Barry Day - Sherlock Holmes and the Alice in Wonderland Murders

“So Moriarty becomes Moxton?”

“Moriarty becomes Moxton and brings all his considerable financial resources to bear using the real Moxton’s publishing company as a base of operations. Let us not forget, Watson, that when his empire was supposedly broken up and scattered to the four winds, no one really knew precisely where he had secreted his ill-gotten gains. There were twenty known bank accounts apart from the Crédit Lyonnais and it is reasonable to believe these were only the tip of the iceberg. It would be a simple matter to channel them deviously back to the new centre of the web.”

“But what about Alicia — Miss Creighton?”

“That, admittedly, was something Moriarty had not bargained for. The mother’s will left the girl in her brother’s charge and the new Moxton could hardly renege on the arrangement without drawing unnecessary attention to himself. Ergo , she becomes his ward and is now living under circumstances of some considerable danger, if she did but know it.”

I remembered the look on that lovely face and knew instinctively that Alicia Creighton had more than a suspicion that something was amiss. Holmes was still musing on the reincarnated Moriarty.

“You know, Watson, even the cleverest criminals — and heaven knows, Moriarty is the cleverest of them all — give themselves away by the tiniest things, the merest trifles. And my method, as you know better than anyone, is based on the observance of trifles …”

“What trifle did I overlook in this case?” I asked, knowing that it was my expected response.

“Personal vanity. The crisis of identity, even when one is seeking to camouflage that identity. The criminal who changes his name will, more often than not and quite by instinct, craft a new name with the same initials, J.M. James Moriarty becomes John Moxton — even for a time Julius Minton. Another habit that is hard to shake off is the nervous mannerism. We all have them and are usually totally unaware of their existence. You, for example, chew the end of your moustache when you are concentrating — you are doing it this very moment.”

Naturally, I stopped immediately and gave the offending decoration a quick brush with the back of my hand.

“… Moriarty has the habit of pinching the bridge of his nose and it was perfectly clear to me that Moxton was finding it difficult to adjust to the more fleshy protuberance the surgeon’s knife had left him with.” He found this so amusing I did not have the heart to tell him that he had precisely the same nervous habit as his old rival.

“But had I been in any doubt — which by that time I most certainly was not — his handshake confirmed it. It went against the grain to offer him my hand, I can tell you, Watson, but it served its purpose. Moriarty had a protuberance on the wrist bone of his right hand. So, by an amazing coincidence, does Moxton. QED.”

“So what’s his little game, Holmes?” I asked.

“Money, of course, but mainly power. The sight of other people running around like ants, while he decides which to tread on and which to spare. Power through chaos. Chaos is his minion. Words are his new weapons. I very much fear, Watson, that we are fast approaching a point where many of the old rules are stretched to breaking point and the cynical bid fair to inherit the earth. In such a context a man like Moriarty naturally thrives. There is a strain of pure evil in his blood which his extraordinary mind raises to the power of — well, I would hesitate to calculate.”

“What do we do now, Holmes?” I asked the question that had been tormenting me throughout his explanation. “Call in Scotland Yard? Unmask him?”

“Nothing so straightforward, I’m afraid, old fellow. At this moment the man has committed no crime. To prove that he is not who he says he is would involve endless complications, starting with a defensive wall of lawyers a mile deep — not to mention alerting the man, when we need him, if not off his guard, then at least so overconfident that he believes himself to be impregnable.”

“The game is afoot, Watson and will not be over until we have led this Napoleon to his own Waterloo. For the time being we need do nothing but wait. I have never been surer than I am of the fact that Moriarty will come to me. A game of this kind — whatever game that turns out to be — is not worth the candle to him unless he beats me into the bargain. He wants revenge, Watson, revenge for the ignominy of Reichenbach, as he sees it. He let me catch his scent, I’m sure of it, for he knows I will follow the trail.”

He puffed for a moment in silence, then said, almost to himself — “The yin and the yang — the twin principles of the ancient Chinese universe. The Chinese believed that the one could not exist without the other. Perhaps the Professor and I are like that. We shall see …”

“And now, my dear chap, you’ve had the dinner I promised you and who knows when we may have this breathing space again? Time to turn in, I think. We really do have a train first thing in the morning …”

I came down to breakfast in Baker Street a couple of mornings later to find Holmes crouched on the floor amidst a heap of newspaper cuttings that he was moving around like chessmen, trying one first in one position, then another, before finally committing himself. The fact that he was wearing his mouse-coloured dressing gown as well as smoking his favourite old black pipe was enough to alert me to the fact that serious work was in progress.

Coughing discreetly to announce my presence — as well as to disperse the claustrophobic fog sufficiently to reach the breakfast table in comparative safety — I picked up my own paper and was relieved to see that it appeared to be intact. It would not have been the first time that the Daily Chronicle , by which I set such store, had been an early morning sacrifice to Holmes’s insatiable need to clip and file. “I see we have a three pipe problem on our hands,” I remarked, “and that you are at present at the third pipe stage?”

“Excellent, Watson. Your powers of deduction must never be underestimated, I see. I assume you made a mental note of the number of piles of plugs and dottle accumulated on the mantlepiece before retiring for the night. Then, having decided that it would be impolitic to sweep a few into the embers of the fire, in case I had made my own calculations, reluctantly decided to endure my matutinal conflagration for the sake of domestic peace?”

“Something of the sort,” I muttered grudgingly, flicking through the paper, so as not to give him the satisfaction of total submission. “I suppose I left incriminating fingerprints on the mantlepiece?”

“Not to my knowledge, old fellow. I simply happened to be observing you through the crack in my bedroom door.” Which thought appeared to amuse him immoderately. Sometimes the man is positively childish. All of which was immediately forgotten when I came to study the front page properly.

“Have you seen this, Holmes?” I cried. “Absolutely appalling state of affairs!” I held out the paper.

“Almost certainly not,” my friend replied, still absorbed by his jigsaw of cuttings. “As you know perfectly well, I read little beyond the crime news and the agony columns. There is enough disaster, scandal and calumny reported there to fill several normal lifetimes. What social peccadillo in particular has caught your eye? Some lady turned away from the Café Royal for smoking Turkish cigarettes? Some major from the shires blackballed for wearing the wrong coloured socks in the card room?”

“You may joke,” I said, with what I hoped was a chilly dignity, “but the sight of the seat of government infested with vermin is hardly likely to raise our status in the eyes of the rest of the world. It says here …” And I began to read from the paper …