Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes E-Book

Andrew Lane

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 499

Beschreibung

BRAND-NEW TALES OF THE GREAT DETECTIVE Once again the spirit of Sherlock Holmes lives on in this collection of twelve brand-new adventures. Wonder at how the world's greatest consulting detective plays a deadly game with the Marvel of Montmartre; investigates a killing on the high seas; discovers Professor Moriarty's secret papers; battles a mysterious entity on a Scottish mountain; travels to the Red Planet to solve an interplanetary murder; and solves one last case with Dr Watson Jr!

Leseprobe

Also Available from George Mann and Titan Books:

Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead

Sherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box (June 2014)

The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes

The Executioner’s Heart: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation

The Revenant Express: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation (July 2014)

FURTHER ENCOUNTERS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

BRAND-NEW TALES OF THE GREAT DETECTIVE

Edited by George Mann

TITAN BOOKS

Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

Print edition ISBN: 9781781160046

E-book edition ISBN: 9781781160114

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: February 2014

Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by the individual contributors.

Introduction copyright © 2014 by George Mann.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

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CONTENTS

Introduction by George Mann

The Adventure of the Professor’s Bequest by Philip Purser-Hallard

The Curious Case of the Compromised Card-Index by Andrew Lane

Sherlock Holmes and the Popish Relic by Mark A. Latham

The Adventure of the Decadent Headmaster by Nick Campbell

The Case of the Devil’s Door by James Goss

The Adventure of the Coin of the Realm by William Patrick Maynard and Alexandra Martukovich

The Strange Case of the Displaced Detective by Roy Gill

The Girl Who Paid for Silence by Scott Handcock

An Adventure in Three Courses by Guy Adams

The Sleep of Reason by Lou Anders

The Snowtorn Terror by Justin Richards

A Betrayal of Doubt by Philip Marsh

INTRODUCTION

Sherlock Holmes. A name that strikes fear into the heart of criminals and lackadaisical policemen alike. A name that rings out across the centuries, across language barriers and cultural divides. But who is Holmes? What is it that gives him such longevity? Why have terms such as ‘elementary’ and ‘the game’s afoot’ entered our lexicon?

Clearly, Holmes has become something greater than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his creator, could ever have imagined. Tales of his exploits have passed into legend. His name has become a by-word for a great detective, shorthand for ‘genius’.

Sherlock Holmes has become an archetype. It’s probably fair to say that Holmes is one of the most successful and popular fictional characters of all time. Indeed, he’s no longer just a fictional character from the latter days of the nineteenth century, and nor does he remain the creation of one man alone.

Holmes is now a part of our literary heritage. More than that, he’s been woven into the rich texture of our mythology Everyone knows who Sherlock Holmes was, as surely as they recognise any of the great historical figures: Winston Churchill, Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie, to name but a few. I’ve heard it said that there are more people who believe Holmes to be a real historical figure than people who know him to be a fictional character, although surely that must be apocryphal? Perhaps not.

Certainly, I’m convinced that more people paraphrase Doyle’s famous sleuth than will ever read the original stories in which he appears. More still know him from feature films, television shows, computer games, comic books, radio plays — the list is almost endless. He’s appeared in almost every storytelling medium, in enough stories to give a completist like me terrible, terrible nightmares.

Holmes is a character who won’t — who can’t — die. He’s been resurrected innumerable times; not only by his creator, who relented and breathed fresh life into Holmes after his murderous attempt to send his creation to his doom, but by writers, actors and artists all across the globe. He’s been reinvented and reinterpreted, turned into a vampire and a zombie, reconstructed as a hologram in the far future, transposed into a talking animal. Always, however, he remains recognisably Holmes. Always, his true character shines through. The archetype is so strong, so powerful, that all it takes is a pipe and a deerstalker, or perhaps only a single word — ‘elementary’ — to invoke him.

For that reason, Holmes will never die. No matter what a succession of writers might choose to do with him. There’ll always be an untidy sitting-room in Baker Street, London, in which a man wearing a tatty old dressing-gown sullenly smokes a pipe, ekes sounds out of a violin and contemplates the nature of the criminal mind.

Like all good heroes, you can’t keep Holmes down for long.

My point is simply that Holmes has grown beyond the page, beyond the screen. He’s become a part of the fabric of our society, a name that’s recognised in every single country in the world. A name that carries meaning wherever you go. Like Robin Hood or Hamlet, Santa Claus or Sleeping Beauty, Sherlock Holmes belongs to us all.

In this anthology, the great detective is restored to us once again for twelve brand-new cases, leading us from mysterious London embassies to the distant sands of Mars, from the dizzy heights of the Victorian era to the waning years of Holmes’s life. Here we meet the siblings of Moriarty and the child of Watson, sinister wax dummies, time travellers and drug-fuelled alter egos. Here is adventure and mystery. And most importantly, here is Sherlock Holmes.

Once more, the game’s afoot, and Watson is ready to relate his tale.

George Mann

October 2013

THE ADVENTURE OF THEPROFESSOR’S BEQUEST

BY PHILIP PURSER-HALLARD

I

“This is a quite surprising telegram, Watson,” Sherlock Holmes remarked without preamble, as he tossed me the slip of paper which Mrs Hudson had brought him some minutes before. I perused it, considering.

HELP URGENTLY REQUIRED BROTHER JAMES PAPERS STOLEN YESTER-NIGHT CONSEQUENCES INCALCULABLE MRS BANISTER MOST DISTRAUGHT MONEY NO OBJECT PLEASE COME SOONEST BANISTER

“I see nothing remarkable about it, unless perhaps it is written in code,” I replied at last. “Despite this Mr Banister’s evident urgency, it seems indistinguishable from a dozen similar requests since your return.”

“And yet it is quite unique,” he insisted. “Not in its substance, which is precisely as it appears, but because of its sender. Professor Redmond Banister, with whom I have had certain dealings, is not only a leading authority on the morphologies and life-cycles of annelid worms, but also one of the last people I had ever expected to approach me for help.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because he is also one of the few living relatives of the late Professor Moriarty, albeit by marriage. Mrs Abigail Banister, whom he describes as being so very distraught, is Moriarty’s younger sister, making our erstwhile nemesis Redmond Banister’s lamented brother-in-law.”

