Holmes and Watson (20 page)

On his way back to the hotel, Watson passed a man dressed in black, walking very rapidly. But, failing to recognise him as the same tall man he had glimpsed at Victoria station, Watson took no further notice of him. As there was no sign of Colonel Moran, he was presumably keeping out of sight. And so they passed one another, Watson on his errand of mercy, Moriarty on his mission of revenge.

If Moriarty could have chosen the site for his final encounter with Sherlock Holmes, he could not have picked a more dramatic setting. Its glistening black rocks, its roaring torrent, its immense chasm give the impression of a primeval landscape or a glimpse into hell itself, an impression enhanced by Watson’s use of such words and phrases as ‘abyss’, ‘boiling pit’ and ‘incalculable depth’, while the ‘half-human shout’ of the roaring water suggests the cries of souls in torment. It is elemental. In it, air and water are combined with earth in the form of the coal-black
rocks, and with fire in the spray rolling up ‘like smoke from a burning house’.

In such a setting, Holmes and Moriarty assume superhuman qualities, Holmes the angel of light engaged in a primordial struggle with the forces of darkness in the shape of Moriarty, a Satan-like figure who, although endowed, like Satan, by nature with phenomenal gifts, chose to use them in the pursuit of evil. John Milton has described such a setting in
Paradise
Lost
in which he writes of a ‘wild Abyss’, composed

Holmes was expecting Moriarty. He had already guessed that the letter was a decoy, designed to lure Watson back to the hotel, and he was prepared for this final encounter, knowing it would be a fight to the death. For both men it was a matter of honour. Each was intent on fulfilling their own personal pledges, Holmes to free society of Moriarty’s evil presence, Moriarty to bring about Holmes’ destruction.

Honour played its part, too, in the conduct of that final encounter. It was no mere brawl but was carried out, like a duel, under gentlemanly rules, at least on Holmes’ part. Holmes laid aside his alpenstock so that he would have no unfair advantage over Moriarty, who was unarmed. However, although Moriarty gave his
‘courteous permission’ for Holmes to write his farewell letter to Watson, he failed to mention that Colonel Moran was posted out of sight somewhere above the Reichenbach Falls to act as long-stop in case Holmes escaped alive.

How far the actual contest was fair is questionable. Neither man had the advantage of height or weight as both were tall and of a similar build. But Holmes was certainly the younger and the fitter of the two. Against this should be set Moriarty’s desperation. He was a man with nothing to lose, willing to risk everything on this last venture.

The site, a narrow path, the earth slippery with spray, favoured neither of them. It was largely a matter of chance which of them lost his footing first and plunged over the brink. But even in such a confined and dangerous setting, Holmes had one distinct advantage over Moriarty. He had studied baritsu,
*
a Japanese form of self-defence in which the techniques of balance and the use of arm and handholds are used against one’s opponent.

As Moriarty rushed forward and gripped Holmes by the arms, Holmes was able to break free from his grasp, throwing his adversary off balance. A few seconds later, like Milton’s Satan, Moriarty plunged screaming over the edge of the falls into the abyss below.

THE GREAT HIATUS
4th May 1891–5th April 1894
*

Holmes’ reactions as he watched Moriarty plummet to his death at the foot of the Reichenbach Falls have to be guessed, as he has left no record of his emotions at witnessing this event. He must have felt enormous relief that it was not he but his mortal enemy who had lost that final battle. Moriarty’s death was also his ultimate triumph, the culmination of a lifetime’s work dedicated
to the fight against crime. But, judging by his subsequent actions, that sense of relief and exultation must have been tempered by other less triumphant thoughts.

With Moriarty now dead, there was nothing, in theory at least, to prevent him from walking back along the path by which he had come and returning to Meiringen to meet Watson who, as Holmes must have realised, would come hurrying back once he found out the letter delivered by the Swiss youth was a hoax. Instead, he decided to feign death and disappear.

Later, he was to tell Watson that this decision flashed into his mind in the space of a few seconds, even before Moriarty’s body had time to crash to the bottom of the ravine. However, his explanation of his motives in coming to this decision, like his excuse for pretending to be mortally ill in the Dying Detective case, is, on examination, hardly tenable. He knew, he said, that three members of Moriarty’s organisation were still at large and had sworn to kill him, a revenge they would certainly not hesitate to carry out once they heard of Moriarty’s death. But if they believed that he, Holmes, had also died at the Reichenbach Falls, they would become careless and his task of tracking them down and bringing them to justice would be made the easier.

