If this was Basher Moran’s last stand, come on and let it be…
‘We want to talk about Professor Moriarty and Dr Mabuse,’ Irene said. ‘We want to talk about diabolical masterminds, in general. Are you prepared, Sebastian, to talk with us?’
There was a fuss at the door, which was locked.
‘I am sorry, sir,’ Peter Steiler said, out in the lobby. ‘A private party.’
‘This note says an Englishwoman needs a doctor,’ said a fatuous British voice.
Dr Watson had arrived.
Irene cocked her head. It seemed Watson had been halfway to Reichenbach with his chum, when he was recalled to Meiringen by a bogus summons to the bedside of a lady in distress. Watson was as partial to the bedsides of ladies in distress as I am to the beds of ladies who’ll probably end up in distress but won’t care about it for the next hour or two. He exchanged gasps of astonishment with Steiler as he tumbled that he’d been rooked. He used language in person that he’d never put in the Strand.
Throughout this performance, the ‘private party’ was silent. Rupert wrapped a towel around his hand to stanch the bleeding. Irma stood up and — showing nursing skill surprising in someone who kept failing to keep her chiefs alive — made a good field dressing out of the towel. She licked her lips at the sight of blood and her eyes shone. Les Vampires was just a name, though — right?
Eventually, Watson cleared off.
‘We should have let him join us,’ Irene said. ‘He’s properly of our party, too. In thrall to… well, we could hardly say an angelic mastermind, could we? Not of someone who ditches his own sidekick as he goes to confront his destiny.’
XVI
What of Moriarty and Mabuse?
I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you of their last encounter. And neither left a record.
Mabuse had a face in Meiringen, of course. The police captain — captain of two constables and a carthorse, at least — Moriarty had called on. Alraune, Mabuse’s date at the Thoroughgood funeral, told Irene that much, though she was as in the dark about his stratagems as we all were about those whose standards we flew. Ties of blood, bed, tradition and terror did not entitle us to be in the know.
Not all of those present at breakfast in the Englischer Hof were declaring independence. The Daughter of the Dragon, though she later set herself against her father for the love of some white fool, thought a thinning out of the lesser mastermind population would benefit the Si-Fan. It was a Moriarty trick: the Battle of the Six Maledictions all over again. This time, only two — three, if we counted the Thin Man — players were to take each other off the board.
Moriarty knew who he was facing.
Mabuse knew what to expect.
Theirs was a brief meeting, over by the time Irene sat down at our table. It left Mabuse naked in the face — layer upon layer of make-up flayed away — and broken in mind. I don’t know how Moriarty did it, or at what cost to himself. I fancy he just uttered a formula, forcing into his pupil’s mind an addictive, insoluble equation Mabuse was compelled to devote all his intellect to working out, but which opened up vast chasms of uncertainty. The man who was no one was condemned to a world where nothing was anything. Babbling in several languages, the nameless man was found by the bewildered constables, and taken away to an asylum… Later, he was let out, and returned to Berlin and his old tricks. However, he was never the same again, and was eventually defeated by his own madness.
If no one stopped them, bested them or killed them, the clever ones all drive themselves mad in the end. They look for nemeses, and — if none are available — make them up. I’ve heard it said that Moriarty was the Thin Man. I understand why people jump to that conclusion, for the one needed the other. In the way neither needed anyone else, not Dr Watson… and not Colonel Moran.
That was what Irene wanted to talk about.
I don’t know if any of the big brains put her up to it — the ones who are so clever they can put an idea into another person’s head without them knowing it — or if it was something she’d come up with on her own one-tier-down level of cunning and self-interest. A lot of it came, I think, from trying to get close to men — or a man — who would not let her in. That’s above my level, though.
She knew how to put it to me.
‘Hunter and hunted,’ she said. ‘You say in your book — which could afford to lose the chapters about guns, by the way — that the world is divided between the two types. To avoid becoming one, you must become the other. Do you still believe that, Sebastian?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘The hunter and the hunted. Predator and prey. Alive and dead. The guns and the bag.’
‘At present, I have a gun. Aimed at you, Irene.’
‘It hasn’t escaped my notice. But, Sebastian, you miss a category. Native bearers. Guides. Orderlies. Hounds. Where do they fit in? Neither hunter nor hunted. Of the party of the hunter, but not the hunter. Small lives. To quote you, “a currency to be spent freely for a chance of a clean shot”. In this coming world Moriarty outlined, of very great villains and equally magnificent heroes, are you — are we — not such a currency? Are we not native bearers?’
I might have shot her. My finger tightened, involuntarily, on the trigger. It would have been only fair, for she had shot me. With the worst, most deadly ammunition. Purer than a silver bullet.
The truth.
Steiler came into the breakfast room, with another of his notes. This time, for me. From Moriarty.
Mabuse broken. Come to the Falls. The hide we scouted. Bring the Von Herder. On my signal, take the shot.
M.
On the journey, we had discussed this. The hide he mentioned was a perfect lay, marked on a tourist map Moriarty had given me.
‘Sebastian,’ Irene said. ‘Your master whistles.’
XVII
So, we come to it. Above the Reichenbach Falls.
I had my lay. I set out well after Watson, who was rushing back up the mountain, but was at the Falls comfortably before him. Forward planning, you know. Always a good idea. Moriarty was a master at it. From my snug nest in the snow, I had a good view. The roar of the torrent was muted. I saw the narrow path, and judged where the antagonists might meet. A ledge, cropping out, with a grassy patch. No easy way to avoid a determined enemy there.
The Thin Man thought a few Japanese wrestling tricks would serve him in a fight with an old maths tutor. He’d not seen the Professor kill two Swiss wardrobe-carriers — the only souls I ever saw him personally murder, by the way — with a letter opener. If it came to a grapple, it would be a more even contest than the detective knew. With dead-eye Moran in hiding to ensure the outcome, it was no contest at all.
The Von Herder was assembled, loaded and primed. It took twenty minutes’ vigorous pumping for a single shot. Once the gun was discharged, I’d be reduced to chucking rocks. As I said, I usually only need a single shot. I had a small pile of rocks ready, though. More planning.
I was flat out, on a blanket of fresh snow. Not the foul stuff back at the village, but a white, crisp, cold virgin fall. The air was thin and I was quite merry. Your brain gets like that in the mountains. You can hear bells and birdsong and voices in the waterfall if you let yourself.