by william Todd
“Yes, but I think it more prudent to get my facts first hand so…”
Moran shrugged dismissively. “So, contrary to popular accounts, I was taken from the prison. I did not escape.” He gave us a wide smile that, it seemed to me, looked more maniacal than merry. “I am reformed, Mr. Holmes,” he said in a tone that tried to be sincere but was laced with sarcasm. “I am not the same man.”
Holmes studied the man but a second. “You are ten pounds lighter, hairline two inches retracted and several shades greyer, about one-half inch shorter, and have developed arthritis is your left wrist. Physically speaking, that is a correct statement; you are not the same man that was incarcerated two years ago.” His eyes then narrowed at Moran. “Yet regarding the evil strain that courses through your veins—you have not changed one iota.”
Moran feigned surprise. “You do me a disservice, Mr. Holmes. I am truly rehabilitated.”
“So, you would have everyone believe that you did not orchestrate this escape to get at Moriarty’s brother?”
“I only wish for you to believe the truth.”
“And what is the truth?” Holmes asked impassively.
Moran got up from his mattress and began pacing as he relayed his deceitful account. “I was minding my own business Friday morning last when there was a great explosion. Then an insurrection broke out. In short order, many prisoners were out of their cells running hurly burly everywhere. One of them unlocked my cell—from where he got the key, only heaven knows—and grabbed me by my collar and said, ‘you’re coming with me for insurance’.” Moran shrugged his shoulders and sighed as if the experience had taken a terrible toll on him. “Well, we got out through the break in the outer wall left by the explosion and were on the run for two days with the Yard on our heels at every step. Finally, at sunset yesterday, two of my three captors died in a shoot-out—which I played no part in,” he emphasized with a pointed finger at Holmes. “I gave myself up, as did the lone survivor.”
“Who was conveniently found dead from hanging in his cell this very morning,” Holmes added.
Moran shook his head in simulated shame. “Tsk, tsk. Prison can be such an unforgiving place.”
“And pray tell, where did this last stand of yours take place?”
“In Surrey.”
Holmes gave him a questioning glare.
“All true, Mr. Holmes. The lone survivor even admitted that I had nothing at all to do with the escape. I was taken against my will. Even one of the mortally wounded fugitives admitted out loud to the officers the same exact thing before he gave up the ghost. So you see, two of my three abductors admitted that I had no part in this.”
“How convenient there is now no one who can change his story at a later date and incriminate you,” Holmes then replied. “All done, no doubt, in hopes this incident does not add to your incarceration,”
Proudly, Moran added, “My barrister tells me that I stand a good chance at leaving this place in twenty-four months. It’s amazing what good counsel can do for a fellow. Maybe you can invite me over for tea after my release.” He leaned closer to Holmes and grinned sadistically. “I’d love nothing more than to have an afternoon with you to myself.”
Holmes features remained stoic to the implications of Moran’s veiled threat as he continued his interrogation. “So, your sojourn at no time took you to the west of England, near Gloucester, to be precise?”
“I’m afraid not.”
The lights flickered and went out, momentarily putting everything in blackness before they came back to life. I myself was worried that Moran would try something reprehensible, but when the lights came back on he hadn’t moved an inch.
Continuing, Holmes asked, “So you did not know that Professor Moriarty’s younger brother was attempting a coup to take his brother’s enterprise from you?”
Moran scoffed. “There is no enterprise to be had. It dismantled after Moriarty’s death.”
Holmes laughed. “What kind of fool do you take me for? We both know that you have been running at least a shell of the former organization from your cell.”
Moran glared at Holmes silently.
“I seem to know more than you give me credit for, colonel. You knew what Moriarty the younger was up to, admit it.”
Moran casually walked up to the bars, gripping them in his hands. A brief tempest of anger blew across his features but then settled back to a Sargasso calm. “I will say only this: The only person that I will ever take orders from is under the falls in Switzerland.”
The lights flickered once more but didn’t completely go out.
The two stared each other down for a long minute. The place was deadly quiet, which was disheartening in the bowels of a prison. Then Holmes spoke up. “Watson,” he said, never taking his eyes off Moran. “Would you mind leaving the two of us for just a minute or two?”
