Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

‘At last, Mr Holmes.’

‘At last, Professor Moriarty.’

Holmes prepared himself for what he believed would be a hand-to-hand struggle to the death. Moriarty smiled, his head slowly vacillating as he withdrew a revolver from the folds of his coat.

‘No one said we had to play fair.’ The professor smiled, pointing the gun at Holmes.

This scene was being observed from a distance, higher up the steep incline overlooking the falls. Colonel Sebastian Moran adjusted the sights on his rifle and steadied his aim. As he saw Moriarty raise the pistol and aim it at Holmes, in quick succession he fired twice. Two bullets whizzed through the damp air towards their targets. Both figures below remained frozen like dark statues for a moment as the bullets tore into them. Death took them swiftly and silently. In an instant they both toppled over into the deep chasm of the creaming, boiling waters of the Reichenbach Falls.

‘Any attempts at recovering the bodies were absolutely hopeless and there, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of his generation.’ Violet Carmichael put down the copy of The Strand Magazine and chuckled. ‘Brilliant,’ she exclaimed. ‘Quite brilliant.’

Watson smiled. ‘I thought you’d like it.’

‘Indeed, I do.’ Still smiling, she poured out two glasses of champagne. ‘John, your help has been invaluable in this matter. I look forward to you being more involved in my affairs now that the field is clear of all obstructions. I shall always need a good man close to me whom I can trust implicitly.’

The good doctor smiled enigmatically and raised his glass of champagne.

I took the opportunity to drop in on Sherlock Holmes after visiting a patient in the vicinity of Baker Street. I rang the bell and Mrs Hudson opened the door some moments later. She seemed pleased to see me, asking after my wife with an inquisitive twinkle in her eyes. On hearing that Mary was well – and nothing more than well – she led me up to the first-floor suite of rooms which I had once shared with my eminent friend.

Holmes looked up from a letter that he was reading.

“The married man returns,” he proclaimed in a measured, melodramatic drone, as if it were the title of some droll West End comedy. “And how, pray, is the dear sweet married lady?”

Had Holmes and Mrs Hudson had the same thing in mind? Did both of them suppose that was I bringing news of the first in a line of prospective Watson juniors?

“Mary is tip-top, thank you,” I said with all the politeness I could muster, hastening to excuse myself for my extended absence from Baker Street. “Married life is so time-consuming, Holmes. Would you believe it? We have still not finished furnishing the house to Mary’s … that is, to our satisfaction. And my practice keeps on growing, thanks to your endeavours and my more recent literary fame as your amanuensis. When a patient walks into the surgery these days, I am never sure if it is their own health, or the diseased workings of the criminal mind, which brings them there.” I decided it was wise to take a strategic step back into the not-toodistant past. “Why, I sometimes regret the carefree days of my former bachelor state in your most stimulating company.”

Holmes stared at me, raised his eyebrows, then said, “Tosh.”

“Here’s something that may interest you,” he said, holding out the letter to me.

“It is written in French,” I said, as I glanced at the letter.

“An accurate observation,” Holmes remarked. “I’ll sum it up for you. The French authorities are concerned about the increase in organised international crime, and the unhappy fact that the British police force seems to be doing nothing about it. Indeed, largely thanks to you, Watson, the French believe that Professor James Moriarty is behind it all.”

“The elusive master-criminal—”

Our conversation was interrupted by a loud rat-a-tat at the front door downstairs.

Holmes glanced at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. “My brother, Mycroft,” he said. “His knock is the true representation of himself. He means to be gentle, but bulls in glass factories do far less damage. A matter of national importance, I would say, yet not so pressingly urgent. Some notion has engaged his mind, though he has still not decided whether to let the Minister in on the secret. And that, Watson, is where you and I come into it.”

I began to protest. I was far too busy to take time off to chronicle another adventure of England’s only private consulting detective, even if it did concern the Good of the Nation and the consulting detective’s elder brother.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, then a gentle tap on the sitting-room door was followed by the appearance of Mrs Hudson’s face.

“An exotic gentleman to see you, sir,” she announced.

Well, that did surprise me. Had Mrs Hudson never met the brother of the most famous private investigator in England? Apparently she had not, though I would have sworn in a court of law that she had, for she showed him into the sitting room without any further word of introduction.

I stared at Mycroft Holmes for some moments. Despite his unusual height and bulk, I might not have recognised him myself. Was he going to a fancy-costume ball? And if so, why was he dressed for it so early in the afternoon?

As Mrs Hudson left the room, the visitor threw off his unseasonable brown cloak, removed a high green fez from off the crown of his head, unhooked a bushy beard held with wire clips behind his ears, and lifted a black Bakelite pince-nez from off his large nose.

“ Voilà! ” he said, depositing the accoutrements on a chair. Then he sank down on the sofa at my side, his steel-grey eyes shifting from me to his brother. “I am being followed, Sherlock,” he said.

“I am not surprised,” said Holmes, “dressed up in that rig.”

Though quite his younger brother’s equal in every mental faculty – superior, perhaps, in his mastery of the global implications of diplomacy – Mycroft Holmes had a tendency towards a careless belief in his own schemes.

“It’s been going on for a month. As you probably know,” Mycroft said, then suddenly stopped and stared at me. “You read the newspapers, do you, Doctor Watson?”

“The Telegraph ,” I replied.

Mycroft smiled for some reason. “You will have noticed, then, that London is currently enjoying the patronage of some of the most bizarre specimens of the internationally rich. That is, in almost every case, myself . I never leave the house or Whitehall in the same clothes twice. This week alone, I have been a Yankee railroad millionaire, a Turkish vice-regent, a Serbian ambassador, the Emir of Bukhara, and much more besides—”

“Indeed,” his brother interrupted him. “I have been following your adventures in the columns of The Times . The Chimes is good for high society gossip, if nothing else. The thing that troubles me, Mycroft, is why it took you so long to consult me on the subject.”

As everyone who knew him closely was aware, Sherlock Holmes was a maestro of disguise. I have seen him play every imaginable role, from drunken clergyman to sober chimney sweep, and admit that I have been taken in on every single occasion.

A knock came at our door, and Mrs Hudson entered with a pot of tea. “I hope you’re feeling better now, sir,” she said to Mycroft. “You must have been uncomfortably hot in those unseasonable clothes.”

Mycroft looked up at her in alarm. “Did you recognise me, ma’am?”