The Murder of Sherlock Holmes

by David Fable

  “Three?” I said falling a little behind the logic. “We know Sergio was in the car from his fingerprint and we know that some unidentified person broke into my flat and that same person was also in the car given the match of hair samples—”

  “And we know Wiggins was also in the car, because of this cigar ash.” He held up one of his collection tubes with a piece of intact cigar ash in it. “I finally had time to do a comparison when I returned home this evening. This ash is from a cigar imported from the Caribbean and sold at the St. James Street Tobacconist. It is the exact same cigar that Moriarty was smoking, which leads me to believe that it is Wiggins who supplies Moriarty with his cigars and his information.”

  “So Moriarty is in on this, too,” I said.

  “Wiggins picked me up outside Fitzroy’s estate this afternoon and we had a very interesting conversation. Among many things, he told me I was under the protection of him and Moriarty and no harm would come to me.”

  “I certainly don’t think Sergio was aware of that,” I said wryly.

  “Agreed. And now he is dead, which means Wiggins believes there is someone I still need protection from.”

  “Yes, I follow that logic.” I considered the likelihood that there was someone out there still anxious to kill us. It did make one a bit uneasy.

  “I believe Wiggins knows why Holmes was killed, and I believe he knows who killed him and that is the person he is protecting us from.”

  “Then why doesn’t Wiggins tell us who it is?” I said, posing the obvious question.

  “Because I believe it might implicate him.”

  “Now wait,” I cautioned. “It’s not often that I stick up for Wiggins, but I don’t believe he would either murder Holmes or allow him to be murdered. He might have been in that automobile at some point, but it doesn’t mean he was there during the time of the murder.”

  “Fair point,” he conceded. “But whoever lured Holmes to the East End that night either killed him by accident or did it impulsively. No one premeditates a murder using a car. You bring a weapon, a knife or a gun.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying what I’ve said from the beginning. Holmes went there to meet someone he was familiar with, perhaps even trusted. It’s possible that Wiggins arranged for him to go to the location but didn’t expect for him to be murdered. Given all the evidence, there’s just no way around it. I believe Wiggins had a hand in this somehow.”

  My emotions were torn by Christopher’s conclusion. I had known Wiggins since his teens. He was Holmes’s faithful servant. Never resentful. Never a disrespectful word. Could he have killed Holmes in some insane rage? In some psychotic state? I could not believe it. Could he have set him up to be killed by another? Not intentionally. For me, the pieces still were not fitting together. “What of the prison guard? How does he fit in?” I asked.

  “I believe Freddy was a go-between for Moriarty and Wiggins. Moriarty said as much,” replied Christopher.

  “But what could he have done that would induce the Professor to murder him in public?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” said Christopher. “What could possibly threaten Moriarty? What would he be afraid of?” he said as if thinking out loud.

  “Perhaps he did it for sport,” I suggested, but I could tell that Christopher hadn’t heard my last supposition. He was ruminating about the questions he had just posed and then something seemed to occur to him.

  “I must go see Moriarty,” he suddenly announced. “I think I can get the truth out of him. I know what he’s afraid of.”

  “And what is that?” I asked, completely intrigued.

  “Being alone,” he answered. He hurriedly started pulling on his boots. “I think you should go have a talk with Wiggins. He trusts and admires you. To him you are the closest thing to Holmes. Tell him we have evidence against him, which we do with the cigar ash, and tell him you are giving him this opportunity to talk before you set Lestrade and Gregson on him.”

  “All right,” I said. “I shall go see Wiggins. If he had a hand in this, perhaps I can get him to confess.”

  “I believe tonight one or both of them will tell us the circumstances of Holmes’s murder.” Christopher put on his leather jacket and rushed out of the flat.

  33

  CHRISTOPHER

  M y mind was filled with strategies to approach Moriarty as I rodethrough the night toward Bedlam. The motorbike felt as if it were driving itself, and the ride passed in a blink. I galloped up the stairs of the hospital and burst into the reception area. I had been given clearance to visit Moriarty at any time and one of his Scotland Yard guards came up to escort me down to his cell.

  I found Moriarty lying on his bed, his hand still manacled. He was reading a book entitled The History of Western Philosophy. Without looking up he said, “So you have come to speak to the Oracle again, eh, Master Hudson.” He tossed the book aside and rose from the bed. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cigar, would you?” he asked jokingly.

  “I need you to tell me what you know, Professor,” I said sternly.

