by Anita Janda
“But why—”
“Watson, try to understand. For the first time in my career, I had come up against a worthy opponent. ‘Know thyself’ is considered to be one of the most reliable maxims for a well-spent life, but I say ‘Know thy enemy’ is a better, because knowledge of an enemy’s history, habits, and henchmen is the surest route to knowledge of how to protect yourself against him. Moriarty’s history was and is largely a matter for conjecture, his henchmen were legion, and I was forced to rely almost entirely upon my understanding of his habits. I knew Moriarty prided himself on his ability to move undetected among his victims, gathering information and lining his pockets. His men didn’t rely on sticks of dynamite to effect their entrances. They opened locked doors and oiled their hinges, removed what was most valuable (and could most easily be sold), and locked up the rest before they left. Often it was weeks before the Yard was called in, so sure were the owners that the thief had to be a member of the household or (in the case of a business theft) the company. Many a happy family or commercial partnership foundered in the wake of a visit from the Professor’s men. I could not fail to anticipate the visit they would make to my consulting rooms, their careful search among my notes. I actually coined the name ‘Moriarty’ before I knew to whom it might refer. That’s right, Watson! I deduced the nature and existence of the spider from the extent of his web, and I named him accordingly.
“I got the idea from you, Watson, and it answered beautifully. My rooms were searched four times that I know of and on no occasion were any of my notes removed or tampered with. Moriarty knew that I was aware of his activities, but what proofs I had, the extent of my knowledge—that, he was never able to discover. I was able to put a name to him at last and that is the name I shared with Inspector Patterson, but still I called him Moriarty to myself; the only difference was, now I called him Professor Moriarty. I knew something of his history now, you see. I knew the tale of his public accomplishments, his University appointment, how he appeared to make his living.
“When I sat down at the foot of the path to the Reichenbach Fall to compose my farewell note, I had no thought of deceiving you. You were the least of my worries, believe me! I thought about the Professor, waiting impatiently for me to finish my letter—how long would he allow me for this task? I thought about the Swiss messenger, Hans Schmidt—was he in position? Would he be a reliable witness? And I thought about Inspector Patterson, whose case against Moriarty’s men would be incomplete without the contents of the blue envelope in my desk, the one marked ‘Moriarty,’ filed under M. Without explicit instructions from me, through you, he would search my rooms in vain for that information, as had Moriarty’s men before him. My farewell note was absolutely genuine. I expected to die, remember. I expected to die and I was determined to do everything in my power to ensure that I should not die in vain.”
Most people, I thought sourly, would be content to think they had not lived in vain.
“Say something, Watson,” he demanded. I remember telling myself that it was a good sign that he wanted my reaction. It meant that he knew my wits might not be totally overwhelmed by his explanation.
“It was your idea to give everyone a different name, Watson,” he added. And I knew that unless I could pinpoint the source of my discomfort within a matter of seconds, he would expand upon this theme until it became apparent even to me that it was in tribute to his old friend Watson that he had called him Moriarty.
“The newspapers!” I gasped. I had him now. “They talked about the trial and conviction of the Moriarty gang. How could that be if ‘Moriarty’ were a code name?”
“How could that be if ‘Moriarty’ had been his real name?” he said, amused. “Watson, you aren’t thinking! Moriarty was as I described him to you: an Army coach, a former professor, a respected member of society who died an untimely death in an unfortunate accident abroad. He was never charged with a crime. How could the Yard link his name to a band of murdering thieves? I think Patterson did very well by me. He honoured my memory in the only way open to him. If you check the records, Watson, you will find that ‘the Moriarty gang’ gained its name only after Inspector Patterson received your telegram about the blue envelope in my desk in Baker Street.”
“And the letters?” I asked, my heart sinking along with my voice. (Say it isn’t so, I pleaded with him in my heart of hearts.) “The letters from Colonel James Moriarty, the Professor’s brother, attacking you in The Times and The Standard and…?”
