Archie / Duncan Ross / William Morris Character Analysis

Archie is the criminal accomplice of John Clay. He poses under the name of Duncan Ross as the employer of Jabez Wilson, as part of the scheme to get Wilson out of his house. He hires Wilson to copy out the encyclopedia for four hours every day, strictly instructing him not to leave the building during these times. Wilson therefore knows Archie, but only in the context of the Red-Headed League, not realizing that he is in fact a criminal. Archie later disappears, and it turns out that he had also been posing under the name of William Morris, claiming to the landlord of the building that he was a solicitor seeking a temporary office. The landlord had never heard of either Duncan Ross or the Red-Headed League, and the forwarding address Archie provided leads Jabez Wilson only to an artificial knee-cap factory. Although Archie initially escapes back through the tunnel during the robbery, he is presumably apprehended at the other end of the tunnel, where Sherlock Holmes has arranged for three policemen to be stationed.