The Veiled Detective (30 page)

W
hen Ireached the path which ran part of the way around the Reichenbach Falls, Isaw that Holmes was in conversation with the dark stranger Ihad spied from afar, the stranger whom Iwas in no doubt was Professor Moriarty. The sense that both my friend and Ihad experienced throughout our sojourn, that our footsteps were being dogged, had proved to be true. And now at last Holmes’ nemesis had caught up with him.

Slowly Icrept forward, keeping close to the rock face so that Moriarty would not catch sight of me. Although Icould not hear what was being said, because the roar of the falls drowned their words, both men appeared remarkably restrained in their attitude to each other. It was almost as though they were two old friends who had met by accident and were exchanging pleasantries, rather than an encounter between two implacable enemies. Only their strained faces betrayed the reality of the situation. And then suddenly, without warning, Holmes leaped forward and set upon Moriarty. Icould see that the Professor had produced a gun, but thankfully Holmes managed to shake it from his grasp. As they
grappled with each other, they moved inexorably nearer the edge of the path. Jerking my own revolver from my jacket pocket, I hurried up the path, but both men were so entwined in their struggle that I could not fire for fear of hitting Holmes. On reaching them, I saw that Moriarty was gaining the upper hand and was attempting to strangle Holmes while, at the same time, forcing him nearer the edge.

For a brief moment, I froze with indecision and fear, and then some innate instinct governed my actions. Without quite knowing what I was doing, I rushed forward and grabbed Moriarty from behind, pulling him back with me on to the path. So sudden and surprising was this action, that he automatically dragged Holmes back with him as well — back from the brink of oblivion. Both men collapsed on the ground. But it was not long before they were on their feet again. Taking stock of the situation, something approaching fear flashed into Moriarty’s dark, malevolent eyes. Instinctively, Holmes and I acted in unison. Each grabbing hold of one of the Professor’s arms, we dragged him backwards to the edge of the path. As he realised what was happening to him, what we were about to do, Moriarty’s eyes widened in panic, an emotion alien to him, and he roared in terror, but his cry was swallowed by the thunder of the falls. He struggled violently, his body twisting and kicking in a desperate effort to wrench himself free of our firm grasp. But we did not flinch from our task.

At last we delivered him to the very brink. With a concerted effort, Sherlock Holmes and I flung the Professor over into the falls. Resembling a great bat-like creature, his cloak spreading like wings, he sailed out over the chasm, desperately clawing the air as if some miracle would allow him to clamber back on to terra firma. He seemed for a moment to be held in suspended animation, before slipping slowly from sight as the rising spray enveloped him as in a shroud. And then he was gone. Gone from sight; gone from our lives. Swallowed whole by the gushing torrent of the Reichenbach Falls.

Both Holmes and I staggered back from that dreadful chasm and gazed at the thrashing water for what seemed like ages. Then, strangely in unison once more, we burst out laughing. It was unstable, unnatural laughter — it was the laughter of release and guilt. Our bodies shook with hysterical mirth, and tears ran down our cheeks. In thinking back on that moment, I have tried to analyse my own feelings and why I should have responded in such a way at so dark a moment; but the experience was unique, and it is so very difficult to find a point of emotional reference. Certainly a burden had been lifted from my life and that of my dear friend, and together we had rid society of one of its most malevolent pariahs, but in doing so we had taken the law into our own hands. We had ourselves strayed from the path of righteousness. It must have been these conflicting emotions that helped to create our unnatural laughter; but I am sure there were other elements involved, which a more clever man than I could explain.

After a time we lapsed into silence, our eyes still locked on the gushing torrent of the Reichenbach Falls. It was Holmes who finally brought us back to some kind of normality.

“Now we must part,” he said, in a cold matter-of-fact fashion. “We have achieved our goal, but at a cost to ourselves and our consciences. It would be better, for the time being at least, if the world believed that both Moriarty and I had perished in the falls. You can record the matter as such, thus absolving yourself of any part in the villain’s demise...”

