“Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so—dozensof exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre ofthe web where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. Ionly mention the Greuze because it brings the matter within therange of your own observation.”
“Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting:
it’s more than interesting—it’s just wonderful. But let us have it alittle clearer if you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary—where doesthe money come from?”
“Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?”
“Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, washe not? I don’t take much stock of detectives in novels—chapsthat do things and never let you see how they do them. That’s justinspiration: not business.”
“Jonathan Wild wasn’t a detective, and he wasn’t in a novel.
He was a master criminal, and he lived last century—1750 orthereabouts.”
“Then he’s no use to me. I’m a practical man.”
“Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in yourlife would be to shut yourself up for three months and readtwelve hours a day at the annals of crime. Everything comes incircles—even Professor Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hiddenforce of the London criminals, to whom he sold his brains andhis organization on a fifteen per cent. commission. The old wheelturns, and the same spoke comes up. It’s all been done before, andwill be again. I’ll tell you one or two things about Moriarty whichmay interest you.”
“You’ll interest me, right enough.”
“I happen to know who is the first link in his chain—a chainwith this Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred brokenfighting men, pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at theother, with every sort of crime in between. His chief of staff isColonel Sebastian Moran, as aloof and guarded and inaccessible tothe law as himself. What do you think he pays him?”
“I’d like to hear.”
“Six thousand a year. That’s paying for brains, you see—theAmerican business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance.
It’s more than the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an ideaof Moriarty’s gains and of the scale on which he works. Anotherpoint: I made it my business to hunt down some of Moriarty’schecks lately—just common innocent checks that he pays hishousehold bills with. They were drawn on six different banks.
Does that make any impression on your mind?”
“Queer, certainly! But what do you gather from it?”
“That he wanted no gossip about his wealth. No single manshould know what he had. I have no doubt that he has twentybanking accounts; the bulk of his fortune abroad in the DeutscheBank or the Credit Lyonnais as likely as not. Sometime whenyou have a year or two to spare I commend to you the study ofProfessor Moriarty.”
Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as theconversation proceeded. He had lost himself in his interest. Nowhis practical Scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap tothe matter in hand.
“He can keep, anyhow,” said he. “You’ve got us side-tracked withyour interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes. What really counts isyour remark that there is some connection between the professorand the crime. That you get from the warning received throughthe man Porlock. Can we for our present practical needs get anyfurther than that?”
“We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime.
It is, as I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or atleast an unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the source ofthe crime is as we suspect it to be, there might be two differentmotives. In the first place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules witha rod of iron over his people. His discipline is tremendous. Thereis only one punishment in his code. It is death. Now we mightsuppose that this murdered man—this Douglas whose approachingfate was known by one of the arch-criminal’s subordinates—had insome way betrayed the chief. His punishment followed, and wouldbe known to all—if only to put the fear of death into them.”
“Well, that is one suggestion, Mr. Holmes.”
“The other is that it has been engineered by Moriarty in theordinary course of business. Was there any robbery?”
“I have not heard.”
“If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and infavour of the second. Moriarty may have been engaged to engineerit on a promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid so muchdown to manage it. Either is possible. But whichever it may be,or if it is some third combination, it is down at Birlstone that wemust seek the solution. I know our man too well to suppose thathe has left anything up here which may lead us to him.”
“Then to Birlstone we must go!” cried MacDonald, jumpingfrom his chair. “My word! it’s later than I thought. I can give you,gentlemen, five minutes for preparation, and that is all.”
“And ample for us both,” said Holmes, as he sprang up andhastened to change from his dressing gown to his coat. “While weare on our way, Mr. Mac, I will ask you to be good enough to tellme all about it.”
“All about it” proved to be disappointingly little, and yet therewas enough to assure us that the case before us might well beworthy of the expert’s closest attention. He brightened andrubbed his thin hands together as he listened to the meagre butremarkable details. A long series of sterile weeks lay behind us,and here at last there was a fitting object for those remarkablepowers which, like all special gifts, become irksome to their ownerwhen they are not in use. That razor brain blunted and rusted withinaction.
