I do not think Holmes was aware of my reaction any more than he had been conscious at the time of my feelings as I stood alone on the edge of the Reichenbach Falls, where I believed he had died while he was, in fact, lying hidden on the ledge above me, for he was saying in a brisk, slightly impatient voice, ‘Come on, my dear fellow! Surely it is not difficult? The waterfall, the messenger …’
‘Oh, you mean the boy from the hotel who brought the message from Herr Steiler6 about the English lady who was dying of consumption, asking me to return to the hotel with him? But surely you do not think the Waiter and the boy are one and the same person?’
‘Indeed I do,’ Holmes replied, sounding relieved that I had at last grasped the point.
‘But Holmes—’ I began in protest.
‘I know what you are going to say,’ he broke in. ‘If the Waiter is the lad from the Swiss hotel, then he must be a member of Moriarty’s criminal gang, one of the few the police failed to round up after Moriarty’s death. We know only too well that some of them escaped the net. There was Parker, the garrotter,7 who laid in wait outside our lodgings in Baker Street for my return. Then there was the affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland, which I am convinced was devised by Moriarty as a revenge against me, not to mention Colonel Moran, Moriarty’s chief of staff …’8
‘Surely you are not suggesting …?’
‘That Moran is still alive? It is not impossible, Watson. We know he is devilishly clever and quite capable of murder. Think of the fate of young Ronald Adair. Although Lestrade arrested him that evening in Camden House and he was brought to trial, he managed to escape the gallows.
‘As for the Waiter being the Swiss youth, the dates could correspond. If the lad was seventeen in 1891, the year of my encounter with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, he would now be twenty-two, which accords with the present age of the Waiter who, judging by his appearance, is in his early twenties.
‘Now let us take the hypothesis a step further. We know that Moran and the Swiss youth were alive in May 1891, the date of Moriarty’s death and the attempt by Moran on my life. I think we may also safely assume that the Swiss youth was a member of Moriarty’s organisation from the part he played at the Reichenbach Falls in luring you back to the hotel, leaving me to face Moriarty alone. Agreed, my dear fellow?’
‘Yes, Holmes,’ I agreed in a low voice, reluctant to be taken back even in memory to that dreadful afternoon in the Bernese Oberland when the Swiss youth came running up the path to the Falls and, like a fool, I did not doubt the letter in his hand was genuine.
I have since castigated myself mercilessly for my gullibility. I should have known it was a trick! Holmes had apparently known this but had said nothing, realising that the time had come for a final confrontation with his arch-enemy. But to me, the message had seemed authentic. The letter bore the address of the hotel, the Englischer Hof, where we had been staying, as well as the signature of Peter Steiler. The contents also had the ring of truth about them. An English lady, in the last stage of consumption, had arrived at the hotel shortly after our departure and had suffered a sudden haemorrhage. Her death seemed imminent. Would I return to the hotel at once? It would be a great consolation to her if she died with an English doctor in attendance.
It was a fiendishly clever appeal. As a doctor how could I refuse, particularly as the patient was a compatriot? So, not without a certain reluctance, I had left Holmes standing there with his back against a rock, arms folded, gazing at the torrent of water as it gushed down into the abyss while the Swiss youth waited nearby, ready to escort me back to the hotel.
What an idiot I had been!
And now, here was Holmes calmly stating that this same youth was none other than the Watchful Waiter who was keeping vigil outside our lodgings, the intention of whom was presumably to complete the mission that Moriarty had set in motion all those years before at the Reichenbach Falls; in other words, the death of Sherlock Holmes.
I found my voice at last.
‘Holmes, you must go to the police immediately!’ I exclaimed.
He looked at me in utter astonishment.
‘My dear fellow, that is the last thing I should do,’ he replied.
‘But if you do nothing that could very well be the last thing you will do anyway. The man intends to kill you!’
