by David Ruffle
“The task must have been exceedingly onerous.”
“It was a long, slow process in which for every step forward I fell back an equal amount. Occasionally, I was given great hope by information which came to me through that network of informers that you became only too familiar with, only for those hopes to be dashed. There were times that I cursed my caseload for I could not devote enough time to what I saw as the most important case I would ever handle.”
“I only got to know of Moriarty shortly before the events that I chronicled as ‘The Final Problem’, but for how long then had you been chasing this shadowy, elusive figure?”
“For a good few years. It took me some time to observe the pattern, but when I recognised there was a power at work in the background and once I had got the measure of this unknown adversary then I was able to identify those cases where he had unwittingly left his mark.”
“You once said to me that you recognised Moriarty’s work in undetected crimes. If these crimes were undetected then it begs the question, how did you detect them?”
“Perhaps I should have said instead, crimes that were not investigated fully. Although I detected such crimes from the singular autograph left upon them by their author, I was not always in a position to investigate these matters myself. I noted their ripple effect, the disturbances on the surface that would always point me to their origin. Slowly, but surely I began to make inroads into his organisation. There were the odd minions who, although petrified of the Professor, were more frightened of me and the weight of the law that I could bring to bear on them. By using such felons I was able to gain an insight as to how Moriarty worked and how he ruled his kingdom absolutely. It still took another two years before I was able to put a name to this figure. The surprise was great when I realised I knew the man.”
“You knew Moriarty? This is something new to me. How did you know him?”
“Before Mycroft went up to Oxford my father brought in a mathematics coach to assist my brother. For a period of two months he came to the house regularly to teach Mycroft the more rarefied branches of mathematics.”
“He taught you too?”
“Nay, my father would not see fit to spend any extra money on my education. Mycroft was the chosen one and it was he who received the special attention of Professor James Moriarty. In fact when Mycroft went to Oxford he ran into the professor again, for he held a post at Oxford for a while until a scandal forced him to seek new pastures.”
“I can imagine what a great shock that must have been for you. Did you bring this to the attention of Mycroft? That his former mathematics coach was a criminal mastermind?”
“In a manner of speaking. That is to say, I apprised my brother of some aspects of Moriarty’s subsequent career, but Mycroft was already supremely aware of Moriarty’s tawdry line of work.”
“How so?”
“My brother and Moriarty had stayed in touch and although Mycroft was not fully aware of just how large a criminal organisation Moriarty presided over he knew that his old tutor operated outside of the law. This meant that to Mycroft and therefore the government, Moriarty had his uses.”
“He was employed by them? Surely not, Holmes!”
“I can assure you he was.”
“As what?”
“As someone they could trust to do some of their dirty work for them, someone who would keep their secrets secret... at the right price of course.”
“Precisely what kind of work are we talking about?”
“Anything from petty theft to political assassinations.”
“Good God, Holmes, I am amazed.”
“Standard practice for many governments I am afraid. In the case of Moriarty it did go some way to explaining how my efforts to infiltrate to the heart of the man’s lair seemed to be blocked sometimes in a way I could not fathom. Like all agents of the government, Moriarty was eminently expendable and once he had outlived his usefulness then I had Mycroft’s full assistance in ridding the world of this man’s presence.”
“Did Mycroft have no compunction about helping to destroy one who had been an ally until recently?”
“An ally? No, Watson, he was a paid agent. His very criminality was what made him attractive to a government that sought out those it could use when official channels could not be utilised. That same criminality brought about his downfall.”
“It must be dashed unlucky to have one Holmes hounding you, but when another Holmes joins the hunt, then the effect must be terrifying.”
“Quite so, Watson.”
“When you related your meeting with Moriarty in our rooms the intimation was that you had never met the man before.”
“There had to be some necessary subterfuge in view of the high stakes for all concerned. There was a meeting, but not quite the dramatic confrontation I may have led you to believe.”
“Do you know, Holmes, I believe you spent your whole career hiding things from me!”
“Guilty as charged, Watson. But on occasion I saw it as for your own protection. My obfuscations were to my mind logically sound.”
“Be that as it may, it did rankle with me; the times I was aware of it of course, only now am I finding out the full extent of your deceit.”
“Well-meaning deceit, Watson, well-meaning deceit.”
“The connection between the government and Moriarty was covered up of course.”
“Naturally. Any inkling of such goings on would have put Her Majesty’s Government in an extremely bad light.”
“You are the master of understatement tonight, Holmes. Was the account you gave me regarding your travels for those three years a truthful one?”
“For the most part yes. My destinations were just as I expressed to you, but my travels were somewhat dictated by the government, for I was engaged in diplomatic work for them of a highly sensitive nature.”
