The Return of Moriarty (26 page)

“Monsieur le Professor,” he said. “I have thought about your offer. We have worked well together in the past, and I am tempted, but truly I am getting too old. I have been persuaded that I have enough money to keep me in reasonable comfort for the rest of my days. I do not wish to put my last years in jeopardy.”

The thief was not a member of Moriarty's syndicate, having always worked as a free lance, and there was no way in which the Professor could bring pressure to bear without antagonizing the rest of his men in France—for Lefantome was held in high regard. So, with a shrug, Moriarty departed and sought the help he required from among his own ranks.

However, he did make inquiries and soon discovered that shortly after his first call on Lefantome there had been another visitor. By the description there was little doubt it was Holmes; so Moriarty knew now that the detective had brought his powers of local persuasion to bear.

By the middle of February all arrangements had been made: the plan seemed foolproof and the four cracksmen were set to arrive from France. Yet on the day of their coming only two appeared at the house near the Strand, explaining with some agitation that there had been trouble when they disembarked from the Channel packet at Dover.

The men had been traveling in pairs and the two missing thieves had been first at the bottom of the gangway. As they stepped on shore they had been surprised to find a group of police officers waiting to meet them. With the officers was a man claiming that he was a fellow passenger and accusing the two Frenchmen of attempting to rob him during the crossing. It later transpired that the accuser was Holmes, and the French thieves had been returned to Calais by the next boat.

Moriarty was furious but, hell bent on his plans, left for Paris on the following day to choose two more cracksmen from the French division of his organization—it being an essential part of the plan that the robbery should be carried out by a gang of foreign criminals.

By March the whole team was assembled in London, but once more trouble struck when it was discovered that the police, led by the tenacious Inspector Patterson, were constantly watching the four Frenchmen, who by this time had been moved to other lodgings and kept well apart from one another. Again a few questions in the right quarters, and Moriarty discovered that the police's prime informer was Sherlock Holmes.

It was at this point that the Professor put Parker and his lurkers on constant watch, following every move made by Holmes. Within a few days it became obvious that Holmes was very close to Moriarty's trail, outthinking the Professor and proving himself at least his intellectual equal.

Another essential factor in the Professor's intrigue to steal the royal regalia was that the robbery should take place in the middle of May, when the jewels were being cleaned and refurbished. Now there was another sudden change of plan. At Holmes' instigation and with the help of his brother, Mycroft, the cleaning and refurbishing was brought forward to the end of April, a move that pinned Moriarty down, giving him little room to maneuver. It was then that the Professor became determined that he must dispose of Holmes—a step he fully realized might put his own safety at risk. But he had reluctantly formed a growing respect for his adversary and so was on the proverbial horns of a dilemma: he resolved, therefore, to make one bid to solve the problem by revealing himself to the detective in a last attempt at persuasion.
^*

As we know, Holmes was not so persuaded and Moriarty, his back against the wall, prepared to have the great detective assassinated. Spear was put on the job with a pair of cutthroats whom the Professor often used to settle local differences. Parker was alerted, and it was made generally known that there would be a bonus if Holmes became the victim of an accident.

Three attempts were made in quick succession—the first with a two-horse van at the junction between Bentinck and Welbeck Streets; the second, following within minutes of the first, in Vere Street, when Spear himself aimed a brick from the roof of one of the houses. The brick narrowly missed Holmes, and soon the area was crawling with police.

Parker was seeing to it that the detective was followed closely—first to his brother, Mycroft, in Pall Mall, and from thence to Dr. Watson in Kensington. It was during the latter journey that one of the assassins made a frontal attack with a bludgeon, badly mistimed, Holmes once more missing death by a fraction, and his assailant ending the day in custody.

Worse was to follow: the lurkers lost Holmes, and renewed effort was put into combing the city—Moriarty conducting the operation from his armchair in the Strand house. It was not until the following morning that he suddenly realized Holmes' intentions.

