"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated.

"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead. "I have a small pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City. 📍 Saxe-Coburg Square It's not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him but that he is willing to come for half wages so as to learn the business."

"What is the name of this obliging youth?" asked Sherlock Holmes.

"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth, either. It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr. Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself and earn twice what I am able to give him. But, after all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?"

"Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault, but on the whole he's a good worker."

"Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says: 'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.' He told me that if my hair would only change colour, here's a nice little crib all ready for me to step into. So I just ordered him to put up the shutters for the day and to come right away with me."

"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like a coster's orange barrow."

"However, when our turn came the little man was much more favourable to me than to any of the others. He closed the door as we entered, so that he might have a private word with us. He seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he as he released me. 'I perceive that all is as it should be.'"

"The work? Is to copy out the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' You must find your own ink, pens, and blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready to-morrow?"

"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work. Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end."

Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter.

"I went to the landlord," said Wilson, "He said that he had never heard of any such body. He said the red-headed man's name was William Morris. He was a solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience. He moved out yesterday to 17 King Edward Street, near St. Paul's."

"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross."

Holmes questioned the client further about the assistant. "Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face... Has a white splash of acid upon his forehead."

Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. "I thought as much," said he. "That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two."

"Well, Watson," said Holmes when our visitor had left us, "what do you make of it all?"

"I make nothing of it," I answered frankly. "It is a most mysterious business."

"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three pipe problem." He curled himself up in his chair... Suddenly he sprang out with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind.

"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," he remarked. 📍 St. James's Hall "What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours? I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way."

We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; 📍 Aldersgate Stn. and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the morning.

Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Finally he returned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thumped vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door and knocked.

It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step in. "Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wished to ask you how you would go from here to the Strand."

"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant promptly, closing the door.

"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes as we walked away. "He is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am not sure that he has not a claim to be third."

"Why did you beat the pavement?"
"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk."

The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner presented as great a contrast to the retired Saxe-Coburg Square as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City.

"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner. "I should like just to remember the order of the houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building depot." 📍 The City & Suburban Bank

"You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor," he remarked as we emerged. "And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This business at Coburg Square is serious. A considerable crime is in contemplation."

"I shall want your help to-night. Ten will be early enough. I shall be at Baker Street at ten."

As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the "Encyclopaedia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. 📍 Watson's Home

It was a quarter-past nine when I started from home and made my way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. On entering his room I found Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognised as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man—Mr. Merryweather.

"We're hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see," said Jones. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a chase."

"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London," said Jones.

We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets until we emerged into Farringdon Street. 📍 The Bank Cellars We passed down a narrow passage and through a side door. Within there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate.

"We are at present, Doctor—as no doubt you have divined—in the cellar of the City branch of one of the principal London banks. It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."

Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern and left us in pitch darkness. "They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back through the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I asked you, Jones?"
"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door."

Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light. At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little area of light.

With a rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it.

"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and the bags? Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!"

Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes' hunting crop came down on the man's wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.

"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes blandly. "You have no chance at all."

"So I see," the other answered with the utmost coolness. "I fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails."

"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said Holmes.

"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must compliment you."

"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 'Encyclopaedia,' must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day."

"The method was no doubt suggested to Clay's ingenious mind by the colour of his accomplice's hair. 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."

"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. I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel to some other building."

"I surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It was not in front. Then I rang the bell. 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."

"I walked round the corner, saw the City and Suburban Bank abutted on our friend's premises, and felt that I had solved my problem."

"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed in unfeigned admiration. "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true."

"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so."