The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

The Swimming Lesson Priscilla Masters

It was Uncle James who taught me to swim. He underlined how important it was. Pointed out that one day it might even save my life. My father, who is a pragmatist, argued with him. He insisted that, as we lived inland and I was not in the habit of frequenting lakes or rivers, it was an unnecessary skill to acquire. ‘Far better for the child to learn to read and perhaps to sew,’ he grumbled, challenging his brother for once. ‘And certainly to cook,’ he added, looking slyly across at me. But already I felt rebellious. I slipped my hand into Uncle James’s and he bent down and winked at me, patting my head. I treasure that memory now. I believe I was eight years old at the time and I knew that if it came to it Uncle James had a stronger character than my father. It would be my father who would back down.

And so it proved. Little more than a week later, my father silently handed me a bathing suit and Uncle James winked at me again. ‘Come, Cicely my dear,’ he said to me. ‘Shall we now go for a drive in the country?’

My father grumbled again and made weak objection. ‘She should be helping her mother. There is work to do around the station, beds to be made, weeds to be lifted, platforms to be swept.’ Uncle James silenced his babble with a stare. It was then that I first realized that my father was not simply in awe of his brother. He was afraid. He soon dropped his eyes and contented himself with bustling importantly around the station, waving flags and strutting up and down the platform.

Uncle James watched him for a moment, almost pityingly, then we left.

He drove me to a nearby lake and left me discreetly in the carriage while I donned my bathing dress and the horses grazed. He himself was soon handsomely attired in a black woollen bathing suit. Tall and thin with a large domed forehead, (an indication of his outstanding mathematical ability) and the bowed shoulders of an academic, he still looked as though he could swim the length and breadth of the lake. I looked up at him, trustingly. He then led me to the water’s edge. It was a warm day but I shivered. I was anxious for Uncle James not to perceive my anxiety and so masked it with a smile, trying to display a confidence I was far from feeling. Of course I wanted to learn to swim, even if only to please him, and yet I was seized with fearfulness as I looked over the lake. The waters were calm, but, as I watched, a small wave lifted and tossed white foam into the air before dropping back into the surface with a loud and threatening splash as though to scare me away. Was this perhaps a premonition? If it was my uncle did not seem to recognize it as such, merely taking a step or two towards the water’s edge and scooping deep breaths in in preparation for the exertion. The lake was near our house and but a short drive away. It would have been easy for me to escape the swimming lesson and run back home. But, as I glanced back along the track and heard the sound of a train puffing into the station, I knew that I could not let my uncle down by showing cowardice. He believed in me. I had to learn to swim at least a stroke or two before I returned to my home.

‘Come, Cicely,’ he said, perhaps understanding my apprehension. ‘Do not be afraid. It is merely a matter of confidence and trust.’ He paused, looking at me intently. ‘Do you trust me, Cicely?’

For answer, I stepped into the water and moved steadily forward until it was waist deep. He then held my chin while I kicked my legs and that afternoon I believe I did manage to stay afloat for a few seconds before sinking to the bottom and spluttering beneath the water’s surface. Uncle James laughed and showed much amusement but some tolerance too. We resumed our activity. After about an hour of splashing, he put his face near to mine. ‘Have you had enough, child?’

Slowly, I shook my head. ‘I have not, Uncle.’

He seemed pleased at my response. ‘Plucky,’ he muttered. ‘Brave too.’ Then, ‘Shall we try again?’

Truth was I was frightened. That terror of falling beneath the water, of it closing all around, over my head, filling my nose and mouth, of my lungs being deprived of air, slowly filling with water. It is a horrid feeling. But I knew he would admire me more if I persevered. And so I did. My teeth were chattering both from fear and from the cold so I bit my lips to prevent them from exposing my cowardice.

However, after a further half-hour, he smiled. ‘Come, Cicely,’ he said. ‘Enough for today. You have shown courage and have done well. Soon you shall be able to swim.’ And, as we returned to the carriage to change, he added, almost to himself, ‘One day it might truly save your life.’