Watson, who by this time was under close surveillance, left his Kensington lodgings, and within seconds it was apparent that he was moving in accordance with some cleverly prearranged plan, conceived to throw any followers off the scent. Parker's men, in fact, lost him at the Lowther Arcade in the Strand, opposite Charing Cross Station. For a fleeting moment Moriarty imagined the station to be the doctor's goal, but a moment's simple deduction told him it was Victoria, not Charing Cross, that was Watson's destination. There was less than twenty minutes before the departure of the boat train, and little doubt now in the Professor's mind that Holmes, with Watson, was heading for the Continent.

With Spear, Paget and two other men, all crowded into a pair of cabs, the Professor—in the costume and disguise of his deceased brother—made the dash through the morning traffic. They arrived as the boat train was steaming from its customary platform, and Moriarty wasted no time in engaging a special. But once more, as the world knows, Holmes had given him the slip.
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It was more than a week before Moriarty had tracked Holmes and Watson into Switzerland; but not until May 3 before he made any positive move.

By this time his quarry had arrived in Meiringen, the main village of the Halsi Valley—the “front garden of the Bernese Oberland”—through which the river Aare flows, flanked by rising and beautiful woodlands.

Moriarty was ready for the kill, having for the past four days made certain that at least one, sometimes two, of his Swiss agents were leapfrogging ahead of the detective and his companion.

On the night of May 3 Moriarty lodged also in Meiringen, not at the
Englischer Hof,
where Holmes and Watson were quartered, by the excellent Peter Steiler, but at the larger Flora Hotel. His agents were quickly deployed, and before he retired to bed that night Moriarty knew that Holmes and Watson were, on the next afternoon, planning to walk across the hills to the village of Rosenlaui, pausing to view the awesome
Reichenbachfälle
on their way. Moriarty's plans were laid accordingly.

There are, of course, two accounts of what occurred on the afternoon of May 4: one reported by Dr. Watson, and a later account rendered again by Watson, with details supplied by the great detective himself. Neither is accurate, except with regard to what took place before Watson left Holmes, after he received the message purportedly from Peter Steiler, summoning him back to Meiringen to attend the fictitious English lady, supposedly in the terminal stages of consumption.

It was, of course, Moriarty who went from the Flora to the
Englischer Hof
once word had been received that Holmes and Watson had begun their climb. He wrote the note to Watson on the stationery provided and sent his agent ahead. Watson rose to the bait, though there is little doubt that Sherlock Holmes was aware (as he subsequently claimed) that the note was a ruse.

The confrontation, however, did not take place as described. Certainly Moriarty and Holmes met one another on the narrow pathway, a sheer drop on one side and a wall of rock on the other. But Moriarty was not alone. Behind him stood one of the Swiss agents and Paget. As Holmes saw him, he sensed a movement from behind and, turning, he was faced by Spear, a revolver in his hand.

“I think it is checkmate,” said Moriarty coolly. “And I have arranged it this way, Mr. Holmes, for our mutual advantage. I have no wish to kill you, sir, though I would be a fool to imagine you would not gladly risk your life to see me dead. I can only appeal to your own sense of logic.”

Holmes stood almost passively, as though expecting a death blow at any moment.

“You would not take my advice when last we met in London,” Moriarty continued. “And you must be fully cognizant of what has happened. You have been successful in foiling my plans, indeed in undoing the painful work of many months. For that I respect you, and I can only hope that we now both fully understand that we are a matched pair—though on opposite sides of the fence.” He took out his watch, looked at it for a moment and returned it to his waistcoat pocket. “I cannot stay over long, Mr. Holmes, but the decision on what is to follow must be yours alone. You could easily fall upon me now and we would grapple here on this ledge. My men have their orders and they will not stop us. But the result of such action can have three possible outcomes: I would go over the ledge; or you would plunge down; or the pair of us would go together. As matters stand, there are, however, only two really possible ways: that you would go down, or both of us would die; or, if I go, the good Spear, who stands behind you, has orders to shoot you like a dog.”