‘Of course,’ he agreed calmly. ‘That is why he is here. I am well aware of that. I also have no doubt that, in the intervening years since we last met him at the Reichenbach Falls, he has been carefully coached by none other than our old antagonist Colonel Moran about how he should set about killing me. Moran is, after all, quite an expert in the black art of murder. Moriarty recognised his skills, which is why he made him his chief of staff and used him for those special assignments which none of the ordinary members of his criminal gang could have undertaken. Remember the death of Mrs Stewart of Lauder in 1887? I am certain Moran was guilty of that crime, although, like the Camden House affair, nothing could be proved. Then there was the time immediately after Moriarty’s death when I was lying on that ledge above the Reichenbach Falls and he fired down at me with that special airgun of his.9 It was a wonder he did not finish me off then, considering he is one of the best shots in the world. Remember? And then more recently there was the murder of Ronald Adair, whom he shot through the open window—’10
‘Yes, I do remember, Holmes, and that is why you should go to the police.’
‘And tell them what?’
‘Everything, of course.’
‘My dear Watson, we have had this conversation before. Do you not recall it? It was when Moran was at large and I explained at the time that there was little I could do to protect myself. I could not shoot him, or I myself would have been charged with murder. I could not appeal to a magistrate. The law would not have acted on what was mere suspicion. I am in exactly the same position now with regard to the Waiter.’
‘Oh, Holmes!’ I cried out, horrified by the hopelessness of it all.
He was at my side in a moment.
Placing a hand on my shoulder, he said, ‘But that does not mean we have to give up, Watson. I have learned a great deal from my experiences with that old shikari,11 Moran. Believe me, we will get the better of him. In fact, I have already put a plan into motion which I think will see him behind bars.’
‘A plan!’ I exclaimed. ‘What plan? Does it involve Sheridan Irving?’
Holmes looked uncomfortable, one of the few occasions when I have seen him ill at ease.
‘Now, look, Watson—’ he began, but for once I overrode him.
‘No, you look, Holmes. If you are going to involve Irving in any plan regarding the Waiter, I insist he is informed of the exact circumstances. You have made it clear that the Waiter could be seeking revenge on you. And, if I am not mistaken, your plan is to use Irving, who resembles you, as a decoy. Am I correct?’
For a long moment there was silence as he stared off across the room, his expression inscrutable, and I thought, for a dreadful second, that I had gone too far. He was deeply angered by what I had said and, as a consequence, I had damaged our friendship, perhaps beyond repair. But at the same time, I could not in all honesty feel any regret. I had been right to speak out on Irving’s account. Had I not done so, I would have let myself down – quite how or why I found it difficult to define.
The silence hung like a threat between us, thickening the air until it became so heavy I could bear the weight of it no longer and I was about to cry out, to say something, anything – quite what I did not know. An apology, perhaps? A word of reconciliation?
It was Holmes, thank God, who took the initiative.
Turning his head, he looked me straight in the face, his expression sombre, and when he spoke, his voice was low-pitched and grave.
‘You are correct, Watson. I have no right to involve Irving or, come to that, you, too, my dear friend, in any plan that might put your lives at risk. I was being insufferably arrogant and for that I apologise. The only e
xcuse I can offer is that my resolve, nay, almost my raison d’être, is to rid this world of these last scourings of Moriarty’s organisation, including Colonel Moran if, as I believe, he is still alive, and this young man, the Waiter, who is the malignant spawn of their conspiracy, before they can infect the rest of society. But in doing so, I must play according to the rules, otherwise I shall descend to their level. I see that now, Watson, and I am grateful to you for pointing this out to me.
‘I also realise that I must not only rethink my plan but I must explain my intentions fully to Irving, so that he understands the risk before he agrees to take part in it.’
‘Do you think he will?’ I asked rather hesitantly, for I could not imagine Irving taking kindly to any plan that put his life in danger.
‘We can only hope for the best,’ Holmes replied, smiling wryly as he went to the door, adding over his shoulder, ‘I may be gone for some time, Watson. There are several other details I must attend to as well as seeking out our erstwhile luncheon companion.’