It was at this time some six months since Holmes’s return from the continent following his presumed death at Moriarty’s hand, and the sequence of events which it had set in train, including the arrest of the professor’s lieutenant, Sebastian Moran, for the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair. As the true scope of Moriarty’s criminal enterprises — continued after his death by Moran and his fellows — had emerged, the talk of the town had turned to a knighthood for my friend, and clients had begun arriving in their droves at our old rooms in Baker Street. Holmes had received the latter courteously, while doing his utmost to discourage the former.

“So brother James is none other than Moriarty himself,” I surmised.

“That seems the likeliest conclusion, although there is an outside possibility that the papers in question belong to the colonel.”

I knew already that the two brothers unusually shared one forename. The appearance in the national newspapers of letters from Colonel James Moriarty, pressing for Holmes’s arrest on charges of the homicide of his brother Professor James Moriarty, had been the sole, if somewhat confusing, stain on the otherwise unblemished pleasure of my friend’s homecoming.

“What papers did he leave with them?” I wondered. “And who profits from stealing them now?”

“The first is a question I endeavoured to resolve some small while ago. When I learned that Moriarty had bequeathed a packet of papers to his sister and brother-in-law, I approached them for permission to read the contents. I was curious to know what matters our notoriously secretive criminal Edison had seen fit to commit to paper, but given the view of me taken by the colonel, the family was set against helping me in any way.”

Holmes stood, galvanised suddenly, and knocked out his pipe against the hearth. “This new development has changed their minds, at least. Come, Watson, if we are at King’s Cross by eleven we can make a good start in learning more of the professor’s bequest and its whereabouts.”

The Banisters resided in the northern city where Moriarty had held his academic chair, before beginning his second career as the outstanding criminal mind of the century. Indeed, it was through the university that Moriarty had made the acquaintance of Dr Redmond Banister, an association which had led in time to Banister’s marriage to Abigail Moriarty.

Their house formed part of a hillside terrace in the outskirts of the town, a row of generously proportioned slate and tile homes built to house members of the faculty. Steps led up to the door and down to an area beneath, divided from the sloping street by sturdy railings. A servant admitted us at Holmes’s knock, and conveyed us to a drawing-room at the rear of the house where a modest but pretty garden boasted two small plane trees. It sloped up towards a mews which had been converted into servants’ quarters when the new houses were built.

We were greeted by Banister himself, an elderly white-haired man with watery grey eyes, quivering with nervous tension, and his wife, some twenty years younger than he and still handsome.

“Thank you for coming, Mr Holmes,” the eminent biologist gasped when he saw us. “I understood the instant I made this morning’s shocking discovery that you and only you could aid us in this terrible plight. I am strongly conscious, however, that not every man of your stature, nor even for that matter of a more modest one, would have been so forgiving as to extend us that necessary aid, given the unconvivial history of our intercourse prior to today. I can only thank you, sir, for your indulgence, from the bottom of my heart and, if you will allow me, from my pocket as well.”

I almost think he would have brought out his pocket-book on the spot, had not his wife placed an admonitory hand on his shoulder. Mrs Abigail Banister had the unusual height, the slenderness and the prominent, intelligent forehead which my friend had remarked on in his descriptions of her late brother. The cold, reptilian quality he had found in the master criminal, had in her case been transmuted into a calmness in the face of crisis which contrasted strongly with the agitation of her husband. The telegram had certainly misled us: of the two, it was Professor Banister who was the more distraught.

Mrs Banister was a forbidding woman nonetheless. “My husband talks with too great a freedom when he is excited,” she informed us, frowning. “I beg that you will pardon him.”

“Perhaps it will help to focus your discourse, professor, if you confine yourself to the facts,” Holmes suggested.

“Very well,” our host said, composing himself with some effort. “As you know, I have been the keeper of my brother-in-law’s papers for some three years, since he was declared dead — along with yourself, of course — on the basis of Dr Watson’s testimony and the evidence left behind at the Reichenbach Falls. He left few material possessions, and of those he did, some have since been proven deplorably to have been come by illegally. The Gutenberg Bible, for example —”

“The facts,” Holmes reminded him languidly, “would be specifically those pertaining to the current case, professor.”

“Yes, quite. Well, the family received little enough, but Jimmy and Tom — Abigail’s other brothers, you understand — between them inherited everything of value. Our legacy was the packet of papers that you came asking after some months back, Mr Holmes, and nothing else. From the weight of it, it is perhaps as much material as might make a monograph or dissertation, assuming of course that all the pages are covered.”

Holmes frowned. “You have not read it?”

“No, sir.” The professor looked pained. “The packet was doublewrapped, with a letter inside the outer package. It was the unopened inner envelope which was stolen; I have the letter here.”

At this point the vermeologist did indeed produce his pocket-book, and withdrew a single sheet of notepaper, written upon on both sides. He handed it to Holmes, who sniffed it, rolled the corner gently between thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light from the window before reading it.

“My dear sister,” Holmes read, “and you, Banister,

I would send you cordial greetings, but they would mean little. I fear that when you receive this I will be dead, and quite without capacity or will to feel cordially disposed to any person, no matter what degree of consanguinity or professional brotherhood may in the past have put us in one another’s way.

I merely charge you, then, with the care of these papers after I am deceased. I will not tell you, nor do I recommend that you attempt to ascertain before time, what is contained within them. While neither of you has the capacity to understand their contents, you will both — unlike my imbecile brothers or my lumbering business associates — be dimly capable of grasping their import, which is the only reason I entrust them to you.

I insist that they are to be preserved at all costs for posterity’s sake, but I absolutely forbid their being published until the new century has dawned. That time, if any, will be fitting for the revelations contained herein. You know that I am not given to overstatement, nor do I exaggerate now when I say that these papers have the capacity to bring down the whole of Christendom.

