Author's Note: After a year of waiting, my work has finally let me go back to my Sherlock Holmes project. I read three more of the stories, so hopefully I can write three more of these silly parodies!

The Red-Headed League

I had called upon my friend, Mr. Herlock Sholmes, one day in the autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when Sholmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.

"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson," he said cordially.

"I was afraid that you were engaged."

"Engaged? No! I have not yet asked Miss Adler to marry me," Sholmes said. "Although if we do get married, I believe I will ask you to serve as my best man."

I did not want to fuel Sholmes' delusions of love, so I did not pursue the topic. "What about your visitor?"

"I suppose I could ask him to be my best man," Sholmes allowed. "But you would be a better choice."

"No, I mean, who is he?"

"Ah, yes! This is Mr. Wilson!" Sholmes said. "He has red hair. Red hair!"

"I came here to get some aid with a most peculiar situation," Mr. Wilson said. "A few months ago, I-"

"A mystery! Ha ha!" Sholmes said. "Let me astonish and amaze you with my powers of observation!" He pulled out a magnifying glass and closely examined the visitor, who looked distinctly nervous. At a glance, I noticed Mr. Wilson's distinctive Chinese tattoo above his wrist. Not far from it, his right cuff was very shiny for five inches, whereas the left one had a smooth patch near the elbow. I guessed that this meant he had done a lot of writing recently, but Sholmes had a different deduction in mind.

"You take snuff!" he said proudly.

"How did you know?" Mr. Wilson asked.

Sholmes laughed. "Everyone takes snuff!" he said. "Snuff, snuff, snuff, that's the good stuff! Now tell us about the mystery!"

Mr. Wilson took out an old newspaper and pointed to an advertisement halfway down the column. I took it from him, and read as follows:

"TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., there is now another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a salary of 4 pounds a week for purely nominal services. All red-headed men who are sound in body and mind and above the age of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street."

"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated after I had twice read over the extraordinary announcement.

Sholmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair. "It's a league for red-headed men! Like the French League! I wonder if they have any red-headed Frenchmen as members."

I noticed that the newspaper's date was April 27, 1890, which was just two months ago. I asked Mr. Wilson how he came across such an extraordinary advertisement.

"I found it through my assistant, Vincent Spaulding," Mr. Wilson said. "You see, I have a small pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a very large affair, and lately it has been losing money. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but I had to fire them both and replace them with Vincent. Lucky thing he works for half-wages, or I'd have a hard time paying him."

"You have an employee who works for half wages?" I asked. "That is not common."

Sholmes sighed dramatically. "Please ignore my assistant, Mr. Wilson," he said. "Dr. Watson is making a very transparent attempt to get me to raise his salary."

"You don't pay me, Sholmes."

"Quiet, or I'll dock your pay this week!" Sholmes said.

I sighed, but I wished to learn more about Mr. Spaulding. Usually, no one agrees to work for half-wages, unless they have an ulterior motive. "Does Mr. Spaulding have any odd habits or distinctive characteristics?"

"None. He's a perfectly normal fellow. A bit obsessed with photography, though. Always spending time in the cellar, developing photos...still, nothing wrong with that. If not for his keen eye, I wouldn't have learned about the league."

"And how is that, exactly?"

"As I was saying, Spaulding came to the office eight weeks ago, with this very paper in his hand, and he showed me the advertisement. A couple of hundred pounds a year, for nominal work? And better yet, I was eligible for the vacancy? Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for the business has not been over good for some years, and an extra couple of hundred would have been very handy.

"Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that if there was to be any competition in the matter I stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for the day and to come right away with me. He was very willing to have a holiday, so we shut the business up and started off for the address that was given us in the advertisement.

"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Sholmes. 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. I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they were straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up to the steps which led to the office."

"Most extraordinary," Sholmes said. "I wonder if there is a Blonde League, or a League of Brownettes."

"I believe you mean brunette," I corrected.

"But what if the brunette is bald?" Sholmes asked.

I had no response, and Mr. Wilscon continued his curious tale.

"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. He was very pleased with my hair, very pleased. After pulling at it to make sure it was real, he wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success. He stepped over to the window and shouted through it at the top of his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions until there was not a red-head to be seen except my own and that of the manager.

" 'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. When shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?'

" 'What would be the hours?' I asked.

" 'Ten to two.'

"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. Sholmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the mornings. Besides, my assistant volunteered to watch over the shop in my place. So I said, 'That would suit me very well. And the pay?'

" 'Is 4 pounds a week.'

" 'And the work?'

" 'You must copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica, word for word. You have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position forever. The will is very clear upon that point. You don't comply with the conditions if you budge from the office during that time.'

" 'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' said I.

" 'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross; 'neither sickness nor business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your billet. Will you be ready to-morrow?'

" 'Certainly,' I answered.

" 'Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to gain.' He bowed me out of the room and I went home with my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune."

"Pardon me for interrupting," I said. "But did you say that the job paid four pounds a week, for copying the Encyclopaedia Britannica?"