It did not save his. I learned by the foulest and cruellest of means that swimming could not have saved him, that he was mortally wounded by hitting his head on a rock before he touched the water. I was almost sixteen when this happened.

How did I find out this grisly detail? you wonder. Effrontery. That is how. Sheer brazen flagrant parading of my uncle’s death. Publication of the very tiniest detail. That man had the audacity to publish a record of my poor uncle’s death combined with a torrent – yes – I use that word deliberately – a torrent of spurious tales and opinions as to my uncle’s character. Words like evil and king-devil, endowing him with a criminal strain. A matter of opinion, I say, for cannot black appear white and white black in distorted vision? Cannot left look right from a reverse angle? I say my uncle was brilliant. Good and evil is irrelevant. He taught society that cold planning combined with a genius of a brain could achieve much. The snake-doctor writes his stories with a mixture of admiration and disgust but no understanding whatsoever. He did not know the man as I did. And I have had to keep silent and smile while I have heard my dearest uncle both insulted and complimented. Called the greatest schemer, filled with devilry and possessing a controlling brain while he, the arch-enemy, grudgingly but truthfully, tells us that my uncle James could have made or marred the destiny of nations. Tributes indeed, but the reader’s opinions might well be distorted by the tone of these backhanded compliments. It is not Uncle James’s intelligence that is under question, or his wealth, which I have good reason to believe remains unsurpassed, and which will, eventually, all come to me. No, it is certainly not his intelligence, but his morals that are under the microscope. I ask you then to adjudicate. Was this the act of an evil man, to teach a child to swim in the belief that one day she might need this skill? Truth is it was he, the king-enemy, who spoke the truest tribute to my uncle when he described his stooge as foul-mouthed doctor and sympathized with my Uncle James as slandered professor.

How true.

I have been denied the right to defend him publicly as I would like so it is the scribblings of this ‘foul-mouthed doctor’ that reach the public consciousness. Nor have I yet the opportunity to put the record straight to those who are deliberately misled as to my uncle’s motives. Do they not realize it was all an intellectual exercise? To him, nothing but entertainment, a way of avoiding boredom and removing unwanted obstacles? But to defend him would be to expose myself and Uncle James taught me, not only to swim, but also the virtue of caution. ‘Your greatest asset, Cicely,’ he said one day shortly before his terrible death, ‘is your anonymity. Nobody knows of your existence.’

My father too, though much less forcefully, has warned me of the same. ‘You are safer, Cicely,’ he said, following events with concern, ‘to remain as you are.’

I nodded my acquiescence, understanding the advice.

But, in quiet and private moments, I still savour great pride in my uncle. Even the king-enemy described him as a Napoleon of crime, a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker possessing a brain of the first order. He acknowledged that Uncle James was the spider in the centre of a web that had a thousand radiations. A thousand, mark you. True. I subscribe to that. Even that king of smug devils has paid tribute to his intellect. ‘My intellectual equal,’ he called him, even as he cast his net around him. This mesh of which, I have to tell you, with some mirth, that my uncle had no trouble swimming through.

Initially.

Intellectual equal? An insult. How could he not realize my uncle’s brain surpassed his one thousand times?

But there is one phrase he used which rankles. Heredity of a most diabolical kind. Was my uncle simply a result of genetics? Where does this leave his family? I wonder. My father? Myself?

And the word ‘diabolical’? I think not. For, as I have pointed out, it depends on your point of view who is devil and who deity.

My second and third swimming lessons were more successful, though I still had not the confidence to swim right across the lake, which I knew was Uncle James’s ambition. I lacked the skill or the strength and initially the confidence. But I persevered.

By the fifth lesson, I was swimming like a little fish. The crawl, the frog-like breaststroke, a backstroke, afloat, until my uncle slapped me on the back and I saw the pride glow from his deeply sunken eyes. Then I knew how I had pleased him.