An ambition to be hastened, you may think; yet I find the persistence of civilisation, however despicable in its own right, agreeable to my ends, and so I would wish it to be quite certain that I am dead before such matters are set in motion — if, indeed, the world persists in its existence after my death, a matter which I confess remains of interest to me, although I will a priori never see it resolved.

I will conclude by observing that, of the disagreeably inferior intellects in this wholly unsatisfactory sphere, it is yours, sister, with which I shall most deplore having no further contact after my death — though I naturally expect that my personal regrets on the occasion will more than eclipse such sentiment.

Your fond brother,

James Monroe Moriarty

“Dear me, how very agreeable of the man,” Holmes opined, with a smirk that under the circumstances did him very little credit.

“He was raving, surely?” I said. “Bringing down Christendom? The world ending with his death? It can be nothing but rampant megalomania.”

“If that is a medical term, Dr Watson, it is not one that I recognise,” said Mrs Banister with considerable asperity

“You will concede, however, that the claim is a rather grandiose one,” Holmes declared over my stammered apologies. “Although the professor’s letter purports to rule it out, we must allow ourselves to assume some degree of embellishment. Still, Moriarty’s intelligence network was extensive, and his methods remorseless. I could well believe that what is to be found within that package might cause serious embarrassment to some of the royal families of Europe, for instance; perhaps even to the Church. In either case, we might say that Christendom had been dealt a blow.”

“It sounds as if the contents of this package are a danger to the social order, at least,” I said. “Unless it’s a hoax.”

“It would be reassuring to imagine so, Watson, but I think not. A hoax would not be in the late professor’s style. I see there is a postscript in the margin: ‘P.S. If publisher is so pusillanimous as to insist on an editor, VK.C. is the man.’ Who, pray, is VK.C.?”

Banister frowned. “Some fifteen years ago, he was one of James’ students. Now he is a researcher in his own right. He has published extensively on the mathematics of telegraphy, of all things. James considered him quite the most promising mind he had taught, I believe.”

There was a note of reservation in our host’s voice, which Holmes observed. “But you do not?”

“He’s… a rather excitable little fellow. I worry that he is less than reliable. I opposed his election to the faculty myself, but others outvoted me.”

“We will need to speak to him,” said Holmes decisively “Had you informed him that he was named in your brother-in-law’s letter?”

Our host shook his head firmly. “Not I, sir. I cannot see how he could have learned of it, unless from James before his death.”

Banister took us to see the scene of the robbery: a large laboratory-cum-study, located in the basement of the house because, as he told us, his colonies of live worms distressed the servants, who lived in constant fear of their escape. Open books of taxonomy stood in piles, earth-filled glass tanks seethed with vermiform activity, and formaldehyde jars displayed some distinctly unprepossessing specimens. The room was very dusty.

“We’re trying to find a girl who’ll clean it,” Banister explained. “The last one who tried left in hysterics after breaking a vivarium of Didymogaster sylvaticus.”

The only broken glass in the room now came from the window, which looked out at ground level across the rear garden. Holmes insisted that everyone but himself stop at the door, and spent some minutes on the floor with his magnifying glass, examining footprints in the dust.

Eventually he rose. “Tell me, professor, do any of your servants wear size thirteen boots? Rather muddy ones, I fear.”

Banister looked in confusion at his wife. “I suppose Burrows the gardener might,” she supplied. “The man has extraordinarily large feet.”

“What on earth would he want with James’ papers?” Banister asked in astonishment.

“Very little, I suspect,” Holmes replied. “Mrs Banister, would you enquire whether Mr Burrows has had a pair of boots go missing last night, or whether he noticed anything unusual about them this morning?”

The lady hurried off, and her husband showed us the locked drawer where Moriarty’s package had been kept, along with various of his own notes and papers.

“The drawer was not forced,” Holmes observed. “Either the man was a proficient lock-picker, or he had the key. That is, if we assume that the drawer was locked at the time. Professor?”

Banister flushed. “I cannot swear to it, Mr Holmes. I use that drawer to file all my confidential documents: records of my research, departmental finances and the like; I am often referring to them. I also keep my bond certificates in there. It is my practice to keep it unlocked during the day and to lock it at night, but I admit that I am sometimes preoccupied. It would not be the first time that I have forgotten, I am sorry to say.”

“Then we have too few data to theorise,” my friend said. “Especially since it will turn out that Mr Burrows’ boots have been borrowed. There is, I presume, a Mrs Burrows? The housekeeper, perhaps? And they live in the mews behind the house? As I thought. A woman of the meticulous habits befitting a housekeeper would not tolerate muddy boots in her own quarters. She would insist on them being left outside, where the burglar might readily have come upon them.”

“But surely the criminal would have worn his own footwear?” our host expostulated. “How else could he have come here?”

“I can see that you are more familiar with the anatomy of worms than that of mankind, professor. The prints of, say, a pair of size eight men’s shoes would tell us that the intruder’s feet were at most a cramped and uncomfortable size nine. That alone would eliminate perhaps half the adult population of this city. Almost anyone, however, may wear size thirteen boots. Several thick pairs of woollen socks may transform a criminal of readily identifiable stature into one of entirely unknown dimensions.”

“The thief seems to have gone to some lengths to disguise himself,” I observed. “Almost as if he knew you were coming, Holmes.”

Holmes nodded as if the thing were settled. “Given the papers’ connection with the late Professor Moriarty, he would be a fool not to assume it. Tell me, Professor Banister, do your brothers-in-law visit often? The living ones, I mean.”

“Why, yes,” said Banister. “That is — we see little of Tom. He is a station master, you know, and his work and his young family keep him at his station.”

“Of course — the cadet branch of the Moriarty family,” Holmes murmured gravely. “How charming.”

“Jimmy passes through town often, though. Indeed, we were to expect him today.”

“Really?” Holmes looked pained. “I could wish that you had mentioned the fact. He is not a man I have any great desire to meet. And has the colonel ever —” he began to ask, but was interrupted by a cry from upstairs.

“He’s here? The blackguard!” It was a man’s voice, though accompanied by agitated feminine murmurs. “I’ll teach him to meddle in the affairs of this family! Why, that insolent vulture murdered poor James, and now I find him sloping around my sister!”

