The story opens with Mr. Wilson turning to Sherlock Holmes and his friend Mr. Watson, because he has been involved in a mystery he can't quite understand. According to Wilson's narrative, Vincent Spaulding, his employee, brought to his attention a newspaper advertisement in which an organization that went under the name of The Red-headed League called for red-headed men to do some kind of job in exchange for 4 pounds a week.
As Wilson was red-headed himself and was also lured by the money, he didn't think twice and showed up at the address of the advertisement. There, even though the place was packed with hundreds of red-headed men, Duncan Ross shortly interviews Wilson and gives him the job on the spot. What Wilson had to do was just to copy out the Encyclopedia Britannica and under no circumstance leave the place during his four-hour shift. He did as he was told during a couple of weeks until one morning, when much to his surprise, he saw at the entrance of his workplace a sing that read "The read-headed league is dissolved".
At this point, Sherlock Holmes is almost sure what is going on. Accompanied by Watson, he pays a visit to Vincent Spaulding at Wilson's house, and while playing the fool he asks him how to get to some place and notices that his knees are dirty. Right after, Sherlock calls police man Jones and Mr. Merryweather, the manager of the back next door.
After this, Sherlock leads the men to hide in the bank vault expecting the thieves to show up. As soon as they do so, they imprison John Clay who had previously passed himself out as Vincent Spaulding, Wilson's employee, and Archie whose fake name was Duncan Ross. As it turns out, they had set up a fake red-headed league to move Wilson out of his property during the morning, so that John Clay (or Vincent Spaulding) could make a tunnel to the bank vault.
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