by Sam Hearn
Finally he clicked to
the news website. The
almost-thief, Pietro
Vencini, was all over it
again.
“Look,” I said,
“Mycroft was right. There’s
a video here of him being
released.”
“‘New evidence has
come to light.’ And he’s given
a statement too:”
*bzZzZzt*
*bzZzZzt*
Pietro Vencini is being
released this afternoon. M
Message
now
Slide to view
11:08
I am very much looking
forward to going back
to the museum. And seeing
my little dog, Napoleon.
And my wife, of course.
Thank you.
Weird. Didn’t he say something like that
before? Who calls their dog Napoleon?
Ha! That’s it - oh, that’s brilliant. A very clever
plan. Even I have to admit it. Yes, it all makes
sense now. But we have definitely got to get
our skates on. You haven’t got any plans after
school now, have you? Good. Oh you do? Well
- cancel them. And Martha, I need you to do
something for me, if you don’t mind? Come on,
John, don’t just sit there…
Dog? I thought it was his son?
So, like I said, I don’t mind a bit
of adventure…
But how much adventure
can one kid take?
There IS a gate,
Sherlock!
No time for that,
Watson. In fact
we’ve got about
sixty seconds ....
10
THE CHASE IS ON!
Sixty seconds?!
For what?!
Yes. Just around this
corner now. I hope we’re
still in time!
The number 74 bus,
John.
How else are we going to
get to the museum?
And that bit about him being like a bloodhound on
a scent? I was right about that too.
Sherlock didn’t say a word once we had
leapt on to the bus. It was like he was in a
trance, that megabrain of his whirring away.
But suddenly, as the museum came into view, he
sprang to life. He jumped off the bus and I had
to sprint to keep up with him.
“What are we doing, Sherlock?” I panted.
“Shouldn’t we be leaving this stuff to the police?”
I knew he was hot on the trail of something
massively important, but I couldn’t help thinking
we should be getting a bit of help!
As we approached the giant steps up to the
entrance, I thought I could make out a familiar
figure going in through the doors ahead of us.
“Wait a minute, Sherlock. Is that James
Moriarty?” Now things were getting confusing.
What on earth was James Moriarty
doing here? And what was Sherlock
doing chasing after him?
With my thoughts racing, my blood
pumping and the sounds of the busy
AN ADVENTURE
WITH NAPOLEON
113
London streets in my ears I
thought I could make out the ever-
closer siren of a police car...
Sherlock flung himself through
the museum entrance doors and I
puffed along after him. It was nearly
closing time so it wasn’t that busy, but
that didn’t stop me losing sight of him
almost immediately.
“Sherlock!” I tore after him,
scattering a few end-of-day
stragglers and tourists doing the
rounds.
As I rushed through the maze of
pillars and statues, I lost sight of him.
I sprinted up the nearest set of big
marble stairs to the gallery
above, so that I could look
down on the sculpture
room and hopefully
catch a glimpse of
him.
114
You just can’t leave things
alone, can you, Sherlock?
Always snooping. Always
sticking your stupid nose in
where it doesn’t belong.
Just then a voice echoed up from the
vast space below…
115
There was no mistaking it this time. It was
definitely James Moriarty. I hadn’t been seeing
things!
I finally caught sight of Sherlock below.
He’d come in through one entrance just as
Moriarty was coming in the other.
“You’re one to talk, James,” replied
Sherlock from the other side of the room.
“I’m just interested in things. And you
will keep making yourself so very …
interesting.” I couldn’t believe
what I was seeing. It was like
some sort of crazy wild-
west stand-off, with the
two of them waiting to see
who would draw first.
I pulled myself
together and turned back
down the stairs. As I ran,
I could hear Moriarty
shouting:
117
“Really, James. I wouldn’t do
that if I were you…” exclaimed Sherlock.
I burst through the doors into
the sculpture room. They were
slowly circling each other now,
in and out around the bases
of the pillars and statues.
As I made my way towards
them…
“Stay out of it,
Sherlock,” warned Moriarty.
“I’m only trying to get back
what’s rightfully mine!”
“Wrongfully yours is a
more fitting description.”