“Written by me,” he confessed, and I could hear the smile in his voice. He wasn’t half pleased with himself. “Watson, you should have known. You should have guessed! Colonel James Moriarty, Retired, brother of Professor James Moriarty? Really, Watson! What mother ever named her two boys James?”
* * *
How often, I wonder, does a friendship die all in a moment? Surely this cannot be a common occurrence, I tell myself. Surely, I would have heard about the phenomenon, if it were. There would be some account of it—in Shakespeare. Or the Bible.
I would have trusted Sherlock Holmes with my life. And the irony of it is, I should have been perfectly safe in doing so. What I could not trust him with was my pride.
We had been in competition with each other from the beginning, and I didn’t even know it.
Chapter 35
Holmes has proposed that I should sell my practice, put the furniture (Mary’s furniture) in storage, and move back to Baker Street with him, and I have promised to think it over. “Don’t say anything now, there’s a good chap. Go home and sleep on it, Watson. It was like the old days tonight, wasn’t it?”
But the old days were never like this. Not for me.
* * *
I remember how it felt, waiting with him in the empty house, how dark it was. How damp! There was a strong odour of cat drifting up at us from the ground floor, but it was on the first floor—our footsteps sounded very loud as we climbed the stair—that Holmes told me that “Moriarty” was a code name of his own invention, known to everyone but me. Useless to tell him that he could have given Moriarty’s mother a dozen sons named James and it would not have sufficed to make me doubt him.
He had played me perfectly, from first to last, even to the timing of those revelations. Impossible for me to leave him there in the empty house to await his doom alone. What should I do, take my empty revolver with me or give it to him for his protection? It was impossible. It was all of it impossible, I decided. Holmes, Mary, the child—it was more than I could bear. I refused to bear it.
We waited for our quarry in the dark of the empty house for over two hours. Holmes was restless at first, alternately haunting the window and abusing Lestrade. “You don’t have to worry about Lestrade, Watson.” And: “Lestrade is used to your little fictions, Watson. He probably thought Moriarty’s alias was your idea.” And still later: “I don’t actually know whether Lestrade knew about the code name or not, Watson. He was not on that case but the Yard knew, certainly, and Lestrade works for the Yard, so I think we must accept the possibility that Lestrade knows what Patterson knew. The capture of the Moriarty gang was the success of 1891. I have no doubt they talked about it among themselves.” I wanted to laugh. It wasn’t Lestrade’s opinion of me I cared about.
Towards midnight, Holmes grew restless again. “Not asleep, are you, Watson?” he whispered.
“Not yet,” I admitted wryly, whispering in my turn.
“It seems I owe you an apology,” he said in a more normal tone of voice, and for a moment, I allowed myself to hope. (If he could bring himself to apologize to me…) “I appear to have led you and the good Lestrade on a bit of a wild goose chase. If you will bear with me for another quarter of an hour—What is that? Quiet, Watson!”
If I were still in the business of recording the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the next few minutes would have been worth a thousand words, at least. As it is, suffice it to say that I, Dr John H. Watson, laid low one Sebastian Moran, in Holmes’s own words, “the second mo
st dangerous man in London,” using a gun that wasn’t even loaded. On the strength of his unique weaponry and highly original modus operandi, this Sebastian Moran is to be charged with the murder of his one-time gambling partner, the Honourable Ronald Adair, who was a shade too honourable (compared to Sebastian Moran) for his own good. It was another feather in the cap of Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective.
How very odd. It didn’t occur to me last night (truthfully, I found his croaking cries of “Watson, you saved my life!” a trifle melodramatic under the circumstances), but if Colonel Moran was the second most dangerous man in London because Moriarty was the first, and if that same Professor Moriarty (whatever his real name was) has been dead for almost three years, doesn’t that mean I felled The Most Dangerous Man in London with my empty gun? Blast that Holmes! Am I never to be able to take what he says to me at face value?
For all I know, he staged my triumph over Moran in order that I might appear to advantage in front of Lestrade.