“Oh, dear me,” whimpered Banister.

The door was thrown wide with a crash, and Colonel Moriarty stood before us.

Like his brother and sister, he was tall, with a face that, though shrewd, showed little of the remarkable intellect they displayed. Unlike his siblings, he was wiry and muscular, a man physically powerful in proportion with his height. Despite his broad military moustache, his expression reminded me of one of the more vicious snakes: a cobra, perhaps, caught in mid-strike.

“Colonel James Madison Moriarty, I believe,” Holmes purred. “How delightful to make your acquaintance at last.”

“Oh, delightful, is it? As delightful as pitching my brother off a cliff-top, eh? Did that delight you?” The colonel was almost incoherent with rage. “Why are you here, Mr Sherlock Holmes, you liar and slanderer and murderer, at my sister’s house? Do you plan to seek out and destroy my family one by one, hmm? I shall horsewhip you, sir — no, better still I should kill you!”

“Jimmy, please calm yourself.” Abigail Banister stood behind her brother now. “Mr Holmes is here at our invitation. He is investigating a theft.”

“A theft, is it?” the colonel raged. “Then he should look no further than this room! When misfortune befalls our family — when crimes are committed against us — who else should be there but the invidious Holmes? Investigating his own perfidies, by God! A pretty trade for those with the gall to practise it!”

“I think we’d better leave, Holmes,” I suggested.

Holmes smiled tightly. “Indeed, I think we can accomplish little here under the present circumstances. Mrs Banister, Professor Banister, I thank you for your hospitality. You may find us at the Crown Inn.”

The colonel moved to bar our way, but Abigail Banister placed a warning hand on his arm and he stepped aside without halting his tirade. His abuse followed us up the stairs and down the street.

II

“What made you of the colonel, Watson?” Sherlock Holmes asked later, as he smoked a postprandial pipe in our rooms at the Crown. Despite our hasty retreat from the Banisters’ house, neither of us had given a moment’s thought to resigning the case. Whatever Colonel Moriarty’s wishes in the matter, we had been engaged by the Banisters; besides, the alleged import of the stolen bequest was too much to let go on any account.

“He scarcely seemed sane,” I replied truthfully.

“No; I fear mental stability is not in plentiful supply among the Moriarty family line. The level-headed Mrs Banister may have monopolised her generation’s supply. Yet I wonder whether any relative of the late professor could truly be so blustering a fool as he appeared. You noticed that the colonel wore civilian clothes?”

I had indeed noticed this. “I assumed he has retired.”

“He has, but only recently, and not by free choice. His staunch defence of his disgraced brother’s reputation made his position in his regiment intolerable.”

“I see. So he blames you for the loss of his career as well as that of his brother?”

Holmes looked startled for the moment. “Well, perhaps. I had in mind a more material consideration, however: his loss of income. The legacy left by his late brother was not large. Most of the capital earned from Moriarty’s illicit profession seems to have made its way into the hands of such co-conspirators as Moran.”

“You think Colonel Moriarty stole the papers to make money out of them? If the contents are as scandalous as you suppose, they could enable him to blackmail some influential people.”

“So I fear, Watson, so I fear.”

We smoked in silence for a minute, before I asked, “Should we perhaps tell your brother about this?” Mycroft Holmes was a figure of considerable, if rarely acknowledged, significance in the civil service, and had the ear of the highest in the land. “He might forewarn —”

“Forewarn whom, pray? At present we have no idea of the persons to whom these papers may pertain — if indeed they do contain personal information, and not some other matter altogether. Our best chance of such a hint must lie with the mysterious Mr VK.C. No, we will leave Mycroft unburdened by our misgivings for the moment.”

I agreed, though privately I wondered whether this was altogether wise. “There is a third brother, however. If Colonel Moriarty is to be suspected, then we should consider him so as well.”

“Indeed. It would be opportune, I think, for me to undertake a rail journey. I understand the connections are excellent.”

“And yet,” I said, “the papers were stolen here. Surely our search should take place in this city?”

“Whoever has taken them has shown a great deal of intelligence in disguising their steps. They will not be readily found by an ordinary search. No Watson, this is a theft of information, and it is only with more information that we shall solve it. Data, my dear fellow, data! Only on a foundation of solid data can our theories be built. Besides, I intend that you should stay here, for the moment at least. While I approach Mr Thomas Jefferson Moriarty, you will speak to Mr VK.C.”

“That should be easy enough. Professor Banister gave us no surname, but he will surely be in the university directory.”

“I have no doubt of it. We will regroup in London tomorrow morning. Ask Professor Banister to call on us… oh, let us say Friday of this week. If I have no answer for him by then, I fear that one may never be forthcoming.”

“Just as you say, Holmes.”

He continued, “There is, too, another point of concern. The hierarchy of criminality that Moriarty left behind him, controlled from London but with its tendrils pervading the country and the continent, was run until recently by his lieutenants. Moran’s arrest has put paid to that. A decapitated organisation will soon collapse, yet what has once been ruined may perhaps be rebuilt more easily than if one were to start from nothing. Conceivably one of the brothers feels that the late professor’s position might become available to him too, if he were to press the information in those papers to his advantage.”

“Not the colonel, surely. He hardly seems like a criminal genius.”

“No indeed, but many men fail to understand their own limitations. Two brothers, in fraternal rivalry since childhood, the older and cleverer becoming so much more powerful in later life… one can understand how the younger might develop the urge to prove himself within his brother’s sphere, can one not?”

I glanced at him, but his eyes were hooded by those heavy lids.

* * *

I will say at once, regarding Professor Banister’s assessment of him, that Mr V.K. Chakraborty was not especially little for a man of his race and caste; nor did I find him unusually excitable, though he was an ardent enthusiast for his specialism.

“Information itself — all information — is applied mathematics, you see,” he explained to me as he called for a pot of tea. He had received me in the senior common room of his college, and I had made the mistake of opening the conversation by politely asking about his work on telegraphy. Dark-skinned and delicate of feature, Chakraborty wore a herringbone suit and his hair was neatly parted.