  “Well, that would take a lifetime,” he answered offhandedly as he went to his desk, opened a drawer and searched around in it until he withdrew the stub of a cigarette. “Where is Watson? Can’t face me anymore?” he said derisively as he lit the stub with a wooden match.

  “Watson is twice the man you’ll ever be,” I sneered. “Just because he can’t tolerate your evil…” I stopped myself. I was being drawn into Moriarty’s game. I had to regain my composure and prepare to spring my trap when the moment was right.

  Moriarty’s lips curled in a smug smile when he saw my discomfort. He motioned toward the philosophy book on the bed. “The hospital has a rather weak library. No Nietzsche at all.” He took a deep pull on the cigarette butt. “Tell me, Christopher, who do you favor, Rousseau, who thought man was basically good and moral, or Hobbes, who believed man was basically evil and immoral?”

  “I’m not here to discuss philosophy, Professor.”

  He sat down behind his desk. “Did you know that Rousseau had a child by a woman whom he took in as his servant and his lover? He abandoned that son, giving him up to a foundling hospital.”

  “I’m tired of your riddles. I know about Lilah, if that’s what you’re alluding to,” I said icily.

  Moriarty seemed quite pleased to hear that piece of gossip had been revealed to me. “Yes, the whole thing is a bit of Greek tragedy, isn’t it? You must have felt like a son to him,” he said. “How ironic that she should be in the building right above me for all that time, and me, her alibi, locked down here in this dungeon. There must be some symbolism there, no?”

  “I need answers, Moriarty,” I said with deadly seriousness.

  “Oh my! Now we’re getting formal. Please continue to call me Professor.” He crushed out his cigarette stub and glared back at me with equal seriousness. “I will answer one question other than who killed Sherlock Holmes since I have already given you the answer to that.”

  “Why did you kill Freddy?” I demanded.

  “Because he got greedy,” he fired back.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I answered the question,” he responded. “I’ve told you everything you need to know. You hear, but you do not listen. How can you step into the shoes of Sherlock Holmes if you can’t figure these things out for yourself?”

  “You’d like to go on with these games forever wouldn’t you?” I said, having run out of patience.

  “I consider this more than a game,” he said gravely.

  “You’ll answer me, or I’ll give you what you really fear, Professor,” I declared, ready to spring my trap.

  “And what is that?” he said mockingly.

  “A confinement where you’ll see no one, speak to no one, not a soul to play your games with, alone in a silent cell with only your own thoughts to amuse you. I can arrange for that at the new Rampton Secure Hospital.”

  Suddenly I saw somethi
ng I had not seen before in the eyes of Professor James Moriarty: fear…or as close to fear as the professor could convey. The game had changed and he knew he was no longer in charge.

  “You need me more than you know, boy,” he scolded and shot to his feet.

  “I’ll manage,” I responded defiantly.

  “Who do you think protected you?” he shouted bitterly. “Who do you think saved your life? Who do you think had ''Sergeant Archie’ watching you?”

  I was genuinely astonished by this revelation and it put me slightly off-balance. Moriarty saw this.

  “Yes, lad. He’s one of mine,” Moriarty said curtly.

  “From whom were you protecting us?”

  “That Spanish ponce,” he scoffed, as if the obvious answer was the whole answer.

  “Did Wiggins put him up to it?”

  Moriarty took a deep breath as if deciding whether to respond to that question. “No,” he said convincingly. “Fortunately for you, Wiggins is a sentimentalist. He’s a bright boy and tougher than a coffin nail, but he has too big a heart. Someday that will lead to his undoing.”

  “And what led to yours?” I asked pointedly.

  “Sherlock Holmes,” he answered without hesitation. A silence descended over the cell. He removed his stare, lay back down on the bed and picked up the book.

  “Do what you’ll do, boy. Whether it be here or at Rampton, you’ll be back.” He returned to his reading and I turned to leave, but he had one last swipe before I departed. “On second thought, young Hudson, you best become a doctor.”

  On my chilly ride back I pondered all Moriarty had just said, but one particular statement was echoing in my mind. How could I presume to fill the shoes of the great Sherlock Holmes? Even when I thought I had the upper hand, it seemed as if Moriarty was just toying with me. Inwardly, I felt lacking. But that was his game, to plant doubt, to seize the situation and direct it for his own purposes. The nature of crime-detection dictates that one is always chasing. Those on the other side have the advantage of knowing while we are always uncovering the truth. I had to decipher the puzzle of information that Moriarty gave me. I had to put extraneous feelings out of my mind. His insults were designed to test my mettle.

