The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

The Fifth Browning Jürgen Ehlers

When in spring 1891 I had Sherlock Holmes know that I would like to meet him, the great detective initially hesitated. His opinion of me was not great, and he suspected that I would, one way or another, double-cross him. His fear, however, was wholly unfounded. I am always honest if the circumstances allow it. In order to exercise discretion, I suggested a meeting abroad. Meiringen in Switzerland seemed suitable. This small town of three thousand citizens in the Bernese Oberland region is so insignificant that nobody would ever guess that decisions of world historic importance could be made here. No reporters would stray here. Meiringen had a train station, which simplified getting there.

We arrived separately. Holmes had difficulties getting rid of his loyal friend and companion Dr Watson, so he arrived two days after our agreed date at the Hotel du Sauvage on Bahnhofsstraße in Meiringen.

“What a lovely spring day,” said Holmes when he joined me at my table on the terrace. “May I?”

“Please. A lovely spring, yes, but there are dark clouds on the horizon.”

“Politically?” Holmes of course knew that as political adviser to the British government I was up to date on all current crises. “The Mahdi Uprising?”

I shook my head. The revolt in the Sudan was indeed dominating the headlines – Muslim fanatics had not only beaten the British troops but also invaded Ethiopia and killed the emperor – but that was unimportant.

“It’s not about Africa,” I said. “It’s about Europe.” I told Holmes what had happened. Kaiser Wilhelm II had been on the throne for three years now. He had sacked Bismarck and terminated the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. This meant that the stable foreign policy of the German Reich was at an end.

“I know nothing about that,” said Holmes.

He couldn’t have known anything about it, as the Reinsurance Treaty was a secret treaty. Counter-measures were urgently necessary. Holmes said that that was my job as military adviser. I replied that my influence merely stretched to military-technical topics. And that in situations such as this, politicians also needed to be involved. My idea was to establish the necessary contacts via Holmes’s brother Mycroft.

“So, you are thinking of reshuffling the War Office? And who should, in your opinion, get the top job?”

“Not Lansdowne in any case,” I said. “We need to arm ourselves. And we need politicians who will see to that. Your chronicler, this Dr Doyle from Edinburgh, has repeatedly said that England should invest more in arms, and I agree.”

Holmes smiled. Of course he knew that I had invested my considerable fortune into the arms industry.

“You surely won’t begrudge me my enthusiasm, will you?” I said.

“Money is unimportant,” he said. “But arms deals are always criminal. And I don’t like to work with criminals. Do you know Basil Zaharoff?”

I nodded. I had hoped that Holmes would not touch upon this topic. But he was, as ever, too well informed.

“Who is this mysterious man? There is not a single photograph of him. Sometimes I ask myself whether he actually exists.”

“He exists, Mr Holmes. He exists, and he sells weapons. And successfully so, I might add. The first functioning submarine that the Turkish Navy bought …”

“Yes, and people say he has screwed over Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun. Screwed him over good and proper.”

Yes, that was true. “We bought him,” I said.

“People say Zaharoff is responsible for Maxim’s financial difficulties. They say sabotage …”

“Rumours,” I claimed.

“Sometimes, I get the impression, Moriarty, that you are this mysterious man.”

“If this were the case, our country should count itself lucky. Zaharoff has guided us to some of the most powerful weapons currently under development.”

“The submarine? The Nordenfelt-U-boat that Zaharoff sold to the Turks and Greeks?”

I nodded.

“So, you think Great Britain also needs such a submarine?”

“One? We need fifty U-boats!”

“Fifty? Do you know how much that costs? Thus far, the Bruce-Partington Plan is nothing but a plan, isn’t it? And if we buy the submarines from Nordenfelt in Sweden …”

I tried my best not to show my surprise. Bruce-Partington! The construction plans for the submarine were top secret. Obviously Mycroft had got wind of the matter and told his brother all about it. But, in any case, it was out of the question to buy the submarines in Sweden.

“We’ll go about it differently,” I said. “We will buy Nordenfelt.”

“We?”

“Vickers in Sheffield. Talk to your brother Mycroft about it. Convince him. I have already spoken to Tom Vickers. He thinks it’s a great idea. And while you negotiate with the politicians, I will keep the competition at bay.”

It took me some time to eliminate Holmes’s qualms. In order to concentrate all our efforts on our joint aim, it was necessary for us to stop all our other pursuits. This would work best if we were both declared dead. So, we spread the rumour that Holmes and I had been killed in deadly tussle.

Watson was – as ever – easy to deceive. He really believed that we had both plunged to our deaths at the Reichenbach Falls, while in reality we had hidden in a rock crevice until the devastated doctor had disappeared. Thus, the British-German arms race began.

People who, like me, are financially dependent on a neverending effort to keep the country’s defences up, invariably also have to make contact with the other side. The opponent must always remain so strong that further investments in arms on our own side are absolutely necessary.

