The mood of “The Red-Headed League” is lighthearted, entertaining, and suspenseful. While some of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories enter a darker or more ominous register, “The Red-Headed League” is one of his lighter stories. After all, over the course of the story, only silly (rather than serious) crimes are committed, such as the criminal mastermind Clay pretending to be Wilson’s innocent assistant “Spaulding,” and he and his accomplice Archie going to elaborate lengths to convince Wilson to work for the fake Red-Headed League.
Even in the climactic scene, in which Holmes captures Clay tunneling into the cellar of a bank to rob it, the mood remains surprisingly lighthearted, as seen in the following passage:
Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’s hunting crop came down on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
“It’s no use, John Clay,” said Holmes blandly. “You have no chance at all.”
“So I see,” the other answered with the utmost coolness. “I fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails.”
While this passage opens with a suspenseful and exciting mood—Watson describes how Holmes springs up and “seize[s] the intruder by the collar”—it does not escalate into a full-blown action sequence. Instead, when Clay’s “light flashe[s] upon the barrel of a revolver,” Holmes simply pushes it away with his hunting crop, and it makes an unimpressive “clink” sound against the floor. Clay likewise immediately accepts his fate, easily acknowledging that his plan has failed and stating “with the utmost coolness” that his accomplice, at least, was able to escape. In this way, Clay upends readers’ expectations—though he is a notorious criminal who has worked tirelessly on this plan for months, he accepts his fate, and the story reaches a satisfying conclusion.
