The Red-Headed League
A pawnbroker is paid handsomely to copy the encyclopedia for a society of red-haired men — a bizarre ruse Holmes traces to an audacious bank robbery.
The funniest of the early cases and the one most obviously built out of voices. Jabez Wilson, a pawnbroker with astonishing red hair, tells Holmes a story so ridiculous that Watson watches Holmes physically struggle not to laugh — and the joke only works if Wilson is entirely serious while telling it. That is a two-voice effect, and it is exactly where a single narrator has to signal what a cast can simply do. The robbery underneath it is almost incidental; what people remember is a man explaining, with great dignity, that he was paid four pounds a week to copy out an encyclopaedia.
The voices that carry it
Jabez Wilson carries the story. He is cast without a trace of irony, because every laugh in the first half depends on his not being in on the joke.
Chapter one plays without an account. Start listening to The Red-Headed League.
Voice cast
7 characters plus the narrator, each with their own voice. All the voices of The Red-Headed League.
- Sherlock Holmes — The world's only consulting detective. Razor-sharp analytical mind, cold precision, theatrical wit. Alternates between lethargy and explosive energy. Speaks in crisp, certain pronouncements.
- Dr. Watson — Holmes's loyal friend and biographer. A former army surgeon, warm, practical, earnest. Speaks with admiration for Holmes and genuine concern for clients.
- Jabez Wilson — A stout, red-haired pawnbroker who tells Holmes the bizarre story of the Red-Headed League. Plain-spoken, bewildered, and verbose.
- John Clay — Criminal mastermind operating as Vincent Spaulding, Wilson's assistant. Grandson of a duke, with the cool composure and sneering politeness of a born aristocrat turned villain.
- Mr. Duncan Ross — John Clay's accomplice, posing as the manager of the fictitious Red-Headed League to lure Jabez Wilson out of his shop every morning.
- Mr. Merryweather — A bank director who joins Holmes's stakeout to protect £30,000 in French gold, gloomy about missing his Saturday card game.
- Peter Jones — A Scotland Yard police agent who partners with Holmes on the raid to capture John Clay.
Chapters
- Chapter II: The Red-headed League
About this recording
Do I need to have heard other Holmes stories first?
No. The Red-Headed League is self-contained and about three quarters of an hour long. It is set early in the Baker Street years, but nothing in it assumes you have heard anything else.
Is this one of the funny Sherlock Holmes stories?
It is the funniest of the first dozen. The comedy comes from a completely straight-faced client describing an absurd arrangement, which is why the recording casts him without any knowing wink.