Sherlock Holmes, with whom I had worked seamlessly together until this point, did not approve of this method. He was satisfied that in 1904 John Fisher was made First Sea Lord, which entailed a comprehensive reform of the fleet. Finally, the construction of modern battleships and submarines was given full priority. Holmes believed we had reached our goal. He moved to Sussex to devote his life to beekeeping.

I, meanwhile, made contact with Admiral Alfred Von Tirpitz. He was responsible for realising the emperor’s dream of a powerful German fleet. But in 1905, this was but a dream. I met the admiral in a harbour pub in Kiel, and he was pissed as a newt.

“This is the current situation,” he slurred. “This is the situation: Germany has twenty-two battleships. Together, Great Britain and France have eighty. Germany is hopelessly outnumbered by all its potential opponents. The kaiser may dream of a powerful fleet, but he will never get one. Our place in the sun is gone. We need to end the arms race.”

I had feared this much. My German opponent seemed totally defeated. He merely brightened up a little when I bought him another drink. I said: “Don’t lose hope, Herr Admiral! Admittedly, it doesn’t look too good at the moment. But what would you say, Herr Tirpitz, if we simply scrapped our current fleets and started all over?”

“From scratch?” I had aroused his interest. “How could that work?”

“Simple. Next year, we will launch the Dreadnought. A new type of battleship, which is sure to outperform all other vessels. All you can do is scrap the rest.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. It is great to have such a ship. But it is, of course, just a single ship. And no one can keep Germany from building two ships of this type …”

“For that we would, first of all, need the plans.”

“For the right sum of money, that could easily be arranged …”

Sherlock Holmes was furious. “You have betrayed our country!” he bellowed when I told him about it.

I shook my head. “Mr Holmes, you understand nothing of arms deals. We need a kind of balance of powers. The Germans need to believe that they can catch up. Our shipyards have a much greater capacity than the German ones. And to get a nice advantage right from the start, I have changed the construction plans slightly. The first new German ships will be significantly slower and not armed quite as well as the British Dreadnoughts.”

What I failed to mention to Holmes, but which was of great significance to me, was: with Germany arming its navy, Great Britain was obliged to follow suit. Investing in arms remained lucrative for me. Investing on both sides, that is.

In spring 1914, I travelled to Belgrade in my capacity as unofficial representative of the largest British arms manufacturer. Officially, I was there to supply the Serbian army with Maxim machine guns. In reality, it was about something else entirely. A group of Serbian nationalists had planned an assassination attempt on the Austrian heir to the throne, who was expected for a visit in Sarajevo at the end of June. Sarajevo was the capital of Bosnia. Bosnia belonged to Austro-Hungary. The plan was precarious. Apparently, there was a lack of guns.

Assassins without guns are, of course, ludicrous. In order not to endanger the project, I offered to provide the gentleman with suitable weapons. It was said that they would be three to four people. Just to be on the safe side, I promised to bring five pistols. Naturally, I knew that the connection between the assassins and the Serbian government was ideal to conjure up a larger conflict. If this came to light, a war was unavoidable, and – due to the existing treaty obligations – Russia, Germany, France and England would have to intervene.

On 26 June, I took the train to Sarajevo. The following day, after dusk had fallen, I made my way to our agreed-upon meeting point. I had visited the graveyard in advance, so I did not have to search for long to find the grave of Bogdan Žerajić. Žerajić had been a student who had tried to shoot the Austro-Hungarian Governor for Bosnia and Herzegovina four years previously. He had fired five shots and missed. With the last bullet, Žerajić had shot himself.

Now, the men who wanted to shoot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria the following day had met at this dubious hero’s grave. They were seven men, most of them very young. Some of them probably still went to school. Princip, for example. They all had primitive bombs from Serbia, and they had three revolvers in total, which they had also brought along from Belgrade. They talked too much and too loudly, just like schoolboys, who still had to convince themselves that their terrible plan might actually work.

I gave them four of my Browning pistols. The new model 1910, 9 mm, six shots. The fifth pistol was spare, so I kept that one for myself. I wanted to suggest that everyone fire a couple of shots to get used to the weapons, but it never came to that. All of a sudden, there was a shrill whistling sound. “A spy!” the lookout shouted.

“Where?”

“Over there!”

Several shots rang out. I disappeared discreetly. I was not keen on a night-time shootout with the police. If indeed it was the police. I was not too sure. Fact was that only the prospective assassins were firing their guns. And fact was, too, that every shot missed. The shadow the lookout had seen remained unharmed.

As I vaulted over the low wall at the rear end of the graveyard, someone cleared his throat quite close by. I plunged my hand into my jacket to draw my pistol, when I heard a familiar voice: “Come, come, Professor Moriarty, we wouldn’t want to shoot one another now, would we?” It was Holmes.

An hour later, we sat together at the bar of our hotel. “To be honest, I did not expect to see you here in Sarajevo,” I said.

“You should always expect me,” replied Holmes.

“Did you tail me?” I had taken good care along the whole journey to ensure that nobody was following me. At least I had thought I had.

