That final encounter with Moriarty, and my resulting injury, caused a long convalescence. If not for the kind ministrations of an isolated hill folk couple, I surely would have passed on from a comatose state to death. As it was, I spent much time in that near-death dream state, lost in a miasma of thoughts, my mind playing tricks, nightmares wracking my brain, even as my body lay still and silent in an apparent total vegetative existence.
After some time, I came out of my coma, and as I slowly recuperated, was eventually well enough to question my Swiss rescuers. As you can well imagine, I had many questions. Hans and Gerda were a simple farm couple who had a small parcel of land below Interlaken. They told me of how Hans had found me at the bottom of a lonely ravine, apparently uninjured. Initially he thought I was merely asleep, but he soon discovered that I was in the grip of some deliberative state, and after he summoned Gerda, the couple took me into their small cabin to care for me.
Once I regained consciousness I found I had lost much weight and was extremely weak. After I had regained some strength, I listened with great interest to Hans and Gerda’s story. I did not tell them about Moriarty or my tumult over the ledge near the Great Falls. That would have seemed incongruous with the fact that the few minor bruises I had sustained were much too insignificant injuries for one who had gone through such a violent fall. It did not make sense, and this was but the beginning of a series of incidents and activities that made little sense to me at the time. But by the end of this strange narrative all will be explained.
In fact, quite early on I began to believe there might be a more significant mystery here than met the eye. You see, just as Moriarty met his death from going over the falls—and I saw him with my own eyes meet his doom before I myself plunged downward—I also should have been killed by my own incredible fall. However, there was something about that mist, the wind, perhaps various air currents and updrafts? I do not know for certain, but something saved me and seemingly with great gentleness set me down upon the lush green sward of the ravine bottom where Hans later found me.
I have no explanation for it at all. I cannot explain the lack of injury or my comatose state. I am no man of science, save where the criminal element is concerned. Perhaps my friend the distinguished Professor Challenger would make something more of it. Suffice it to say that I was satisfied with the results of the situation. Moriarty was dead, and I was alive.
Before I left the area below Interlaken, I asked my kind hosts if they or those in the nearby village remembered anyone having come around looking for me. I also asked them if any tourist had gone missing, or if there were reports of anyone killed in an accident off the falls. Hans and Gerda told me they had no such knowledge, but when I told Hans to ask around the village, he returned with interesting news indeed. While I was apparently not missed at all, it appears an Englishman, perhaps on holiday at the time, had in fact died going over the falls on the very same day that I had my own descent. I was told the body had been claimed and was buried in the local cemetery by a visitor from London.
I sighed with relief. Moriarty, no doubt. I only thought it strange that you, good Watson, or my brother, Mycroft, had not yet found me.
Months later, as I took my leave from Hans and Gerda, I decided to book a small room at an inn of the lower village for a few days. It was a robust little place, one of those lively alpine respites, and I began to feel more in tune with the world I had been so long estranged from since my injury. Hans and Gerda, the souls of propriety and generosity, lived a private and lonely life in a secluded area. Now I was back in a village among people and activity and beginning to get back to my old self again. Why, I was even able to find an English newspaper to catch up with events in the world and back home. It was a copy of the London Times, and I began to peruse it nonchalantly.
It felt good to feel the Times in my hands again, to smell the newsprint, to see the well-remembered large lettering of the headlines and the many narrow columns of small and tightly packed print for the various news items from all around the world.
However, one item below the fold caught my attention as no other has in my life. I read it with shock and dismay. The horror I felt, the alarm and confusion was something I had never experienced before. I grew dizzy, weak-kneed, my heart raced. I read it once again, very carefully. The news item was rather simple and matter-of-fact:
The British Monarch, King Albert Christian Edward Victor, former Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and grandson of the late Queen Victoria, will bestow the honour of a knighthood upon Mr. James Moriarty. The well-known and respected professor of mathematics, formerly at one of our most prestigious universities, is the author of various noted scientific works, including, “The Dynamics of an Asteroid,” which has been well-received in academic circles. He is being honoured for his invaluable service to the Crown. The ceremony is to take place upon the 24th day of April in the year of Our Lord 1892, at Buckingham Palace.
I thought this must be some bizarre type of joke or even a misprint, or perhaps suddenly I had become deranged and entirely lost my mind from my injury. Victoria, dead? Eddy, the new king! Why, was it not rumored in dark circles, that he was under suspicion in the Ripper murders? But more so, Moriarty, alive! It was incomprehensible! I had seen him die! His body had been buried. Now, if this news item was to be believed, he was not only alive, but to receive a knighthood of all things! It was preposterous, outrageous, and the news left me totally astonished, perplexed, and nonplussed. Yet it gave me much food for thought, and it was food that would not stay down.
Immediately I read that newspaper closely from front to back. It was a chilling experience. The brunt of it seemed to be that the entire world I have known all my life had gone irrevocably and incomprehensibly mad. All was upside down and wrong!