I wanted to call out ‘Good luck!’ after him but the door had closed and he had gone before I could utter the words.
He was away for several hours, during which time I fretted at his absence and mulled over in my mind the question as to whether or not Irving would agree to taking part in Holmes’ plan. I decided finally that he would probably reject it. Having met the man, there seemed to be no other outcome. He was not the type to risk himself or his well-being for anyone else.
I was therefore in very low spirits when at last I heard the street door slam shut and Holmes’ footsteps coming up the stairs. I listened hard to them, hoping they would give some clue to his state of mind, foolish though that might seem. But they gave nothing away. Neither did his expression, although I scanned his face eagerly as he entered the room.
‘Well, Holmes?’ I demanded. ‘What happened? Did you meet Sheridan Irving? What did he say?’
‘My dear fellow, so many questions!’ Holmes exclaimed. ‘Pray let me sit down first. And, by the way, a cigar and a whisky and soda would not come amiss.’
As I bustled about between the tantalus and the gasogene, Holmes helped himself to a cigar from the coal scuttle12 and, when both of us were served, we settled down by the hearth.
‘Now,’ Holmes declared as the smoke from his cigar rose in languid coils above his head, ‘as with all stories, I shall start at the beginning. First, Sheridan Irving.’
‘Did he agree?’ I broke in eagerly.
Holmes burst out laughing.
‘Oh, Watson, Watson!’ he chided me. ‘I know you have taken upon yourself the role of my biographer13 but even so, pray let me tell my story in my own way. As soon as I left here, I sent a telegram to Irving, asking him to meet me at our usual rendezvous, a small, discreet tavern off Fleet Street. We never meet at his house. I fancy he is a little ashamed of its location.
‘Anyway, we met and I explained to him the exact circumstances, including the involvement of the Waiter and the possible danger to anyone who had dealings with him. And to get to the point, my dear fellow, he agreed, much to my astonishment.’
‘Agreed?’ I echoed, my own astonishment mingled with profound relief that, with Irving taking the part of Holmes, the Waiter might see through the ruse and abandon any plans he had of attacking my old friend.
‘Indeed so, Watson. And what is more, he agreed without a moment’s hesitation. I think I have seriously underestimated him, for which I apologise deeply to him in his absence. I had no idea he was made of such mettle.
‘So, that aspect of the situation being settled, I went through the plan in detail. As already agreed, he is to come here next Wednesday early in the morning, when he will put on one of my suits of clothes and at ten o’clock, by which time the Waiter should have arrived and begun his vigil, you and Irving will set out together from the house. As soon as both of you are a little distance down the street, I shall fall in behind you suitably disguised so that, should the Waiter look back, he will not recognise me.
‘I shall, of course, be armed and so shall you. In addition, you and Irving will be wearing a special jacket, two copies of which a tailor in Cripplegate is, at this very moment, fabricating according to my instructions.’
Curiosity got the better of me and I could not help intervening.
‘A jacket?’ I queried.
‘Yes, a jacket, one each for you and Irving. It occurred to me that the Waiter, not being a gentleman, will not play according to the rules. If I am correct, he will not, therefore, confront you face to face but will take the coward’s way out and will assault you from behind. But to make sure, I have made arrangements for your backs to be covered just in case. But more of that later.
‘First, let us consider what we know of the tactics Moran is likely to employ. If my assumption is correct and he is still alive, he will have tutored the Waiter in using similar methods. Judging by his previous conduct, Moran prefers to attack from a distance, as his attempts on my life at the Reichenbach Falls and again at Camden House demonstrate. In neither case was the assault made at close quarters. The same applies to the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair. He too was shot from some distance, in his case from Hyde Park on the opposite side of the road.
‘In all instances, the murders, or attempted murders, were committed with a powerful airgun which was virtually silent apart from a whizzing sound when the bullet was ejected.
