A Reflection of Evil: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery

by william Todd

  “I perceived its outline in the pocket of that ridiculous uniform he was wearing long before I was knocked on the head. No, Watson, playing along was best for both of us.”

  “I suppose you are right,” I finally acquiesced as Jefferies approached.

  Lestrade said to towering officer, “Holmes says there is a home just on the other side of these woods that might have a phone or telegraph. We need to message back to Paddington and tell MacQuarrie to have as many ambulances standing by as he can muster. We’ve got a score of injured here who will be in need of assistance as soon as we pull in.”

  “One man in particular is on the verge of losing his leg,” I added. “They will need to know that.”

  “How many fatalities?” Jefferies asked.

  “Three that I know of for certain. The engine driver, fireman, and at least one person in the first coach. There may be more once the cleanup uncovers them.”

  Holmes stopped Jefferies before he started off through the woods. “Take at least one or two of your men with you. There is a dead man in the boathouse and another in the manor house who, I would not doubt, has met the same fate.”

  Lestrade gave him a questioning stare.

  “The late professor Moriarty’s brother James lies dead in the boathouse and the other probable victim goes by the name of Boyle.”

  “I never thought I would hear the Moriarty name again, with regard to criminal activity.” Lestrade said.

  “Nor I,” Holmes replied.

  As the three of us walked back up to the train, Holmes between us, Lestrade said still not knowing any of the particulars, “Was it you who did those two in?”

  “Hardly. It was Sebastian Moran.”

  Lestrade seemed surprised. “I thought he was coming for you. He was one of the escapees. Once we realized that, it was all we could do to get here.”

  “He would never stoop so low as to eat the scraps from Moriarty’s table. He had me in his sights and chose the station master instead. If my death is to come, it will be at his hands and not anyone else’s…at least that is what he thinks.”

  Lestrade sighed. “To think that I was coming to save your hide from Moran, and it turns out it didn’t need saving, after all.”

  Rubbing the painful protuberance on the back of his head, Holmes said, “Inspector, you must know that it is in precisely those situations for which I have Watson. Besides, you did much better than saving me. It is your train that will save these injured people. That itself should be a much better reward. I commend you on your foresight.”

  Lestrade smiled at the rare compliment from Sherlock Holmes.

  “So how did all this happen? he asked, sweeping his hand around at the wreckage.

  “All in due time, Lestrade. Do they not teach patience at Scotland Yard? Let us get the injured on the train and head back to London. We can hash over the particulars of this little affair on the trip back.”

  “I can’t wait. These stories tend to never be boring ones,” he replied with a grin.

  Chapter 12

  Jefferies had indeed found Boyle dead. His throat had been cut, and he bled out in a rhododendron grove in the back garden of the estate. Moran, or one of the other escapees in Moran’s confidence, had made sure that his death would be a quiet one. Two others were found in a similar fashion, also on the grounds near the manor. The home was, surprisingly, void of any and all staff. Through whatever power he possessed, the station master had made sure that there would be no witnesses to his nefarious actions.

  And true to Holmes’ word there was a telegraph machine in the home. Jefferies telegraphed Paddington station, and the station master, MacQuarrie, assured him that there would be ample medical personnel standing by when they pulled in.

  Meanwhile, Todd was able to stitch the long gouge in my shoulder left by Moriarty’s bullet before we, along with all the injured, finally boarded the train.

  Before long, we were backtracking to London, pushed by the train rather than being pulled. Holmes even made rounds, making sure all the injured were well taken care of. The guilt of the situation was weighing heavily upon him.

  After twenty minutes into the return trip, he finally sat down with Lestrade, Jefferies, and myself.

  Lestrade said, “We, the three of us, have been wracking our collective brains trying to piece this whole affair together. I must admit, Holmes, that there are a few links in the chain missing, and I can’t seem to jump the gap.”

  “Yes, there does seem to be much to go over,” he said solemnly, pinching away pain at the bridge of his nose.

