AuthorCAT — write your own illustrated novel — for authors
  1. A high, wide view down onto a soot-dark Baker Street terrace on a smoky autumn morning, with a hansom at the kerb and a single amber window glowing on the first floor.

    Baker Street on an autumn morning

    II. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE

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  2. A close detail of a stout client's wrist and waistcoat: a pink-scaled fish tattoo above the cuff and a square-holed Chinese coin on a brass watch-chain, the last clues in a detective's deduction.

    The tattooed fish and Chinese coin

    “The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes’ scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.”

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  3. Dr. Watson, newspaper flattened in both hands, stares at the absurd Red-Headed League advertisement, baffled.

    Watson reads the notice

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

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  4. From a high vantage, a sea of red-headed men packs Fleet Street and the stair of Pope's Court, while stout Jabez Wilson and his assistant shoulder their way toward the League's doorway.

    Fleet Street choked with red

    “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. 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. There was a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found ourselves in the office.”

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  5. A top-down insert of Jabez Wilson's thick fingers holding up the curt white card that announces the end of the Red-headed League.

    The League is dissolved

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

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  6. In Holmes's Baker Street sitting room, the detective and the doctor collapse in laughter at the curt card announcing the dissolved League, while the red-headed pawnbroker sits stiff and rueful, holding it up.

    A roar of laughter

    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.

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  7. At the mention of Spaulding's acid-splashed forehead, Holmes snaps upright in his armchair and asks about the pierced ears.

    Holmes sits up

    Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. “I thought as much,” said he. “Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for earrings?”

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  8. Chapter 1

    Wilson's tale of the dissolved League

    Next chapter: Reconnaissance, music and the night party Read this chapter