Sherlock Holmes (13 page)

“We were just discussing one or two of Mr Holmes’s cases before you appeared, doctor,” Tomlinson said. “In particular I’m intrigued by this Moriarty individual, this ‘Napoleon of crime’. An academic gone bad – fair chills the blood, it does. I’m only relieved that he occupied the mathematical chair at one of Britain’s minor universities and not, say, here. To think, if that had happened, I might have bumped into him on my rounds as a constable. Such a monstrous force for evil roaming these very streets…”

“He was not yet a fully fledged criminal mastermind while he was pursuing his studies into asteroid dynamics and the binomial theorem,” Holmes said. “I doubt he would have stood out amongst his peers at all back then. It was only after he was compelled to resign from his post and decamped to London that he began putting his mental powers to their darkest, most heinous use. Up until then, the odd disturbing rumour aside, he would have passed as just another jobbing intellectual.”

“It’s surprising he hasn’t cropped up in more of your tales, doctor.”

“He could, inspector. He yet may,” I said. “I have notes relating to at least half a dozen cases in which Professor Moriarty’s hand is detectable, and it is likely I shall get around to chronicling at least some of them. I feel safe doing so, now that he is dead and his chief of staff, Colonel Sebastian Moran, in jail. At least, Moran
was
in jail, although alas that is no longer the case.”

Holmes nodded gravely. “His escape from custody last September was a thing of brutal beauty, I must say. You heard about it, Tomlinson?”

“Afraid I didn’t.”

“He overwhelmed the two policemen guarding him in the back of the Black Maria that was taking him from Pentonville to the Old Bailey, simultaneously strangling one with the manacles around his wrists and the other with the chain of the shackles around his ankles. He then kicked the door open while the carriage was still in motion, leapt out onto the street on High Holborn, and hobbled away. He was gone in a flash, lost amid the milling West End crowds. I suspect a confederate was waiting for him nearby in a hansom, the whole thing prearranged – location, timing, the lot. That wild, wily old shikari.”

“Shikari?”

“It is Urdu for ‘big game hunter’. As deadly as the tigers he used to shoot in Bengal, Moran is, and as averse to captivity. And yet, without Moriarty to guide him, he is no menace. If he has any sense, he will be lying low, far away from here, perhaps back in his spiritual home, the jungles of the subcontinent.”

“I did not know of Moran’s existence when I was writing ‘The Final Problem’ two years back,” I said. “I was unaware that Moriarty had had a primary accomplice or that Moran had tried to kill Holmes after Moriarty failed, pelting him with rocks while he made his way back along the Aare Gorge from the Reichenbach Falls. As far as I knew, Moriarty was gone and his evil empire utterly destroyed, thanks to Holmes’s Herculean efforts. All the same, while I was working on the story I was glancing constantly over my shoulder, and even when I submitted the manuscript to Newnes at
The Strand
, it was not without some trepidation. Such was the extent of Moriarty’s organisation and influence that I half expected his spider-like grasp might somehow reach out from beyond the grave and touch me. I would have abandoned the undertaking, had I not felt the overwhelming need to set the record straight and defend Holmes from certain attackers, not least Moriarty’s brother.”

“Gad, there’s another of them!” Tomlinson exclaimed.

“As far as I’m aware, Colonel Moriarty – there is also an excess of colonels in this tale – is no more than he appears to be, a former soldier now gainfully employed as station master at one of the busier railway hubs in the west of England, Bristol Temple Meads I believe. He has engaged in no criminal activity that we know of. However, he published a letter keenly avowing that his sibling was innocent of the offences he had been credited with and moreover that he was nothing more than the victim of rank vilification from certain quarters. He did not mention Holmes by name, or me, but it was clear whom he meant. What he wrote was an absolute perversion of the facts, yet it gained some currency, not least through the auspices of Archie Slater.”

