Anthony Horowitz - Moriarty

Suppose, then, that I were to draw Scotland Yard and all its resources to my cause? Was it possible that I could somehow use them to defeat my enemy, working as it were from inside with neither party aware of who I was? The greatest mathematical insights—the diagonal argument, for example, or the theory of ordinary points—have always come in a flash. So it was with my idea. I would have to die in a way that was memorable and unarguable but then I would return, in another guise. I would both use the Metropolitan Police to do my work for me and conceal myself within them, seizing any opportunity that came my way. Clearly I could not pretend to be a detective myself. It would be too easy to check my credentials. But suppose I had come from far away? Almost at once my thoughts turned to the Pinkerton Agency in New York. It made complete sense that they would have followed Devereux and the others to England. At the same time, the well-known lack of co-operation between the two agencies would play into my hands. If I presented myself with the right documents and files, surely no one would suspect me or question my right to be there?

First, I placed certain papers—including the address of the Bostonian—in Jonathan Pilgrim’s pockets. They were there for the police to find. Next, I prepared to die. It almost amused me to rope Sherlock Holmes into my scheme but who better to help me take my last bow on the stage? Holmes was almost certainly unaware that he had been helped in his investigations by Clarence Devereux. Three times—in January, February and March—he had crossed my path and had, I knew, prepared extensive notes on my affairs which he would eventually deliver to the police. At the end of April, I called on him at his rooms in Baker Street. My one fear was that he would have learned how desperate things had become for me and how little power I really had, but fortunately this was not the case. He accepted me for what I pretended to be, a vengeful and dangerous foe, determined to have him removed from the scene.

I should also mention that I had taken some elementary precautions before I risked meeting Holmes face to face and I am surprised that he did not perceive this for he knew how important to me my anonymity had always been. A wig, a little whitening, hunched shoulders and shoes designed to give me extra height… Holmes was not the only master of disguise and it delights me that the description of me which he gave to Watson—‘extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve’—was entirely inaccurate. I could not know then how things would play out and it has always been my habit to prepare for every eventuality.

I do not need to repeat our words. Dr Watson has got there first. I will simply say that, by the end of our conversation, Holmes was in fear of his life and that I followed it up with several attacks upon him—all of them designed to frighten, not to kill.

Holmes did exactly as I hoped. He sent Inspector Patterson a list of my former colleagues, not knowing that they were all, by now, employed by Devereux, then fled to the Continent. Along with Perry and Colonel Moran, I followed, waiting for the opportunity to put the first climax of my scheme into action. It came at Meiringen, at the Reichenbach Falls.

I guessed that Holmes would have to visit that dreadful place. It was in his nature. No tourist, not even a man in fear of his life, could pass by without gazing down at the rushing waters. I made my way there ahead of him, walked the narrow path and knew at once that I had the setting I required. It would be perilous. Of that there could be no doubt. But I like to think that only a mathematician could survive what might seem to be a suicidal plunge into the rapids. Who else could so carefully calculate all the necessary angles, the volume of the water plunging down, the exact speed of descent and the odds of not drowning or being smashed to pieces?

The next day, when Holmes and Watson set out from the Englischer Hof, everything was in place. Colonel Moran was concealed, high above the falls, a necessary safeguard should anything go amiss. Perry, who had perhaps thrown himself too strenuously into the part, was disguised as a Swiss lad. I myself was waiting on the shoulder of the hill nearby. Holmes and Watson arrived and Perry produced the letter, supposedly written by the landlord, summoning Watson back to the hotel. Holmes was left alone. It was at this point that I presented myself and the rest, one might say, is history.

The two of us exchanged words. We prepared for the end. Do not think for a minute that I was entirely sanguine about the chances of my success. The water was pouring down ferociously and there were jagged rocks all around. Had there been any alternative, I would gladly have considered it. But I must seem dead, and with that in mind I naturally permitted Holmes to write his letter of farewell. I was a little surprised that he felt a need to record what was going to happen but then I had no idea that we were both, in fact, preparing to fake our own deaths, a situation which in retrospect strikes me as slightly bizarre. However, it was his testimony that I most needed and I watched him leave the note close to his alpenstock before we squared off and began to grapple like a pair of wrestlers at the London Athletic. This was, for me, the most disagreeable part of the experience for I have never been fond of human contact and Holmes reeked of tobacco. I was really quite grateful when he brought his bartitsu skills to the fore and threw me over the edge.

It nearly killed me. Such a strange and horrible experience to be plummeting endlessly as if out of the sky and yet to be surrounded by water, barely able to breathe. I was blind. The howl of the water was in my ears. Although I had worked out exactly how many seconds it would take me to reach the bottom, I seemed to hang there for an eternity. I was vaguely aware of the rocks rushing towards me and actually touched them with one leg, although very lightly, for otherwise I would have shattered the bone. Finally, I plunged into the freezing water, all the air was punched out of me and I was swirling, turning, almost being reborn in a sort of life after death. Somewhere within me I realised that I had survived but could not break surface in case Holmes was watching. I had instructed Colonel Moran to keep him busy, to distract his attention by hurling small boulders in his direction, and it was while this was happening that I swam to the shore and crawled out, shivering and exhausted, into a place of concealment.

How strange—indeed, how almost laughable—it is that both Holmes and I used the same incident to make our disappearance from the world; I, for the reasons I have described, and he… ? Well, there is no satisfactory answer to that. It is clear though that Holmes had an agenda of his own, that he wished to hide away for the three years that came to be known as ‘the great hiatus’, and it was a constant worry to me that he would turn up again for I, almost alone in the world, knew that he had survived. I even suspected for a while that he might have taken the room next to mine at Hexam’s Hotel and that it was he whom I heard coughing in the darkness. Where did he go during this time and what did he do when he got there? I neither know nor care. The important thing was that he did not interfere with my plans and I was very relieved not to see him again.

All that was required now was a body to take my place, the final proof of what had occurred. I had already prepared one. That very morning I had come across a local man returning from the village of Rosenlaui. I had taken him for a labourer or a shepherd but in fact he turned out to be Franz Hirzel, the chef of the Englischer Hof. He vaguely resembled me in age and in his general physical appearance and it was with some regret that I murdered him. I have never enjoyed taking a life, particularly when the person concerned is an innocent bystander, as Hirzel undoubtedly was. My needs, however, were too great for any scruples. Perry and I dressed him in clothes similar to the ones I was wearing, complete with a silver pocket watch. I had myself sewn the secret pocket containing the coded letter which I had written in London. Now I dumped him in the water and hurried away.