by Roger Jaynes
Sherlock Holmes:
A Duel with the Devil
Roger Jaynes
© Roger Jaynes 2003
Roger Jaynes has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2003 by Breese Books Ltd.
This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
Preface
The Case of the Dishonoured Professor
The Case of the Baffled Courier
Moriarty’s Fiendish Plan
Preface
Moriarty! Has any name in the history of our realm ever been so untouched by scandal, and yet so synonymous with evil? Has anyone, save Jack the Ripper, played a more sinister role in London’s sordid history of crime?
‘The Napoleon of crime,’ my good friend Sherlock Holmes once called him,…the organiser of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are numerous and splendidly organised. Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed – the word is passed to the professor, the matter is organised and carried out. The agent may be caught, in that case money is found for his bail or his defence. But the central power which uses the agent is never caught – never so much as suspected.
At the time Holmes first uttered such praise of the man, privately I was a bit sceptical. I thought his opinions far too generous. And yet, looking back over the years, perhaps the best testament to Moriarty’s insidious genius is that his name is mentioned so few times in all my public accounts of Holmes’s various adventures.
The blame for that, of course, must finally be shouldered by me, my famous companion’s Boswell. How many times, after the darbies had been applied and the criminals escorted into a waiting van, had Holmes suddenly remarked, ‘You realise, of course, Moriarty was at the bottom of this,’ and then proceeded to tell me why. And yet, repeatedly, it was I who chose to edit such closing remarks from the final text at the time of publication, primarily for fear of such legal repercussions as Holmes himself had noted at the time of the tragic Birlstone affair.
Now, I feel, such worries are past. Moriarty lies long dead beneath the swirling waters of Reichenbach Falls. The heretofore untold details of his evil career need no longer be suppressed. I can now state, without hesitation, that Moriarty and Holmes crossed swords many, many times before their final climactic encounter at the Falls, though the professor’s behind-the-scenes role was seldom mentioned. One case that immediately comes to mind was the previously published The Red-Headed League, in which, I can now reveal, the infamous forger John Clay and his accomplice were actually operating on Moriarty’s behalf. So, too, was James Ryder, head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan, who, after Holmes discovered his bungled attempt to steal the Blue Carbuncle, fled the country more in fear of Moriarty’s wrath than any loss to his good name. Two other cases, I should add, occurred in that same year, which Holmes refused to allow me to publish at all – The Pauper’s Good fortune and The Destruction of Culverton House. In both instances, my companion felt that I could not recount the facts involved without pointing a tell-tale finger in the direction of one of his many informants. Moriarty’s revenge, we both knew, would have been swift and sure.
I must, of course, truthfully admit that Holmes did not – in spite of his formidable powers – always come out the winner. What an ingenious fellow, Moriarty. He was, I am forced to confess, an overpowering, at times almost omnipotent force, which seemed to pervade London as thoroughly as the dense yellow fog on a damp November day.
For almost six years prior to Moriarty’s death, it seemed that his lieutenants, his minions, his thugs, were everywhere. No sooner would Holmes thwart one of their clandestine attempts at murder, blackmail, arson or extortion, than another sorrowful client would appear at our Baker Street lodgings, pouring out his or her singular story of woe. Which, after some reflection and investigation on Holmes’s part, we invariably found was the result of a scheme designed and carried out by either Moriarty, or his ruthless chief of staff, Colonel Sebastian Moran.
Yes, for almost six years – far longer and more frequently than I dared reveal at the time – Holmes and Moriarty duelled, thrust and parry, like two sword-bearing protagonists, for what at times seemed like the very heart and moral soul of London.
Now, glancing back in retrospect over my voluminous files, I find that the Holmes–Moriarty struggle was never fiercer than during the autumn and early winter of 1888, when in a period of approximately two months’ time, Holmes found himself challenged by no less than three of Moriarty’s most nefarious schemes. I was, I am proud to say, an eyewitness to his remarkable performance in them all – though I shall forever be ashamed of my initial (albeit unintentional) role in the last of the episodes chronicled here.
In all our years together, I doubt if we were ever confronted by a more sublimely menacing foe than Moriarty. It shall always be to Holmes’s credit, as these adventures illustrate, that he was able through his supreme intelligence and unique methods of deduction to foil – often though not always – the diabolical designs of Moriarty, who was in the final analysis, a mathematical genius gone mad.
Dr John H. Watson
London, England
October 7th, 1920
The Case of the Dishonoured Professor
During the third week of September, 1888, I was persuaded to undertake a personal matter for a boyhood friend who resided near Stranraer, the small seaside village of my youth, located off the Firth of Clyde on the hilly, windswept west coast of Scotland.
Upon enquiring, I was pleasantly surprised when Mr Sherlock Holmes, who rarely strayed beyond London’s drab environs, agreed to accompany me on what I thought was sure to be an arduous journey, citing the need for a few days of sunshine and fresh ocean air to revive his spirits.
