3
Sherlock Holmes Reminisces
Over coffee Mr Holmes told us the story of the great deception he had performed on the world.
Over 'You have by now heard of Professor Moriarty,' said Sherlock Holmes, pushing his chair away from the table and stretching his long legs.
'The Times of India carried an article about his criminal empire simultaneously with your obituary,'1 I ventured.
'We received information from London about the Professor and his gang,' Strickland said. 'I also read quite a lively story about the whole business in the Strand Magazine!
'That would be my friend Dr Watson's account of what he thought had happened,' Holmes remarked thoughtfully as he filled his pipe. 'In this entire business my only regret is the unnecessary alarm and distress I have caused him. But that couldn't be helped, I suppose. The stakes were too high, and Moriarty's minions too desperate.'
'Ay, there was a genius,' said Mr Holmes, puffing on his pipe. 'The greatest criminal mind of the century, but no one had heard of him. There lay the wonder of it. No doubt you have read the more lurid details of his career. In fact he was a man of most respectable origins. From a very tender age he displayed a precocious mathematical faculty which an excellent education developed to phenomenal heights. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a thesis on the Binomial Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities. He is also the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid—a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticising it. Unfortunately a criminal strain ran in his blood which was exacerbated and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him in the university town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his chair and to come down to London.2
'For some years I had continually been conscious of some sinister and ubiquitous organising power behind the criminal world of London. For years I worked to uncover this conspiracy, and at last the time came when my researches led, after a thousand cunning twists and turns, to the late Professor Moriarty of mathematical renown. He was the organiser of nearly all that was evil and undetected in England, and possibly beyond. He sat motionless like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web had a thousand radiations, and he knew well every quiver of each of them. He did little himself. He only planned. But his agents were numerous and splendidly organised. This was the dark domain that I discovered, gendemen, and which I devoted my whole energy to expose and break up.
'But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised that at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal, if not superior. But I persisted with my investigations until one day the Professor made a mistake. It was a small mistake, I will grant you, just the merest oversight; but it gave me my chance. Starting from that point I wove my net around him.'
It is not necessary to relate here the full story that Sherlock Holmes told us about the brilliant way he managed to expose and trap the Professor and his organisation; and how Scotland Yard through its bungling allowed the Professor and some of his top henchmen to slip out of Mr Holmes's net. The reader will undoubtedly have read that special issue of the Strand Magazine where the entire story, including the subsequent meeting of Professor Moriarty and Mr Sherlock Holmes was excitingly related; and also, where, to the grief of an Empire, the mistaken conclusion was drawn that the great detective had perished in the thundering waters of the Reichenbach Falls.
Strickland and I listened entranced as Sherlock Holmes told us of his final moments with the professor.
'I had littie doubt, gentlemen,' continued Mr Holmes, sipping his brandy, 'when the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor loomed ahead of me, at the end of the only narrow track that led to safety, that I had come to the end of my fruitful career. His grey eyes were set with bitterness and malicious purpose. But he greeted me civilly enough. We had an interesting but brief conversation, and he gave me a sketch of the methods by which he had confounded the police force. I reciprocated with a few details of how I had managed to unearth his organisation and activities. I then obtained his courteous permission to write a short note for Dr Watson which I left with my cigarette case and my stick. I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels, until I reached the end. Before me the thundering waters of the fall plunged deep down into a dreadful cauldron of seething and swirling foam. I turned around. Moriarty drew no weapon, but the mask of his calm exterior visibly began to break down. The great bulge of his forehead throbbed like a live thing. His eyes flashed a dreadful hatred, the like of which I had never seen before, and his mouth moved incessandy, no doubt uttering some curse for the damnation of my soul, but which I fortunately could not hear for the noise of the waterfall.
'Then with a snarl he hurled himself on me. He was like a madman and had the strength of one. Physically I am equal to most, but the fury of the Professor's charge initially confounded me. His long cadaverous fingers seized me by the throat, and proceeded to thrtftde me in a most alarming manner. His mouth, distorted with revengeful hatred, trickled with foam like a rabid dog.
'"Die, Holmes. Damn you! Die!" he screamed, spraying my face with his vile spittle. We teetered together on the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of bujitsu,3which includes the Japanese system of wrestling, and which has more than once been very useful to me. Gripping him firmly by the collar and applying a judicious foot against his stomach, I rolled over on my back throwing him clean over me.4 With a scream he fell over the precipice. But the desire to live is a strong and desperate one in all beings. When I got up, rather shaken, I perceived that the Professor had managed to grip the edge of the precipice and somehow arrest his fall. He lay dangling over the dark furious chasm, his fingers scrabbling desperately to maintain a hold on the edge of the cliff. His eyes, wide with fear, met mine.
' "Help me, please," he croaked.
'At that instant I lost my sense of animosity towards the wretched man. I moved a step forward, not suspecting the base treachery that lurked in his heart. His right hand snaked towards my leg, nearly getting a grip on it. That was his undoing. His other hand, unable to bear his full weight, lost its grip. After a momentary effort to restore his hold, he plunged down the chasm. I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water.
