A Study In “The Red-Headed League”

21, November, 2023

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Storyline

A red headed person came for Sherlock Holmes’s help because of his strange situation. There was an advertisement on the newspaper that gave huge amount of money for a job for only 1 red-headed person. This person took the job, almost finish it and suddenly his employer disappeared.

Detective Process

1. Ask information about the League – How did he find out ?
2. Question his source – Ask question about his worker, how they know each other, his appearance, timing, daily task and whereabout.
3. Check the fake office and ask questions about the owner.
4. Confirming that the suspect was digging by take a quick look of his knee with the disguise of asking direction.
5. Prepare a trap, come to the tunnels, stay silently. Prepare personnel’s to guard their possible escape route.

Extra

This story doesn’t provide a lot of deductions, but there is something to note is that Sherlock Holmes calculated his moves thoroughly.

He spent 3/4 of an hour just sitting in the chair and think about the problem. By the fact that he asked about the worker, he already knew the mechanic, the mystery of the story. But it is still a hypothesis at this point since he answered “yes, it is a mystery, but we shall soon know the answer to it.”

So in this 3/4 of an hour, I think what he did was connect his hypothesis to the facts. And then prepare put him in the culprit shoes and think what they would do and place his trap. The next morning, he just followed all these steps, without the need of thinking.