Moriarty

It took him a huge effort but he obeyed and it occurred to me that he would continue obeying me for what remained of his life. He was crying. The tears were streaming from both his eyes and his nose. His skin was completely white. I had read certain papers about agoraphobia, a condition that had only been recognised quite recently, but I was fascinated to see its effect at such close quarters. Had I handed Devereux my revolver, I am not sure he would have been able to use it. He was paralysed with fear. At the same time, Perry reappeared from behind the trees, dragging with him a large steamer trunk. It was in this that Devereux would be making his journey.

‘Is he going in?’ he asked.

‘Not yet, Perry.’ I turned to Devereux. ‘Why did you have to come here?’ I asked him. ‘You had wealth and success in America. The forces of law, both public and private, were unable to reach you. You had your world and I mine. What made you think that by bringing them into collision you would cause anything but harm?’ Devereux tried to speak but could no longer formulate the words. ‘And what has been the result? So much bloodshed, so much pain. You have caused the deaths of my closest friends.’ I was thinking of Jonathan Pilgrim but also of Athelney Jones. ‘Worst of all, you have forced me to descend to your level, using methods which frankly I found distasteful. That is why I feel nothing but hatred for you and why one day you must die. But not today.’

‘What do you want?’

‘You wished to take over my organisation. Now I will take over yours. You leave me with no choice for, thanks to you, I am finished here. I therefore need to know the names of all your associates in America, all the people you have worked with, the street criminals and their masters. You will tell me everything you know about the crooked politicians, the lawyers, the judges, the press, the police — and about the Pinkertons too. England is a closed door for me for the time being but America is most certainly not. The new world! That is where I intend to re-establish myself. We have many days of travel ahead of us. By the end of it, you will have given me all the information I need.’

‘You are a devil!’

‘No. I am a criminal. The two are not at all the same … or so I thought, until I met you.’

‘Now?’ Perry asked.

I nodded. ‘Yes, Perry, I am already sick of the sight of him.’

Perry fell on Devereux with glee, binding and gagging him, then bundling him into the steamer trunk and closing the lid. Meanwhile, I spoke again with Moran.

‘I trust that you will come with us, Colonel,’ I said. ‘I am aware that you do not hold the country that is our destination in particularly high regard, but even so I will have need of your services.’

‘Will you pay?’

‘Of course.’

‘My fees will be doubled, if I’m to work abroad.’

‘They will be good value even at that price.’

Moran nodded. ‘I’ll join you in a month or two. Before that, I’m slipping out to India, to the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans. I’ve heard there are plenty of tigers at this time of the year. You’ll leave a message for me in the usual place? Once I’m back, I’ll wait to hear from you.’

‘Excellent.’

We shook hands. Then the three of us lifted the steamer trunk, now well secured, and placed it in the carriage. Finally, Perry and I climbed up together and, with the boy holding the reins, we set off down the hillside, heading for the River Thames. The sun was shining. I could smell the meadows all around and at that moment I was not thinking of crime, nor of the many triumphs that surely awaited me in America. No. For some unfathomable reason, my attention had turned to something quite different. I was considering the different solutions applicable to the Korteweg de Vries equation, a mathematical model I had long been intending to examine but for which I’d never had the time.

We bumped over the grass and came to a track. Perry was sitting happily beside me. Our guest, in his trunk, was in the back. And there was the river; a crystalline twist of blue in the soft green fields. With the different variables — x, t and ø — spinning in my head, I made my way down towards it.

THE THREE MONARCHS

ONE

It has never been my desire to write very much about my own affairs for I am well aware that it is only my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr Sherlock Holmes and the many insights that I have been afforded into his deductive methods that are of interest to the public at large. Indeed, it has often struck me that, but for our chance introduction, when I was looking for inexpensive lodgings in London, I would simply have followed my calling as a doctor of medicine and might never have set pen to paper at all.