Skip to main content

What steps does Mr. Wilson take when he learns the Red-Headed League is dissolved?

Jabez Wilson tells Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson that he came to work at the offices of the Red-Headed League that very morning, which was a Saturday. He found the door locked and a note on it reading:



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



He tells Sherlock Holmes:



“I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the ground floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of the Red-headed League."



The landlord is able to give Wilson a forwarding address for the man known to him as William Morris. But when Wilson gets there he finds it has nothing to do with the Red-Headed League. Wilson is portrayed as a man of limited intelligence. He does not suspect that his own assistant could have been involved in the trick that had been played on him. He wants professional advice--but he is not willing to pay for it.



"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.”



Holmes is interested in the case because he believes that Wilson's assistant is the notorious criminal John Clay and therefore that some serious crime must be in progress. Holmes assumes that Clay is using Wilson's cellar to tunnel into a nearby bank when he ascertains that 30,000 gold Napoleons are stored in the bank's underground strongroom. He sets a trap, along with Watson, Mr. Merryweather the bank director, and a Scotland Yard detective, and captures Clay and his accomplice that same Saturday night when they break into the bank's strongroom. In only one day Holmes succeeds in solving the mystery of the Red-Headed League and thwarting a bank burglary of spectacular proportions. Holmes deduced that Clay and his accomplice dissolved the Red-Headed League that very morning because they were ready loot the bank that night and no longer needed to keep Jabez Wilson away from his pawn shop while they were digging their tunnel.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...