  “You will get those injuries to your head looked at properly when we return,” I said in no uncertain terms.

  He smiled weakly at me. “I’ve only been knocked about the head twice today. Some rest is all I need, however if it will please you…”

  Holmes inhaled deeply a few times, which seemed to restore his senses, and his eyes brightened if only a little. “Now let me see if I can put this puzzle together for you. Stop me if anything is unclear.”

  We all listened attentively.

  “It is a well-known fact that Watson and I have been severely underutilized these past several months. I found it quite suspicious that it seemed London had begun to turn into a utopia, devoid of almost any crime of significance. Then, we were graced by a ‘Mrs. Merrick’ with a story about her missing husband in Swansea. I, as I mentioned to Watson, was doubtful of the sincerity of her story. She gave me a cryptic poem that had supposedly been left by his abductors. All the clues were there, but I needed more data to connect the points.”

  “What did this enigmatic script say?” asked the inspector.

  “It was only significant in so far as it held clues to who was behind the ruse of ‘Mrs. Merrick’. I can’t bring myself to recite such de minimis. Once was enough. At any rate, that was as far as I had gotten when you sent word to me about the prison riot and break at The Scrubs. It was then that my wheels began turning. You see, your man mentioned a transfer a few days prior from Brixton. Now, Lestrade, I do not expect you to follow the whereabouts of everyone you incarcerate, but my well-being may depend upon it. I knew that Colonel Sebastian Moran was indeed a prisoner at Brixton. I had deduced that Moran was probably one of the transfers and was behind the riot and prison break. That was the first piece in this little puzzle we are piecing together.

  Counting off on his slender fingers Holmes continued, “So far, we have a woman who wants us to go to Swansea in the west of the Isle, and you have a prison transfer from south-central London to west London. Not a believer in coincidences, I felt the two were somehow related, but I didn’t have enough data, as yet, to be certain. So, for the sake of my stream of logic, I reasoned that whatever the little play was it was to be acted out in the west of London or the west of England.”

  He turned to me. “Watson, who do you know that has significant ties to any of our more spectacular cases that lives and works in the west of England?”

  “Well, we all know now it was Colonel James Moriarty,” I replied.

  “You even mentioned him in one of your little stories, if I remember correctly.”

  “I remember. But when did you begin to suspect he played a part in this?”

  “I began to think there were others besides Moran involved in this affair when we were on the train. A criminal is most comfortable in situations where he can hide behind his cover. By taking this particular case, we were forced onto a four-hour train ride with stops at three different stations. My question to you, Watson, would be, how could you not know it was Professor Moriarty’s station master brother?”

  “But he had no visible ties to the criminal activities of his brother,” I replied, still finding it hard to follow Holmes’ admittedly obtuse train of thought.

  Holmes held up a hand, “Tut, tut. We will get there, I assure you. Remember, Watson, sometimes one can see the picture in the puzzle with some of the pieces still missing.”

  Lestrade broke in, “So you have some wom
an wanting you to go to Swansea and Moran wanting to go a prison in west London. Continue.”

  “And you are forgetting the drought of criminal activity. That was the impetus of all of this. It was part of Moriarty’s master plan in my demise. He seemed to be under the impression that with nothing to use my deductive skills on the sharpness of my mind would somehow rust and dull, and I would unwittingly follow his rather amateurish plan. So, if you are following, we now have three pieces to work with. The picture was coming into view but its entirety was still a bit in the fog. I was able to completely put the thing together when I was able to speak directly with the station master himself.”

  “And what information did he give that clarified things to your satisfaction?” Lestrade asked.

  “Among other trivialities I need not bother you with, I needed to know if he had anything to do with the prison break at The Scrubs. When he answered in the negative, the entire puzzle was as clear as this summer day.”