“There are of course the mundane calculations of speed and volume of transmission in a system, the limitations of human and mechanical operation and so forth,” he went on, “but there is also the question of encoding human knowledge in mathematical form. To be sure, at present we send words along the wires, rendered into a signal which the medium may pass, but in future, who knows? Pictures, sounds, objects, perhaps even states of mind, might be just as easily transmitted and received, for assuredly all of those things may be equally analysed as information.”

“Imagine that,” I said rather weakly, for his voice was soothing and musical, and I had eaten a heavy luncheon.

“But I am tiring you, Doctor,” Chakraborty added at once. “I understand. My work is overly theoretical for the layman, and your business with me lies elsewhere, I suppose.”

I nodded. “I have come to ask you about Professor Moriarty.”

The Brahmin’s face turned grave. “Ah yes, the poor fellow. I still find it difficult to credit everything they say about him.”

“It’s quite true, I can assure you,” I said, perhaps a little too coldly, for the mathematician looked up at me in alarm.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Dr Watson. I have seen the evidence summarised in the newspapers, and I have no doubt that he committed the crimes associated with his name. My concern is that he may not have been fully aware of what he was doing, as he was so much changed after his breakdown. Previously he could be arrogant of course, sometimes jealous or vindictive: such, I am afraid, are the sins of academia. But he was a considerate, patient tutor, and very kind to me when I first came to this country.”

I had heard rumours of a scandal accompanying Moriarty’s dismissal from the university, but this was the first I had known of a breakdown. I enquired after its cause.

“I cannot tell you,” Chakraborty replied. “It came at a time when his research was entirely successful, so far as anyone else can determine. He was, you must understand, at the very vanguard of our profession. I am considered no mean intellect myself, I am flattered to say, but compared with Professor Moriarty I was playing blind-man’s-buff in a treasure house. When he assured us that his researches progressed well, we could do little but take him at his word. There are, perhaps, three men in the world who might have gainsaid him on the matter: an American, a Russian and a Swede, all of whom unfortunately refuse to speak to one another. Of his colleagues here, I came the closest: indeed, some of his findings have served to inform my work on the theory of telegraphic communication.

“Even as his work flourished, however, the professor’s moods became grimmer and more unpredictable. He would at times fly into a temper over the most trivial of provocations, though at others he would still show the patience and forbearance I had known of old. I once asked him the meaning of one particular formula, entirely obscure to me, only to have him round on me in a fury, seize me by the arms and pin me against a wall. He was not a physically strong man, but I found myself utterly unable to escape his grip. He cried, ‘It means that you, Chakraborty, are nothing! Nothing, do you hear me? Why should I interrupt my work for you, you evanescence?’” “What a peculiar thing to say,” I exclaimed.

“Dr Watson, the whole incident was peculiar. And yet the next day he was as polite and conciliatory to me as if the whole event had never happened. At the same time he became interested in politics, of the most detestable kind.”

“Really?” I had heard nothing to suggest that Moriarty’s depravities had had a political dimension.

“It was a most surprising reversal. He had always followed the life of the mind, and topics relating to the material world were of little interest to him. The first sign of it came a few days after what I suppose I must call his assault on me, when he started an argument which nearly came to blows with the university chaplain, a perfectly harmless man named Smithson. Without any provocation I could see, Professor Moriarty began berating him in this room, in the most vulgar terms, calling his church a cult, his god a sham and his Bible random words upon a page, devoid of meaning. Smithson was terribly upset, and resigned shortly afterwards. Not wishing to lose a scholar of Moriarty’s brilliance, the faculty kept the matter quiet.

“Some weeks later, however, a graduate student was caught distributing socialist pamphlets of the most scandalous nature, calling for an end to the monarchy and the hereditary peerage, and even hinting at the assassination of the Queen herself. The young fellow told the police that he owed his views to the influence of his tutor, Professor Moriarty. It was assumed that he spoke out of malice, and that part of the evidence never reached court, but it was shared with the senior faculty members.

“Matters really reached their head when in a lecture — a mathematics lecture, mind you — he began railing against the monarchy, the law and Parliament, declaring that all such structures were false and must be done away with. That was the scandal which the university was finally unable to ignore, and which ended with his dismissal.”

“And you believe that these outbreaks were symptoms of some kind of nervous breakdown?” I asked. Despite my previous, rather airy diagnosis of megalomania, I knew little of psychoanalysis. “Brought on by overwork, perhaps?”

Chakraborty spread his hands. “What else could it have been? In any case, he left the university immediately, and took a position as an army tutor which his brother arranged for him. That was evidently when his criminal career began in earnest.”

“What contact had you with him after that?”

“None at all, I am afraid. He severed all his ties with the university. save with Dr Banister as he then was, to whom he was bound by family connections.”

“He gave no indication that he still held you in esteem?”

“Rather not. I passed him on the street once, on an occasion when he was visiting the Banisters, and he ignored me. I am not an easy man to miss in this city, Dr Watson: I do not exactly blend in with the crowd. No, I am convinced that after he abandoned his mathematical work my friendship held no further interest for him.”

From the Brahmin mathematician’s friendly manner and the ease with which he had confided in me, I believed that I could trust the man. Enjoining him to secrecy, therefore, I apprised him of the unexpected mention of his name in Moriarty’s final communication to his sister and brother-in-law.

At first he professed himself baffled, but as I was about to leave he remarked, “I have just one thought. This letter of the professor’s — was it amicable in tone?”

“Rather the reverse,” I said. “The Moriarty Holmes and I had dealings with was not a warm man. He expressed a perfunctory fondness for his sister, but that is all.”

“Then I have one suggestion,” Chakraborty told me, “though perhaps not a very useful one. Professor Banister has never liked me. He is one of those on the faculty who are ungracious enough to object to my complexion, though it is no fault of mine and affects my academic capabilities not a jot. If Professor Moriarty was in a vexatious mood, he might have mentioned my name merely to annoy his relative.”

The speculation certainly seemed in keeping with the letter’s tone. I bade the mathematician farewell, and made arrangements to return to London, not forgetting to send a message to Redmond Banister, appointing our meeting for the Friday. I asked the messenger particularly to ensure that Colonel Moriarty was absent before delivering it.

