“I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John

Clay,” said Holmes. “I have been at some small expense over this

matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am amply

repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing

the very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League.”


“You see, Watson,” he explained in the early hours of the morning

as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, “it was

perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather

fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the

Encyclopædia, must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the

way for a number of hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it, but,

really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt

suggested to Clay’s ingenious mind by the colour of his

accomplice’s hair. The £ 4 a week was a lure which must draw him, and

what was it to them, who were playing for thousands? They put in the

advertisement, one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the

man to apply for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every

morning in the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come

for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for

securing the situation.”


“But how could you guess what the motive was?”


“Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar

intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man’s business was

a small one, and there was nothing in his house which could account for such

elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then,

be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the

assistant’s fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the

cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made