Jabez Wilson seems generally pleased with his new assistant, but he has one complaint.
“Oh, he has his faults, too,” said Mr. Wilson. “Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault, but on the whole he's a good worker. There's no vice in him.”
It is ironic that Wilson says "There's no vice in him," when it turns out that his assistant is just about the most dangerous criminal in all of Britain. Wilson does not realize that he has inadvertently given Sherlock Holmes a clue which would seem to explain a good deal about the Red-Headed League and the assistant's willingness to come to work in Wilson's pawn shop for half wages. This man who calls himself Vincent Spaulding likes this location because he is digging a tunnel. Before Holmes and Watson ever go to inspect the area around Wilson's place of business in Saxe Coburg Square, the detective has decided that Vincent Spaulding is really the notorious criminal John Clay and that he must be planning to tunnel into some nearby building to commit a burglary. When Holmes sees the local branch of the City and Suburban Bank, he is sure that must be Clay's objective. Holmes has also decided, as he later tells Watson, that Clay must have invented the Red-Headed League in order to get his employer out of the way for four hours a day, six days a week, so that he and his accomplice could devote all that time to digging their tunnel.
Arthur Conan Doyle designs his character Jabez Wilson in such a way that there should be no probability of his ever deciding to venture down into his own cellar out of curiosity to see what his assistant is up to. When Watson first sees him he describes him as follows:
I HAD CALLED upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced elderly gentleman with fiery red hair.
Wilson is both elderly and very stout. His physical condition would prevent him from venturing down a steep set of wooden steps into a dark cellar and having to climb back up again. The fact that he is "florid-faced" suggests that he has high blood pressure and could risk having a stroke. Furthermore, he is shown to be a heavy snuff-user. At one point Conan Doyle shows Wilson engaged in his bad habit.
“Your experience has been a most entertaining one,” remarked Holmes as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of snuff. “Pray continue your very interesting statement.”
Snuff is a finely ground tobacco which is inhaled rather than smoked. Like all tobacco, it ought to have a debilitating effect on the user's heart and lungs. It is a good thing for Wilson that he never did go down into his cellar while his assistant was "developing his photographs." Wilson would have found a tunnel in progress and mounds of dirt all over the floor, and John Clay would not have hesitated to murder his employer with a shovel and bury him in his own cellar.
Jabez Wilson is an excellent example of how a good fiction writer can fashion a character to suit the needs of his plot.
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