But at the time he made his decision, Holmes could not have known that three members of Moriarty’s gang had escaped arrest. According to the telegraph sent to him at Strasburg by Scotland Yard, all Moriarty’s confederates had been rounded up. Holmes was not even aware of the
fact that Colonel Moran was not only still at large but was at that very moment posted above the Reichenbach Falls, ready to make an attempt on his life, should he survive Moriarty’s attack on him. His presence there, as Holmes himself later admits, came as a complete surprise to him.

Holmes could therefore have only learnt of the escape of three of Moriarty’s gang members at some later date, at which point he used the information to rationalise that split-second decision he claimed he made as Moriarty’s body plunged into the ravine. Moreover, as soon as he encountered Colonel Moran, as he did shortly afterwards, he would have realised that Moran knew that he, Holmes, was still alive and would have informed his confederates of this fact. Holmes’ excuse about wanting to deceive them into making mistakes by believing he was dead was therefore specious for this reason alone. In fact, Holmes’ real motives for deciding to fake his own death and disappear were more complex than the simple and misleading account he was subsequently to give to Watson.

As we have seen, Holmes was at the time going through a period of psychological stress. Even before his encounter with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, he was seriously considering giving up his career for a quiet, private life in which he would devote his time and energy to chemical research. It was only the continuing threat to society posed by Moriarty which prevented him from retiring. Moriarty’s death had removed that barrier. Why, then, did Holmes not return to England and simply carry out this plan? Why decide instead to pretend he, too, had died?

Moriarty’s death may well have been a greater emotional blow than even Holmes realised or was prepared to admit. He had, after all, devoted at least three years to gathering evidence about the man and his organisation. It had formed the central point of his life, the focus of all his plans and aspirations, almost his
raison d’être
. And now it was gone.

As he stood on that ledge above the falls and watched Moriarty’s body spinning into oblivion, Holmes may well have experienced an overwhelming sense of loss, if not of actual bereavement. With Moriarty gone, there was no one left of such superb intellect against whom he could pit his own intelligence. Compared to him, all other adversaries would seem unworthy of his efforts. Life without the Professor would indeed become ‘humdrum’ and ‘commonplace’.

It should also be remembered that Holmes had prepared himself psychologically for death as he stood on that path above the falls face to face with Moriarty. Although he may have felt relief at having escaped alive, he may also have experienced a perverse sense of having been cheated.

The thought of his own death had been on his mind before the Reichenbach encounter. He had already toyed with the idea in the Dying Detective case, in which he had deliberately used theatrical make-up to give himself the appearance of a man who was mortally ill. Although part of this pretence may be explained away by Holmes’ love of the dramatic, there may well have been darker motives behind the adoption of the disguise. For someone
like Holmes who tended to suffer from manic depression, the thought – what is it like to be dead? – may have already crossed his mind. This is not to suggest he ever contemplated suicide. Indeed, in the Veiled Lodger case, he was to round on Eugenia Ronder when she threatens to kill herself with the words, ‘Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it,’ which suggests he was strongly opposed to suicide.
*
But the idea of pretending to be dead and actually disappearing as if he were dead, of assuming another identity and taking up a new life, coming at a time when he was considering retiring anyway and when he had lost the one person, Moriarty, who had been the focus of several years’ intensive work, may have proved irresistible.

Holmes himself may not have been aware of the complexity of the emotions which prompted this decision. But the act of disappearing is not uncommon. In this country alone, hundreds of people, suffering from some form of stress, disappear every year without trace, although few go to the extent of faking their own deaths. Although part of this impulse may be the need to escape from the present and its insupportable pressures, there may also be a deeper, unacknowledged urge to run away from oneself and create an entirely new persona.

From a practical point of view, there were few obstacles to prevent Holmes from carrying out his decision. He
had no dependants and, before leaving England, he had made arrangements with Mycroft for the disposal of his property in the event of his death. Presumably he also had enough money on him to pay for the rest of his Continental holiday and so was not without immediate funds, at least for the time being.

Although he had already seen Watson’s reactions to his feigned illness only four months before in the Dying Detective case, it is doubtful if Holmes thought at all deeply of the devastating effect his apparent death would have on his old friend. His own unemotional temperament tended to make him insensitive to the feelings of others. There was also that callous streak in his character and, once he had made up his mind, a single-mindedness of purpose which amounted at times to ruthlessness. Watson would grieve, of course, but he would eventually recover.

Holmes was also aware that his apparent death would have to appear convincing, a challenge to his ingenuity as well as to his love of the dramatic. He therefore carried out his deception with meticulous care. It was vital his footprints were not seen returning along the muddy path and he considered reversing his boots, a trick he had used before. But, as this extra set of tracks might appear suspicious, he decided instead to attempt the ascent of the rock face above him which, although apparently sheer, presented, on closer examination, a few footholds. Leaving his alpenstock behind, together with his cigarette case and his farewell letter to Watson, written with Moriarty’s permission before the fatal encounter, Holmes began the
climb which was in itself a potentially fatal enterprise. In attempting it, Holmes was again risking his life as if, having escaped death once, he was challenging fate itself to a second duel. Or perhaps it was Moriarty he had in mind for, as he climbed, Holmes imagined he could hear his voice screaming at him from the abyss, like a voice from the depths of hell.

