-Headed League except through the assistant who calls himself Vincent Spaulding. In three words--"stout," "florid-faced," and "elderly"--Doyle takes care of a potential plot problem. The reader otherwise might wonder why Wilson never goes down into his own cellar to see what is going on down there.

In the Sherlock Holmes stories the detective frequently mentions that he has written articles and pamphlets about various esoteric subjects. This would have contributed to broadening his reputation and helped to bring him clients. Readers like Holmes because, among other things, he has an enviable lifestyle. He works only when he feels like it, and his clients all have to come to him, even wealthy and aristocratic men and women. When he does decide to work, the jobs are always interesting and rarely require any physical exertion.

This is actually a Chinese coin, most of which had holes in the centers. It is probably significant that Wilson, who loves money, should have kept a coin as a souvenir of his years in China. It is also significant that when he opened his own business in London he became a pawnbroker. A pawnbroker is like a small-time banker. He deals in money. The articles on which he lends money are only collateral for the loans. If any are not redeemed, he will sell them to get his money. It is all about money. 

Ship's carpenters were essential to crews in the days of sailing ships with wooden hulls. They could repair damaged masts or damaged hulls. They did the repair work on spars, rigging and sails. Most of the repairs on merchant ships were needed because of storm damage. In wartime, of course, there could be more serious damage from cannon-fire. The work would be hard because of all the sawing and hammering involved.

The condition of all Jabez Wilson's clothing indicates, not that he is poor, but that he is very tight with his money and wears his clothes until they are too shabby to be worn any longer. According to Watson's description, Wilson owns good-quality clothing, including a greatcoat, a frock-coat, and a waistcoat, with a pocket watch on an Albert chain and a top hat. This suggests a man who has money but doesn't like to part with it unless he has to do so. It also suggests, as it should have suggested to Sherlock Holmes, that Wilson doesn't go out very often. He himself says he is a stay-at-home sort of fellow--so why should he buy new clothes of the kind he would only wear if he went out on some special occasion? The fact that Wilson is a tightwad is important to the plot. It explains why he hired John Clay, who offered to work for half the customary wages. It also explains why Wilson is so upset about losing his position with the Red-Headed League and why he is going to so much trouble to locate the League's new premises, if it is still in existence somewhere. Wilson has come to Sherlock Holmes with his trivial problem because he is hoping that Holmes will take his case for nothing. He has heard, correctly, that the great detective will take some cases if he finds them intriguing. When Wilson finishes his story he says:

"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.”

Any reader who has been a devotee of the Sherlock Holmes stories has probably developed a tendency, like Watson, to try to make deductions about people from observable clues. 

Wilson's frock-coat had to be unbuttoned in the front so that Sherlock Holmes could see some of the clues he needed for his deductions about his client, especially the Freemason arc-and-compass breastpin and the Chinese coin attached to his watch-chain. Holmes probably noticed snuff on the waistcoat rather than on the frock-coat, since that was where the snuff was most likely to fall.

A frock-coat is a long coat which comes down to just above the knees. Such coats were popular during Victorian and Edwardian times.

This means that John Clay knows he will hang for the crime he has tried to commit. "Swing for it" was a very common slang term for hanging. In Victorian times there were a great many crimes punishable by hanging, and Clay's audacious attempt to steal a fortune in French gold from a bank would certainly be a hanging offense. It is a mark in his favor that he shows concern for his henchman Archie and is resigned to taking the rap himself. No doubt this is not exactly because he has royal blood but because he thinks highly of himself because of presumably having that royal blood. He can probably even imagine himself standing on the scaffold with aristocratic dignity and possibly even making a speech to the assembled crowd.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle inserts this bit of information about Jabez Wilson's having been in China to make it all the more plausible that he would not have heard about the so-called Red-headed League at the time when it was supposedly established by the American millionaire. Other suggestions help to make it plausible that Wilson would not have heard about this organization until his new assistant told him about it. For one thing, Wilson is very tight with his money. He probably does not subscribe to a daily newspaper or go out to buy one on the street. He tells the great detective:

"You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the door-mat. In that way I didn't know much of what was going on outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.”

This seems a bit unusual for a man who has spent years in China, but it is also intended to show that the client could have been totally ignorant of the supposed existence of the League of the Redheaded Men. It further helps to explain why John Clay had to go to such extreme lengths to get his employer out of his pawnshop for a predictable length of time every day so that he could work on his tunnel. No doubt Wilson, like a lot of other London shopkeepers of the day, lived on the premises above the pawnshop.

Doyle has created a unique character to suit the needs of his plot. Jabez Wilson has a head of brilliant red hair, he has been out of the country for a long time, he doesn't read the newspapers, he loves money, and he hardly ever leaves his shop. He has one other trait which is essential to the plot. As Holmes tells Watson at the end of the story, Wilson is "not over bright." He not only falls for John Clay's preposterous scheme, but he comes to Sherlock Holmes thinking the great private detective will help him pro bono wiith his trivial problem.