'For a while I was unable to move. Many men have hated me, but the implacable malevolence that Moriarty had directed at me left even my usually strong nerves somewhat shaken.
'I was just about to start back on the track when it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky chance Fate had placed in my way. Moriarty was not my only enemy. There were at least three of his lieutenants who had escaped from the police net and would not hesitate to seek vengeance. They were formidable and dangerous men, and it would have been a willful act of self-deception if I thought I could avoid them perpetually. Foremost among them was Moriarty's own chief of staff. A man of the vilest antecedents but with a brain of the first order; as secretive and unknown to most as his late master. The others were more openly notorious. You may recollect the case of L'Oiseau, the circus acrobat, of Niagara Falls fame, who murdered the Greek prime minister in his bed but escaped from police custody without a trace; and Luff, the so called 'Mad Bomber', whose explosive exploits filled the pages of our dailies just a couple of years ago. You see, Moriarty believed in the American business principle of paying for the best talents in their fields. And these fellows were the very best. One or the other would certainly get me. On the other hand, if all the world was convinced that I was dead they would take liberties; they would lay themselves open, and sooner or later I could entrap them.
'I managed to hide myself on a high ledge when the search party, organised by Dr Watson, arrived at the scene. At last, when they had all form
ed their inevitable and totally erroneous conclusions, they departed, and I was left alone.
'Suddenly a huge rock thundered past me and crashed into the chasm. For an instant I thought it was an accident, but a moment later, looking up, I saw a man's head against the darkening sky. Another stone struck the very ledge upon which I was stretched, within a foot of my head. Of course, the meaning of this was obvious. Moriarty had not been alone. A confederate — and even that one glance had told me how dangerous a man that confederate was — had kept guard while the Professor had attacked me. From a distance unseen by me, he had been witness to his master's death and my escape. He had waited and then, making his way round to the top of the cliff, had endeavoured to succeed where his master had failed.
'It did not take me very long to form my conclusions, gendemen. I scrambled down onto the path, once nearly falling off into the chasm, when another stone sang past me. Halfway down I slipped, but by the blessing of God I landed, torn and bleeding upon the path. I took to my heels from the spot and managed to do ten miles over the mountains in the darkness. Finally I came upon one of those shepherd huts that you find in the upper reaches of the Alps. It was empty and only a short beam of wood served to bar the stout door. I stumbled in, and fumbling in the darkness managed to find a battered tin lantern. By its cheerful light I proceeded to make myself at home. The household effects were somewhat primitive, but more than ample for my few needs, and indeed luxurious, considering the state of my present predicament. I washed and bound my wounds, which were, thankfully, of a superficial nature.
'It was with a light heart that I strode through the Alpine meadows the next morning. Though I took due precautions, I relegated most thoughts of Moriarty and his gang to the back of my mind. After all, the sun was shining, the snow on the mountain tops was virgin white, and my old cherry wood, which had survived my precipitous descent, was drawing very nicely. That evening I came to the town of Hospenthal. With the help of a guide I proceeded over the St Gotthard pass, which was deep in snow, and continued southward to the border town of Como. After ten days I reached Florence, the city of Dante—who when he remarked "Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita," could have been describing the position of my own life at that moment.
'I had wired to an old acquaintance in London for money.5 He was my only confidant, and it was he who wired to Colonel Creighton to assist me here in India. For you see, by then it was quite clear that I would require some active assistance especially when in unfamiliar surroundings, if Moriarty's avengers were not to succeed altogether. Four separate attempts were made on my life: the one that came closest to taking it was in front of the Gezirah Palace Hotel in Cairo, where I was set upon by two black-cloaked figures wielding over-size scimitars. I had fortunately taken the precaution of purchasing a hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, so the conflict was rather one-sided.
'And now we have this bizarre murder, which if my theories are correct, is the latest, and so far the most interesting attempt on my life. But the temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession. Nothing can be concluded till the results of the autopsy are released. I expect you, Strickland, to fit in this final piece of the puzzle tomorrow. Until then, good night.'
As my ghari moved along the dark streets of the city carrying me back to my lodgings, I tried to sort out in my head the events of the day. How had that poor man been murdered? Why all that blood? How did it all tie in to the manager and Moriarty and the ferret-face? But it was beyond me. I knew I had to wait till the morrow for an answer.
That night I had frightening dreams.
1. Probably the Reuter's despatch that appeared in all English papers on 7 May 1881, mentioned by Dr Watson in The Empty House.
2. A near identical thumb-nail biography of Prof. Moriarty is provided by Holmes to Dr Watson in The Final Problem and The Valley of Fear.