‘To take another example. Parker, also a member of Moriarty’s gang, who waited outside our lodgings in Baker Street, was a garrotter who practised another form of silent assassination, although in his case at closer quarters. In thinking over these various incidents, it occurred to me that the Waiter had almost certainly been coached by Moran in similar methods of murder, using a weapon that is easily concealed and, if used competently, can kill a man in seconds. Not a gun – even an air gun makes a noise – nor a garrotte either. The Waiter is slight of build and shorter than the proposed victim who is, of course, myself. Besides, I have trained in martial arts14 and might fight back before he could finish me off. So what would he be likely to use?
‘The obvious answer is a knife. It is silent; it can be carried in a pocket and, if used properly, can be lethal. It also kills at arm’s length. So, putting all these facts together, I came to the conclusion that, having followed you and Irving, the Waiter will attack you from the rear. To make sure this happens, I dropped by at Scotland Yard while I was out and called on the services of Stanley Hopkins15 who will arrange for a constable wearing a postman’s uniform to walk a little way in front of you, thus forcing the Waiter to attack you from behind.
‘Now for the details of my plan, Watson: the place where the attack will occur, which must be our choice, not the Waiter’s. So, my dear fellow, if you fetch your coat and stick, I will show you its exact location.’
* * *
The following Wednesday morning every part of Holmes’ plan was ready to be put into action. The site for the attack had been inspected and approved of and the various participants were allocated their positions. In the meantime, the main actor in the coming drama, Sheridan Irving, had arrived and had changed into a set of Holmes’ clothes under which he was wearing one of the special jackets that had been made according to Holmes’ design and were delivered the previous evening.
It was a curious garment, resembling a short, sleeveless coat, the back of which consisted of a layer of quilted canvas stuffed with horsehair that proved to be stab-proof when tested. It was not uncomfortable, as I discovered when I put mine on, Holmes having insisted I wore it even though it seemed unlikely that the Waiter would attempt to attack both of us. Worn under a loose, unbuttoned top coat, the extra bulk of the jacket was not too conspicuous.
Holmes’ own disguise was simple in contrast. It consisted of a pair of workman’s overalls, the capacious front pocket of which held his favourite weapon, a weighted riding crop. The whole outfit was topped off with an old peaked cap and a roughly trimmed beard.
Thus dressed for the roles we were to play, the three of us kept watch in the sitting-room at Baker Street, Irving pacing up and down as if waiting in the wings of a theatre to go onstage, I seated by the small fire that Mrs Hudson had lit to take the early morning chill out of the room, Holmes standing well back from the window, his eyes fixed on that tiny slit in the curtain that allowed him a narrow view of the scene outside.
He appeared quite calm but I, who knew him better than any other person, could tell by the set of his shoulders and the angle of his head that every nerve and muscle was alert and stretched tight like the strings of a violin.
It had been arranged that we would set our plan in motion soon after the Waiter’s arrival, which was usually at about half past eight, thereby giving him as short a time as possible to settle down to his vigil and feel comfortable in his role. A good quarter of an hour before his estimated arrival, Hopkins’ colleague was already in place, disguised as a postman, and was walking casually up and down the pavement, checking house numbers against the envelopes he was holding in his hand but ready, when the time came, to cross over the road and place himself in front of Irving and me, thus forcing the Waiter to fall in behind us. The other police officers assigned to the case had, I assumed, already taken up their agreed places.
The waiting was almost unbearable. Mrs Hudson and the boy in buttons had been instructed to keep strictly to their part of the house and under no circumstances to intrude on the hall or the stairs. The house itself was as quiet as a tomb, the only noise the sound of footsteps and the clatter of horses’ hooves and wheels passing by in the street outside; and the inexorable ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece as the minute hand crept closer and closer to the half hour.
I watched it with a dreadful fascination.
Then, just before it reached it, Holmes lifted his hand, signalling the arrival of the Waiter, and I managed to catch a glimpse of him by half rising from my chair and craning my neck to the right. He was partly hidden by the lace curtain and appeared as little more than a gauzy figure, ghost-like in its vague insubstantiality.
Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes, The, The Page 19