I had no idea what
Moriarty was talking about.
The Reichenbach Jewel?
LOOK AT YOU, SHERLOCK! THE
ANNOYING ITCH THAT JUST WON’T GO AWAY.
I’VE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF YOU
GETTING IN THE WAY ALL THE TIME. I’M
GETTING THE REICHENBACH JEWEL BACK
WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.
What was that? Rightfully his? What on
earth was going on? Sherlock and James
looked at each other in silence. I could
feel the tension
in the air…
As I got closer,
I could see James
edging closer to a
group of statues.
Sherlock laughed.
“Oh, I know what
you’re doing, Moriarty.
We both figured out
those messages, didn’t
we? The family man…”
Sherlock nodded towards
a statue of a man holding
two small children, “And of
course, Napoleon, pointing at
a pillar…”
119
Moriarty suddenly broke away to one side of
the room. He ran at the statue of a man holding
two children and then jumped up on to the low
plinth of the figure right next to it. Desperately,
he began to climb the giant figure. And that’s
when I noticed that it was a statue of Napoleon,
his arm outstretched.
“Don’t do it, James. Get down! The police will
be here any minute now. You’ll only make things
worse for yourself.”
“Shut up, Sherlock!”
Just then, the alarms started to go off
around us and I stopped dead in my tracks.
It was like the flash mob all over again! James
Moriarty had nearly scaled the figure. Balancing
on his shoulders he reached up to the French
Emperor’s hat…
“Yes! I knew it!” he shouted. “I’ve got it! Now
you know to stay out of my business, Sherlock.
It’s time to restore a bit of family heritage…”
As he pulled his hand
away from the statue I
could see Moriarty was
clutching something tight in
his hand - but it was only
when the museum lights
caught its surface that I
realized what I was seeing…
James Moriarty had got the
Alpine Star!
11
I was totally dumbstruck.
But just as I thought things
couldn’t get any stranger, out
of the shadows sprang our not-
so-innocent museum thief, Pietro
Vencini. He shot in front of me, past
Sherlock and bounded up on to the base
of the Napoleon statue alongside Moriarty.
“If you please, Signor Moriarty.” His voice
was cold and commanding. “I will take that
Reichenbach Jewel. You would not want to upset
the professor once more.” Pietro had a sinister
look on his face and you could tell he meant
every word.
It was cat and mouse for
a split second, but Pietro was
a tall man and it was easy for
him to snatch the gleaming jewel
from James’s grasp and jump
back down from the base of
the statue.
“No!” shouted Moriarty,
121
scrambling down after
Vencini. “You’ve already messed
it up once! It’s mine and I want to
take it home where it belongs.”
He lunged after Vencini, but Sherlock
threw out an arm to block him. “James,
stop!”
“Get off me, you meddler.”
“No, really, in a few seconds I
think you will agree with me that you’d
better leave this one alone. In just a few
seconds…”
Moriarty stuttered and Pietro
backed away, smiling grimly. “You will thank me
later, Signor James.”
Then he ran for the door… But he didn’t get
more than the length of the
room before he was
blocked at all exits
by police officers, a
serious-looking DI
Baker and …
MARTHA?!
And, wait a minute …
I felt like I’d been holding my
breath for ever but suddenly the
life burst back into me.
“Ms DeRossi! Martha? What are
you doing here?” I spluttered. “Detective
Inspector Baker… Sherlock, what’s going
on?”
“Don’t worry, John. I asked Martha
to rally the troops and meet us here. I
think you could say that everything is safely ‘in
hand’.” Sherlock had a gleam in his eye and a
wide smile on his face.
“Ah, good afternoon, Detective
Inspector Baker. John, allow me
to introduce you to Ms Carla
DeRossi, senior representative
in the Italian Antiquities Agency,
and quite possibly one of the
best intelligence agents that
the Metropolitan Police could
wish for in an arts-related
criminal inquiry such as this.”
MS DEROSSI?!
124
Ms DeRossi was a detective too?
Ms DeRossi nodded to me and then turned her
attention to the wriggling Vencini who was red-
faced with rage.
What?! I just couldn’t believe what I was
hearing!
