6 Mr. Clay’s Clever Plan

Chapter 6 Mr. Clay's Clever Plan In the early hours of the morning, Holmes and I sat in his room in Baker Street in front of a blazing hearth and he explained to me how he had solved the case. "It was clear to me from the start," he said, "that the whole business of the Red-Headed League was a ruse. The villains had to find an excuse to get our friend the pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours each day. It was a curious method they chose, for sure, but it's hard to think of a better one. I imagine Clay noticed

that his accomplice shared the same shade of hair as Mr. Wilson and this inspired the idea. True, they had to pay him four pounds a week, but what was that compared to the thousands they stood to gain if their plan succeeded? "So they placed an advertisement in the paper. One of the rogues rented an office while the other persuaded Wilson to apply for the job. That way they managed to ensure that he was out of his shop for four hours every day." "At what point did you know the assistant was involved?" I asked. "When Wilson told us that he was only paying him half wages, I knew the man must have another motive for taking the job." "But how did you guess what that motive was?" "I assumed there was something he wanted in the house that couldn't be obtained anywhere else. What this might be I had no idea. Wilson admitted his business was not doing very well, and I don't imagine he has much that's worth stealing. But then I remembered the assistant's fondness for taking photographs and his habit of

vanishing into the cellar to develop them. I began to wonder if there was something else, besides photography, that was drawing him down there. "I knew by then the man we were dealing with. When Wilson mentioned the white acid scar on his forehead, I concluded at once that this was John Clay, one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. But what could he be doing in the cellar that would take him many hours a day for months on end? I could think of

nothing else except that he was digging a tunnel to some other building. "That was as far as my reasoning had taken me when we paid our visit to Coburg Square. You will remember I surprised you by beating my stick upon the pavement. I was checking to see whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind the building. The sound of my stick told me it was not in front.

"Then I rang the bell and, as I'd hoped, the assistant answered it. Though I'd never set eyes on him before and was naturally curious about his appearance, I scarcely glanced at his face. It was his knees I wanted to examine. They were worn, wrinkled, and stained, as might be expected after hours of burrowing.

"The only question that remained was what they were burrowing for. A short amble to the street running behind the house provided the answer. I worked out, by checking the order of the shops on that street, that the building directly behind Wilson's house was a bank. "After the concert this afternoon, I called upon Scotland Yard, the headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police, and then Mr. Merryweather, and everything was arranged." "But how did you know they would make their attempt tonight?" I asked. "When they closed the office of the Red- Headed League, that meant they no longer cared about Mr. Wilson being in the house. In other