“Yes, the redoubtable Mr Slater of the
Illustrated London News
,” said Holmes. “He it was who took up cudgels on Colonel Moriarty’s behalf and penned a couple of articles which, had I not been ‘dead’ at the time, would have been actionable. He took Colonel Moriarty at his word and gave his scurrilous insinuations about me a veneer of credibility. He even conducted an interview with the man and reproduced his assertions unquestioningly as though they were fact. I am content to ascribe it all to an outpouring of grief and shame, the minor Moriarty driven half mad by the opprobrium attaching to his late brother and, by association, him. Hence it is forgivable. At any rate, he has gone quiet since my return. Perhaps wisely, he has sensed that it will not profit him to continue venting his spleen, now that I am around to respond in person.”

“How is it there are so many who are so eager to revile you, sir?” said Tomlinson. “It baffles me. You are quite obviously a paladin of truth and justice, yet even amongst the ranks of the police some find you beyond the pale.”

The inspector’s description of Holmes’s virtue caused me to inhale a goodly mouthful of tea, a vision of my friend astride a white horse like a knight of old in my mind’s eye.

“If I may answer that,” I said, recovering my composure, “it has always been true that those who routinely and energetically do good are considered suspect, their motivations questioned. Such is human nature, to regard altruistic behaviour as though it were a disease or a mental disorder. It is also true that possession of an acute intellect is an attribute many find intimidating. Holmes does himself no favours in that regard, since he tends to have little patience with anyone less cerebrally gifted than himself, which is to say everyone. The average person does not care to be reminded of his averageness and hence looks askance on the above-average person and views with deep mistrust and even hostility the exceptionally above-average.”

“You are too kind,” said Holmes with a touch of wryness.

“Mind you,” said Tomlinson, “gents like Professor Moriarty do give brainboxes a bad name.”

“Granted,” I said. “There can be little worse than a brilliant mind allied to a wicked soul, dedicating itself to deeds that harm others and benefit no one but its owner. I have often wondered what the world would be like had you, Holmes, elected to pursue self-interest rather than dedicating your life to the detection of crime and the unmasking of villains.”

“I rather imagine I should have ended up like Mycroft.”

“Yet your brother, for all his propensity for personal indulgence, helps safeguard queen and country against malign outside forces. I meant what if you had followed the same path as Professor Moriarty?”

“Were I to have done so, neither you nor Tomlinson nor anyone, not even Mycroft, would know about it,” said my friend. “I would remain as invisible and incognito as Moriarty did in his pomp. I would pose as a gentleman of good standing and background, without stain or blemish on my name, conducting my nefarious schemes in secret all the while. I might even anoint myself a consulting detective. Would that not be a delicious and most ironic cover identity? Publicly foiling the crimes of others while covertly committing my own.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

The interrogative came from Archie Slater, no less, who unbeknownst to us had sidled up to our table while we were in the thick of conversation. He had his notebook out, and now licked the tip of his pencil as though fully prepared to jot down anything we said. This was his idea of a joke, but no one smiled save him.

“Speak of the devil,” Holmes said. “I was just regaling the inspector here with an account of your involvement in Colonel Moriarty’s ill-advised and rather regrettable assault on me. You encouraged him in his advocacy of his brother’s innocence.”

“So what if I did? The man had a right for his voice to be heard.”

“You seem to me,” said Tomlinson, “a more than usually obnoxious specimen, even by the standards of your profession.”

“I have a job to do and I do it, same as any of you,” Slater retorted. “You might as well criticise a lion for bringing down gazelles or a shark for eating fish. Whatever it takes to make a living.”

“The difference between you and a lion or a shark, Slater,” I said, “is that you have a choice about the damage you inflict on others; those beasts don’t. I would rather take my chances with a wild predator, who may or may not attack me from the front, than an unscrupulous journalist who will almost certainly stab me in the back.”

“Oh, well put, doctor. Very witty. Odd how some critics accuse you of not being able to string together a decent sentence on the page, when you’re quite the Shakespeare in person.”

Before I could deliver a suitable riposte, Slater continued, “But I didn’t come to trade quips, however much fun it is. I came for a comment from you, Mr Holmes.”

“A comment on what?”

“Ah, didn’t you know?” Slater said with disingenuous puzzlement. “That is amazing. Not ten minutes gone, the Thinking Engine has begun tackling another case. Something to do with a Professor Merriweather, I think his name is, and the son of a peer of the realm.”