Here, then, is some of what I gleaned from my perusal of that one issue. Our Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, was, in fact, dead, as was her son, Edward. I found an article that spoke of a Court of Inquiry that had recently cleared their deaths of any but natural causes in a carriage accident, even though rumors and questions apparently abounded that it had been no accident at all! No autopsy had been performed upon the royal personages. A disturbing turn of events under the circumstances. In other areas news items leaped out at me, and they were the most incongruous with the facts that I knew. One of the most bizarre was that a military dictatorship was assuming control in the United States and that there was the threatened succession of five western states from the Union. It appeared to be civil war all over again. Russia was in turmoil, the government of France had fallen, and a united Germany had suddenly risen from the ashes of Bismarck’s Prussia and appeared to be making ready for world war.
There was more, but I’ll not bore you with the details of the many seemingly trivial items that in and of themselves appeared insignificant but to my trained eyes and historical knowledge were no less disturbing and fantastic by their very existence.
Something very big and far afield was happening throughout the world. Things were very wrong. I could not fathom it, but if I did not know better, I would be pressed to admit that this might be some sinister plot, set into motion by Moriarty. A fantastic thought, surely, and utterly unfounded, for he was dead. Nevertheless, while logic told me what was true, my intuition told me differently. You know I seldom listen to emotions; they are not to be trusted in my line of work. Nevertheless, one question nagged my thoughts. That newspaper said Moriarty was alive. How could that be? How could Moriarty be alive—and have been knighted—when I knew he was dead?
A chilling thought suddenly grabbed me—could it have been someone else entirely who plummeted over the falls? Someone disguised as Moriarty? Even as I considered the thought I knew it just could not be possible, nevertheless some investigation seemed warranted.
Now I knew that I must seek out that grave here in the village and determine that which was within.
The next night was cloudy and moonless, an alpine version of those evenings you may r
emember that shrouded the moors around Baskerville Hall so many years ago in dire gloom. It was the perfect evening for the dark business I had that night with my nemesis—who now seemingly dogged me in death, even as he had in life.
I enlisted the help of good Hans in my nocturnal investigation, telling him just enough to let him know how important it was for me to see the body in that coffin. He was somewhat concerned about such activities, but agreed to help when I made clear it was important to me.
Now I had to be sure that Moriarty’s casket held his body!
It was after midnight and the village was wrapped up tightly for the evening as Hans and I stole out of the back door of my little inn and he led me to the small cemetery on the outskirts of the village.
We quietly walked through a carved wooden arch and entered a small fenced-in area of burial plots topped with memorials and statues in stone and wood. Hans brought me to one such lonely grave at an isolated spot in the end. The marker was a simple wooden cross, its inscription Hans translated for me.
“It says, ‘English Man, Died, May 1891,’” Hans whispered.
I nodded. I looked around us carefully. There was no one. All was quiet and peaceful. Hans and I began to dig.
I cannot express to you the excitement that surged through me as my spade cut into the hard, cold earth, and once it finally hit the lid of the pine box that contained that which I was seeking.
Now was the moment of truth. Hans and I quickly cleared away the last of the dirt so as to make the top of the plain wooden casket accessible. Hans looked at me and I nodded, then he began using a crowbar to pry open the casket.
With a loud screeching of rusted nails, the lid finally came off, and we saw that a tall male body wrapped in shrouds lay before us. I motioned Hans away. I quickly knelt before the corpse. Deftly, I removed the shroud cloths, until I had a full view of the face.
There had been some decay and natural parasite activity upon the flesh of the face, but the cold climate ensured there was more than enough left for me to make a very definite determination. I froze with astonishment and some fear, my blood ran cold, for the face I now looked upon was not that of Professor James Moriarty at all. It was the face of Sherlock Holmes! It was my very own face!
Hans asked me if everything was all right. He said that I did not look well. Hans would not look closely at the face of the corpse, while I could not take my eyes away from it. You can imagine my reaction. I hardly knew what to make of this at all. At first I thought it might be some trick or joke. I was here after all, and alive, was I not?
You know my methods, and I never theorize before I obtain all the facts. I have said so over and over again, that solving cases is a matter of eliminating the impossible—and then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I felt that what I was viewing created implications that would soon test that maxim to the very limit. You see, that corpse before me bore silent witness to the truth of this strange event, and I vowed it would tell me all it knew before this dark night was over.
“Hans,” I ordered. “Bring that lantern closer, I must examine the body.”
Then I began what can only be described as a very methodical and detailed search of the corpse to rule out all suppositions until I could get to the truth of this matter.
What I discovered was even more bizarre and shocking than anything you could have ever put into your little accounts of my cases for the popular press. First of all, the corpse was that of an actual human being, not any statue or manikin. By all accounts the man appeared to have met his death sometime within the last year. There were severe bruises and a few broken bones from his fall that I immediately noticed. However, it was the physical characteristics that were interesting to me in the extreme. The corpse appeared to be my age, my height, my weight, wore my own clothing, and had my exact physical appearance in every category. I was shocked and dismayed. Needless to say the examination of the body was as detailed as possible under the lanternlight held so steadily by my trusty Hans. And the more I looked, the more I could only come up with one determination. It was I! There was no doubt. I even examined the sole of the right foot of the corpse. There I found the scar, an exact duplicate of which was on my own right foot. I had acquired it as a young boy. No one but Mycroft and I knew of it. I tell you, it was uncanny. The corpse was not just someone who looked like me, or was made up to look like me. It was not some copy, but an original. I was looking upon the dead body of Sherlock Holmes!
