You may not have heard of ghost jobs. If so, consider yourself lucky. A relatively new phenomenon, a ghost job is a fake job listing. Either no such job exists or, more likely, the position has already been filled. Companies do this for various reasons, like making it seem as though business is booming or to have a file of prospective employees at hand should they ever decide to start hiring.

I thought about ghost jobs when reading “The Stockbroker’s Clerk” because it’s another Holmes story where the plot hinges on someone being hired for a phoney job. The connection many people make is to “The Red-Headed League” but it’s also related to “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.” It’s a device that seemed to stick in Doyle’s head.

A Cockney clerk with the wonderful name of Hall Pycroft realizes something is fishy about the job he’s offered in Birmingham, but as in the other cases I mentioned he’s willing to play along, just as long as he’s being paid. He contacts Holmes, however, to investigate his suspicions, which turn out to be well founded. The job was just a distraction, used to further a robbery scheme.

As it turns out, Holmes doesn’t have to do much. The London robbery is foiled by the police (on their own!) and Holmes only has to deal with the Birmingham side of the operation. And even then the bad guy has already given up. It’s not one of Doyle’s more inspired efforts and you could be forgiven for thinking he was tiring of things already.

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