On the eighth lesson, I finally succeeded in swimming right across the lake, my uncle by my side, urging me on, encouraging me and clapping when I reached the water’s edge on the far side and then applauding me as I swam back. And myself? I thought I would burst with pride. I knew how I had pleased him. And I needed no more lessons in swimming. Something in my uncle seemed to relax then; lines of worry were erased from his face. ‘One less thing to fret about,’ he said, making a rare effort at jolliness.

When I was twelve years old, the relationship between us began to change. He no longer treated me as a child but more as an equal. He shared his secrets with me, began to school me in the complexities of business. He would ask my opinion and test me on mathematical equations. Discuss the solution to various problems.

His pride in my abilities made us closer than before and, for a time, his visits became more frequent as I grew older. When I was thirteen years old, he began to train me as though I was his apprentice. ‘Can you remember calculus?’ he would bark and I recited it.

‘Pythagoras’s theorem?’

‘That too, Uncle,’ I replied, confident in my memory.

His smile was rare and reward enough. Then, beetling eyebrows meeting over deep eagle’s eyes, ‘Ah, but Cicely,’ he said. ‘Do you understand them? Are you simply a parrot or do you have a brain?’

And so I explained as though I was the teacher and he the pupil. He watched me keenly for a moment then bent forward. It was then, at that exact moment, that he took me further into his confidence. ‘One day, my child,’ he said, ‘you will understand more than Pythagoras or Archimedes and you will have to make your choice.’ He then talked to me about the defeat of obstacles whether mechanical or physical. He talked to me about ambition and the cost to any who stood in the way of that. And I began to have some insight into his life. I listened without judgment, knowing that his talents brought him profit and a certain satisfaction, pitting his wits against many, but there was only one person he considered worthy of his attentions. ‘The man has his talents,’ he would say grudgingly. ‘But he also has flaws, weaknesses to which I am not prone. His brain,’ he mused, ‘is analytical but he has a distorted allegiance to what he considers right and good.’

He watched me slyly. ‘I have to warn you of this person,’ he said, ‘and his sidekick, whose primary function, it would seem, is to make my adversary appear more intelligent than he is.’

I listened and learned. He was silent for a moment before he added softly, ‘I may not always be here for you.’

I pretended I had not heard this unwelcome sentiment.

Even more softly, almost a whisper to himself, he mused, ‘He comes ever closer. I must protect you from him.’

Before I continue with my explanations, I must tell you that from that day I met some of my uncle’s associates: Colonel Moran, who was unsure how to treat me and became embarrassed and awkward in my presence as well as alarmed that my uncle was sharing so much confidence with me. Sometimes I would hear him talk to my uncle. ‘James, for goodness’ sake. She is just a child. Do not trust her with such knowledge.’ And his glare at me contained hostility and something else. Something that appraised and frightened me. It was almost as though he perceived me as a rival? A rival? Ridiculous. I was a child. But, all the same, when I felt the chill of those cold blue eyes on me, I would clutch my uncle’s hand tightly, wanting protection. And when Colonel Sebastian Moran looked down at me, as I clutched my uncle’s hand, to my surprise, behind the ice I saw something else – fear. One day, I thought, there might well be conflict. And if I did not have my uncle to protect me would the Colonel still fear me? Or should I fear him? I wondered at this and, like a man flexing his muscles, I tested my own mental strength and found it equal to his.

Uncle James stuck up for me. ‘A child indeed, Sebastian. Twelve years old by the year but with the intelligence of an adult. Surpassing many – no most – adults.’ His face clouded and I knew he would like to have been able to substitute most for all. But his mathematical brain forced him to commit to facts and so even then he had to acknowledge the presence of the other.