This was a discovery that set my world reeling in more ways than one. It allowed, even demanded, that my thoughts now entertain a multitude of questions that I had hitherto ignored. Surely something mysterious had befallen me at the Reichenbach. That mist, my fall, the coma, now it began to make some sense. But what indeed, did it portend? Something strange, no doubt, perhaps supernatural. The very thought surprised me greatly.
Although perplexed at this discovery and the questions it raised, I had to put them all aside. For all I knew for certain now was this: with Moriarty apparently alive, I must get home to London, immediately.
For I was sure everyone I knew there was in great danger. The world I knew did not exist any longer, and somehow I was in a new world, or a different, perhaps alternate one. Here I had died at the Reichenbach, while Moriarty had somehow lived and had been free to make his plans and schemes.
I feared for Mycroft now.
I feared for you, Watson.
I feared for England, the empire, the world.
The boat train took me into Victoria Station in London’s center on schedule as always. I noticed the familiar building, but it was now draped with black sashes and bunting in mourning and remembrance of our dear deceased queen. It was a somber homecoming.
I was in disguise as an old sailor. I knew it would be best to get the lay of the land, so to speak, then decide on a course of action before I made my presence known.
Quite honestly at that moment, I was not sure what to do. For the first time in my life I was far out of my depths, but I knew there was one sure anchor in my world, or worlds, and that was you, good Watson, and our rooms at 221B. So I headed for Baker Street, an apparent elderly sailor on pension, a bit taken with drink and fallen on hard times. That latter part of my disguise was more true than I’d have cared to admit.
Baker Street came into view and appeared the same as always, but as I approached the building that housed 221B my heart sank and a great feeling of gloom overtook me. The building was closed and boarded up. It appeared a massive fire had gutted the entire structure many months back.
I ran to our lodgings and looked with disbelief at the boarded-up building, then at the people passing by on the street, desperately seeking a friendly or recognizable face. Mrs. Hudson, Billy, Wiggins, anyone!
“My good man!” I shouted to a neighbor. “Can you tell me what happened to this house and the people who lived here?”
“Aye, Pops,” he replied, shaking his head sadly. “Not much to say, big fire last year, a real shame.”
“What of the doctor?” I blurted.
“Oh the doctor? The doctor went off, no one knows where. The lady what owned the house I hear tell is living with a sister in Kent.”
I sighed with relief. At least you, and Mrs. Hudson, were alive. But where?
“And what of Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” I asked with more trepidation than I realized I possessed.
“Aye, the detective? Dead this past year. It broke the doctor’s poor ’eart, I tell you.”
I nodded, feeling as if I was in a dream. Or a nightmare. This just could not be. I took one last look at the rooms we had shared for so long in happier days and went on my way.
I am afraid that I received even worse news at the Diogenes Club. After Baker Street I immediately hailed a hansom cab and made my way to Pall Mall. There I entered that venerable establishment, only allowed into the environs of the Visitors Room, where I was informed by a liveried butler that Mr. Mycroft Holmes was no longer a member of the Diogenes C
lub.
“Why is that?” I asked, still in my disguise as the old retired sailor.
The butler looked at me with obvious annoyance from being asked to explain such things to one of the lower classes, but then shrugged and added, “Murdered he was, last May, not soon after his famous brother died on holiday in Switzerland, I hear.”
“Assassinated,” I whispered. “Oh, Mycroft, now I see …”
“Sir?” the butler inquired.
“Nothing,” I replied. “I will be leaving now.”
On the street before the Diogenes Club I stood frozen, stunned, it surely seemed all was lost. Mycroft, my brother, dead? Murdered? Murdered no doubt by Moriarty’s henchmen shortly after the professor returned to London from the Reichenbach. The world in turmoil, while Moriarty had since received a knighthood and was now Sir James! I balked at the effrontery of it all.
I knew now, Watson, that I must find you, and together, perhaps, we could make something of this most strange and disastrous turn of events. I tried to locate you at the usual haunts, at St. Barts Hospital, your office on St. Anne’s Street, even at your old regimental stomping grounds. No one had seen you for months. Some told me a sad story of how you had fallen on hard times, that you had taken the news of my death badly, that you had fallen to drink. I was shocked. Astounded, really. It was most unlike you, old boy, to overindulge in spirits at all. To allow yourself to become so wedded to drink as I was being told was quite incomprehensible to me. At first I did not believe it at all. However the rumors I heard in my travels told me of a once proud doctor of medicine who had descended deeply into the dubious comfort afforded by the bottle.
Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years Page 37
