John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

"Corner of his left jaw."

"A knot placed there would throw the head back upon falling, resulting in a fracture or dislocation of the neck. He would have died of a snapped neck, not strangulated," Moriarty concluded. "We're faced with contradictory facts. Arthur couldn't have jumped from that height without decapitation, but neither could he have hung himself in a manner consistent with asphyxiation."

"A vorpal paradox indeed," I agreed.

"That leaves but one conclusion: that Arthur Doyle was dead before someone strung him up," said Moriarty.

"Perhaps he was strangled in his sleep? Marks from a garrote would have been hidden by the bruising of the noose," I suggested.

"Perhaps. His room may yield more clues," said Moriarty.

In Arthur's room, Moriarty moved a familiar red, leather-bound book gilt in gold off the desk, and rifled through the young man's papers.

"Here's a draft of a paper he was writing for the British Medical Journal," said Moriarty. "The Uses of Gelseminum As A Poison, by Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur had been experimenting on himself with gelseminum, also known as jessamine, in the interest of medical research. We have our poison, gentlemen."

"Poisoned! I thought his death was consistent with respiratory failure," I said.

"Do you know what gelseminum does, Reginald?" asked Moriarty.

"It's efficacious against spasmodic disorders, like epilepsy and hysteria, inhibiting nerve control and respitory functions," replied Reginald. "A large enough dose would paralyze a man, even arrest his breathing and stop his heart! I naturally assumed it was strangulation by hanging, and never considered poison. You are as brilliant as Arthur said, Moriarty!"

Moriarty cracked a thin smile. "It takes only observation to tell truth from lie."

"But who would kill him, and why?" I asked.

"I suspect if Reginald inventories his medicinal store, he'll discover narcotics missing," said Moriarty, with utter confidence. "Suppose Arthur was blackmailed into stealing the drugs. He might have threatened to go to the police, forcing his blackmailers to eliminate him quietly with an overdose of gelseminum, of which Arthur had in sufficient quantity to kill. To conceal their crime, they hoisted up his body in the bell tower to suggest suicide."

Reginald paled. "Arthur, embroiled in such dreadful business?"

"Appearances can be deceiving," said Moriarty. "Let us check the dispensary." They left, but I stayed behind to say a prayer for the lad.

Moriarty's analysis seemed plausible, but I didn't believe it of Arthur. I observed two peculiarities. Arthur's violin case was missing, and the book on the desk was a copy of Through the Looking Glass, not Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I had chosen the different gilt decorations for each myself. I flipped open the cover and found a forgery of my signature, but not a good one: my name was misspelled. It read: C.L. Dodgson (alias Lewis Carlool).

Why would Arthur go to the trouble of forging my signature, but spell it wrong? I came to the conclusion that Arthur left that clue for me alone. No one else would know I hadn't signed Looking Glass.

Reginald checked his inventory and discovered that drugs were indeed missing. Further forensic examination of Arthur's body confirmed he died of gelseminum poisoning, and the police started a search for Arthur's killers. Moriarty returned to his college, but I stayed behind in Acton to investigate the lead of the forged autograph. I made some quiet inquiries and found Herr Gleiwitz, who welcomed me into his home.

"Mr. Doyle had been kind to us, God rest his soul," said Herr Gleiwitz. "Once, when I couldn't pay for the medicine, he gave me his watch and said I should sell it. I tried to give it back, but he wouldn't have it. Several days ago, he gave my eldest a violin and made the boy promise to learn how to play." He brought the instrument for my examination.

I could find no hidden compartments in the violin case, but I discovered a folded piece of paper inside the violin through its F-holes. It took several frustrating tries to get it out intact. It was a torn page written in code in Moriarty's hand, and it must have been worth killing for. For the first time, I suspected that James Moriarty murdered Arthur Doyle in cold blood.

I was certain that Arthur had done what he promised: he had deduced Moriarty's key by observation alone. But the younger Moriarty was proud, and would have taken great risks to protect his secrets. And so he orchestrated Arthur's murder, with the perfect alibi-he was in London with me. He then hid his own involvement by playing detective to his own crime. What better way to throw the police off his scent?

I asked Herr Gleiwitz never to speak of my visit, and returned to Oxford. I worked in frenzy to solve the code, but to no avail. Finally, I decided to visit Moriarty, to observe him as Arthur had, look into his eyes, and hope to find a soul.

I called on Moriarty in late September, bringing pages for my next book, Curiosa Mathematica, Part Two, as pretext. Soon we were discussing math problems over tea in his den.

Moriarty's taste in books was eclectic: art, algebra, music, astronomy. There were so many texts that could be his Vigenère key, it would have taken months just to check the coded page against the first few pages of each book!

Moriarty remained the confident and controlled gentleman he always was. But when I mentioned that he never did express his views on capital punishment, a sneer crept onto his face. "Death is the only punishment." He smirked, then turned the topic to eighteenth-century painters. It was enough to convince me that he hid the heart of a villain.

Yet I had no evidence. If I went to the police with only an unsolved page of code, I too would have been marked for death. I resolved to engineer Moriarty's fall in secret. So I wrote anonymous letters to key figures in his university town, hinting at shady dealings. The vile rumours spread, and soon Moriarty resigned his chair, retiring to London to become an army coach.

I thought the loss of the professorship would have taught him a lesson, but I was wrong. Instead, he built a veneer of self-effacement after his resignation, and became supremely cautious. I wonder what hand I had in his perfection as a criminal mastermind?

Reverend Dodgson stopped there, and I poured him another cup of tea. "Why didn't Arthur tell someone? Or write a letter detailing what he discovered?" I asked.

"Moriarty would have silenced anyone who knew. Written declarations might have been found and destroyed. I suspect the forgery of my name was the only clue left intact," said Dodgson.

"And still unsolved, I gather," I said.

"You have it, Doctor Watson," agreed Dodgson. "I was hoping we could solve the key together."

I was about to suggest enlisting Mycroft's aid, but young Arthur Doyle had meant the message for Dodgson, so it must draw upon the Reverend's personal knowledge. Perhaps all he needed were my insights into the problem, as wrong as they might be, to help him arrive at the right answer.

"The misspelled name, Carlool. Was that the key word?" I asked.

"No. It has to be a long text, as Moriarty said, to foil simple decoding."

"Could the code be based on Wonderland or Looking Glass?"

"Doubtful. Moriarty used the notebook while he was writing his dissertation, which was years before I wrote those books."

What would Holmes say? He'd ask me how I'd send a message to a mathematician. With numbers, I'd reply.

And there was the answer. "The point of departure from your nom-de-plume comes after Car. It isn't lool, but one-thousand and one!" I cried triumphantly.

Dodgson's eyes widened. "I never thought of that."

"Moriarty used Burton's The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night as his key, then," I said, remembering Dodgson's list of Arthur's books.