Best and Wisest Man

by Hamish Crawford

“But you see, Mary … I know it is the decision I want to make.”

  9 ‘The Copper Beeches’, published in the Strand Magazine, June 1892.

  10 ‘The Dying Detective’, Strand Magazine, December 1913.

  1891

  “But indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot blame you, for the days of the great cases are past. Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all his enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils, and giving advice to young ladies from boarding schools.”

  -‘The Copper Beeches’ (1892)

  26 April - In the mail this morning there came a curious correspondence. It was written on high-quality paper, in the delicate handwriting of a refined lady. It did not, however, match the writing or prose style of Kate or Mrs. Forrester, or any other friends. No friend of mine, similarly, would write me an anonymous letter, knowing the unsettling feeling I had when Thaddeus Sholto’s missive arrived that fateful day.

  Dear Mrs. Mary Watson,

  I write to you on a matter of some delicacy. I would be very gratified if you would consent to meet with me to discuss matters of importance to you and your family. A single afternoon of your time is, I assure you, all that I require, whatever its outcome may be. I shall be at the Orangerie Teahouse in Kensington Gardens on Thursday at 1:00. I do not mean to disconcert you with this correspondence and assure you that my intentions are entirely benevolent.

  A Friend

  James has reconciled with Holmes, although he is still adamant that he will devote more time to his new family when the time is right. Today he was talking with an editor at the Strand Magazine named Herbert Greenhough Smith. I am sure this bodes well for future Sherlock Holmes publications, but at the moment it leaves me without anyone to advise me on my course of action. I thus went to see Mrs. Forrester, always a trusted confidante at times like this.

  “As you say, it is a woman’s writing. So what could the danger be?” she asked rhetorically.

  “I am not so sure about that reasoning.”

  “Well, are there any women whom either you or Dr. Watson may have come into contact with professionally? It may be someone looking for Sherlock Holmes.”

  “You have something there, Mrs. Forrester. James mentioned someone … Irene Adler was her name, Holmes always knew her as ‘The Woman’. Perhaps it could be her?”

  Though I still have my doubts, being able to put a face to a name does make me a little more confident about the prospect of meeting this person.

  4 May -I am still reeling from this strange encounter. To think that all week I had been avoiding mentioning it to James. My mind was made up after all, and there seemed to be little point in discussing it with him until after it had occurred. Now that it has, though, I scarcely know what to tell him. I came home trembling, and held little Mary tight to my bosom for a long while.

  I arrived slightly early in the Strand, and walked into the busy tea room. How strange its mundane operations now seem! Frustratingly, I could see no lady sitting alone, and none present matched the description of Irene Adler. I surveyed the room in an aimless agitation for a few minutes, and was on the point of turning on my heel and leaving.

  If only I had!

  I had nearly walked back to the entrance, when a man rose from a corner table and walked towards me. His face bore a look of warm recognition, and he beamed at me as he said, “My dear Mrs. Watson, you quite cut me dead. Come, join my wife and myself over here.”

  “You must be mistaken,” I said calmly. I was already uneasy at the sight of the man. His dress, manner, and appearance were the epitome of respectability: a severe black frock coat and stiff collar. He had an ascetic face, and the high forehead hinted - as I am aware from Holmes’s interest in phrenology - to a refined intellectual nature.

  However, there was something about his manner that made this respectability perverse. Though he gave a consummate performance of recognition and enthusiasm, behind his warm words there was dead-eyed blankness. His upper lip curled into his teeth, in a manner that betrayed some vile appetite - yes, I do not exaggerate when I say that he was trying with considerable effort to suppress thoughts of cruelty and violence that were his nature. The gulf between the performance’s authenticity and its sincerity, if that makes sense, held the key to its repulsion.

  “No mistake, surely!” he boomed, adding a tenor of bonhomie to his voice. “I arranged it with Doctor Watson himself, though it is a shame he will not be able to join us. Come, come, my dear, please have a seat and the three of us shall have be sufficiently gay in his absence.”

