by June Thomson
Watson thoroughly enjoyed the trip, which took a week. It was probably the first proper holiday he had had since returning to medical practice and, with his love of nature, he appreciated the beauty of the scenery, the green of the spring valleys below contrasting with the white snow of the mountains. Holmes, too, was in high spirits, although he was also on the alert, conscious of the danger still posed by Moriarty. However, he remained determined that, once Moriarty was arrested, he would retire.
On 3rd May, they arrived at Meiringen, a picturesque Swiss village perched nearly two thousand feet up in the Bernese Oberland in the Hasli valley. There they stayed the night at the Englischer Hof owned by Peter Steiler, who spoke excellent English, having spent three years as a waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in London.
Although the route taken by Holmes and Watson can be established in detail, Moriarty’s movements cannot be so easily traced. Presumably, on arriving at Dover on the special train and discovering neither man was on the Calais packet, Moriarty must have realised they had got off the train at Canterbury and had made their way to Newhaven. It must also have been evident to him that it was highly unlikely they would follow their luggage to Paris. But if not Paris, where else might they have gone? Brussels seemed a possible alternative. It was a capital city with a choice of routes fanning out across Europe. Holmes was not the only person intelligent enough to put himself in another man’s shoes.
There was in fact no need for Moriarty himself to make the journey to Brussels. As his organisation was international, he had merely to telegraph an agent in Brussels instructing him to make enquiries while he, Moriarty, waited in Dover for the reply. It may have been then that he also sent for Colonel Moran to join him. The evidence suggests that Moriarty was alone when he arrived at Victoria station. Holmes only mentions Moriarty while Watson saw only a tall man trying to push his way through the crowds.
The enquiries in Brussels need not have taken long. Both Holmes and Watson were apparently travelling under their own names; there is nothing in the canon to suggest otherwise. There would also have been a limited number of hotels in Brussels where they were likely to stay. In addition, they remained in the city for two whole days, which would have given Moriarty’s agent enough time to track them down and discover their plans to move on to Strasburg and then to Geneva. He may even have booked into their Strasburg hotel and eavesdropped on their conversations. As we have seen, they discussed the matter of Watson’s return to England openly in the hotel dining-room. Once their plans were discovered, it was simply a matter of telegraphing the information to Moriarty.
It is not known if Moriarty and Colonel Moran themselves travelled to Geneva and followed the two men on their ramble through the Rhône valley. Both were conspicuous figures, the Colonel with his huge, grizzled moustache and Moriarty, tall and thin with his professorial air. It is more likely that Moriarty employed a confederate, possibly the same Swiss youth who was to play such an important role in subsequent events, to stalk his quarry, while he and the Colonel remained at some convenient centre, awaiting further information on Holmes’ and Watson’s movements and following by road in a hired vehicle.
Holmes himself was aware of the danger. During the cross-country tour, he was constantly on the alert for any sign that he and Watson were being followed, scrutinising the faces of everyone they encountered and once racing up to a ridge to look about him when a rock had fallen nearby. What is certain is that by the afternoon of 4th May, Moriarty and Colonel Moran had arrived in Meiringen or its vicinity and had been joined by a Swiss youth, one of Moriarty’s agents, probably at a pre-arranged meeting.
That same afternoon, 4th May, on Herr Steiler’s advice, Holmes and Watson set off to walk across the mountains to the small hamlet of Rosenlaui. It was clearly their intention to continue their walking tour. It was also on their landlord’s advice that they made a small detour from their route to visit the Reichenbach Falls, a tourist attraction.
Watson has left a vivid description of the falls. The water, swollen by melting snow, plunged down into a deep, rocky ravine, hurling up spray as it fell. He has caught, too, the roar of the water and the sensation of vertigo both he and Holmes felt as, having followed the path which led to the top of the falls, they peered down into the chasm below. The path itself came to a dead-end. Once they had reached the head of the waterfall, there was no way out except to return the way they had come.
