Moriarty Read Free

Professor Moriarty
    agrees. This much at least can be verified for those three sheets
    of paper are among the most prized possessions of the British
    Library Reading Room in London where I have seen them
    displayed. However, once these courtesies have been dispensed
    with, the two men rush at each other in what seems to be less
    a fight, more a suicide pact, each determined to drag the other
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    into the roaring torrent of water. And so it might have been.
    But Holmes still has one trick up his sleeve. He has learned
    bartitsu . I had never heard of it before but apparently it’s a martial art invented by a British engineer, which combines
    boxing and judo, and he puts it to good use.
    Moriarty is taken by surprise. He is propelled over the edge
    and, with a terrible scream, plunges into the abyss. Holmes sees
    him brush against a rock before he disappears into the water.
    He himself is safe … Forgive me, but is there not something
    a little unsatisfactory about this encounter? You have to ask
    yourself why Moriarty allows himself to be challenged in this
    way. Old-school heroics are all very well (although I’ve never
    yet met a criminal who went in for them) but what possible
    purpose can it have served to endanger himself? To put it
    bluntly, why didn’t he simply take out a revolver and shoot his
    opponent at close range?
    If that is strange, Holmes’s behaviour now becomes com-
    pletely inexplicable. On the spur of the moment, he decides to
    use what has just occurred to feign his own death. He climbs
    up the rock face behind the path and hides there until Watson
    returns. In this way, of course, there will be no second set of
    footprints to show that he has survived. What’s the point?
    Professor Moriarty is now dead and the British police have
    announced that the entire gang has been arrested so why does
    he still believe himself to be in danger? What exactly is there
    to be gained? If I had been Holmes, I would have hurried
    back to the Englischer Hof for a nice Wiener schnitzel and a
    celebratory glass of Neuchâtel.
    Meanwhile, Dr Watson, realising he has been tricked, rushes
    back to the scene, where an abandoned alpenstock and a set of
    footprints tell their own tale. He summons help and investi-
    g ates the scene with several men from the hotel and a local
    police officer by the name of Gessner. Holmes sees them but
    does not make himself known, even though he must be aware
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    of the distress it will cause his most trusted companion. They
    find the letter. They read it and, realising there is nothing more
    to be done, they all leave. Holmes begins to climb down again
    and it is now that the narrative takes another unexpected and
    wholly inexplicable turn. It appears that Professor Moriarty has
    not come to the Reichenbach Falls alone. As Holmes begins
    his descent – no easy task in itself – a man suddenly appears
    and attempts to knock him off his perch with a number of
    boulders. The man is Colonel Sebastian Moran.
    What on earth is he doing there? Was he present when
    Holmes and Moriarty fought, and if so, why didn’t he try to
    help? Where is his gun? Has the greatest marksman in the
    world accidentally left it on the train? Neither Holmes nor
    Watson, nor anyone else for that matter, has ever provided
    reasonable answers to questions which, even as I sit here ham-
    mering at the keys, seem inescapable. And once I start asking
    them, I can’t stop. I feel as if I am in a runaway coach, tearing
    down Fifth Avenue, unable to stop at the lights.
    That is about as much as we know of the Reichenbach Falls.
    The story that I must now tell begins five days later when
    three men come together in the crypt of St Michael’s church
    in Meiringen. One is a detective inspector from Scotland Yard,
    the famous command centre of the British police. His name
    is Athelney Jones. I am the second.
    The third man is tall and