  He took my arm and led me to his corner table, with just enough pressure to make me feel entrapped. Sitting next to him by the window was a refined lady of about his age. She was plump and attired as respectably as he was. “You of course, remember my wife Gladys,” he explained. As with him, I had never seen this lady before in my life, and would certainly have said so had I not locked eyes with this poor woman.

  There in her gaze, I saw a coiled spring of desperation and despair. She was trapped here, even more emphatically than I was. She gave her supposed husband a sidelong glance paralysed with fear. Then, remembering her part in this grotesque theatre that had been convened for my benefit, she arched her lips in an over-acted smile and said, “Oh my dear Mary, it is so very good to see you again.” The panic beneath her jollity - jollity that had clearly been coaxed from her by force - still fills me with unbridled fear.

  As the waiter poured out my tea, and I sipped it uncertainly, the man and his wife made idle and pleasant chat. Then, when the young man departed, the mask slipped away from the man’s face.

  “Mrs. Watson, I can see you are an unusually intelligent woman. It is no surprise that your husband finds you such … stimulating company.” He curled his lip up in an abominable imitation of a smile.

  Though I was inwardly quaking in terror, I did my best to retain my composure. “You have the advantage of me, sir. And indeed, I had not expected to meet a gentleman here.” I looked sideways at his cowering companion. “There, at least, I remain correct.”

  My quip - possibly an ill-considered one given my situation - raised his upper lip in gratification again. “Come come, that is a little crude of you to say. I was once a tutor at Dundee University. I am after all a man of means. A man of property.” He fixed the woman across from us with a lascivious stare. “To clarify though, this good woman is not my wife, but I felt sure it would set the scene for our encounter the better. And I am something of a stickler for getting these details correct. Unlike that degenerate Holmes, who never once attempts to play the game of respectable society.”

  Here it was, then. The mention of Holmes triggered an animus in this man I have never seen in a human being. This was beyond hatred, this was a destructive will that reminded me of Lucifer himself when I had first read Milton’s Paradise Lost. If the comparison seems inappropriate, let me assure you of its gravity while I sat there drinking that infernal tea.

  “I take it, then, that you are this Napoleon of Crime?”

  “How gratifying, though a touch condescending. Holmes must have given me that honorific.”

  Not wishing to reveal anything that might compromise Holmes or James, I said nothing. He nodded in a curious gesture of respect.

  “James Moriarty, ma’am. Professor James Moriarty, at your service. Do they speak often of me?”

  “Hardly at all. If you wish to extract information from me--”

  “Come come, my dear Mrs. Watson. What kind of barbarian do you take me for?”

  “I only need judge by your handiwork.”

  For a moment, he did not follow my reference, until he regarded his companion, and then he nodded and emitted a high-pitched bray of laughter. “Oh, my handiwork is considerably more refined than this unfortunate. I am helping her, though, just as I help people of all stripes and walks of life with my actions. Not through the child-like crusade of Holmes, but by a more hol
istic approach. This good woman, for example, has been blackmailed over a marital indiscretion. A terrible man, Charles Milverton, had acquired indiscreet letters, and I gained their possession in exchange for … the use of her.” He stroked her cheek. She shuddered at the contact, and I could sympathize; Moriarty made the simple pressure of his hand seem like a violation.

  “Isn’t that obliging of me?” he asked rhetorically. “Her husband shall never know of her wicked ways.”

  “I beg of you! To carry on in this obscene way!” I exclaimed.

  “When our interview is over, she is quite free to go. Just as you are. But that is a fine example. You see, our society depends on people like me to keep its cog-wheels in motion. A cutthroat will only destroy for the contents of a meagre purse, a maniac like Jack the Ripper lashes out to conquer his mental deficiencies. I admire the methods of both but am superior because, you see, I can control. I can bring order to the chaos that was the unruly criminal world of our miserable country. That is what I deplore in Holmes - his coarse and destructive impulses. He would destroy the delicate system that I have created, and bring in its place, what?”