* * *

Sherlock Holmes and I reconvened for breakfast the next morning at 221B Baker Street. Over coffee and Mrs Hudson’s finest kedgeree he informed me, “Either Tom Moriarty is innocent, or he is the most consummate actor I have ever encountered.”

“Really?” I said.

“Oh yes. The man appears absolutely guileless; as far as I can judge he is not even a good station master. His children, on the other hand, have certainly inherited the tendencies of the Moriarty line. They are devious, amoral and utterly without remorse. As the eldest is but six years old, however, I fear we must rule them out of our inquiries.”

I told him of the words I had exchanged with Chakraborty. He brushed aside the talk of mental breakdown (“It hardly matters to us how Moriarty came to be a criminal, since he is beyond hope of reform now”), but seized on the story of the young anarchist and his pamphlet.

“This may be the key to deciphering the affair, Watson,” he said. “I knew that Moriarty had contacts among the political radicals — communists, nihilists, Fenians and their ilk — but I had assumed that theirs was a mere consulting relationship, like his many others. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps his convictions were actually engaged in this part of his work. After all, who but an anarchist would take delight in the prospect of demolishing Christendom?”

“I thought your theory was that the thief intends to use the papers for blackmail?”

“Well, they may yet — but how complicated and cumbersome to arrange meetings with representatives of everyone involved, to wheedle out the money discreetly and to avoid the ever-present threat of corporal reprisal that dogs the blackmailer. How much simpler, safer and more elegant to sell the information to a solitary third party, who wishes nothing more than to make the information public and to revel in its effects.”

“That’s monstrous!” I protested. After a moment’s thought I added, “And not nearly as lucrative. I don’t know many nihilists, but I don’t believe they have the same funds at their disposal as the typical royal family.”

He beamed at me. “Excellent, Watson! We’ll make a criminal mastermind of you yet. Still, we know nothing as yet of the burglar’s motives. He may be a communist himself, and have no interest in money. We must at least investigate this new avenue, for in our other lines of investigation I confess myself at a loss.”

Over the next few days I saw little of Holmes, and that in the late hours of the morning, when he would arrive grimy with the soot of the capital, eat a hearty breakfast and then retire to bed until mid-afternoon. His attire during this time was characterised by soiled shirts, ragged trousers and flat caps, and he ceased shaving. Our coffee table grew a great crop of ill-printed pamphlets calling for everything from the overthrow of the capitalist system to the reform of the licensing laws, and of posters for public meetings to be addressed by men (and the occasional woman) whose names were as often as not prefaced with “Comrade”.

“We seem to be assembling a catalogue of the most infamous individuals in the capital,” I ventured once, to which Holmes replied with uncharacteristic acerbity.

“On the contrary, Watson, many of them are merely hungry, desperate or overworked, and feel themselves without the power to direct their fates in a world run by men like you and me. They do not mean ill, for the most part — unlike the late professor, the greater number of them maintain a strong moral sense. The conclusions to which it leads them diverge from your own largely because of the differences in your circumstances.”

My dismay at hearing my friend talk in this way may be imagined, but I put it down to the need to maintain his character for his nocturnal excursions.

* * *

Thursday evening came, and I was anticipating our meeting with the Banisters with a heavy heart. Professor Banister had written to say that he and his wife were travelling down on Thursday afternoon, and staying at the Metropole. Holmes had invited them to call on us at nine the next morning.

“What will you tell them?” I asked. As far as I knew, his investigations among the radicals and socialists had come to nothing, and we were no nearer to knowing the location of the stolen package. For all I knew, it could have found its way to Barcelona or Gdansk, and be waiting there to erupt like a pustulent boil.

“I have hopes that there will be some news,” Holmes replied.

“Have you found the papers, then?” I asked eagerly.

“No, but I have spoken to the man who once acted as go-between for Moriarty and the London Nihilist League. He changed his precise allegiance some time ago — you would not believe the ferment of divergent factions that is the radical fringe, Watson — but he retains friends in that brotherhood. He has heard rumours that their presses are being readied to print a document of explosive potency, unprecedented in the annals of revolution. There is a name attached to these rumours.”

“Moriarty!” I surmised.

He nodded. “I have been observing the League with interest. I believe the exchange will be made at midnight tonight, in the shadow of Blackfriars Bridge. I have invited Inspector Lestrade and a halfdozen sturdy constables to join us there.”

“Do you expect the colonel to appear?”

“Consider, Watson: it is apparent that the burglar knew the house. No other window was broken, nothing else in the laboratory was touched — not even the other papers, some of them valuable, in Banister’s confidential drawer. Burrows’ boots were taken from outside the mews. The burglar was careful to leave no clues of identity, knowing that given the gravity of the theft I might be involved. Thus far our only leads have come from Moriarty himself, through the letter he left, and from Mr Chakraborty, to whom it directed us. Yet a new Moriarty is emerging, with all the criminal predilections of that name, and we must assume that this new Caesar is older than six. If we have a man to catch, the colonel is he.”

Lestrade arrived at ten p.m., gleeful at the prospect of arresting a real nihilist cell. “I don’t mind telling you, Mr Holmes,” he said, “these fellows have had it coming for a long time. We’ve seen their pamphlets, calling for Parliament to be blown up and Her Majesty assassinated and heaven knows what else. If you can lead us to them there’ll be a medal in it for us all, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Arrest them if you must, Lestrade,” my friend said, “and if you can. I am concerned only with retrieving the package and bringing it safely back here. Anything beyond that is your remit, not mine.”

“You have my sympathies, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade said with a wink. “Must be difficult in your line of work, not always being your own boss. The lads and I are happy enough to back you up, though, if it gets us nearer to these anarchist swine.”

By eleven we were in wait in the shadows of the great bridge. Lestrade, Holmes and I carried pistols; the constables had their truncheons. The night was cold and foggy, and the footfalls of pedestrians on their way home from the public houses, and even the clattering of hooves from the hansom cabs, were distant and muffled. We had been standing quite still for half an hour when a group of five men arrived and began to loiter at the corners of the square of road roofed by the bridge. All of them were dressed much as Holmes had been during the past few days, with no sign of the black cloaks or masks I had been rather wildly imagining.