  Holmes smiled triumphantly. “And this is the whole affair as I see it: A posthumous letter penned by Professor Moriarty to exact revenge upon me was given initially to his right-hand man, Moran, although I don’t believe he needed asking to take up the job, when it was learned I had survived Reichenbach. When he failed and was imprisoned, the letter passed to Moriarty’s twin brother—”

  “Twin?” Lestrade exclaimed. “Bloody hell. There’s been a lookalike all this time?”

  “And he used his appearance to play on the loyalties of some in the underworld who still pined for Professor Moriarty’s master criminal mind. They sought solace in a reflection of evil; and that evil was going to usurp Moran as his brother’s number two and take over what was left of the enterprise his brother had built. Well, Moran got wind of this, and from that point had plotted his escape to deal with the usurper Moriarty.”

  I asked, “Why would Moran care about any of this if he was in prison?”

  “He was still running the organization from the comfort of his cell, Watson. He employed the best lawyers money could buy. His stay in prison wasn’t going to be as long as his crimes warranted precisely because there was very little they could actually pin on him.”

  Lestrade interjected again, “So he planned his escape to deal with Moriarty, not you?”

  “Precisely. In the end, this whole grizzly affair boiled down to this: Colonel James Moriarty was going after me for revenge of the death of his brother and in the process take over his dead brother’s enterprise, and Sabastian Moran was going after Moriarty to protect the empire that he had inherited from the professor.”

  “Honesty, Holmes, I don’t know how you do it.”

  Holmes’ eyes lowered and his expression soured. “Yes, well there was one piece of the puzzle that I neglected to take into account, and it cost at least three lives and many injuries.”

  “You are not God,” Lestrade reminded the detective determinedly. “There are some things that even the likes of you cannot predict with your machine-like brain. The world has one less murderer to deal with. Who knows how many lives were saved by James Moriarty’s death. That, at least, needs to be contemplated too. You give yourself too little credit, Holmes, especially when things don’t go entirely as you plan.”

  An uncomfortable silence ensued as Holmes sunk into a quiet contemplation.

  Sensing the conversation was over, Lestrade and Jefferies excused themselves and left the compartment to see to the others on the train.

  We both sat quietly for some time, watching the growing dusk overtake the countryside outside our window. There were times where, even when Holmes’ services where employed, people died. It was not new to him. Yet this seemed to wear on him particularly hard.

  I thought that I would be the one to break the silence, but it was Holmes who finally spoke. “I know my melancholy worries you, Watson.”

  “Only because I do not know the seed from which it grows. We have had outcomes like this before. Fatalities bothered you, but they focused your powers; they bothered you to action, not despair.”

  He was silent for a moment regaining his usual stoic composure then said phlegmatically, “We are witnessing the birth of a new world, Watson. Witnessing a changing of the guard in criminality. There is a new, more powerful strain of evil coursing in their veins that compels them to take as many innocent lives as possible in their lust for power and riches. I shudder to think what kind of criminal is evolving before our eyes. A hundred years from now there could be hundreds—thousands—of men with my abilities, and we will be helpless to stop them.”

  I shook my head. “Helpless with intelligence and logic such as yours, I hardly doubt that.”

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the gentle vibrations of the window. “I daresay that there will come a time in the not-too-distant future where the scope and magnitude of the atrocities committed by men like Moran and the Moriarty brothers—and worse—will defy all logic, Watson. Even mine. Men like me will not be able to stop them, catch them after the fact, perhaps, but not stop them.”

  “I have faith in you,” I said. “I have faith in all that is good defeating all that is bad. I will always have faith that we, and people like us, will leave this world a little better than we found it.”

  He allowed himself a thin smile as he gazed wearily at me. “You are to me as a shadow is to a man on a bright day, Watson. I am thankful that in my years I have had more sun than cloud.”

  He sighed then reclosed his eyes. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to allow myself to dream about the bees I will someday keep in my retirement to Sussex—just for a while, Watson. Then we will have to set our sights on catching Moran.”