“I did not tail you,” said Holmes. “I saw you alight from a taxi at Victoria Station in London, and I was curious as to what your plans were. I observed you for a moment and then drew my conclusions. It was quite simple: you bought your ticket at the station. That means that you are here neither on behalf of the British government nor on behalf of Vickers. You bought a ticket for Lüttich. And you are not someone who is interested in Gothic cathedrals. Therefore I knew that Lüttich was not your final destination. You wanted to travel on. For example to Herstal. Herstal lies just five kilometres away from Lüttich. And Herstal is home to the Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre.”

“I admire your astuteness.”

“As you are travelling with two large trunks, I knew that you did not want to stay in Lüttich either. Your large pieces of luggage indicated that you wanted to travel to a place where the necessities of life are not always easily available. As you were not going by boat, but by train, I knew you were travelling somewhere inland. And as you are an expert on military equipment, the most likely destination was a place with a need for military equipment. The area with the greatest unrest on the continent is currently the Balkan.”

“But how did you know I would go to Sarajevo?”

“Again, simple. Your visit in Herstal had nothing to do with a larger arms order. Such orders are usually submitted by post. You bought weapons that can be easily stored in a travelling case. That eliminates rifles. Which means you bought pistols. FN produces one of the best pistols in the world, the Browning.”

I confirmed that I had indeed bought Brownings.

“Now, the Balkan has seen a number of wars in recent times, but it seems that the era of wars is currently taking a break. However, the territories occupied by Austro-Hungary are in a state of upheaval. Bosnia, for example. And at the heart of all the unrest is, logically, the capital of Bosnia: Sarajevo.”

“You followed me after all.”

Holmes shook his head. “I travelled ahead. As I knew your destination, I took the shortest connection via Paris and waited here at the hotel for you. I was sure that you, too, are no friend of bedbugs and lice and that you would therefore stay at the best hotel in the city.”

“Perfect deduction, as usual. But why are you here? Surely not to show off your superior wit?”

“I am here to remind you of our agreement. Our aim is to ensure stability. Peace. We both signed a contract. But what you are doing here will not bring peace. You are supporting terrorists, murderers. You are playing with fire, Moriarty. If the assassination attempt succeeds, there will be war.”

“Yes, probably. But we are well armed, thanks to your and my relentless work. And if war does indeed come, we will win. Don’t forget that. And a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”

Holmes shook his head. “That is cynical. There could be thousands of deaths.”

“Thousands? Hundreds of thousands, my dear Holmes! But the higher the number of victims, the greater the deterrent effect for the following generations. This will be the greatest war the world has seen, but at the same time this will be the last war ever. This is the war to end all wars.”

It was clear that Sherlock Holmes did not believe me.

“You are a pessimist,” I said.

Holmes threatened to sabotage the attack. But of course he had no chance. Me included, there were seven men who wanted to start a war. And just one man who wanted to stop it.

“What do you want to do?” I asked. “We have positioned six men in different places. Each one has a bomb and a gun.”

“They are inexperienced men.”

“That does not matter. If each of them fires their six shots, there are thirty-six bullets flying at the Archduke. And then there are the bombs. Don’t you, too, dear Holmes, believe that even the most resistant Archduke will be finished after thirty-six shots and six bombs?”

Holmes shook his head. “You may have worked out the dynamics of an asteroid, but you have no idea of the dynamics of an assassination attempt.”

I hate to admit it, but Holmes was right. The first assassin did nothing. He simply let the motorcade pass. The second assassin threw his bomb wide. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth assassin did nothing at all when the Archduke passed them on his way to the town hall. The chance was lost. The peace remained intact. Most unfortunate.

After lunch, I sat in front of the delicatessen Moritz Schiller near the Latin Bridge, brooding over the morning’s events. At the table next to mine sat Princip, drinking a cup of coffee. The failed assassin was lost in thought and did not recognise me. And then, something unexpected happened.

“They are coming,” someone shouted.

I looked up. Indeed. The motorcade was returning from the town hall, and they were turning into our street. There was the archduke, there was his wife, and there was Holmes on the footboard of the car. I looked at Princip. He sat as if paralysed in his chair and stared at the archduke. And then the archduke’s chauffeur stopped. The motorcade had taken a wrong turning and needed to go back. The car had to be turned and had halted right in front of us. Finally, Princip reacted. He suddenly sprang to his feet, tore his pistol from his pocket, ran towards the car and fired at close range. There was nothing Holmes could have done to stop him. But Princip had missed and hit the archduke’s wife instead. Everybody jumped up. As did I. But, while most people just screamed and ran away or scrambled towards the dying woman, I simply stepped on to my chair, calmly drew my Browning and fired a shot over the heads of the crowd. My shot fell simultaneously with Princip’s second shot. I hit, whereas Princip’s bullet went wide. I pocketed my pistol again. No one had noticed me. I paid for my coffee and walked away unchallenged.