“The light of the street fell full upon his face.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1903
Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window.
G. A. Dowling, Portland Oregonian, July 9, 1911
“He seized Holmes by the throat.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1903
“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It’s good to see you back in London, sir.”
“I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won’t do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual—that’s to say, you handled it fairly well.”
We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles, and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner.
It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above52 and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes’s face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended. “You fiend!” he kept on muttering—“you clever, clever fiend!”
“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar, “‘journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says.53 I don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.”
The Colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. “You cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say.
“I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen, is Colonel Sebastian54 Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, and the best heavy game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?”
The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion; with his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like a tiger himself.
“I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a shikari,”55 said Holmes. “It must be very familiar to you. Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree, and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you. These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is exact.”
Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to look at.
“Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1903
“I confess that you had one small surprise for me,” said Holmes. “I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you as operating from the street, where my friend Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you. With that exception, all has gone as I expected.”
Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
“You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,” said he, “but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of this person. If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal way.”
“Well, that’s reasonable enough,” said Lestrade. “Nothing further you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?”
Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was examining its mechanism.
“An admirable and unique weapon,” said he, “noiseless and of tremendous power. I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years I have been aware of its existence, though I have never before had an opportunity of handling it. I commend it very specially to your attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets which fit it.”
“You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, as the whole party moved towards the door. “Anything further to say?”
“Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?”
“What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
“Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all.56 To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity, you have got him.”
“Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?”
“The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain—Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the second-floor front57 of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the 30th of last month. That’s the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement.”
Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage.
Frederick Dorr Steele, Collier’s Magazine, 1903
Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson.58 As I entered I saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all in their places. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack—even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco—all met my eye as I glanced round me.
There were two occupants of the room—one Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered, the other the strange dummy which had played so important a part in the evening’s adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes’s so draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely perfect.
“I hope you observed59 all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?” said Holmes.
“I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.”
“Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where the bullet went?”
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!”60
Holmes held it out to me. “A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive, Watson. There’s genius in that—for who would expect to find such a thing fired from an air-gun? All right, Mrs. Hudson. I am much obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss with you.”
He had thrown off the seedy frock-coat, and now he was the Holmes of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his effigy.
“The old shikari’s nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his eyes their keenness,” said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead of his bust.
“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?”
“No, I have not.”61
“Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember aright, you had not heard the name of Professor James62 Moriarty, who had one of the great brains o
f the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from the shelf.”
He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing great clouds of smoke63 from his cigar.
“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of to-night.”
“‘My collection of M’s is a fine one,’ said he.”
Sidney Paget, Strand Magazine, 1903
“My collection of M’s is a fine one.”
Frederick Dorr Steele, Collier’s, 1903
He handed over the book, and I read:
Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bengalore64 Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B.,65 once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford.66 Served in Jowaki Campaign,67 Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul.68 Author of “Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas” (1881); “Three Months in the Jungle” (1884). Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian,69 the Tankerville,70 the Bagatelle Card Club.
On the margin was written, in Holmes’s precise hand:
The second most dangerous man in London.
“This is astonishing,” said I, as I handed back the volume. “The man’s career is that of an honourable soldier.”
“It is true,” Holmes answered. “Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family.”
“It is surely rather fanciful.”
“Well, I don’t insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty,71 to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it; but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the Colonel concealed that, even when the Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him. You remember at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge.
“You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by the heels. So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at last! Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the lad; he had followed him home from the club; he had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose.72 I came over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the Colonel’s attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the police that they might be needed—by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy—I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?”
“Yes,” said I. “You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran’s motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair.”
“Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine.”
“You have formed one, then?”
“I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had between them won a considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul—of that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the club, and promised not to play cards again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much older than himself. Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his partner’s foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass?”
“I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.”
“It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more,73 the famous air-gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents.”
THE GREAT HIATUS
THERE are far too many studies of the activities of Sherlock Holmes during the years 1891 to 1894 to be dealt with in any but the most cursory fashion in a work such as this. The following, then, should be viewed as a mere sampling of the more interesting conjectures. Pastiches that attempt to tell the “story” of the Great Hiatus, complete with descriptions of action and dialogue, although in many instances suggesting activities not that different from those outlined in “scholarship,” are not discussed below:
Fundamentalism
A substantial group of scholars accept Holmes’s tale of travels to Tibet, Persia, Mecca, Egypt, and France as essentially true, although perhaps lacking in explanation. The most detailed study is that of A. Carson Simpson, Sherlock Holmes’s Wanderjahre. This consists of four volumes, Fanget An!; Post Huc nec ergo Propter Huc Gabetque; In fernem Land, unnahbar euren Schritten; and Auf der Erde Rücken rührt’ ich mich viel. Simpson considers Holmes’s homeward trip in detail, setting forth voluminous background material on then-current situations in Switzerland, Tibet, Lhasa, Khartoum, and other locales mentioned and exploring the precise routes by which Holmes likely travelled. Lord Donegall, in “April 1891–April 1894,” clearly expresses the faith of the fundamentalist and confirms that the journey could have happened as outlined by Holmes.
Some add background or additional detail to the basic journey. For example, C. Arnold Johnson, in “An East Wind,” suggests that Moriarty survived Reichenbac
h and pursued Holmes to Tibet, where, to gain control of the wealth and resources of the Orient, he disguised himself as a Prince of the Manchus. In his madness, fiction became reality and eventually he emerged as Dr. Fu Manchu.
Others consider possible messages sent by Holmes. Jerold M. Bensky’s “ ‘Sigerson’—What Is in a Name?” investigates Holmes’s use of the name “Sigerson” as a code or cipher to inform Mycroft of the location where he was hiding or seeking seclusion. In addition, reports from “Sigerson” possibly carried vital information to Mycroft about the political situation of each country. Similarly, Patricia Dodd, in “Communicating in Code,” suggests that during the Great Hiatus, Holmes continued to keep in touch with both Mycroft and Watson through an intricate network of coded messages. Watson’s messages from Mycroft to Sherlock, who was disguised as a fledgling member of Moran’s gang, were cleverly inserted in the cases known as the Adventures and the Memoirs.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased edition) (Vol. 2) (The Annotated Books) Page 3