At this point Holmes appeared to play for time, and the pair exchanged several sentences. But after a few minutes Moriarty brought the conversation back to the matter at hand.

“So the result will be death—for you or both of us. I suggest a more honorable way. That we part company here, leaving a few clues to suggest that we have both perished. After that, a truce. We would both undertake not to return to England for some three years and, when that period is up, we do not speak of this matter again—except insofar as it may suit us as individuals. After that, I will endeavor not to cross your path again, on the understanding that you will not cross mine.”

We shall never know what made Holmes agree to the Professor's outrageous demands, but they were complied with. Maybe Holmes, weary of the struggle he had fought over the past months, decided it would be better for him to prolong his life and continue to serve the cause of justice in the hope that one day he would come face to face with Moriarty on more equal terms.

Moriarty recalled that as Spear escorted Holmes back onto the road to Rosenlaui, he felt no particular triumph. For once in his life he had met his match and not overcome him by true guile, but rather with superior forces backed by logic.

Now in the darkness of his bedchamber, Moriarty wondered if he would ever have to face Holmes again, and as he wondered, he experienced a nudge of real fear that perhaps in a second match Holmes would be the victor.

“And how do you make the Professor's ghost walk?”

Spear was worried by the question, which came from Green quite early in a conversation that had gone on well into the night. They had given him food—once more served by the lined and fatigued Bridget—and further drink; then the questions had come, piling one on top of the other in a manner which told Spear he would have to keep his wits about him if he were going to survive.

He had replied to the query concerning Moriarty's “ghost” in the way that came most obviously to mind—saying that they had employed an actor to simulate the Professor.

“And that has taken them in?” drawled Peter Butler.

“We have not let him be seen close, except by the four of us. Others see him only in shadow. It is an old trick.”

“You have nerve, Bert,” laughed Michael the Peg. “But then there's a lot at stake.”

He went on to make further inquiries, which Spear either parried or gave answers that held only enough truth to make them palatable. He hoped that his captors—for that is how he had to regard them—would not trap him into making unwary statements about which they knew the whole truth.

After the first hour Green detached himself and went to talk in low tones to a trio of thickset men who sat apart, looking as though they were holding themselves in readiness for some purpose.

Two of the men left shortly after this, not returning for some three hours. Green and Butler took it in turns to talk with Spear, who by the early morning was becoming increasingly tired.

At about what he judged to be four in the morning, Spear noticed that yet another conference was taking place between Green and the men who had left and returned during the night.

“Enough for one day.” Butler stretched and pointed to some bedding piled in one corner of the room. “If you want to sleep, spread yourself there.”

The room was large, obviously an attic room intended for stores. There was no ceiling, only rafters, and above them, the joists and inside slates of the roof itself. The exits and entrances were made through a trap in the floor at one end. The room was lighted by three or four oil lamps; two hung from the rafters, the others on the small table. The only other light, by day, would come from the two dormer windows set into one of the longer walls. Green and Butler, Spear thought, had been careful to keep him away from the windows.

“You going to kip then, Bert?” Green had come over.

Spear, anxious to end the questioning, nodded, and the Peg moved toward the pile of bedding. A curtain hung on a short rail from one of the rafters. Reaching up, Green pulled the tattered fabric.

“Your own chamber, there, Bert. Not as good as you probably have down in Limehouse, but when we take command, you'll have all the finery you want, eh?”

Limehouse had not been mentioned before, though it should not have come as a surprise that the two villains knew exactly where Moriarty's headquarters lay. Yet Spear's concern was increased by the remark, though he could do nothing, however, but shrug, smile and take himself to bed.

He removed his trousers and coat, pulled some of the blankets around him, and stretched out on the wide mattress that lay beneath. Fatigue washed over him, and he was just beginning to drift into darkness when he sensed someone else's presence within the curtain.