“Which fully engaged you for three years?”
“I did have pursuits of my own to follow too. I was fortunate in that I was able to pursue them concurrently along with carrying out the edicts originating from Mycroft’s department.”
“The money that Mycroft wired to you was in fact by way of being a salary for your, what was it, spying?”
“Something akin to that yes, but with the emphasis on diplomacy.”
“Not always the strongest card in your pack, Holmes.”
“I concede that point to you, Watson. Apart from the occasional cases that came my way which involved the government of the day, my diplomatic career was over.”
“Until the advent of Von Bork.”
“Yes I have to confess I was very surprised to be pressed into active service once more, particularly as I was of the idea that retirement had softened my brain considerably, but it was good to be back in harness in spite of the dangers involved.”
“I find it hard to believe it was a full fifteen years ago.”
“Yes indeed, Watson, time has marched on since then and the world has passed us two old sleuth-hounds by.”
“It was only to be expected, no one is immune from ageing. Looking back, were there any crimes that you wished you had been invited to investigate?”
“Oh, constantly, Watson. At those times all I could do was to take a leaf out of Mycroft’s book and remain an armchair detective.”
“As I recall, there were many high profile cases which were paraded over many pages of the broadsheets and I also distinctly recall your impatience with the investigating officers.”
“I tell you, Watson, every day I had the desire to send off wires hither and thither setting out my objections to various theories I saw expounded in the news, but I stayed my hand. My standing at Scotland Yard, although high, was not something I took for granted and too much unwarranted interference on my part may have jeopardised that, so for the most part I k
ept silent.”
“Do any stand out in your memory?”
“The so called ‘Ripper’ murders of 1888 occupied my waking thoughts for weeks on end as I am sure you remember.”
“I particularly remember the sitting room being wreathed in an impenetrable blue fog of tobacco smoke on many a morning during that period.”
“In spite of the sensationalism accorded these crimes, they were to my mind fairly commonplace murders, not so very different than other atrocities committed in the Whitechapel district.”
“But these were heinous crimes, Holmes, far beyond anything seen before.”
“Not so, there were similar episodes in Paris earlier that same year and seven such deaths in Hamburg in 1886. These are just two examples out of quite a number. The streets of Whitechapel seemed to be designed for such crimes to take place. Dorset Street, in fact had the epithet of being ‘the most evil street in London’.
“Although you were not officially involved in the investigation were you able to draw any conclusions from the police and coroner’s reports?”
“I did have one or two ideas regarding the murderer and did have a meeting with Inspector Abberline just prior to the discovery of the butchered body of Mary Kelly. He listened politely and I heard no more from him. And of course as luck would have it, we heard no more from ‘saucy Jack’.”
“I suppose there is no way of telling whether your suppositions were correct?”
“No, neither now nor then. My own belief is that our man left the country, possibly for America, where some similar killings took place in Chicago in 1889. But, as you say, Watson, just suppositions and these particular murders will I suspect remain unsolved.”
“Who was this man of yours?”
“A fellow by the name of William Rudolph and a thoroughly unpleasant fellow as you can well imagine.”
“Was the evidence you collected strong enough to make a case against him?”
“I believe it could have been acted on had the powers that be decided to do so.”
“Could you not have brought him to book yourself without utilising the combined might of the City and Metropolitan police forces?”
“The lack of evidence would have told against such an action. I may have been wrong, Watson, after all he was just one suspect out of so many.”
“Do you know what became of the man?”
“I have only that supposition I mentioned that he fled to America. The murders in Chicago certainly displayed marked similarities to the Whitechapel murders. All the information I had on the man I passed on to Captain Adamson of the Central Division of the Chicago police force, but after that series of killings in his city, there was nothing more.”
“Was this Rudolph a doctor or a surgeon? I recall that the common belief at the time was that the murderer must have been involved in one of those professions.”
“Neither, he was a tailor by trade with small premises in Flower and Dean Street. The evisceration of those poor wretches was not as skilful as the authorities would have had us believe. I could have done a similar job myself with my own rudimentary anatomical skills.”
“There was certainly no shortage of suspects in the case.”
“Too many suspects. Which only served to confuse matters. The truth is of course that we will never be sure of the identity of this particular killer. My supposition was well-founded, but for all that, just supposition.”
“One of the drawings of the Ripper based on an eye-witness description looked exactly like me. Thurston ribbed me over it for some time.”
“I am sure that an enterprising writer of the future will decide that indeed you were the Ripper, Watson!”
“What a ridiculous notion, Holmes.”
“I do not believe so and if it’s any consolation to you, I will be tarred with the same brush myself.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Holmes?”