3. One of Dr Watson's less celebrated gaffes as a reporter is cleared up here. In The Empty House Watson records Holmes as crediting his defeat of Moriarty to his knowledge of ... 'baritsu or the Japanese system of wrestling ...' In point of fact the word baritsu does not exist in the Japanese language. The actual term used by Holmes and cor-recdy reported by Hurree is bujitsu, the generic Japanese word for the martial arts, which includes the Japanese system of wrestling {jujitsu) in addition to fencing, archery, etc. The Japanese statesman-scholar, Count Makino, also offered a similar explanation to account for Watson's error, in a paper read at the founding meeting of the Baritsu chapter of the Baker Street Irregulars in Tokyo, on 12 October 1948. (See Foreign Devil: Thirty Years of Reporting in the Far East, Richard Hughes, Andre Deutsch, Great Britain, 1972.)
4. Very similar to a sacrifice throw in Judo called Tomoe-nage.
5. This was his brother Mycroft, as Sherlock Holmes was to later inform Dr Watson when he returned to London (see The Empty House). Holmes had also previously confided to Watson, though in a somewhat roundabout way, that Mycroft was actually the chief of British Intelligence. In The Greek Interpreter Holmes remarks that Mycroft occupied 'some small office under the British Government' though he was in truth 'the most indispensable man in the country.' In The Bruce Partington Plans Sherlock Holmes further confides to Watson that Mycroft's unique governmental position was that of a 'central exchange for incoming data' and that 'Again and again his word has decided the national policy.'
4
Flora and Fauna
Despite a somewhat restless night, I made my way early next morning to the hotel. Once again I was subjected to the hostile glare of the Sikh commissionaire, but I managed to avoid the manager and the desk clerk in the hall and quickly made my way up to Sherlock Holmes's room.
'Come in, come in,' a sharp voice cried out, as I knocked on the door of Room 289.
The room was full of dense tobacco smoke, but a single open curtain permitted a little of the early morning sun to shine into the room. He sat with legs crossed like a native rajah, on a kind of Eastern divan that he had constructed on the floor with all the pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchair. The effect of oriental splendour was heightened by the resplendent rococo purple dressing gown he wore and the opulent hookah that was laid out in front of him — the long satin-covered tube ending with a delicate amber stem that he held pensively between his thin long fingers. His eyes werefixed vacantiy up at the corner of the ceiling. The blue smoke rose languidly from the hookah-bowl, while he remained silent, motionless, a shaft of sunlight shining on his strong aquiline features.
'Good morning, Mr Holmes. I perceive that you favour the native pipe today.'
'It has its virtues,' he replied languidly, 'especially during such sedentary moments. It is a recent discovery of mine that the balsamic odour of the native tobacco is peculiarly conducive to the maintenance of prolonged periods of meditation.'
He puffed thoughtfully. The smoke bubbled merrily through the rosewater.
'You have not slept, Sir?' I enquired solicitously.
'No. No. I have been turning over our littie problem in my mind — besides a few other things. Tell me ...' he said suddenly, '...what is the meaning of life, of this perennial circle of misery, fear, and violence?'1
'Well, Sir...' I began, somewhat at a loss for words. 'I am, if you will pardon the expression, a scientific man, and therefore at quite a disadvantage when expressing opinions on such... ah... spiritual matters. But a Thibetan lama whom I once had the privilege of interviewing, for strictly ethnological purposes on matters of Lamaist ritual and beliefs, was of the opinion that life was suffering. Indeed, it was the primary article of his credo.'
'Wise man,' Holmes murmured, 'wise man.' He was silent for a while. His eyes gazed into space with a strange burning vacancy. For just a moment it seemed to me that beneath his calm, rational, superior self there struggled another more intense and restless soul — not at all European — but what would be recognised in the East as a 'Seeker'. Then with a conscious effort he broke off his singul
ar reverie.
'Have you breakfasted?' he asked. I noticed an empty breakfast tray pushed away to the side.
'A cup of coffee? No? Well then, if it is not too early, could I trouble you to accompany me to the Bombay Natural History Society that you mentioned last night.'
'Mr Symington, the secretary is at the premises quite early, Sir. He works on his own researches there as it is much cooler in the mornings.'
'Excellent. Then let us not waste any time.'
He carefully coiled up the tube of his hookah, and taking off his dressing gown, put on the grey linen jacket he had worn the day before. Unlike most Europeans in India he did not wear a pith helmet or a topee, but made do with a light cap, of the kind which I think is called a deerstalker.
We quickly made our way downstairs. Before leaving the hotel Mr Holmes went over to the reception desk where he scribbled a chit and sealing it in an envelope handed it to one of the hotel clerks there. I suspected that the note was for Strickland. Then Mr Holmes and I left the hotel in a ghari.
There was the tang of saltwater in the air as we rattled down the beach road, where near-naked boys were selling coconut water, fresh in its own shell, and two ash-covered sadhus were performing their sun worship in the sea. Things were less peaceful at the Borah Bazaar where shopkeepers, vendors, tongawallahs, coolies, and pedestrians of all kinds were noisily beginning their day. Finally we arrived at the brick bungalow of the Bombay Natural History Society.
We waited in a large hall while the chaprasi went to find Mr Symington. The whole place was filled with an extraordinary variety of rather moth-eaten exhibits of stuffed birds and animals behind labelled glass cases. After a few minutes the chaprasi returned.
The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes Page 5