Is that possible? Yes, I am convinced that it is. He was very worried about what Lestrade might say to me. And it certainly seemed to me to be unnecessary for Holmes to tackle Moran in that ill-advised way. Where was Holmes’s knowledge of baritsu last night? In a matter of seconds, Moran had him pinned to the wall and was throttling the life out of him. From where I was standing, fumbling for my revolver, the outcome of the conflict was never in any doubt. Ignorant of my presence and intent on strangling Holmes, Moran was an easy target. One good blow behind the ear with my gun butt and Moran was down for the count.
“Watson, you saved my life!” croaked Holmes.
“Not at all, Holmes,” I replied, prying up my victim’s eyelids and wishing I could see his pupils. Good, he was beginning to stir.
“What have we here?” asked Lestrade, shining his dark lantern in our direction. “Dr Watson, as I live and breathe. Good to see you again, Doctor! I was sorry to hear about your wife. And who’s this?”
There was no awkwardness between me and Inspector Lestrade. How could there be when we have both been cast in supporting roles in the continuing drama of Holmes’s career? I venture to say that Lestrade and I understood each other better last night than we have ever done before.
* * *
I know his name is Sebastian Moran because that was the name Holmes gave him, to me and to Lestrade, and Moran made no effort to deny the appellation. Oh, it is impossible! If I have to ask myself after every one of Holmes’s remarks how it is that I know that he is speaking the truth, I might as well give up the association at once. Is that what I want? I’ve lost everyone else—my wife, my child, my brother, my parents. Do I really want to lose Holmes now, for the second time?
I don’t know. I can’t think. Nothing makes sense to me any more. I mourned the loss of my friend Holmes for three years and he was content that I should do so. My grief suited his purposes, not that he has been able to articulate those purposes very well. His story is a mass of contradictions, and that in itself is strange. For when has it ever been the case that I observed a contradiction that was hidden from my friend Holmes?
“4 May, 1891. Meiringen, Switzerland. Sherlock Holmes narrowly escaped death today at the hands of Professor James Moriarty [sic], a fellow Englishman, in an unprovoked attack at the brink of the Reichenbach Fall. Mr Holmes, a consulting detective whose activities on behalf of Scotland Yard have made him a general favourite with our readers, reported that he owed his escape to his knowledge of baritsu, an Oriental system of self-defense. ‘The true disciple of baritsu allows his enemy to defeat himself. He rushed at me, I abandoned my resistance, and his own momentum sent him plunging to the depths below. There was nothing I could do.’ Hans Friedrich Schmidt, age 15, who saw the entire incident while searching for birds’ nests in the vicinity of the Fall [I have to make some excuse for his presence], confirmed Mr Holmes’s account in every particular. No motive has been given for the attack.”
When Holmes appeared in my study yesterday afternoon (really, it is a good thing I don’t have a weak heart), he told me that the reason he had climbed the overhang, abandoning me to my false conclusions, was that he wanted to lull his enemies—his London enemies—into a false sense of security, to shake off any further pursuit. My blood ran cold when I thought of him climbing that cliff, searching for handholds and footholds, coming to rest on what he described as “a mossy ledge” about twenty feet above the Fall. I remember that cliff and when I described it as a sheer wall in ‘The Final Problem’, I was not conscious of any element of exaggeration.
Over and over again he assured me that only his loving brother Mycroft (and the Swiss messenger and the Swiss police) knew of his escape. Perhaps he thought that if he said it often enough, he could make it true. Perhaps he thought that with enough repetitions, he could hypnotize me into believing it. I don’t know.
His rationale was the usual one, long familiar to me. I was known to be his friend. “They” would be watching me. He could not confide in me lest I inadvertently give the game away. It was best I know nothing. It was necessary I know nothing.
I don’t know why I didn’t believe him, but I know I didn’t: it was an empty revolver I brought with me to the empty house. I remember thinking how appropriate that was. Truth to tell, I felt strangely empty myself, drained equally of every last vestige of pity and grief. I didn’t know what to believe, what to think.