‘Why,’ he continued playfully, ‘this is a woman of awesome intelligence still in a child’s body.’ And he would parade me, like a dancing dog, to add up columns of figures or remember some complex cipher. He would show my talents off like a clown taught to catch biscuits in his mouth. And he would have a look of pride when I proved him right time and time again and the words he whispered in my ear made me glow. ‘Well done, Cicely, my dear.’

And, once, I even met Porlock, the traitor, who trailed pathetically behind them, the jackal feeding off the lion’s leavings, the remora cleaning the parasites from the skin of the shark. A lesser being in all ways and, it proved, a traitorous one.

The weak link in the chain who will meet his maker sooner than he thinks. Wait for me, Porlock. I will find you.

So back to the tragedy and its aftermath.

I knew Uncle James was a man who had enemies, a man who was frequently misunderstood. He had told me as such. Sometimes, he would not visit for weeks and I would become anxious and fret, worrying that these enemies were moving closer. ‘Where is Uncle James?’ I would demand of my father and he would pretend at first not to hear me, but busy himself around the station, reluctant to give me an answer. I believe that my father was, in fact, jealous of the relationship between myself and his brother. Perhaps, if not jealous then wary. It fretted him and made him jumpy and nervous. He was suspicious of all strangers, which could make life difficult, as his job as a stationmaster brought him into contact with the general public. He pondered my question as to where his brother was and when he had thought of an answer (for this is what I believe he did, made it all up), he would feed me some far-fetched tale, ‘He is lecturing in Germany’, or ‘researching into some new astronomical phenomenon’. After Uncle James had left the university over a misunderstanding, my father would say he was, ‘away on Army exercises’, as he was subsequently an Army coach. Even, once or twice, when my father could think of no more convincing argument, he would come up with, ‘taking himself a holiday’. Said gruffly in the knowledge that I was aware it was a lie. But I did not pursue the truth.

Uncle James was, of course, an academic, a man who had written books and such men do make enemies, but these jealous rivals (as I initially supposed them to be) seemed to annoy him greatly.

He asked me one day just before my fifteenth birthday what I thought of him being called a criminal.

I thought carefully before I made reply. Slipped my hand in his and looked up trustingly. ‘By whom are you called this?’ And when he did not provide an answer, I continued. ‘It depends on your point of view,’ I said coolly. ‘Crime is simply disagreeing with rules set by a government. Perhaps there are times when those rules should be—’ again I chose my word with great care ‘—ignored.’

He looked utterly thrilled at this. ‘It depends on your point of view,’ he repeated, smiling. ‘Rules should be ignored.’ Then, bright-eyed, ‘Cicely, we need to work. The time has come.’

It began as a game – almost a board game – though I was perfectly aware that it was, in fact, a test. He drew plans of a building. Doorway, windows, access front and back. A burglar alarm and a safe. He looked at me sideways, his face curious and alight. ‘With what do you associate a safe?’

‘With money, Uncle.’

‘And so they protect it.’

I dropped my eyes back over the diagram and saw at once what detail he had filled in. ‘But,’ I began and his eyes now were aflame.

‘That is true. So the test is, my dearest child, how do you gain access to the building without attracting attention? And then how do you extract the money from the safe?’ He held up one long bony index finger. ‘Not you, my dear,’ he said quickly. ‘I would not risk you. This is a theoretical problem. We employ others to carry out the deed. Others less important. We are the conductor of the orchestra, they the second fiddles. And we take steps to ensure that should events go awry they are not aware of our identity. This is an important detail, Cicely. You see, my dear, this is a game of no risk. For remember, even with the best of planning things can go wrong. Events can become subject to the rule of chance, which is no rule at all but the sad tendency of events to entangle themselves and introduce entropy, chaos and what less scientific brains might call bad luck. A policeman wandering tardily on a beat when he should have been long gone. A nosey neighbour, a barking dog. An obstruction. The risks are endless. No. We are, you and I, simply the brains behind it. That is our role. We have the ideas and the means to think of a way through the maze. We can evaluate possibilities; work out risk potential. They cannot. They are simple henchmen. The foot soldiers in our game.’