It was while they were standing there that a Swiss lad came running up to them with a letter ostensibly from Herr Steiler, asking Watson to return to the hotel to tend to an English lady who had only just arrived and who was dying of consumption. It was an artful appeal directed at Watson’s compassion both as a doctor and a fellow compatriot, although he was uneasy about leaving Holmes. However, it was agreed the Swiss lad would act as Holmes’ companion and guide and that the two men would meet later that evening at Rosenlaui.
As Watson set off, he glanced back. Holmes was standing with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rushing water.
‘It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world,’ Watson adds.
On his way back to the hotel, Watson passed a man dressed in black, walking very rapidly. But, failing to recognise him as the same tall man he had glimpsed at Victoria station, Watson took no further notice of him. As there was no sign of Colonel Moran, he was presumably keeping out of sight. And so they passed one another, Watson on his errand of mercy, Moriarty on his mission of revenge.
If Moriarty could have chosen the site for his final encounter with Sherlock Holmes, he could not have picked a more dramatic setting. Its glistening black rocks, its roaring torrent, its immense chasm give the impression of a primeval landscape or a glimpse into hell itself, an impression enhanced by Watson’s use of such words and phrases as ‘abyss’, ‘boiling pit’ and ‘incalculable depth’, while the ‘half-human shout’ of the roaring water suggests the cries of souls in torment. It is elemental. In it, air and water are combined with earth in the form of the coal-black rocks, and with fire in the spray rolling up ‘like smoke from a burning house’.
In such a setting, Holmes and Moriarty assume superhuman qualities, Holmes the angel of light engaged in a primordial struggle with the forces of darkness in the shape of Moriarty, a Satan-like figure who, although endowed, like Satan, by nature with phenomenal gifts, chose to use them in the pursuit of evil. John Milton has described such a setting in Paradise Lost in which he writes of a ‘wild Abyss’, composed
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly.
Holmes was expecting Moriarty. He had already guessed that the letter was a decoy, designed to lure Watson back to the hotel, and he was prepared for this final encounter, knowing it would be a fight to the death. For both men it was a matter of honour. Each was intent on fulfilling their own personal pledges, Holmes to free society of Moriarty’s evil presence, Moriarty to bring about Holmes’ destruction.
Honour played its part, too, in the conduct of that final encounter. It was no mere brawl but was carried out, like a duel, under gentlemanly rules, at least on Holmes’ part. Holmes laid aside his alpenstock so that he would have no unfair advantage over Moriarty, who was unarmed. However, although Moriarty gave his ‘courteous permission’ for Holmes to write his farewell letter to Watson, he failed to mention that Colonel Moran was posted out of sight somewhere above the Reichenbach Falls to act as long-stop in case Holmes escaped alive.
How far the actual contest was fair is questionable. Neither man had the advantage of height or weight as both were tall and of a similar build. But Holmes was certainly the younger and the fitter of the two. Against this should be set Moriarty’s desperation. He was a man with nothing to lose, willing to risk everything on this last venture.
The site, a narrow path, the earth slippery with spray, favoured neither of them. It was largely a matter of chance which of them lost his footing first and
plunged over the brink. But even in such a confined and dangerous setting, Holmes had one distinct advantage over Moriarty. He had studied baritsu,* a Japanese form of self-defence in which the techniques of balance and the use of arm and handholds are used against one’s opponent.
As Moriarty rushed forward and gripped Holmes by the arms, Holmes was able to break free from his grasp, throwing his adversary off balance. A few seconds later, like Milton’s Satan, Moriarty plunged screaming over the edge of the falls into the abyss below.
* Readers are referred to Watson’s list of Holmes’ limitations in Chapter Five.
* There was no Mortimer Street in Kensington, a fact already pointed out in Chapter Ten.
* It was possible for private individuals to hire trains for their own use. These were usually known as ‘specials’.