Last night heaped revelation on revelation. More art, less trade. I was the least of his worries. I should have known. Those scurrilous letters he planted in The Times from “Colonel James Moriarty” last year? Merely a way of testing my intelligence while gently urging me to tell the story of his death. I should be proud of that adventure. ‘The Final Problem’ was a literary triumph, far and away the best thing I’ve done.
Then, back in Baker Street, more revelations. Voilà! Direct from Paris, France, the wax bust of Holmes which had served as his decoy, taking the bullet Sebastian Moran had meant for the back of my friend’s head. The capture of Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s ablest lieutenant, had settled an old score for Holmes: Moran was the very man who had accompanied Moriarty to Switzerland three years ago and tried to pick Holmes off his mossy ledge by tossing boulders down on him. Moran’s men had probably been watching the windows at 221B Baker Street for signs of his return for years!
It makes no sense. Once Sebastian Moran began heaving boulders at him, Holmes must have known that the secret of his survival was out. Hans Schmidt knew it, Sebastian Moran knew it, Mycroft Holmes knew it, eventually even Inspector Grillot knew it. The only one who didn’t know it was his old friend Watson. As I was the only one kept ignorant of the fictional state of Professor Moriarty’s name.
I should have walked out when he told me about his previous acquaintance with Sebastian Moran, “Moriarty’s ablest lieutenant.” Why did I wait, smiling and nodding as if I agreed with his assessment of the situation when I didn’t agree with him, at all, about any of it?
I don’t know. I can’t think. It is the effect of piling one shock upon another until nothing feels safe and secure. Mary and the child are dead, and with them all of my comfort and most of my hope. Holmes is alive and eager for me to lend him my countenance. “What you need now is work,” he told me, clapping me on the back—and that was the closest he came to mentioning Mary’s name all evening.
Chapter 36
I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, and my mind will go round in circles. I have tried giving myself designated times to mourn (“Watson, you may have an hour”), but the heart doesn’t work that way. My plans, my needs do not impress it, and why should they? I gave my heart to Mary a long time ago.
What I don’t understand is why all thoughts of Mary lead directly to Holmes. It is as if all my grief for Mary had at its center my grief for Holmes, and I know that’s not true. I loved Mary. What does Holmes have to do with it?
When I think of all of that misplaced agony when I thought Holmes was dead! The guilt, the despair, the marvelling at M
ycroft’s bizarre behaviour, which isn’t nearly so bizarre now that I know the truth. How he must have squirmed when Mary arrived to break the news to him! He handled it well, though. He had her out of there and on her way to Meiringen in a matter of minutes. But then the Holmes boys always do handle things well. When your only concern is how to maintain your advantage, it’s easy to handle things well.
No. It’s not fair to blame Mycroft for this. It’s no more his fault Holmes chose to hide from me than it was my fault I never suspected the deception. Always, always, it comes down to this for me. How could he do it? Why would he do it? Mycroft merely protected his brother’s secret, as I would have done myself. For all he knew, Holmes’s life was still in danger, the general belief in his destruction his only protection. It was not for Mycroft to enlighten Mary, and by the time I had returned to England, the deception was firmly established. Mrs Hudson had her instructions and I, I was of no more consequence than Mrs Hudson.
At the moment, Holmes appears to be keeping his distance, waiting for me to call upon him in Baker Street. When I do, he will probably expect me to bring ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ with me. It is my move and at another time, with Mary by my side, I might have managed it, but now? I doubt I have the emotional dexterity for this. It is not in me to be sorry that Holmes survived his meeting with Moriarty, but I have never felt less like celebrating a victory in my life. I am so tired of rising to the occasion. Sleeping, eating, shaving, listening to my patients describe their symptoms—everything seems to take so much concentration now. So much effort. And now I have ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ to write.
All week long I have been wrestling with the circumstances of his return, trying to make a start on ‘The Empty House’, but to no avail. Part of the problem is that I can’t decide how much of the story I have to tell. Must I tell everyone that “Moriarty” was a code name and that Holmes forced my hand with those letters in The Times? Or is it enough to admit that I was the reason he decided to play dead these three years past? However much (or little) I decide to tell, it is bound to be humiliating.