Holmes, at that time, had good reason to feel both physically and mentally drained. In the previous two weeks, he had not only solved the peculiar case of Bishop Henley’s bloodthirsty parrot, but also thwarted an attempted train robbery at Paddington Station, and engineered a daring rescue of the Home Secretary’s son from the hands of a desperate group of kidnappers – an act which, I would be remiss if I did not add, saved Inspector Lestrade’s reputation in the process. Holmes was, to coin an oft-used phrase, played out – the result of too many days and nights without proper nourishment or rest. Far too often, during that hectic fortnight, he had spent countless hours ruminating in his favourite armchair or pacing restlessly before the fire from midnight till dawn, smoking pipeful after pipeful of the strongest shag imaginable while his precise and penetrating mind mulled over the convoluted matters at hand. As was his habit, he would allow his mind to work on a problem without rest, turning it over, examining it from every possible point of view, until he had either fathomed it or decided that his data were incomplete. In the latter case, I found, he would have invariably gone out again on some particular errand by the time I had risen the next day.
‘To let the brain work without sufficient data is like racing an engine,’ Holmes had told me, many times before. ‘It will, my dear Watson, unless given a rest, tear itself to pieces.’
Naturally, I was aware that Holmes possessed considerable reserves, both physical and mental. And yet, seeing how heavily he had drawn upon them during the last two weeks
, I feared he was, at that particular moment, dangerously close to the breaking point. Little wonder, then, that I heartily welcomed his unexpected companionship on my trip to the north, and not only because I knew it would make my journey much more bearable. The sun and sea air, I also felt sure, would do Holmes a world of good. A week or so away from Baker Street would free him, at least for a time, from the increasingly excessive strain his singular profession demanded.
My part in my childhood friend’s affair turned out to be simple enough: a half-hour’s testimony before a local magistrate trying to decide who, among seven feuding heirs, should receive what portion of a considerable (especially by Scottish standards) inheritance. Getting to Stranraer, however, was a far more tedious task, requiring a full day’s ride north by train from London to Carlisle, near the Scottish border (where we spent the night), and a second trip by rail west towards the coast the following morning. During that three-hour sojourn on the Glasgow and South Western Line, we passed first through Dumfries, the city of grim coalfields in which Robert Burns had died, and then made our way on across the rolling moors and rocky cliffs of the Southern Uplands, until we finally arrived – tired, but no worse for wear – at the bustling little harbour town of my birth.
Holmes, as was his habit when travelling by rail, was a virtual recluse the entire way, burying his nose into the latest editions of whatever newspapers were available, and taking long naps as well. I, quite fortunately, had remembered to bring along a favourite volume of sea stories, and concentrated my thoughts upon it.
For three days after I had given my testimony, Holmes and I remained in Stranraer, enjoying a sort of busman’s holiday. Upon the advice of my friend, we had taken a small, but comfortable, upper room at the King’s Arms (reasonably priced, I felt, at three shillings and sixpence a day), which offered us a magnificent view of the entire harbour area, as well as the approaching sails of the big ships, as they made their way up the oft-times choppy waters of Loch Ryan toward Stranraer, their next port of call. From our landlord, we learned that steamers daily afforded tourists what was then the shortest sea-passage possible to Ireland – across the North Channel to Larne in just two hours – but such an excursion was not what Holmes and I sought just then. Instead, each morning, we were content to rise late, enjoy a hearty Scot’s breakfast of porridge and cakes, and then spend a relaxing afternoon walking the beaches north of Black Head Light. As we thus savoured the benefits of the unusually mild weather and bracing salt air, I regaled Holmes with tales of my ancestors, one of whom I have always believed was an officer aboard a Spanish galleon, which, my father once told me, had crashed against the jagged rocks in that vicinity on a stormy night some three hundred years before, at the time of the Armada’s defeat.
Holmes’s initial reaction to my claim of some shred of Iberian heritage was one of polite scepticism. Until, on the second day of our wanderings, as he was wading barefoot along a stretch of tawny, wind-whipped beach, his toe unearthed a tarnished, worn doubloon from the sand.
‘Aha, Watson! ’ he cried out, with the first hearty laugh I had heard in weeks. ‘Come here! ’
As I drew closer, he tossed the coin to me. ‘Even here, by chance, I seem to have solved a mystery,’ Holmes remarked, with some amusement, as I stared down at the coin’s eroded features in my hand. Clasping my shoulder, he added, ‘Come along, old fellow. You now have more than sufficient proof, I believe, to convince any future unbelievers.’ A mischievous smile crossed his lips. ‘Consulting detectives notwithstanding.’
I beamed. Not out of vindication, but because I realised that my friend’s good-natured remarks were the first clear sign his period of prolonged lassitude was near an end.
By the fourth day, Holmes was once again his usual energetic and restless self – a good sign, I felt – and his appetite and good spirits seemed restored. Over breakfast, he declared himself rested and fit, and we decided forthwith to leave for London on the morrow. As I helped myself to yet another of our landlady’s tasty kippers and a second helping of porridge, Holmes surprised me by proposing a different return route home: why not, he suggested, rise early and take the train cross-country not only as far as Carlisle, but on east to Newcastle and south to Durham as well? According to his ever-handy Bradshaw’s, the connecting links of the North British line could have us there no later than one o’clock.
