‘If you have a weapon, you run the same risk,’ he said.
I gestured with one hand as I leaned across and touched his neck with the other. As he slumped I murmured: ‘My weapon is my knowledge of the workings of everything.’
I had seen stage hypnotists. They were the same as magicians in that they operated by misdirection. In the hypnotists’ case it was the pretence that their voice provided the magic when in fact it was the fingers of one hand pressed rapidly against the carotid artery, stopping the flow of blood to the brain, whilst the audience’s attention was on whatever flourish the other hand was making.
I reached over and checked his pockets. There were no identifying papers. He carried no service revolver. I looked over at the indifferent chess game. I ignored it and observed the man as he slept, wondering who he might be. I was disturbed when others came to the booth, concerned about him. I slipped away as they attended him.
There is no family history of tremor or dystonia. My two brothers – also called James by our ludicrous parents – suffer no symptoms. And with me it is only the head and only when I am standing. Lying down relieves it. There is no equivalent tremor of the hand, as is often the case.
There the fragment breaks off. Stamford. That name is naggingly familiar and not just because the doctor’s signature on Moriarty’s death certificate could be interpreted as ‘Stamford’.
A request for any files pertaining to Dr Stamford in the London Hospital archives elicits a bulky folder. It has been closed for a hundred years until its release in 2014. It is almost impossible to hide the fact the tremor in one’s own hand has got worse, such is the excitement in opening a long-sealed file.
It is a judgement from the British Medical Council striking off Dr Stamford for unprofessional and negligent conduct related to the unexpected and unfortunate death of a patient. Reading through the judgement and an attached handwritten letter from Dr Stamford, it is clear that some dubious behind-the-scenes negotiations took place to prevent Dr Stamford going to prison for manslaughter or to the gallows for the murder of a patient. That patient was Professor James Moriarty.
Google Dr Stamford and you will see that after acting as a dresser at St Bartholomew’s Hospital he went on to research a treatment for cervical dystonia. This cure involved the use of botulinum toxin injections to allay the symptoms of dystonia. He was a pioneer in what is now the conventional treatment for the condition. A quick look at the Wikipedia site for botulism confirms that the toxin has proper medical as well as cosmetic uses.
Stamford’s official testimony about what happened in surgery with Professor Moriarty in February 1892 is concise to the point of being opaque:
I take full responsibility for miscalculating the dose. The patient, Professor James Moriarty, suffered from a severe form of cervical dystonia. The oscillation of his head was severe. I advised him that injecting botulinum toxin would allay his symptoms but that the treatment was still in the research stages. I advised him that calculating the right dosage – based on his age and body weight – was difficult and there was what some might regard as an unacceptable margin of error.
Too little and it would have no effect. Too much and he risked death by choking since his respiratory system would be paralysed. He expressed the opinion that since the oscillation of his neck caused him such inconvenience he was willing to take the risk.
The appropriate paralysis quickly set in after the intramuscular injection and his head stopped its oscillations. But then it became clear the toxin was continuing its work beyond the intended area. The paralysis spread more extensively than I had anticipated. Professor Moriarty struggled both to breathe and speak. There was nothing to be done, no way to stop the lethal work of the toxin. He died within eight minutes of the administration of the dosage.
This testimony was dated February 1892. The appended, handwritten letter was dated May 1894 and is the reason Dr Stamford was struck off. In it he stated:
I took the Hippocratic Oath to save not end life. It weighs heavily on my conscience that I took the life of Professor James Moriarty deliberately. I did this under my own volition. Although my old friend and colleague Dr James Watson was present he was not party to my decision so no blame can be attributed to him.
You may know that at the very start of my career I had been a dresser under Dr Watson at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and had been instrumental in bringing him together with my research laboratory acquaintance, Sherlock Holmes, to share lodgings and begin their remarkable career together.
When Professor Moriarty came to me I had already been alerted to the fact he had survived the Reichenbach Falls by Dr Watson, who had seen his name on the list of survivors of the SS Utopia disaster. It enraged me that he had killed such a man as Sherlock Holmes and I decided that I was in a unique position to avenge that great man’s death.
On the day of Professor Moriarty’s treatment, Dr Watson was present in an adjoining room. Once I had administered the fatal injection, he emerged. Moriarty was surprised to see him again – the two men had met briefly in Simpson’s chess rooms – and then became alarmed when Watson identified himself.
He flailed around for a moment but I had taken the precaution of strapping him to the bed on which he lay and the injection soon enough began to take effect and hamper his movements.
As paralysis set in I told him that I had given him a deliberate overdose of botulinum toxin as punishment for his murder of Sherlock Holmes. His eyes bulging, he managed a few words before his vocal cords and respiratory system were totally paralysed.
He said (and it chills me now to think how I dismissed his words as simply those of a desperate man): ‘The meddler and I made an agreement. He is not dead.’ His mouth contorted horribly as he struggled for breath. We had to lean in to hear Moriarty’s final, choked words. ‘He will return,’ he said. Then he died.
Almost three years later, it fills me with shame that he was telling some form of the truth. As the world knows, Sherlock Holmes has returned in time to participate in the ‘Adventure of the Empty House’ and solve the mystery of the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair. As to whether he made an agreement with Professor Moriarty to save both their lives I cannot conjecture. Only he and, perhaps, his chronicler can know the truth of that and it may well be a story for which the world is not yet prepared …
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 62