Another eagle’s glance. ‘And, tell me, Cicely, what if you should doubt the loyalty of one of these – erm – henchmen?’

I simply looked at him. Words were quite unnecessary. Our looks exchanged a thousand of them, flowing in a river of silent conversation. All the dark deeds and punishment meted out to traitors, the cruelty that was sometimes necessary to discipline. We understood one another.

I hardened my eyes and my mouth and uttered one word: ‘Dispensable.’

He smiled his agreement, nodding that large head like a wise old mandarin. His hand twitched as though he would have patted me on the head. But he remembered himself and desisted, straightening his shoulders and moving back.

Then he returned to the question and the diagram. ‘And so?’

I looked down and immediately saw the weak points. The burglar alarm on the outside of the building was a simple hammer attached to a bell. A piece of leather inserted before the door was opened would muffle the sound sufficiently. I relayed this fact to Uncle James and his mouth curved with pleasure. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was too simple a test.’ His gaze returned to the diagram and his finger moved to point out the second obstacle he had drawn. ‘And the safe?’

‘A simple matter of a stethoscope, Uncle. The turn of a wheel and the recognition of clicks as the cogs fall into place.’

He looked even more pleased. ‘We shall have to increase the difficulty, my dear. That was too easy.’

And so he did. He gave me tests of people protecting themselves in moated houses, of others who surrounded themselves with bodyguards, of traitors who appeared to have vanished into thin air. Of lost identities, of inconvenient corpses, of murders made to look like accidents, and other deaths rearranged to mimic suicide. He gave me names of folk suitable for each job, both men and women, dedicated to carrying out his solutions to problems.

We enjoyed planning our ventures together, sparring as worthy partners as we exchanged ideas and searched for solutions to the most difficult of problems. No problem, I thought one day, with the conceit and confidence of the young, was insurmountable once we had both set our brains to tease it out.

And the spark that kept me alight? His approval initially followed by his admiration, never expressed by other than a light hand on my shoulder, a glow of pride in his eyes and a rare smile.

The problems he set grew ever more challenging. From access to difficult sites to people who protected themselves with locks and chains. But there is no lock that cannot be picked, with patience, a steady hand and a finely tuned ear. And so we sat with our lists of minions and their skills, with plans of buildings, with obstacles to be removed and we matched talent to chore. Then, shortly before my sixteenth birthday, I saw my uncle for the last time. This time he seemed agitated. Troubled – deep in his soul. ‘My enemies close in on me,’ he said, speaking quickly. ‘Time is short and I must leave you, but only for a little while.’ He then confided in me, telling me a secret. One he had kept from me until this time.

I never saw him again. My father remained stubbornly quiet on the matter however many times I pestered him and my mother simply looked blank at my questions, paling and stuttering out the fact that she did not know – anything.

Imagine then my horror to learn of his murder at the hands of that one of his enemies. And for the events to be told as a story, a tale perhaps, to be related to children to frighten them if they failed to behave. Presented as a little light entertainment to be enjoyed by people over their morning toast and marmalade. A small narrative to be gasped and gossiped over at the club. Cheap entertainment for the masses.

I read the detail presented in so cavalier a fashion with mounting fury. The decoying of the doctor, the finding of the Alpinestock. Small details that hammered home my determination to exact revenge. I read on. The two lines of footprints – none to return, the torn brambles and ferns, the letter he had allowed his adversary to write, with the manners of the perfect gentleman he was. And then I too peered over the brink at the terrible falls and saw the white foam I had first seen on the lake. I heard the roar of water in my ears and knew I would never see my uncle again.

Initially, I had only one consolation: that his arch-enemy, spawn of the very devil, had died alongside him.

And then Colonel Moran came to the station to pay his respects, but he seemed distracted.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘I am uneasy,’ was his reply. ‘I am not so sure the adversary is so easy to destroy.’

And so it proved.