‘But for what reason?’ I enquired. ‘If our destination is London, Durham is, most certainly, out of our way.’
‘For that half-day’s inconvenience,’ Holmes explained, ‘we shall have the entire afternoon free to view a medieval group of structures unrivalled in all of England. Come, come, Watson! Such trips as these are rare. What better way to conclude our splendid vacation than with a visit to that historic city, with its mighty cathedral on the Wear? Whose walls Scott called, “Half Church of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot”.’
Naturally, I agreed at once. Holmes had always been an avid student of English history; his renewed interest, I felt sure, was yet another sign of his recovery. Besides, his point was well taken: Durham’s great cathedral and castle, along with their adjoining monastic buildings, were a landmark of the realm I had yet to see.
Hence, on the following day, a Monday, we rose with the sun and left Stranraer at half past seven, switching trains at Carlisle for Newcastle, which we made in just over two hours, despite half-on-demand stops at Hexham and Corbridge. Another change of trains – with an accompanying half-hour’s delay – was required before we could begin the final leg of our journey south to Durham. That was how, on that particularly bright autumn day, we found ourselves forced to pass some time in the decidedly dingy and somewhat malodorous confines of Newcastle Central Station.
‘A rather drab place, wouldn’t you say, Watson?’ Holmes said, as we settled ourselves on one of many hard, pew-like benches that had been placed about the grimy terminal.
‘That appraisal, I think, is extremely kind,’ I replied, amidst the smoke and the noise of the dreary, unkempt station. ‘Why, the sanitary conditions here are nothing short of disgraceful – as I’m sure your trained eye has already noticed.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Quite so. The rubbish bins are overflowing, and look at these old papers and wrappings littering the benches! And yet, Holmes, I see not one – not one! – janitor or charwoman about, with a pail and mop in hand.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Look here,’ I continued, retrieving a discarded sheet from beneath our bench. ‘Saturday’s edition, Holmes! Why, it’s clear to me this station has not been properly cleaned in days.’
My companion chuckled, as he drew out pipe and pouch and proceeded to fill the bowl. ‘An accurate deduction, my dear Watson,’ he concurred, a faint smile of amusement upon his lips. ‘Why, I do believe that you are finally applying my methods correctly, after all.’
‘I find nothing humorous in this,’ I declared, irked at my friend’s apparent indifference.
‘There, there, Doctor – bear with it! Another hour, and we shall be enjoying not only a fine autumn afternoon, but some of the most interesting buildings in Europe, whose construction marks England’s first great step from the Romanesque to the Gothic! True, a long train-ride awaits us tomorrow, but by nightfall, we shall most certainly be back at our lodgings in Baker Street. Which, I have no doubt, will have become miraculously clean and neat as a pin in our absence, thanks to the industrious Mrs Hudson.’
‘Well, I do hope that industry includes a hearty dinner, to celebrate our return. Pheasant and oysters, perhaps? Long travel, I have found, does stimulate the appetite.’
Holmes chuckled once more. ‘Never fear, Watson. I have, already, anticipated your Epicurean desires. You recall I took time to despatch a telegram, when we changed trains at Carlisle? It was to our good landlady, informing her we should arrive at St Pancras at six tomorrow night, and to expect us shortly thereafter.’
‘Excellent! In return, I shall now purchase what dailies are ava
ilable, before we board our train. I am not unmindful of your travelling habits, Holmes, and unless I’m mistaken, that is a vendor’s booth, in front of the booking office down the way.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t, just this minute,’ my friend replied. He struck a match, and carefully held it above the bowl of his black clay, inhaling deeply as he spoke. ‘A visit by you to that kiosk might, I am afraid, frighten away our extremely attentive friend.’
Looking up, I caught sight in the crowd of a short, stocky man in a brown suit and dark bowler hat, newspaper in hand, who was pacing somewhat furtively back and forth between the booking office and a large baggage wagon, which was sitting next to the tracks about half the distance away. He appeared to be watching us closely.
‘Yes, I see him, Holmes. The bulky fellow with the game leg.’
‘Worse than that,’ my companion said. ‘An amputee.’
‘However can you tell?’
‘Observe his shoes, Watson. The right one is wrinkled, the left one smooth.’
‘But what could he possibly want with us?’
‘I’ve no idea, but we do seem to have attracted his interest. He first caught sight of us as he turned round from purchasing his newspaper, about the time we took our seats. He has since spent the last few minutes observing us intently.’
‘Perhaps he’s one of the Chapel crowd,’ I suggested, recalling Holmes’s recent success on behalf of the Home Secretary. Instinctively, I reached into the pocket of my coat. ‘Revenge, perhaps? If so, I have my revolver ready.’
‘Thank you, Watson, but I doubt that you shall need it. His features do not appear malevolent; rather, he seems beset by indecision. For whatever reason, he is at present trying to decide whether or not to approach us.’
An expectant look suddenly crossed Holmes’s hawk-like face. ‘Well, well! ’ he exclaimed. ‘Our mysterious friend, it seems, has made up his mind. Look! He’s coming our way.’