  “Sherlock Holmes seeks to restore order, not destroy it. What you describe is nothing more than barbarity.”

  “Barbarity, you say? Death, poverty, vice, greed. These are barbarities, but ones that exist whether I control them or not. Would it not be better to have a mind such as mine at the top of such a bleak and ugly cycle? As the saying goes, the butcher with the sharpest knife has the warmest heart.”

  “I cannot accept your reasoning, it is diseased and poisoned by your abnormal world view,” I said finally. “Could we come to the point of this interview? You surely need not have dragged me all the way here just to offer a justification for your savage actions.”

  “That is a fair point. You should thank me, I think, for the generosity I am about to extend to you. You see, I have come here to offer a warning.”

  “How very common of you. Are you threatening me or my husband?”

  “Let us not forget that daughter of yours,” he added. My heart missed a beat as he did. “No, no! Once again, you give me such little credit, it is quite hurtful. Mister Holmes and I have waged our war for two years now, and it has reached an intractable impasse, I regret to say. Neither my actions nor Holmes’s can undo anything at this stage, so I believe I am bound to destroy him.”

  “You give yourself too much credit - he could and should easily destroy you.”

  He gave this thought an agreeable nod. “Hmm, your confidence is touching but misplaced. But never mind that. Doctor Watson is a gentleman to whom I bear no ill will. Indeed, in a way I admire his tenacious loyalty - in my own circles I have found few men so thoroughly faithful. I am bound and obliged to destroy Holmes for my own sake, but there is no need to trouble him or you again. A resolution that omitted you from its span you would, I feel sure, find satisfactory. So let me propose this to you. Take your husband away from his sick friend and his morbid obsessions. Let Dr. Watson concentrate on raising his family in peace, and love you as a woman of your calibre deserves. I remember with much affection how happy you looked on your wedding day. I can see the sincerity in both your hearts. Why not put this unhappy business behind you and make him forget all this?”

  “Sherlock Holmes is a part of both our lives. I could not ask my husband to betray his friend at this hour of need. And he would never countenance it for a second. I would not expect you to understand such sentiments, it is no surprise to me that loyalty and love are attributes you seldom encounter.”

  “What a shame. It truly hurts me to hear you say that. These positions are so … untenable. My operations are deeply embedded in the very government of this country. Even a detective of Mr. Holmes’s esteem would be unable to destroy such a firm bulwark. Neither he nor Watson have any official backing. My Scotland Yard sources tell me this peccadillo to bring me to justice has greatly jeopardized Holmes’s standing with the Force, reduced the poor fellow to a laughing stock. And now they shall both perish. I regret to say that this has also made an enemy of you, my dear. I may in fact need to modify my plans …”

  I swallowed, my utter despair and terror taking control of my body. But I would not let this wretched villain see my resolve falter. Whatever happened, I would greet it with dignity. Why had I not told James of my visit here? What if this event gave Moriarty some advantage?

  Then, as if to break this hypnotic and sickening nightmare, I heard a clear voice call across the tea room: “Is that Mrs. Watson?”

  I turned - only fractionally, lest I let Moriarty out of my line of vision - and saw a red-faced man in drab attire. He walked toward me, removing his shabby bowler hat in deference.

  “Tobias Gregson, Mrs. Watson. We met at your wedding, I’m a good friend of your husband and Mr. Holmes.”

  “Oh yes, of course, Inspector Gregson. Which way are you bound?”

  “Funny you should ask, Mrs. Watson, it’s your husband’s friend Mr. Holmes. Says someone’s been dropping bricks on his head in Vere Street, I’m just bound over there.”

  “What an extraordinary coincidence, I am also!” I beamed at him. I would have flung my arms around him and kissed him, so elated was I. “And of course, Professor, you did promise your good wife that she could accompany me. It would be such a dull afternoon for so distinguished a gentleman anyway, I am sure you are desperate to return to your equations.”