It took time, but the stooge could not resist crowing at a later date, relating another version.

A most graphic account of my uncle’s death sourced by the eyewitness, the arch-enemy my uncle had needed to destroy. ‘… he, with a horrible scream, kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands. But, for all his efforts, he could not get his balance and over he went. With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way. And then he struck a rock, bounced off, and splashed into the water.’

I read the account again, so carelessly presented for the entertainment, perhaps reassurance, of the masses and the cold fury spread through me, from my toes to my head, as though I had drunk hemlock. I put my hands over my face to block out light. Not dead then, after all?

Like Christ himself is the arch-enemy to be resurrected? I read of two of my uncle’s henchmen to be dragged before the courts. Colonel Sebastian Moran and ‘Porlock’, the traitor. Paraded in front of the public. By the arch-enemy’s hand.

I made my vow. Resurrected only to be destroyed – next time for ever.

So the moment has now come for me to let you into the secret my uncle confided in me.

I shall relate it exactly how it was told to me.

It was a little before my sixteenth birthday and we were sitting in the station waiting room, a room we had taken over as a base for our operations. Simply putting the ‘Waiting Room Closed’ sign over the door and drawing the blind was an easy way to deter the public.

‘Cicely,’ he said in a soft and gentle voice. ‘I think the time is right for me to tell you a secret.’

I was instantly alerted. ‘If you wish, Uncle.’

He sighed. ‘You are a week short of sixteen, Cicely, old enough now to know what I could not tell you before. I could not have told this to a child.’ He drew in a deep breath and looked disturbed. ‘It involves a lady of whom I was very fond. The only lady whom I have ever considered worthy of my affection. We were – intimate.’

I wondered why he was telling me this but listened.

‘It became evident that there would be issue.’

I held my breath.

He looked away from me. ‘My brother, a poverty-struck stationmaster, and his wife, in poor health and unable to provide him with the child he so longed for. I knew my lifestyle was not conducive or safe for a child unable to protect itself. Merely to share the child’s parenthood would have signed the same child’s death warrant.’ He fixed me with his eyes. ‘You understand what I am saying?’

I did not answer. Nor did I breathe as he continued.

‘And so a bargain was struck that suited us both. But, looking at you, dear Cicely, I see there is more of me in you than I had thought. You have not grown up the daughter of a stationmaster or of a reckless society beauty. You are pure me. You have my intelligence and caution. You have my almost intuitive sense of approaching danger. You have skill and bravery. A method of planning even I can admire. You are a true child of your father. I mean not the father you believe to be yours but your blood father.’ He then whispered the secret in my ear.

And I will share with you that same secret, dear reader.

I whisper it very softly into your ear so others shall not learn of it. For with that knowledge would come, riding on the wings, triumphant as a Valkyrie swooping down on a dead warrior, danger. For my uncle had many enemies, some of whom will meet me one day. One in particular I already have in my sights. And his little stooge, the scribbler. I shall take my revenge. But I have one great advantage. Neither the king-devil nor his backscratcher knows of my existence.

For I am Moriarty’s daughter.

As anyone knows who is a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories there are discrepancies in the facts we know about Professor Moriarty. In his first appearance in ‘The Final Problem’, Moriarty is merely referred to as Professor Moriarty. No forename is mentioned. Watson does, however, refer to the name of another family member when he writes of ‘the recent letters in which Colonel James Moriarty defends the memory of his brother’.

In ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’, Holmes refers to Moriarty as Professor James Moriarty. This is the only time Moriarty is given a first name and, oddly, it is the same as that of his purported brother.

In The Valley of Fear (written after the preceding two stories, but set earlier), Holmes says of Professor Moriarty: ‘He is unmarried. His younger brother is a stationmaster in the west of England.’

So I had a quandary. He has a brother called James; he is himself called James.

His brother is a colonel; his brother is a stationmaster. I had to make my choice. I have stuck with the name James and the occupation of his brother as stationmaster.