“What!” I exclaimed.

“Rum affair, it is. Somehow Professor Quantock got wind of it, either from the Magdalen College porter or one of the university Bulldogs, not sure which. There’s an undergraduate lying in a bed at the Radcliffe Infirmary, poisoned if the reports are true, his condition very poorly indeed. Quantock is busy informing the Thinking Engine about it all. You should come across and see.”

Accordingly we trooped over to Beaumont Street and entered the Galleries.

In the cellar chamber, the Thinking Engine hummed and chattered busily. Professor Quantock was seated before it, typing. Lord Knaresfield was also present, along with a clutch of journalists. The newspaper proprietor had a beaming, munificent look on his face.

“Mr Sherlock Holmes!” he cried as we entered. “Back for more, eh? Thought you might have learned your lesson the last time.”

“I come merely as an interested observer, your lordship. It would be wrong of me not to declare, though, that I have already resolved the Merriweather case to my satisfaction.”

“Well, sir, then the five-hundred-pound wager still stands. If the Thinking Engine makes a muck of it, I shall write you a cheque on the spot. Did you get that, all of you?” Knaresfield was now addressing the journalists. “The contest is on again, Sherlock Holmes versus the Thinking Engine. Make note. Mark it well for posterity. That’s an order, straight from your paymaster.”

“Do these gentlemen all work for your newspapers?” Holmes enquired.

“All but that Slater. Does it matter? I assure you they are quite impartial, if that’s what’s troubling you. I do not interfere with editorial policy, unlike some other press barons I could mention. My staff and freelancers are allowed to speak for themselves in whatever way they see fit. As long as nothing they publish gives offence, oversteps the bounds of decency or, most important of all, harms sales, then I leave them well alone. That said,” he added, “when a story such as this comes along, one in which I am personally involved, I do like it to be reported, if you know what I mean. What’s the use of owning national newspapers if they can’t make room for a few column inches about one’s escapades every once in a while? It’d be like having a yacht and never sailing in her.”

My friend ignored the man’s insufferable bluster. “I am still somewhat unclear why you have taken such an interest in Quantock and his machine.”

“Simple,” said Lord Knaresfield. “Look at the thing. Such sophistication, such beauty. Imagine a world where Thinking Engines are commonplace. Every city, every town has one. Every major newspaper office, too. Imagine what journalists could achieve with so powerful a resource. All that information at their fingertips. As a research tool it would be invaluable, and as a method of verifying stories. That’s what I’m seeing when I see the Thinking Engine at work: something that can aid my employees and enable them to do their jobs quickly, efficiently and accurately.”

He looked over at the vast, industrious computational machine, and his expression was that of a father watching his child grow, the future taking shape before his eyes.

“I fancy myself a bit of a visionary, Mr Holmes,” he continued.

“I’ve no doubt you do.”

“Yes, always ready to adopt new methods, new processes, anything to speed up the rate at which I can supply product to the masses and make it better and more attractive. When it comes to printing, for instance, I am not content with the usual rotary presses or linotype matrices. Those are old hat. I am currently investing in new kinds of presses that incorporate pneumatic sheet feed and delivery, and have ambitions to import the Lanston Monotype caster that the American papers have started using, a typesetter which makes justification, amongst other things, infinitely more precise. The Americans also have the halftone rotogravure reproduction system which I covet. Crystal-sharp photographs duplicated on newsprint at high speed – I’m looking to introduce that in Britain very soon. My papers will carry the best pictures, and others will look on in envy. Speaking of which… Smile!”

A journalist had produced a portable wooden Kodak box camera, which he proceeded to aim at Lord Knaresfield and Holmes. The former assumed a chest-puffing posture and extended a hand to the latter, who looked taken aback and, disregarding the proffered paw, bent aside so that his face was not in shot. There was sufficient daylight in the room for the photograph to have turned out decently had Holmes not shied away at the crucial moment, just as the journalist depressed the button on the side of the camera to trigger an exposure.