Moriarty

I was quite surprised that Jones so readily agreed to ignore the sanctity of diplomatic immunity and to place his career at risk by entering the legation in disguise, but by this time we were such close friends and he was so determined to find Clarence Devereux — particularly following the loss of life at Scotland Yard — that he would have done anything and it was he who unmasked Coleman De Vriess. I expressed the necessary amazement but in fact had very quickly guessed as much myself.

From this point on, Jones took charge of the investigation and I had little to do but to follow, dutifully playing Watson to his Holmes. We had visited the Bostonian together and it had been interesting for me to meet Leland Mortlake for the first time. However, the real advantage of the raid was that it had allowed me to plant yet another clue. The Scotland Yard detectives had been singularly incapable of working out what HORNER 13 meant, even when I had reminded them of the shaving soap and had suggested that it might refer to a druggist or some similar establishment. No wonder Holmes so frequently walked all over them! I had therefore picked up an advertisement for the barber’s shop which I slipped amongst the magazines in Pilgrim’s room, even as I pretended to examine them. Jones found it and once again the game, as he would have put it, was afoot.

His unravelling of the Chancery Lane business was, I have to say, quite masterly, worthy of the great detective himself, and I had no argument with the trap that he devised at the Blackwall Basin. If only Devereux himself had come to inspect the plunder that John Clay had supposedly removed from the Safe Deposit Company, how much more easily the whole thing would have ended. But he did not. Edgar Mortlake slipped through our fingers and Devereux remained out of our reach; I realised that he would need further goading, another setback, before he would deliver himself into my hands.

The arrest of Leland Mortlake provided exactly that. It was a little sad, but not surprising, that Jones should leap to the conclusion that a blowpipe had been used, when the poisoned dart was discovered in the back of Leland’s neck. He had, of course, been witness to a similar death, described by Watson in ‘The Sign of the Four’. In fact, I had been carrying the dart all the time and simply slid it into my victim’s flesh as I steered him away from an overzealous waiter when we were leaving the club. The tip was covered with anaesthetic ether as well as strychnine, so he would have felt nothing. I would have liked him to suffer more. This was, after all, the man whose loathsome company Jonathan Pilgrim had been forced to endure. But his death was a provocation, nothing more. And it most certainly worked.

I could not have foreseen that Devereux would respond by kidnapping Jones’s daughter. Even I would never have stooped so low, but then, as I have said, we played by different rules. What was I to do when Jones came to my hotel with the news? I saw at once that to accompany him would place me in the gravest danger but at the same time it was clear that the game was reaching its climax. I had to be there. Once again, luck was on my side. Perry happened to be in my hotel room. The two of us had been in conference when Jones arrived. I was able to tell him of this latest development and to make arrangements for my protection.

Both Perry and Colonel Moran were outside the Joneses’ home, waiting in a hansom, when we left that night. You may recall that when I stepped into the street, I called out, as if I were addressing the kidnappers. In fact, my words were intended for Moran, letting him know our destination and giving him time to reach it ahead of us. So when we came to Dead Man’s Walk, he was already there. He saw us knocked unconscious. He and Perry followed us to Smithfield meat market and, although it was a close call, they managed to find us just when it mattered most. It was when I was face to face with Devereux, by the way, that I came closest to being unmasked. He had guessed that Jonathan Pilgrim had been working for me and that he was not a Pinkerton’s man at all. He began to deny that he had ever written the coded letter that had begun all this and, had I not interrupted, the truth would surely have come out. I threw myself at Devereux for that simple reason — to bring any further discussion to an end — even though it cost me the injuries that I subsequently received.

I am almost finished. Another drop of brandy and we will get there. Now … where was I?