Lestrade had chosen his men well. None of the anarchists saw us, although the challenge of staying perfectly still and silent for the half-hour that remained was excruciating.

As the chimes of midnight sounded, a hansom approached, proceeded briskly to the middle of the area under the bridge, then drew to a halt. The fifth man, who had been loitering on the nearby pavement, stepped up to the door. Low voices, dulled by the fog, exchanged a few words, and then objects changed hands: the man produced a purse from his satchel, which he replaced shortly afterwards with a heavy roll of paper.

The cabman raised his whip, and at once Lestrade’s whistle sounded.

Policemen poured forth from the shadows, grappling with the men. “Watson, the cab!” Holmes cried as the cabman’s whip cracked, and the two of us ran in front of the vehicle, brandishing our pistols. I fired a shot into the girders of the bridge above, and the horse reared and whinnied. The cabman leapt down, crying “Nothing to do with me, gents, just making an honest fare!”, and took the horse’s reins, trying to calm it while he cringed from the sight of my weapon. Holmes seized the ringleader’s satchel and busied himself with it.

At the same time, a tall shape in a heavy overcoat and muffler leapt from the cab and hared away towards the other exit from the bridge. Lestrade was waiting, though, and even as the final nihilist was being cuffed by the constables, he tackled the figure, wrestling it to the ground.

“Sit tight now, you, you’re under arrest!” Lestrade cried, then a moment later: “Coo! It’s a woman!”

Holmes produced the roll of papers with a triumphant cry. I ran across to Lestrade, who was hauling his captive upright, unwilling to let his temporary discomposure rob him of his prize.

He pulled away the scarf to reveal the face of the would-be-fugitive. It was Abigail Banister, née Moriarty

* * *

Lestrade’s whistle had brought more officers to the scene, and the nihilists were quickly bundled up and taken to Scotland Yard in a four-wheeler. Holmes commandeered the cab, and he, Lestrade and I followed with Mrs Banister.

“You were the obvious suspect, of course,” Holmes told her as we rode. “You will recall, Watson, I said that if we had a man to catch, the colonel was he? I thought it unlikely enough then, though I knew you would appreciate the joke.”

Mrs Banister appeared as outwardly composed as before. I wondered whether in her case the family instability had expressed itself as its opposite: whether her insanity showed itself in an incapacity for feelings of any kind.

She said, “You must have guessed the burglar was familiar with the house. I thought of breaking another window and blundering around smashing things up, but that would have been too great a risk. Far better to commit the burglary the day before my fool of a brother was due to visit, and throw your suspicions on him instead.”

“I say, this one’s a piece of work,” Lestrade commented cheerfully.

“My dear lady,” Holmes said, “neither of your living brothers is capable of such cunning as the burglar displayed. It is all too plain that, with the passing of your late brother, the brains in the family have fallen entirely to you.”

“And what brought you to that conclusion, Mr Holmes?” she sneered. “Instinct? The same jumping to judgement which allowed you to execute my brother James and boast of a clear conscience afterward?”

“Not at all,” Holmes replied gravely. “In fact it was my respect for your brother’s professional judgement. His letter to you made it clear enough that he considered your intellect superior to your brothers’. Furthermore, whatever his family feeling, the man made ruthless use of such resources as he had available. If he felt that Tom or Jimmy had the talent to join him in his criminal enterprises, he would have involved them, but I have found no trace of any such association. If there was indeed a Moriarty capable of such an ingenious burglary, why was he not already part of your brother’s felonious empire? Unless, of course, she was barred by her sex from such a role. Despite his radical notions, your brother evidently retained some traditional sensibilities.

“The fact that your husband called me in — that, I confess, gave me pause. It was perfectly evident that you had sufficient influence to direct him in this matter, so why would you allow him to invite me to solve a crime of which you yourself were guilty? The packet was unopened, after all. You could have taken it at any time, replacing it with a similar one so that your husband would not remark the difference. Why should the crime have even been discovered, let alone myself involved?

“It was the realisation that the criminal end was nothing so petty as blackmail, but an assault on civilised values themselves, that caused me to reassess your motivations.

“I killed your brother: that is common knowledge; and you would not be alone in wanting to avenge him. What better way to humiliate a man of my reputation, than to bring the Empire crashing down about my ears, and let it be known that I had been unable to prevent it? Such a plan would have justified the risk of discovery. It is, if you will permit me to say so, worthy of your late brother’s memory”

Mrs Banister nodded. “I thank you, Mr Holmes. That is a question you are the only person alive competent to judge.”

“I will inform your husband of your arrest,” Holmes told her. “I am sure that he will stand by you, since he seems so little capable of standing on his own. In the meantime, perhaps you will permit me to take custody of your late brother’s papers.”

“Keep them,” she said. “I wish you all the benefit of them. They drove my brother mad: perhaps they will do the same for you.”

The hansom clattered on through the foggy night.

III

I awoke the next morning to find Sherlock Holmes wild-eyed, pacing the carpet in the sitting-room, flicking feverishly through the bundle of pages.

“Absurd, Watson!” he barked at me, before I had had time to say a thing. “The entire matter is quite ridiculous. And yet…” He whirled and resumed pacing. “And yet, and yet…”

“Why, whatever is the matter, Holmes?” I urged him, alarmed. “Are you ill?”

“No, nothing of the kind. Kindly do not burden me with trivialities.”

“It’s freezing in here.” I poked at the embers of the fire, then rang the bell for Mrs Hudson.

He paced impatiently as the good woman stoked the fire, then bustled off to get breakfast. As she left he seized me by the shoulders, and sat me down bodily in an armchair. “Your telegraphy expert, Mr Chakraborty He told you, did he not, that all human experience could be rendered in mathematical code? Even states of mind, he said?”

“I believe that was the gist, yes.”

“Dear me, Watson, these are deep waters indeed — too deep for you and me, I fear. Small wonder that the man lost his connection with reality.”

