Moriarty

What on earth is he doing there? Was he present when Holmes and Moriarty fought, and if so, why didn’t he try to help? Where is his gun? Has the greatest marksman in the world accidentally left it on the train? Neither Holmes nor Watson, nor anyone else for that matter, has ever provided reasonable answers to questions which, even as I sit here hammering at the keys, seem inescapable. And once I start asking them, I can’t stop. I feel as if I am in a runaway coach, tearing down Fifth Avenue, unable to stop at the lights.

That is about as much as we know of the Reichenbach Falls. The story that I must now tell begins five days later when three men come together in the crypt of St Michael’s church in Meiringen. One is a detective inspector from Scotland Yard, the famous command centre of the British police. His name is Athelney Jones. I am the second.

The third man is tall and thin with a prominent forehead and sunken eyes which might view the world with a cold malevolence and cunning were there any life in them at all. But now they are glazed and empty. The man, formally dressed in a suit with a wing collar and a long frock coat, has been fished out of the Reichenbach Brook, some distance from the falls. His left leg is broken and there are other serious injuries to his shoulder and head, but death must surely have been caused by drowning. The local police have attached a label to his wrist, which has been folded across his chest. On it is written the name: James Moriarty.

This is the reason I have come all the way to Switzerland. It appears that I have arrived too late.

TWO Inspector Athelney Jones

‘Are you sure it is really him?’

‘I am as sure of it as I can be, Mr Chase. But setting aside any personal convictions, let us consider the evidence. His appearance and the circumstances of his being here would certainly seem to fit all the facts at our disposal. And if this is not Moriarty, we are obliged to ask ourselves who he actually is, how he came to be killed and, for that matter, what has happened to Moriarty himself.’

‘Only one body was recovered.’

‘So I understand. Poor Mr Holmes … to be deprived of the consolation of a Christian burial, which every man deserves. But of one thing we can be certain. His name will live on. There is some comfort in that.’

This conversation took place in the damp, gloomy basement of the church, a place untouched by the warmth and fragrance of that spring day. Inspector Jones stood next to me, leaning over the drowned man with his hands clasped tightly behind him, as if he were afraid of being contaminated. I watched his dark grey eyes travel the full length of the cadaver, arriving at the feet, one of which had lost its shoe. It appeared that Moriarty had had a fondness for embroidered silk socks.

We had met, just a short while ago, at the police station in Meiringen. I was frankly surprised that a tiny village stuck in the middle of the Swiss mountains surrounded by goats and buttercups should have need of one. But, as I’ve already mentioned, it was a popular tourist destination and what with the recent coming of the railway, there must have been an increasing number of travellers passing through. There were two men on duty, both of them dressed in dark blue uniforms, standing behind the wooden counter that stretched across the front room. One of them was the hapless Sergeant Gessner who had been summoned to the falls — and it was already obvious to me that he would have been much happier dealing with lost passports, train tickets, street directions … anything rather than the more serious business of murder.

He and his companion spoke little of my language and I had been forced to explain myself using the images and headlines of an English newspaper, which I had brought with me for that express purpose. I had heard that a body had been dragged out of the water beneath the Reichenbach Falls and had asked to see it, but these Swiss police were obstinate in the way of many a uniformed man given limited power. Speaking over each other, and with a great deal of gesticulation, they had made it clear to me that they were waiting for the arrival of a senior officer who had come all the way from England and that any decision would be his. I told them that I had travelled a great deal further and that my business was quite serious too but that didn’t matter. I’m sorry, mein Herr. There was nothing they could do to help.