  The Professor, dedicated as he was to his veneer of respectability, smiled thinly and quietly seethed in his seat as I walked out of the tea room with the poor woman on one side and Gregson on the other. “But Mrs. Watson, I didn’t have any tea,” he protested.

  “I shall buy you all the tea you need,” I insisted, “ Somewhere else, though, I beg of you.”

  I did not see the other woman again, and can only speculate on her fate. She fled as fast as she could as soon as we reached Gregson’s carriage. I began to tell him what had happened, but as soon as the name ‘Moriarty’ escaped my lips, a fatuous smile of sympathy crossed his lips and he was no longer amenable to anything I would say.

  “Begging your pardon, Mrs. Watson, but I really can’t let you go on about all this. Holmes and Watson no doubt got to you too,” he declared with condescension. “The whole thing will be Mr. Holmes’s undoing, I’m afraid. There’s no greater admirer than I am of his methods, but it is all quite ludicrous. Still, mind like his couldn’t keep pumping away forever, could it?”

  After I returned home and held little Mary in my arms - oh, what an utter relief it was to see her - I rushed into James’s examining room. I was no doubt in a somewhat dishevelled state, and so he escorted me into his other room and left his baffled-looking patient.

  I told him the whole horrifying incident, not holding back my sobbing. He nodded gravely.

  “Once again, Mary, to think that I doubted him and you retained your faith. Which of us is the more loyal friend?”

  “There is no question, James, that you must help him purge this … cancerous individual from his place in London’s criminal underworld.”

  “I am so glad to hear you say that,” cried the patient from the other room. Scarcely noticing him, I was as startled as James was to see him slip putty from his face and reveal himself as Sherlock Holmes. “Your daughter Mary saw through it at once, I must admit. She was winking at me frantically as I crossed the stairs.”

  After he drew the blinds, Holmes proceeded to explain that Moriarty had been to see him the other day. He reported their encounter with a matter-of-fact terseness that belied its colossal import. “Now then, Watson, since your last patient has made, shall we say, something of a recovery, I must move at once.”

  “You will spend the night here?” James asked.

  “No my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest. I have my plans laid, and all will be well.” There was a definite tremble of doubt in his voice, but he continued to outline his plans with his usual precision. The only other sign of fragil
ity was his deference to me at the end of his programme, when he asked, “There is only the small matter, then, of your wife’s permission?”

  “Of course you have it.” I put a hand on each of their cheeks, a gesture I felt Holmes shrink in discomfort at. “Do whatever is necessary, gentlemen. I wish you Godspeed.”

  Later -With Holmes in pursuit of Moriarty, James can tell me nothing of his movements. “Even I do not know anything of them. He wouldn’t even leave through the front door, instead he hopped over the garden wall.”

  “Will he be safe?”

  “His brother’s rooms at the Diogenes Club are, by his estimation, the safest and most inviolable walls in all England. And he needs not worry about its members speaking out of turn about any unusual guests [11]. Tomorrow I am bound for the Lowther Arcade.”

  With Holmes gone, and with such fear in both our hearts, we passed the night once more in marital intimacy. For these all too brief moments, it seemed as though all would be right in the world. But then, an hour later, James rose and dressed. His long journey - Holmes’s final problem - was set to begin.

  Many months ago I had begun a tapestry. It is in truth an ugly thing, and I had put it away unfinished. But today, it felt right to take it out and complete it. There is something in this quest of theirs that brings to mind the Odyssey, and as much to spare myself from the thought of the death that these dear men dance with, I am instead trying to think of myself as a virtuous Penelope, at her knitting, her life consumed with hope for the day when her love returns.

  I sit and wait ..

  (As far as can be determined, Mary recorded no further diary entries this year. Her next entry picks up recapping from this point. But from an historical perspective, July 1891 may be the most important date in Sherlockian history to this point. For it was then that the Strand Magazine published ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, the first of its series entitled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. For it was here that the detective’s fame, and indeed his immortality, was cemented. )