“I certainly do mind,” said I. “You do not know what he may try.”
“All things considered, Watson, there are still bars that separate him from me. I will be fine. I will be in full view of both you and Mr. Blatty. I promise you, nothing will happen. I would just like a few private words with the colonel, nothing more.”
Reluctantly, I nodded and turned to join Blatty at the end of the long hall, my heels reverberating along the cavernous corridor as I made my way.
As Holmes relayed to me later, Moran then put his weathered face to the bars. He asked indifferently, “What would you like to discuss so privately, Mr. Holmes?”
“Come now. We are alone. There is no one here but you and I so anything admitted to would not hold up in any official capacity. It would be my word against yours. No court would convict you on one person’s testimony alone. Tell me, why did you not aim your rifle at me? You had your shot; why not take it?”
Moran peered down the corridor at myself and Blatty. The behemoth guard had the sleeve of his shirt rolled up and was showing me a rough patch of dry skin near his elbow. Our conversation was but hushed tones to the two foes from that distance.
The colonel turned back to Holmes with a delighted smile on his face, showing his yellowed teeth. “You must admit, it was a good shot, that. Even with my arthritis. What would you say it was, six, maybe seven hundred yards? I don’t think eight is out of the question. Not bad after a two-year absence. That Swedish Mauser felt wonderful tucked against my shoulder. I had forgotten how much I missed it.”
“So, you admit to killing Moriarty?”
An unhinged anxiousness seemed to overcome Moran, and his eyes glossed over, as if imagining the gory details in his mind. “Tell me, did I get a head shot? It was so far away. I saw him fall but couldn’t wait around to see my handy work. Oh, how I would have loved to see it; however, I had an alibi to establish.”
Holmes leaned in and inched closer to the bars. “But why not me? I killed your general, threw him over the falls. I was there for the taking.” Adding deliberate emphasis, he asked again, “Why. Not. Me?”
Moran blinked himself back to reality and engaged Holmes eye to eye. “I am a patient man, Mr. Holmes,” he remarked in a tone too clever by half. “Your death will be at a time I choose, by a method I choose…and at a much closer range so I can see my results. And the best part is I will only have to wait a mere twenty-four months before it comes to fruition.”
Sherlock replied coolly, “You will come to regret the choice you made.” He looked to his right. “Did you hear enough, Lestrade?”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it worked!” Lestrade and Mullenax, appeared from around the near corner of the corridor, each in their stocking feet, holding their shoes in their hands. “With all the echoing din of three sets of hard-soled shoes on the floor, not to mention the flickering lights, sneaking in on the conversation from the other end of the hallway in stocking feet was a splendid idea.”
Holmes gave Moran a triumphant grin of his own and said, “Now, I think the courts might find a bit more favor with three witnesses to your confession. You see, violence does
, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.”
Moran looked from Holmes to Lestrade and Mullenax back to Holmes, momentarily dumfounded. Suddenly, fury overcame his whole being. “No!” He screamed. “Holmes, I will kill you! I will see you dead if it’s the last thing I do in this life!”
“You have now twice had the opportunity. Once you failed and once you chose another over me. I dare say, you will never get a third.”
Blatty and I came running down the corridor when we saw Lestrade and Mullenax at Holmes’ side.
“Did it work?” I asked.
“Splendidly,” retorted Holmes. “Give a madman enough rope and, by jove, he will most assuredly hang himself with it.”
We all left Moran screaming like a lunatic at Holmes and flailing the cell’s contents at the bars.
As we walked down the hall, Blatty asked, “How did I do, Mr. Holmes? Was I believable?”
Holmes patted the big man’s shoulder. “I think you missed your calling, Blatty. Your talents in acting are worthy of the stage!”
Looking back over his shoulder at a seething Moran, Blatty said, “With my size, Mr. Holmes I’d be doing no one a service by bumbling around a stage like a dancing bear. My home’s here, and I’ll personally see to it that the man back there never touches a hair on your head, sir.”
“And I will rest peacefully in that assurance, Mr. Blatty.”
Holmes turned to me as we walked along. “The day is still young, Watson. Any suggestions?”
I smiled at him and said, “I believe there are some Schipperkes in Poplar still on the loose.”
We were the only ones who laughed.
THE END