The Red-Headed League, Part 1: The VisitorOne day in the autumn of last year, I called on my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes and found him deep in conversation with a very stout, red-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. I apologised and was about to leave, but Holmes pulled me into the room and closed the door behind me. “You could not have come at a better time, my dear Watson,” he said warmly. Then he turned to his visitor. “This is Dr. Watson, Mr. Wilson, my partner in many of my most successful cases.” The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a little nod of greeting. Holmes sat back in his armchair and put his fingertips together, as he always did when he was thinking hard. “This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has come to me with one of the most unusual stories I have heard for some time,” he said. “Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would begin again, so that my friend can hear every detail.” Our visitor pulled a dirty, creased newspaper from his coat pocket and looked down the advertisement column. Meanwhile, I studied him as my friend would, but I learned very little. He looked like an ordinary British shopkeeper: fat, self-important and slow. There was nothing remarkable about him except his blazing red head and the look of deep unhappiness on his face. Holmes saw what I was doing and smiled. “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done hard work with his hands, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a lot of writing lately, I can say nothing else.” Mr. Jabez Wilson sat up in his chair. “How on earth did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?” he asked. “It’s true that I began as a ship’s carpenter.” “Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed. As for the writing, your right sleeve is very shiny for five inches, and the left one has a smooth patch near the elbow, where you rest it on the desk. And the fish tattooed above your right wrist could only have been done in China.” Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” he said. “I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it after all.” “I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in explaining. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?” “Yes, here it is,” he answered, with his thick red finger on the column. “This is what began it all.” I took the paper and read: “To the Red-Headed League: There is now another place open. It pays a member of the League four pounds a week for very light work. All red-headed men who are healthy in body and mind and over the age of twenty-one may apply. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o’clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope’s Court, Fleet Street.” I read the strange notice twice and cried, “What on earth does this mean?”