He held up his hand in a peremptory fashion as I attempted to interrupt.

“I need a rest from crime, Watson. There will be no real challenges now. After all, who could compare to Moriarty? I need to absent myself from the bleat of the distressed client for a while. I shall travel, study and learn. You will go back to London and report my death. And carry on with your own life. In time, when the dust has settled and I feel the urge
to return to damp and foggy London and to Baker Street, Iwill return. Well, Imight return. The future is uncertain, and Irelish that.”

“You have planned this.”

“As much Iwas able to, yes. Iknew that if Icould destroy Moriarty and survive, Iwould feel free at last to follow some of my own desires, to extend my own education. When Iam wiser and more fulfilled, it is quite probable that Ishall take up my lens again and study the work of the criminal mind. Now go; go to the Englischer Hof and tell them the terrible news.”

“And you?”

“I shall disappear. Do not ask me where; Ido not intend to lie to you.”

I felt a lump form in my throat. Here was a man Ihad deceived — or believed Ihad deceived — who still accepted me as a friend. And now that our friendship had been sealed irrevocably by the most terrible of acts, he was about to disappear from my life for ever.
A
deep sadness overwhelmed me.

Holmes smiled sympathetically. “My dear Watson, do not look so crestfallen. We shall meet again, Ifeel sure. But for now, go. Go and do not look back.”

I did as he asked.

E
XTRACT FROM
‘T
HE
F
INAL
P
ROBLEM
’
BY
J
OHN
H. W
ATSON

First published in the
Strand Magazine
, 1893

An examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other’s arms. Any attempt at recovering the bodies was
absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of law of their generation.

The Swiss youth was never found again, and there can be no doubt that he was one of the numerous agents that Moriarty kept in his employ. As to the gang, it will be in the memory of the public how completely the evidence which Holmes had accumulated exposed their organisation, and how heavily the hand of the dead man weighed upon them. Of their terrible chief, few details came out during the proceedings, and if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career, it is due to those injudicious champions who have endeavoured to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and wisest man whom I have ever known.

W
atson did return to London, carrying with him the fiction that Sherlock Holmes had perished along with Professor James Moriarty at the base of the Reichenbach Falls. He was reunited with his beloved wife, Mary, and soon resumed his medical career. Although he slipped back into the domestic scene with comparative ease after his dark experiences, there was always an empty corner in his heart now that Holmes and detective work were no longer part of his life. He relived his adventures in the stories he published in the
Strand Magazine
, but it wasn’t the same as the real thing.

Watson had hoped to hear from Holmes after a while, but there was no news from his friend. Mrs Hudson had disappeared, but Mycroft kept on his brother’s rooms as a second bolthole for himself. Mycroft was secure in the knowledge that of all Moriarty’s gang, he alone had escaped. No one, not even his detective brother, had known or even suspected his involvement with the Napoleon of Crime.

Watson’s life darkened even further the following winter, when Mary succumbed to about of pneumonia and passed away two days after
Christmas. Watson viewed this blow as a kind of divine punishment for his past deceptions and failings.

And then, one day, three years after the Reichenbach incident, an old bookseller walked into his consulting-room — an old bookseller who, removing his disguise, revealed himself as a familiar figure to Doctor John H. Watson.

Sherlock Holmes had returned.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF
S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES

Daniel Stashower

When Harry Houdini is framed and jailed for espionage, Sherlock Holmes vows to clear his name, with the two joining forces to take on blackmailers who have targeted the Prince of Wales.
ISBN: 9781848564923

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF
S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES

David Stuart Davies

Holmes attends a seance to unmask an impostor posing as a medium, Sebastian Melmoth, a man hell-bent on obtaining immortality after the discovery of an ancient Egyptian papyrus. It is up to Holmes and Watson to stop him and avert disaster...
ISBN: 9781848564930