C. The gold is an attraction for a potential thief.
The story makes it pretty obvious that the gold is an attraction to a potential thief because it is all about how two thieves are actually trying very hard to break into the bank's storeroom. Mr. Merryweather, chairman of the bank's directors, explains about the French gold in the final part of the story, when Holmes, Watson, Merryweather, and a Scotland Yard officer go to...
C. The gold is an attraction for a potential thief.
The story makes it pretty obvious that the gold is an attraction to a potential thief because it is all about how two thieves are actually trying very hard to break into the bank's storeroom. Mr. Merryweather, chairman of the bank's directors, explains about the French gold in the final part of the story, when Holmes, Watson, Merryweather, and a Scotland Yard officer go to the bank at night to set a trap for the tunnelers.
"We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources and borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which I sit contains 2,000 napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the subject.”
John Clay was the only thief bold enough and clever enough to think of digging a tunnel into the underground storeroom, which, as the story shows, is guarded by a number of locked doors and gates. He had to find a nearby shop which was suitable for his purposes. The pawnshop operated by Jabez Wilson looked ideal, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created in Wilson a character who would be perfect to suit Clay's purposes.
Wilson is not very bright. He is tight with his money. He needs an assistant. He is happy to get a qualified younger man who volunteers to work for half wages. Wilson is old, fat, and phlegmatic. He suffers from high blood pressure, as his florid complexion tells Dr. Watson. Wilson would be extremely unlikely to go down the steep, rickety stairs of his cellar to see what his assistant was doing down there. And if he ever did discover Clay digging a tunnel, Clay would simply kill him with his shovel and bury him in his own cellar. It is incidental that Wilson has flaming red hair, but this gives Clay the idea of advertising an opening in the fictitious Red-Headed League in order to get his employer out of his way for about five hours a day, six days a week. Clay and his cohort are under time pressure to finish the tunnel and loot the gold because the French napoleons are only being stored there on a temporary basis.
Most money in those days was in coinage. Banks issued paper "bank notes" which could be redeemed in coins. In those days 30,000 gold coins, apparently equivalent to 30,000 British pounds, would be a fabulous haul, equivalent to millions of American dollars. Many of the Sherlock Holmes stories end up being about money, even though they start off from a different perspective. Holmes, with all his experience, must have been well aware of this supreme motivating factor. He immediately suspected there must be money involved somewhere in the problem Jabez Wilson brought to him. It is hard to think of Sherlock Holmes stories that do not concern money. For instance, in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," Dr. Grimesby Roylott killed his stepdaughter Julia and is attempting to kill his other stepdaughter Helen because he wants to keep the money he would otherwise have to pay them if they got married. So Doyle's villains are usually motivated by wanting to get money or to keep money. In the famous "The Hound of the Baskervilles," the villain Mr. Stapleton wants to get possession of the entire Baskerville estate.
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