* See Appendix One.
* Baritsu, or Bartitsu, a form of Japanese self-defence, was introduced into this country by E. W. Burton-Wright. The name was derived from the Japanese word ‘bujitsu’, meaning ‘martial arts’.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE GREAT HIATUS
4th May 1891–5th April 1894*
‘A strange enigma is man.’
Holmes: The Sign of Four
Holmes’ reactions as he watched Moriarty plummet to his death at the foot of the Reichenbach Falls have to be guessed, as he has left no record of his emotions at witnessing this event. He must have felt enormous relief that it was not he but his mortal enemy who had lost that final battle. Moriarty’s death was also his ultimate triumph, the culmination of a lifetime’s work dedicated to the fight against crime. But, judging by his subsequent actions, that sense of relief and exultation must have been tempered by other less triumphant thoughts.
With Moriarty now dead, there was nothing, in theory at least, to prevent him from walking back along the path by which he had come and returning to Meiringen to meet Watson who, as Holmes must have realised, would come hurrying back once he found out the letter delivered by the Swiss youth was a hoax. Instead, he decided to feign death and disappear.
Later, he was to tell Watson that this decision flashed into his mind in the space of a few seconds, even before Moriarty’s body had time to crash to the bottom of the ravine. However, his explanation of his motives in coming to this decision, like his excuse for pretending to be mortally ill in the Dying Detective case, is, on examination, hardly tenable. He knew, he said, that three members of Moriarty’s organisation were still at large and had sworn to kill him, a revenge they would certainly not hesitate to carry out once they heard of Moriarty’s death. But if they believed that he, Holmes, had also died at the Reichenbach Falls, they would become careless and his task of tracking them down and bringing them to justice would be made the easier.
But at the time he made his decision, Holmes could not have known that three members of Moriarty’s gang had escaped arrest. According to the telegraph sent to him at Strasburg by Scotland Yard, all Moriarty’s confederates had been rounded up. Holmes was not even aware of the fact that Colonel Moran was not only still at large but was at that very moment posted above the Reichenbach Falls, ready to make an attempt on his life, should he survive Moriarty’s attack on him. His presence there, as Holmes himself later admits, came as a complete surprise to him.
Holmes could therefore have only learnt of the escape of three of Moriarty’s gang members at some later date, at which point he used the information to rationalise that split-second decision he claimed he made as Moriarty’s body plunged into the ravine. Moreover, as soon as he encountered Colonel Moran, as he did shortly afterwards, he would have realised that Moran knew that he, Holmes, was still alive and would have informed his confederates of this fact. Holmes’ excuse about wanting to deceive them into making mistakes by believing he was dead was therefore specious for this reason alone. In fact, Holmes’ real motives for deciding to fake his own death and disappear were more complex than the simple and misleading account he was subsequently to give to Watson.
As we have seen, Holmes was at the time going through a period of psychological stress. Even before his encounter with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, he was seriously considering giving up his career for a quiet, private life in which he would devote his time and energy to chemical research. It was only the continuing threat to society posed by Moriarty which prevented him from retiring. Moriarty’s death had removed that barrier. Why, then, did Holmes not return to England and simply carry out this plan? Why decide instead to pretend he, too, had died?
Moriarty’s death may well have been a greater emotional blow than even Holmes realised or was prepared to admit. He had, after all, devoted at least three years to gathering evidence about the man and his organisation. It had formed the central point of his life, the focus of all his plans and aspirations, almost his raison d’être. And now it was gone.
As he stood on that ledge above the falls and watched Moriarty’s body spinning into oblivion, Holmes may well have experienced an overwhelming sense of loss, if not of actual bereavement. With Moriarty gone, there was no one left of such superb intellect against whom he could pit his own intelligence. Compared to him, all other adversaries would seem unworthy of his efforts. Life without the Professor would indeed become ‘humdrum’ and ‘commonplace’.