“Yes, Watson?”
“I cannot feel my hands at all now; could you apply some pressure to my left hand?”
“Certainly... there.”
“Thank you... I can feel your touch, it’s immensely reassuring.”
Interlude
“How is he, Lucy?”
“It’s odd, his breathing is very shallow, just what I would expect, but still he keeps chattering away.”
“Poor old boy.”
“He’s never been any trouble since he has been here, not like some I could name. When he first came in he seemed quite strong and alert. He ordered a newspaper every day, but now he hasn’t looked at one in weeks and he doesn’t ask about the world outside at all.”
“I think they call it now ‘locked-in’. He is living in the past completely.”
“It might not be that bad for him then, he had an exciting life from all accounts. He lived with that detective, the famous one, you know?”
“What, Sherlock Holmes?”
“That’s the man.”
“I didn’t even know he was real, Lucy.”
“Oh Polly, if Dr Watson is real, it stands to reason that Sherlock Holmes must be real too, doesn’t it? Well, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Miss know-it-all Pollett, whatever you say madam!”
“And I know something else too, Mrs don’t-know-nothing Harrison.”
“Oh yes and what might that be? Don’t tell me... I know, don’t tell me... you have won Nurse of The Year?”
“Funny girl.”
“What then?”
“I have a date tomorrow night... and you don’t.”
“Actually I don’t want one and especially not with a Welsh doctor. Dear me, Lucy, is that really the best you can do? And I hear his bedside manner is not all it’s cracked up to be either!”
“Jealousy, jealousy...”
Chapter 8
“Sorry, Holmes, did I drop off again? You will be losing patience with me as you used to.”
“There is no fear of that, my dear fellow. I was certainly guilty in the past, but not on this occasion I assure you.”
“I probably tried your patience far too often, Holmes. So I don’t rightly see I ever had any cause to complain... too much!”
“We complemented each other perfectly; our differences were never so marked as to come between our friendship.”
“No, it was fortunate that our interests, in some ways so different, never caused any form of isolation from each other. Although I could never quite understand your aversion to Rugby or cricket, two fine gentlemanly sports.”
“The implication being that fencing and boxing were not?”
“No, not at all, I hold both sports in high regard; I really enjoyed seeing the Italian fencer Ageliso Greco in action during that exhibition of fencing that we both attended. I even read the book that you insisted I read by Giuseppe Radaelli on the art of sabre fencing.”
“Yes, I recall your comments at the time, Watson. Long winded was one of your more charitable opinions.”
“I blame the translator, Holmes. I am positive it must been an absolutely riveting read in the original Italian.”
“Oh it was I assure you. One of the great textbooks of fencing.”
“I will take your word for it, my grasp of Italian was always a little on the weak side.”
“The ultimate in sport for me is the combat of one man against another. It is primal, honest and the excitement is always high. Team sports never engendered any such excitement in me; I reckoned them to be perfunctory and dull.”
“I cannot agree with you there. Rugby football is a thoroughly passionate sport, compelling, addictive and never failing to entertain.”
“I really should know better than to argue the point with an ex-player of the game, but argue I will. All
too often the action is indistinguishable as are the players, owing to the mud which is liberally covering everything and everyone. The sport is predominantly staged in the winter leading to uncomfortable viewing conditions for the spectators; need I continue?”
“But you are determined to see only the negatives; the passion of the sport and the skill displayed far outweigh these negatives of yours. And I don’t believe you have ever attended a Rugby football match so your views are made largely redundant.”
“I have never thrown myself off the Eiffel tower either, but all the same I know I would not enjoy the experience! As it happens, I have witnessed this turgid sport in action; a never to be repeated excursion to a Varsity match. Even cricket would have been a joy to watch compared with that particular event.”
“I hold the sport of cricket in the highest regard. Its values are a code you can live by. It enshrines duty and fair play and is recognised as such the world over. It is genteel, relaxing, intriguing and even you might say, beguiling in its hold over people.”
“For those people who feel able to devote days of their life to watching one match, then yes, beguiling it must be. For I suspect the vast majority of us it remains a game that is difficult to summon up any enthusiasm for, not to mention the required stamina to sit through an entire game. I understand your allegiance to the sport, given your nodding, as I recall, acquaintance with Doctor Grace. Ballarat was it not?”
“Yes, it was 1873 and I had thoughts of finding my fortune amongst the gold fields of Ballarat. The gold rush was all but over by that time, but I stayed on in the area with a cousin of mine. He was a keen cricketer and was instrumental in bringing W G Grace’s team to Ballarat to play against twenty-two men culled from the surrounding area, himself included. The match took place as the New Year began.”