  Chapter 13

  In the three days following the Gloucester Calamity, a sensational title concocted by the papers, Lestrade had kept us apprised of the recovery of the twenty-nine wounded from the crash. It was eventually found out that three dead bodies were in the rubble of the demolished first coach, bringing the total dead to five. The news of more deaths would have no doubt cast Holmes back into an introverted state had more intriguing news not arrived on the heels of the first; Moran had been captured—or more aptly put, surrendered. This news caught Holmes somewhat off guard, and he enticed me to come along, as he wanted to meet Lestrade at the prison then pay Moran a visit.

  ^^^^^

  We met Lestrade in the prison governor’s office. He and Mullenax were deep in discussion at the governor’s desk when the monstrous guard Blatty showed us in.

  “So, he actually turned himself in?” Holmes asked as Lestrade motioned us over.

  “What a stroke of luck,” said Lestrade. “But his story doesn’t quite match how you surmised this whole thing went down.”

  “I would be surprised if it had,” Holmes replied dryly.

  “And he had witnesses that seemed to corroborate his story and unwilling participation in this whole affair.”

  “Had?” Holmes questioned.

  Lestrade rubbed the back of his neck with agitation. “Yes, well two of three men with him died at our hands in an exchange of gunfire, and the other was found hanged in his cell this morning.”

  “How convenient.”

  Mullenax added, “We have him alone in one wing of cell block D for the time being.”

  Lestrade emphasized angrily, “Three of my men heard the confession of the others. Unless we have other witnesses, he cannot be charged with Moriarty’s or Boyle’s death. He will get away with this scot-free”

  Well, we have the man himself,” said Holmes matter-of-factly.

  “Yes, and he is going to just freely admit to us his involvement in all this?”

  “To you, Lestrade, no…” He turned to Governor Mullenax. “Sir, if you would be so kind, I want you to tell me everything you can about the particular area in which you have Moran incarcerated.”

  ^^^^^

  The lights flickered in the ill-lit hallway, and our shoes clicked hollowly on the cement floor as we were escorted by Blatty
down a long, tunnel-like corridor. At our end of the hallway the door had been guarded; at the other end the door was presumably locked from the other side, since no guard sentried that post.

  “Say, weren’t you two in the train wreck?” Blatty asked breaking up the monotony of the echoes. “I seem to remember the inspector saying some such. It’s plastered in all the papers.”

  Holmes did not respond, and I just shook my head silently at him to fend off any unwanted and uncomfortable chit chat.

  “Oh, sorry,” he whispered back to me.

  Halfway down the hall’s length, a perpendicular corridor with thick stone walls started to the left. This was our destination.

  “Well here we are. All tucked safely back in,” he said, pointing to the first cell on the right at the junction of the two halls. “He’s the only one down this hall. He’s been a naughty one, this one has. Doesn’t play well with others.”

  Moran had heard us coming and was retreating to a shabby bed, laying down with his hands tucked behind his head.

  “And no funny business from you, Moran,” Blatty added. “I’m just down the hall.” He gave us a determined look. “If he so much as looks at you funny, just let ole’ Blatty know and I’ll take care of it. Oh, and by the way, I’d steer clear of getting too close to the bars. We’ve been having some ‘lectrical problems for a couple hours. As you noticed on the walk down here, the lights flicker about. Don’t want you near Moran if the lights happen to go. Who knows what’ll happen if he gets a claw on you in the dark.” With that, the big man lumbered away.

  “To what do I owe the honor, Mr. Holmes?” Moran said without engaging us directly.

  “We both know that your business outside these walls has not yet been completed,” Holmes said. “Why, may I ask, did you surrender?”

  He managed himself up from his mattress, pushing back into place his thinning and graying brown hair. “Surely, you have already been apprised of the details of my capture,” Moran replied. Although prison had added to the creases of his weathered face, he looked remarkably similar to the time we last encountered the man.