When Sherlock Holmes is listening to Jabez Wilson's complaint, Holmes' keen mind is making assumptions and deductions that never would have occurred to the "not over-bright pawnbroker." As Holmes tells Watson at the very end of the tale, after the bank-looting has been foiled and the culprits have been taken away:
“...it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the Encyclopaedia, must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day."
So Holmes suspects the new assistant of being responsible for the hoax. This is why he asks:
“What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?”
Jabez Wilson describes the assistant as follows:
“Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his forehead.”
Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. “I thought as much,” said he. “Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for ear-rings?”
“Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a lad.”
One of the characteristics that Arthur Conan Doyle attributes to Sherlock Holmes is that he has a broad knowledge of the criminal class in England. Holmes is not only a genius, but he is an avid collector of information that will be useful to him in his profession as a consulting detective. He depends on his factual knowledge and his extensive files as well as on his great mental powers. He already suspects that such a complicated and ingenious scheme as the Red-Headed League must be the invention of a notorious criminal named John Clay. Wilson's description of his assistant confirms Holmes' suspicion--although Holmes does not divulge this conclusion either to Wilson or to his friend Watson at that time.
Arthur Conan Doyle created his characters to suit his plots. Wilson is described as old, overweight, addicted to tobacco in the form of snuff, apparently suffering from high blood pressure, and slow-witted. These characteristics explain why he fell for the Red-Headed League scam so easily and why he would never venture down the dark, steep stairs into his own cellar to see what Vincent Spaulding was doing. If he had ever done so he could have been murdered and buried in his own cellar.
As far as the description of Vincent Spaulding is concerned, it is useful for him to be "small" because he can dig a narrow tunnel. Being "stout" does not mean fat in his case, but muscular. Being "very quick in his ways" shows he will be able to scramble around easily while digging his tunnel and while he is dragging out the French gold. He is also capable of getting up and down the cellar stairs very quickly whenever the doorbell announces the entrance of a customer.
Holmes already knew a lot about John Clay. He had been trying to apprehend him for years, but Clay had always managed to elude him because he is such an ingenious criminal. Holmes even knew that Clay had his ears pierced for ear-rings. According to Wilson, Clay had had it done when he was "a lad." Clay would never make such a mistake when he was older. The little holes in both ears are identification marks he can't get rid of.
So Holmes displays "considerable excitement" when he realizes that he has been given a golden opportunity to get his hands on the notorious John Clay. He gladly takes on Jabez Wilson as a client, not with any hope of getting him reinstated in the Red-Headed League, but with the intention of getting his hands on Clay at last and preventing him from committing whatever kind of crime he is planning to perpetrate.
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