  I returned home and trudged up the stairs playing our conversation back in my head. Moriarty always came at things in a roundabout way. The first thing he said to me on this visit was, “So you’ve come to talk to the Oracle again.” And he called the situation a “Greek tragedy” when I told him I knew about Lilah. I unlocked my door and entered the flat. It was a strange reference and seemed out of character. Moriarty was certainly not a classicist. He prided himself on being modern and progressive. I gazed at my timeline and reviewed both the conversations I had with him. I carefully scanned all the information from Holmes’s disappearance in 1891 to the present moment, and suddenly it struck me. “Oracle” and “Greek tragedy” were references to Oedipus. I had suspected it, but somehow didn’t think it could be true. I had kept it buried in the back of my mind, but it was the only logical solution. It fully explained the circumstances of Holmes’s murder.

  I rushed to my microscope. The phone rang. I didn’t want to answer it. I wanted to carefully examine the evidence. I had to make sure what I now believed was the case was actually true, but the phone kept ringing insistently and I grabbed it. “Hello,” I said. “Christopher Hudson speaking.” It was Lilah. Her voice was desperate and heartbroken.

  “He killed him, Christopher.” Her voice trembled with sobs. “He killed Mr. Holmes. What will become of us?”

  “Lilah, where are you?” I asked urgently. I was now quite concerned for her safety as well as her sanity.

  “The angels will take us, Christopher,” she said in utter despair. “Won’t they?”

  “Are you at home, Lilah?” I asked, hoping that she could make sense of my words.

  “Yes. I must go home,” she said with a sudden dreaminess in her voice. “I’m going home.”

  “No, Lilah! Where are you? You must stay there. I will come get you.” But she had already hung up. I rushed down the stairs and jumped back on my motorbike.

  I sped through the streets, leaning forward over the handlebars. Thankfully the pavement was dry and, ignoring the traffic signals, I was able to pull up in front of the grim Gothic building on Averill in less than fifteen minutes. I ran inside and bounded up the stairs to the third floor. The door to Lilah’s apartment was wide open and I rushed in. The room looked as if there had been some kind of altercation. Some of the botanical pictures were smashed on the floor, the contents of Lilah’s embroidery basket had been strewn all over. “Lilah! Alexander!” I called out. There was no answer.

  I went into Lilah’s bedroom and it was also in a shambles, drawers pulled open and bedclothes ripped onto the floor. It appeared as if a child had indulged in a tantrum. I heard footsteps enter the apartment and reached into my pocket for my switchblade. A voice shouted, “Who’s there!” It was the old crone of a landlady. She was carrying her butcher’s knife. I stepped into the drawing room, and when she saw me, she turned and shot out of the door in a panic. I caught up to her in the hall and grabbed her by the back of her collar.

  “Don’t hurt me, sir,” she squealed.

  I released her and she turned around. “Where are they?” I demanded.

  “They’re both gone.”

  “What happened in there?”

  “They 'ad a big, screamin’ argument.” The old woman was now willing to volunteer the information, as if she finally sensed I was an ally. “He locked 'er in the bedroom, but I came and let 'er out.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I didn’t see 'er leave. She musta snuck out. That poor woman. That poor woman,” she grieved. “He’s a drunk and a no-good. In and out with that Spanish friend of ''is.”

  “You’re talking about Alexander?”

  “Who else?” she said with disgust.

  “Wiggins owns this building, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “’E tells me to watch out for 'er. ’Elp 'er, sir. ’Elp 'er. She’s a good soul.”

  “I will,” I assured her. The old lady had a genuine affection for Lilah. It made me look at her with new eyes. “Thank you for telling me.” She retreated down the stairs, and I went back to the apartment.

  Looking around the disheveled room, I realized that when Lilah spoke to me on the phone of “going home,” she didn’t mean to this place. This wasn’t her home. I understood what home meant to her. It was the place that for one year of her life she had been the happiest. It would take me at least two hours to ride down to the cottage in Sussex and hopefully, in that time, no harm would befall her. I picked up the phone and called the East Sussex Constabulary and got a Sergeant Barnett on the line. “Hello, this is Christopher Hudson. I’m involved in the investigation of the murder of Sherlock Holmes. I spoke to Chief Constable Gentle about it.”