“You have less frontal development than I should have expected,” said he, at last.
“It is a dangerous habit to have finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one’s dressing-gown.”
“The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognised the extreme personal danger in which I lay. The only conceivable escape for him lay in silencing my tongue, and I could hear the faint sound of who were clearly his associates the other side of the door. In an instant I had slipped the revolver from the drawer into my pocket, and was covering him through the cloth. At his remark I drew the weapon out and laid it cocked upon the table. He still smiled and blinked, but there was something about his eyes which made me feel very glad that I had it there.
“You evidently don’t know me,” said he.
“On the contrary,” I answered, “I think it is fairly evident that I do. Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to say.”
“All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,” said he.
“Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,” I replied. “You stand fast?”
“Absolutely.”
He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from the table. But he merely drew out a memorandum book in which he had scribbled some dates.
“You crossed my path on the 4th of January,” said he.
“On the 23rd you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.”
“Have you any suggestion to make?” I asked.
“You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,” said he, swaying his face about.
“You really must, you know.”
“After Monday,” said I.
“Tut, tut,” said he.
“I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a fashion that we have only one resource left. It has been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this affair, and I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure. You smile, sir, but I assure you that it really would.”
“Danger is part of my trade,” I remarked.
“That is not danger,” said he.
“It is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organisation, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realise. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.”
“I am afraid,” said I, rising, “that in the pleasure of this conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me elsewhere.”
He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.
“Well, well,” said he, at last.
“It seems a pity, but I have done what I could. I know every move of your game. You can do nothing before Monday. It has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes. You hope to place me in the dock. I tell you that I will never stand in that dock. You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me. If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.”
“You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,” said I.
“Let me pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former eventuality I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the latter.”
“I can promise you the one, but not the other,” he snarled, and so turned his rounded back upon me, and went peering and blinking out of the room.
“At this moment I fully expected the villain’s henchmen to burst through the door and finish me, and yet, at that moment, Sergeant Withers of the police arrived to see me, almost certainly saving my life. That was my singular interview with Professor Moriarty. I confess that it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind. His soft, precise fashion of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully could not produce. Of course, you will say: ‘Why not take police precautions against him?’ the reason is that I am well convinced that it is from his agents the blow will fall. I have the best proofs that it would be so.”
“You have already been assaulted?”
“My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet. I went out about midday to transact some business in Oxford Street. As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street on to the Welbeck Street crossing, a two-horse van furiously driven whizzed round and was on me like a flash. I sprang for the footpath and saved myself by the fraction of a second. The van dashed round by Marylebone Lane and was gone in an instant. I kept to the pavement after that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere Street a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses, and was shattered to fragments at my feet. I called the police and had the place examined. There were slates and bricks piled up on the roof preparatory to some repairs, and they would have me believe that the wind had toppled over one of these. Of course I knew better, but I could prove nothing. I took a cab after that and reached my brother’s rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day. Now I have come round to you, and on my way I was attacked, bringing us to the latest problem at hand.”
“Are you injured?” I asked of him.
“A man came at me with the intent to do serious harm, to which I struck a blow to his ribs, a second to his jaw, neither had the desired or pre-determined result. This animal kept coming at me, trying to grab at me with his grubby hands. This assailant foamed at the mouth, with a wide eyed and crazy expression about his face, nothing appeared normal about this attacker. With every essence of my strength and precision I stuck at this mad ruffian. We came to grips, and quickly to the floor, whereby the villain tried to reel me in closely, opening his unclean jaw in an attempt to bite, a thick but not echoing sound of a bludgeoning blow sounded above me and my assailant slumped over me.”
This story was already a shock to me, not just in the fact that Holmes had been assaulted in the street, but by the nature of the attack and his inability to fight off the thug. Holmes was one of the best boxers I had the pleasure of knowing, and had many times seen him use his skills in an expert fashion. Holmes was a slight man, but he delivered blows with precision and power, it was rather then surprising that a perfectly placed blow to both the man’s ribs and jaw had no noticeable effect. I could only imagine that the ruffian was intoxicated or of very stout nature.
“A policeman who had been nearby and seen the foul ruffian attack had given him a stout blow with his cosh. I threw him aside and the police have him in custody; but I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible connection will ever be traced between the ruffian upon whose jaw I have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who is, I dare say, working out problems upon a blackboard ten miles away. You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act on entering your rooms was to close your shutters, and that I have been compelled to ask your permission to leave the house by some less conspicuous exit than the front door.”
I had often admired my friend’s courage, but never more than now, as he sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have combined to make up a day of horror.