It should also be remembered that Holmes had prepared himself psychologically for death as he stood on that path above the falls face to face with Moriarty. Although he may have felt relief at having escaped alive, he may also have experienced a perverse sense of having been cheated.
The thought of his own death had been on his mind before the Reichenbach encounter. He had already toyed with the idea in the Dying Detective case, in which he had deliberately used theatrical make-up to give himself the appearance of a man who was mortally ill. Although part of this pretence may be explained away by Holmes’ love of the dramatic, there may well have been darker motives behind the adoption of the disguise. For someone like Holmes who tended to suffer from manic depression, the thought – what is it like to be dead? – may have already crossed his mind. This is not to suggest he ever contemplated suicide. Indeed, in the Veiled Lodger case, he was to round on Eugenia Ronder when she threatens to kill herself with the words, ‘Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it,’ which suggests he was strongly opposed to suicide.* But the idea of pretending to be dead and actually disappearing as if he were dead, of assuming another identity and taking up a new life, coming at a time when he was considering retiring anyway and when he had lost the one person, Moriarty, who had been the focus of several years’ intensive work, may have proved irresistible.
Holmes himself may not have been aware of the complexity of the emotions which prompted this decision. But the act of disappearing is not uncommon. In this country alone, hundreds of people, suffering from some form of stress, disappear every year without trace, although few go to the extent of faking their own deaths. Although part of this impulse may be the need to escape from the present and its insupportable pressures, there may also be a deeper, unacknowledged urge to run away from oneself and create an entirely new persona.
From a practical point of view, there were few obstacles to prevent Holmes from carrying out his decision. He had no dependants and, before leaving England, he had made arrangements with Mycroft for the disposal of his property in the event of his death. Presumably he also had enough money on him to pay for the rest of his Continental holiday and so was not without immediate funds, at least for the time being.
Although he had already seen Watson’s reactions to his feigned illness only four months before in the Dying Detective case, it is doubtful if Holmes thought at all deeply of the devastating effect his apparent death would have on his old friend. His own unemotional temperament tended to make him insensitive to the feelings of others. There was also that callous streak in his character and, once he had made up his mind, a single-mindedness of purpose which amounted at times to ruthlessness. Watson would grieve, of co
urse, but he would eventually recover.
Holmes was also aware that his apparent death would have to appear convincing, a challenge to his ingenuity as well as to his love of the dramatic. He therefore carried out his deception with meticulous care. It was vital his footprints were not seen returning along the muddy path and he considered reversing his boots, a trick he had used before. But, as this extra set of tracks might appear suspicious, he decided instead to attempt the ascent of the rock face above him which, although apparently sheer, presented, on closer examination, a few footholds. Leaving his alpenstock behind, together with his cigarette case and his farewell letter to Watson, written with Moriarty’s permission before the fatal encounter, Holmes began the climb which was in itself a potentially fatal enterprise. In attempting it, Holmes was again risking his life as if, having escaped death once, he was challenging fate itself to a second duel. Or perhaps it was Moriarty he had in mind for, as he climbed, Holmes imagined he could hear his voice screaming at him from the abyss, like a voice from the depths of hell.
Reaching a grassy ledge, Holmes decided to wait there for Watson to return. It was a bizarre decision which seems to serve no useful purpose except, ostensibly at least, to prove to Holmes that Watson was indeed convinced of his death. One is left, however, with the disturbing feeling that Holmes wanted to witness something else as well – Watson’s inevitable grief, a supposition which, if true, suggests not just a callous streak in Holmes’ personality but a positively sadistic tendency, although Holmes himself may have seen it as nothing more than a natural curiosity, like wanting to be present at one’s own wake.
And Watson was, of course, deeply distressed by Holmes’ apparent death. After returning to the hotel and discovering the letter was a hoax, he immediately realised that the ‘tall Englishman’ who, Herr Steiler reported, had arrived shortly after he and Holmes had left, was Moriarty.