“The Red-Headed League” was the second Sherlock Holmes short story that John Watson shared with the world (the first was “A Scandal in Bohemia”).

It is the story of Jabez Wilson, who comes to consult Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Wilson tells them that some weeks before, his young assistant, Vincent Spaulding, had urged him to respond to a newspaper advertisement by “The Red-Headed League,” offering highly paid work only to red-headed male applicants.

The next morning, Wilson was hired to copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for which he was paid £4 per week. The well-paid work was supposedly necessary to satisfy the will of some eccentric American millionaire who wanted to provide for the welfare of red-headed men like himself. After eight weeks, Wilson reported to the office, only to find a note on the door stating that The Red-Headed League had been dissolved. When he spoke with the landlord, the landlord told him that he had never heard of the organization.

I have a number of favorite Sherlock Holmes cases, and this is one of them. It is everything you want in a Sherlock Holmes story: absurd, baffling, weird, yet compelling and so much fun.

I highly recommend it!