"I didn't understand it myself," Mr. Wilson said. "If someone wanted a second copy of the book, surely they could have purchased it? But in any case, that's what happened. I started with the letter A and wrote out, for four hours a day. At the end of the week, I was paid four pounds. I never found out who received the papers, or why. I didn't want to jeopardize my position by asking too many questions.

"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with diligence that I might get on to the B's before very long. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end."

"To an end? When?"

"No later than this morning. I went to my work as usual at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself."

He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of note-paper. It read in this fashion:

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

"Curses!" Sholmes said. "Now I cannot join the league!"

"Did you ask anyone about it?" I inquired.

"I called at the offices around, and I asked the landlord. None of them had ever heard of the Red-Headed League or Mr. Duncan Ross. Apparently, he was working under an assumed name the entire time. I don't understand it!"

"Nor do I," I said. "Although I have some ideas as to-"

"I understand it perfectly," Sholmes interrupted. "He must have spelled his name wrong on the form. It happens to me all the time. See, my name has an 's' in it, and I'm still not sure how to write them, so sometimes my name comes out as 'Herlock Oholmeo'. I bet if you look for Duncan Ross under 'Duncan Rooo', you'll find him soon enough."

I forced a laugh, to indicate that Sholmes was joking. (He wasn't.) After some short discussion of no consequence, we thanked Mr. Wilson for his time, and he left the room.

I leaned back in my chair. "What now, Sholmes?"

"Clearly, we need a panda bear, a pound of cheese, and a catalog of fashionable women's clothing," Sholmes said.

"I was thinking we should investigate Mr. Wilson's assistant," I said. "Unless I'm mistaken, he took the job at half-wages, for the purposes of introducing Mr. Wilson to the Red-Headed League."

"That was kind of him."

"No, I doubt it was. As far as I can tell, it was all an elaborate scheme to get Mr. Wilson out of his house, for four hours every day. But why?"

"Perhaps he needed the exercise."

I fell silent in thought, but my ideas did not get me anywhere. I stood up and got my hat. "Come now, Holmes, let us meet this assistant. He should still be at the pawnbroker's shop."

"But I don't play chess! It's too complicated," Herlock whined. We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate, and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square. We reached the pawnbroker's shop, and I sent Sholmes inside.

I took a minute to examine the other houses in the area, but could find nothing of interest. After this, I entered the pawnbroker's. As I suspected, there was a commotion inside.

"But I already own a teapot!" Sholmes shouted.

"I'm not talking about teapots, you ninny!" the man at the counter shouted back. "I'm talking about the antique vase you almost ruined!"

I quickly ran forward and made apologies for my friend. This allowed me ample opportunity to get a good look at the assistant. He was a bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow. His clothes were crisp, save the knees of his trousers. They were worn, almost worn through. Clearly he spent a good deal of time on his knees.

Perhaps he spent four hours a day on his knees.

I removed Sholmes from the building, and he screamed about apples the entire time. I paid him no heed, as I puzzled out the mystery. Mr. Wilson had said his assistant spent a good deal of time in the cellar, under the guise of working with photos. More likely, he was doing something else. Something very time-consuming, and something very loud. Hence, the need to distract Mr. Wilson with busy work.

Perhaps he was building some sort of tunnel?

I thumped my stick upon the pavement, but the ground was firm. That meant the cellar had to be in the back of the house. I walked around the back, which was one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City to the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians.

I examined the order of the houses. There was 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. Out of the five buildings on the block, the one that would most interest an underground tunneler was the bank. Either the bank had been robbed recently, or would be robbed quite soon.

There was not much to the mystery after that. I contacted the bank and Scotland Yard, and some hours later, I found myself in the basement of the bank, guarding a good deal of French gold. 30,000 napoleons, to be exact. With me were Sholmes, Peter Jones the police agent, and Mr. Merryweather, one of the bank's directors. After confirming that the tunnel did indeed exist, we sat in the dark, waiting for the thieves to appear.

"I'm bored," Sholmes said, about every five minutes.

"Silence!" I hissed. "We must be quiet! We don't want to tip them off!"

After over an hour's wait, there was a rending, tearing sound. One of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the hole and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.

"It's all clear," he whispered.

"NOT SO!" Sholmes shouted. He jumped forward and grabbed the man's collar. The other dived down the hole, and as I sprang forward with the policeman, I saw the barrel of a revolver.

"Sholmes!" I cried.

The gun fired, and Sholmes fell backwards. With a fiery look, the intruder swung his weapon towards the rest of us, before diving down the hole after his companion.

"He got away!" Mr. Merryweather cried.

"He didn't," Jones said. "I've got three officers watching the other end of the tunnel. They'll catch 'em, all right."

Jones was correct in his assertion, and before the night was over, the two criminals were in custody. I did not care at that moment, for all my attention was upon my wounded friend. "Sholmes, please, speak to me! Where were you shot?"

"My shoe!" Sholmes said, panting heavily. "They...got my...shoe..."

I looked at Sholmes' foot, which was completely uninjured. Apparently, he had been startled by the gunshot, and then slipped on his untied shoelaces.

"I believe you will be fine," I said.

"Can we get some biscuits to eat?" Sholmes asked hopefully.

"Sure," I said.

And that is the end of our adventure, with the Red-Headed League.