Talk about brain-busting! With all the excitement,
my glasses had steamed up. So typical of
Sherlock to spring it all on us right at the end,
after we’ve been flopping around like fishes
out of water for so long. Sometimes it would be
nice to actually know what’s going on!
Meanwhile Moriarty was slumped at the base
of the Napoleon statue, muttering furiously.
“We’re not finished you know, Sherlock. Not
by a long shot. You and your pathetic little
followers… You’ve got no idea what’s it’s like
to walk in the shadow of a
surname like mine…”
For a moment I felt
pretty sorry for him, but
there was no time for
that as Detective
Inspector Baker
coolly slapped a
pair of handcuffs
Ms DeRossi was a detective too?
126
on Pietro Vencini and brought the priceless
diamond over to Ms DeRossi.
“I think this would be safer in your hands
for the time being, Ms DeRossi. Our friend Mr
Vencini certainly won’t be needing it any time
soon. I think there’ll be a few questions asked
about exactly how all of you kids came to be
involved in this business though, especially
you, young Mr Moriarty. But I’d say we’ve had
enough excitement for one afternoon.”
“Thank you, Detective Inspector Baker,”
said Ms DeRossi. “I agree - and in future I’d
rather you were all safely in school instead of
chasing jewels and criminals around. That’s a
job best left to the police! The important thing
is that the museum will be extremely grateful
for the safe return of their
troublesome diamond.
I should think they
would like to add their
thanks to you too,
Sherlock. Well done.
And now,” she smiled,
“perhaps you would
like to see what all
the fuss was about.”
Ms DeRossi held up
the diamond for us all to
see. It gleamed and sparkled
brilliantly under the museum lights, just like a
star.
“Wow!” said Martha.
“It really is amazing, isn’t it? I can’t believe
something so small has caused all this fuss
though.”
“Yeah! Tell me about it! I can’t believe that
our teacher was working with the police, and
that Sherlock knew about it too!”
129
“I’m not sure I understand it
all properly though,” I said to
Sherlock as Ms DeRossi escorted
James away and several police
officers dragged the struggling
and cursing Vencini from the museum. “Is the
Reichenbach Jewel the same as the Alpine
Star? And who’s this ‘professor’ guy?”
“The ‘professor guy’ is James’s father
– a brilliant and dangerous criminal called
Professor Moriarty. And as for the diamonds,
the truth is that they’re one and the same,
Watson – but i
t wasn’t until I did some digging
with the help of Mycroft that I realized quite
how involved the Moriarty family actually were.
“You see, to the Moriarty
family, it was never the Alpine Star
at all. To them it is the Reichenbach
Jewel, a long-lost family treasure,
stolen from them well over a
century ago.
“In 1887, Professor Moriarty,
James’s great-great-great-
grandfather, was part of an
expedition party who found the priceless
diamond. But there were confrontations and
disagreements from the very moment it was
pulled from the ground, not to mention murder
and deceit. It resulted in the professor being
expelled from the group and his name was
scrubbed from the official records. But the
professor had hereditary tendencies of the
most diabolical kind, John. A criminal strain
ran through his blood. He retreated to his
hideaway in Switzerland, near the famous
Reichenbach Falls, swearing revenge on
those who had wronged him! He was known
as the Napoleon of crime.”
“Oh! Napoleon. Like the statue,” I said.
“And the Reichenbach Falls – like the jewel!”
At least that bit made sense now.
It’s really quite simple when you look at all the pieces.
You see, John, unlike the rest of the world, I was certain
that the Star had indeed been stolen on the day of our visit
to the museum. I’ve seen the Alpine Star many times before
and I knew that the jewel that had been on display was
the genuine article. It had distinct features that the fake -
although brilliant in itself - did not possess. I made sure of
that when we went back to look at it. From there I
just had to work my way through the clues…
I knew that James was up to no good from the
131
“The thief, Pietro, would then make a
very public getaway with the fake jewel in
his possession, only to be easily caught
by the police. Perhaps too easily…
Later the fake would be exposed,
causing outrage all around the world,
discrediting the museum and leaving
first time we visited the museum - I’d seen him talking with Vencini earlier,
