Moriarty

The first thing I saw, sitting on a table, was a neat pile of Strand Magazines, each one so well preserved as to appear brand new. I did not need to open them to know what I would find inside. They all carried accounts of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes as narrated by Dr John H. Watson and the great detective was present all over the room in photographs, daguerreotypes and newspaper headlines which had been tacked to the wall: BLUE CARBUNCLE RECOVERED, COBURG SQUARE BANK ROBBERY FOILED. On studying the books and monographs on the shelves, I saw that a great many of them had been written by Holmes. Among them was a sizeable volume on the scientific analysis of bloodstains, another (One Hundred and Sixty Ciphers Examined ) on codes and a third, which reminded me of the train journey from Meiringen, on different types of tobacco ash. There were other books by Winwood Reade, Wendell Holmes, Emile Gaboriau and Edgar Allen Poe, several encyclopedias and gazetteers and a copy of the Anthropological Journal lying open at an article concerning the shape of the human ear. Though austere in its general appearance — apart from the bookshelves, the only furniture was a desk, a chair and two small tables — the room was cluttered, with every inch of every surface holding one strange object or another. I saw a magnifying glass, a Bunsen burner, glass phials filled with chemicals, a stuffed snake — a swamp adder, I think — a number of bones, a map of Upper Norwood, what might have been a mandrake root and a Turkish slipper.

I had been hovering in the doorway. Elspeth Jones had gone in ahead of me and now twisted round. ‘This is where my husband works,’ she said. ‘He spends more time here than any other room in the house. I am sure I do not need to tell you who has been his inspiration.’

‘It is very evident.’

‘We have already spoken his name.’ She drew herself up. ‘There are times when I wish I had never heard it!’ She was angry and her anger made her quite different from the mother who had read to her child and the wife who had sat with me at the dinner table. ‘This is what I want to tell you, Mr Chase. If you are to work with my husband, it is vital that you understand. My husband first met Sherlock Holmes following the murder of one Bartholomew Sholto, an investigation that concluded with the loss of the great treasure of Agra. As it happens, he came out of it with some credit, although he never saw it that way, and the account published by Dr Watson portrayed him in a particularly unflattering light.’

Jones had already alluded to it. But I said nothing.

‘The two of them met again on a rather less spectacular business, a break-in in North London and the strange theft of three porcelain figures.’

‘The Abernettys.’

‘He has told you?’

‘He has alluded to it. I know none of the details.’

‘He doesn’t speak of that affair very often — and with good reason.’ She paused, composing herself. ‘Once again he failed. Once again Dr Watson will have turned him into a laughing stock although, fortunately, he has yet to publish this particular tale. After it was all over, my husband spent weeks torturing himself. Why had he not realised that the dead man had been in prison? There was oakum under his fingernails — a fairly obvious clue when you think about it. Why had he been so blind to the significance of the three identical figurines when it had been so immediately obvious to Mr Holmes? He had missed every single clue of any importance … the footprints, the sleeping neighbour, even the fold in the dead man’s sock. How could he even call himself a detective when he had been shown up as a bumbling amateur?’

‘You are too hard on him.’

‘He was too hard on himself! I must speak to you in confidence, Mr Chase, hoping with all my heart that you are indeed the friend that you profess to be. Following the Abernetty business, my husband became very ill. He complained of tiredness, toothache, a sense of weakness in his bones. His wrists and his ankles swelled up. At first, I thought he had overworked himself, that all he needed was rest and a little sunshine. However, the doctor soon diagnosed something much more serious. He was afflicted with the rickets, a disease that had actually touched him briefly when he was a child but which had returned in a much more serious and vengeful form.