“Chakraborty? He seemed sane enough to me. A little full of himself, perhaps, but —”

“Not Chakraborty, Watson, Moriarty!” He brandished the papers at me. “It seems that he anticipated much of Chakraborty’s work — anticipated, surpassed and transcended it. Oh, I am no mathematician, but I can follow an argument, and dear God, if what this purports to say is true…”

“What is it? Do you mean to say this whole affair was about a mathematical paper? That’s absurd! Holmes, sit down, you’re frightening me.”

“I am frightening myself,” he whispered. He sat, his knee jiggling with impatience. “Where Chakraborty’s work is in the theory of communication, Moriarty worked along more abstract principles. What he has created here is something we might call theory of information. Great masses of data, existing in dynamic conditions. undergoing processes whose results are used to inform the next round of processes. Whole systems of information, in rigorously regulated communication with one another. Have you heard of Babbage’s calculating engine, Watson?”

I had not.

“As the name suggests, it is a mechanism sometimes used to facilitate the working of repetitive mathematical processes. Moriarty’s paper envisages something like a Babbage engine, but many times faster and more powerful, and capable of being linked with other such engines to make them more powerful still. Imagine all the types of information that might be worked by such a machine. What was it Chakraborty told you? Images, sounds, physical objects — or their simulacra, at least — even the human mind. Even the human mind, Watson!”

Mrs Hudson brought in the breakfast then. I frowned. “You mean to say that such a machine might think like a man? But then it would be…”

“Conscious, yes! Self-aware — but not aware of its true nature. For if the simulacrum of a human mind is fed with simulacra of sights, sounds, smells, feelings — if it sits at a simulated table, and warms itself by a simulated fire, and drinks a cup of simulated coffee — thank you, Mrs Hudson — then how is it to know that it is a simulacrum at all?”

“It would believe itself a living man,” I said slowly.

“And now imagine millions of such machines! A huge array of Moriarty engines, each maintaining the illusion of a human mind. Imagine them feeding information to one another. They might speak together, argue, fight, fall in love, engender simulated children — and all without knowing for a moment that they were anything other than real!”

I stared at him. His eyes were fervent, fanatical even. It was plain that he was half convinced by this nonsense.

“It’s fantastic, Holmes. An astonishing conceit, I grant you. Moriarty must have had a remarkable mind to imagine such a thing. But surely those papers don’t argue that what he has imagined is actually possible?”

“More than that, Watson.” Holmes gazed at me, for such a long time that I wondered whether he had finally fallen asleep with his eyes open. “Moriarty’s argument purports to prove that all of this has already happened; that we live in just such a world. That all of us — you and I, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Abigail Banister, Mr Chakraborty. Moriarty himself — are mere facsimiles of reality.”

I tried to laugh. “Come now, Holmes. It’s a fantasy, surely? Even if Moriarty believed it, he was a madman.”

“Oh, yes. Moriarty was mad, but in a very particular way. It may even have been this discovery that first convinced him that conventional moral rules were useless — for after all, if our entire world is an illusion, what should we care for the consequences of our actions? If all the world is false, then what of others? Even believing in their capacity to suffer becomes an act of faith — and whatever else he may have been, Moriarty was not a man of faith. He came to believe himself the only conscious thing in the world.”

“You see? How can we possibly trust such a man’s conclusions? As you said yourself, you’re no mathematician. You may be able to see what Moriarty was getting at, but you surely can’t verify it. Even Chakraborty couldn’t fully follow his theories.”

“Oh, it will need to be verified,” Holmes whispered. “The Russian will need to see it, and the Swede, and the American. But if they pronounce it true —”

“That’s a big ‘if’, Holmes.”

“Then it is truly no exaggeration to say that Christendom will fall. Who would believe in God, when we ourselves may not exist? Darwin’s theory of evolution was bad enough for the Church, but when Moriarty’s theory of simulation becomes accepted…”

“We mustn’t allow that,” I told him sternly. “It is precisely what Moriarty wanted. Mrs Banister, too, and the Nihilist League. He knew the effect this would have on the world; he said as much in his letter. This is his final legacy, a legacy of anarchy. We mustn’t let it come out.”

“And yet,” he said again. “If it is the truth, Watson… the truth must not be suppressed. The truth will always out. What use is it to live in a world one knows to be a lie?”

I spoke gruffly. “It will turn out to be so much nonsense, old man, depend on it. Show it to the mathematicians and they’ll say so. Ponder it for weeks first, probably, but in the end they’ll say he was as mad as everyone thought he was.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Watson,” he said. “Perhaps, indeed, you are right. We must lay our plans carefully.”

“Of course,” I told him soothingly. “But there’s no hurry. Moriarty’s theories aren’t going anywhere. Go and get some sleep. Come back to it later, when your mind is rested. We can work out the right thing to do together.”

“I cannot sleep,” he murmured. “But perhaps… there is the violin. Even if the sound it makes is false, music itself is mathematics, and still beautiful.”

“That’s right, old fellow. Beautiful numbers. Go and play for a while. I’m sure it will help.”

I took him by the shoulders and steered him, still murmuring, to his room. A few minutes later, the violin’s sound pervaded the house, and I stood still for a moment, shocked by what I had just witnessed.

I picked up the papers and flicked through them. They were completely impenetrable: page after page of mathematical symbols and equations, annotated with scarcely less abstruse commentary. The word “simulation” appeared a great deal, however.

I wondered anew about Mrs Banister’s motivations: firstly for staging the burglary, and then for involving Sherlock Holmes in its investigation. If her aim was truly to advance the nihilists, to enrich herself and set herself up as the new Napoleon of crime, why risk the attention of the one man with the knowledge and skill to destroy her?

Had she really been setting him up to fail? Or did she intend him to succeed? Was it her hope that the knowledge which had doomed her brother would end up in Holmes’s hands? Could that even have been what Moriarty himself intended?

Was this, after all, the professor’s truest bequest — to his archenemy, an insoluble dilemma? Had he hoped in the end, not to ruin the world, but to drive one man insane?

Holmes was right. These waters were too deep for me.

I gathered up the papers and flung them on the fire.