Reaching a grassy ledge, Holmes decided to wait there for Watson to return. It was a bizarre decision which seems to serve no useful purpose except, ostensibly at least, to prove to Holmes that Watson was indeed convinced of his death. One is left, however, with the disturbing feeling that Holmes wanted to witness something else as well – Watson’s inevitable grief, a supposition which, if true, suggests not just a callous streak in Holmes’ personality but a positively sadistic tendency, although Holmes himself may have seen it as nothing more than a natural curiosity, like wanting to be present at one’s own wake.

And Watson was, of course, deeply distressed by Holmes’ apparent death. After returning to the hotel and discovering the letter was a hoax, he immediately realised that the ‘tall Englishman’ who, Herr Steiler reported, had arrived shortly after he and Holmes had left, was Moriarty.

In a ‘tingle of fear’, as he himself describes it, he set off for the Reichenbach Falls but, despite his deep concern, he had the presence of mind to round up anyone in the village who might be of use in an emergency or to ask Herr Steiler to do so on his behalf. It is not known who they were. Watson does not mention them at all while Holmes
refers to them only as Watson’s ‘following’, a term which suggests a degree of contempt for their efforts. Presumably they were local men, possibly guides, who had knowledge of the terrain and some experience of mountain rescue.

Watson says nothing of his own feelings during the two-hour trek back to the falls, allowing his emotions to appear only after he and the others had arrived at the scene and he saw for himself the evidence which seemed to prove beyond doubt that Holmes was dead: no sign of Holmes himself, only his footprints leading up to the edge of the falls but not returning; the churned up mud, torn brambles and ferns at the edge of the ravine, indicating where the final struggle had taken place, and, lying nearby, Holmes’ abandoned alpenstock, silver cigarette case and, last of all, his farewell letter. The sight of these objects, Watson reports, turned him ‘cold and sick’ and, ‘dazed with horror’ at the tragedy, he could do nothing except stand there, fighting to control his feelings.

And what was Holmes doing while Watson went through this agony of emotions? He was – and these are his own words – lying in ‘most perfect comfort’ on the ledge above, listening to Watson frantically shouting his name and observing with apparent amused detachment, like Jove from his Olympian throne, the ‘sympathetic and inefficient’ manner in which his old friend and his companions went about the painful task of examining the evidence of his own death.

It was by then almost certainly growing dusk and the search for the bodies was probably postponed to the
following day. Holmes’ body was, of course, not found. Neither was Moriarty’s. A. Carson Simpson’s theory that Moriarty had used one of his own inventions, an Atomic Accelerator, to blow himself into oblivion need not be taken too seriously. It is more likely that Colonel Moran returned later to the scene and, retrieving Moriarty’s corpse from the ravine, buried it secretly somewhere in the vicinity. His bones may still be lying in their unmarked grave out there on the mountainside, perhaps within sound of the Reichenbach Falls, its raging torrent still appearing to echo, as it had seemed to Holmes, the voice of Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, screaming out in terror as he plunged to his death into the abyss below. It might even be possible, using modern archaeological equipment, such as ground radar, to discover the burial place and to retrieve Moriarty’s remains. His skull alone would be of immense interest to forensic pathologists. From it, they would be able to estimate the size of his phenomenal brain.

Once Watson and his colleagues had left, Colonel Moran soon made his presence known to Holmes, emerging from his hiding-place above the ravine from where he, too, had watched and listened to all that had been taking place below him. Some commentators have asked why he chose not to use his celebrated airgun to kill Holmes, a more sure and deadly weapon than the less certain method of hurling rocks at him from above. Holmes was, after all, an easy target as he lay stretched out on the ledge. Moran may, of course, not have had the
gun with him. Or in such a steep and rocky setting, the angle of fire might have been impossible. Alternatively, the light may have been too poor.

Night was certainly falling, as Holmes himself reports, and in the gathering darkness he could not make out even Moran’s features clearly, although he must have been familiar with his appearance. He describes seeing only a man’s figure and a ‘grim face’ peering down at him. It was only later he realised his attacker had been Moriarty’s Chief of Staff.

Although his way was barred upwards, the departure of Watson and his ‘following’ had left the path below empty and Holmes was able to scramble down the rock face, itself a difficult feat, and to land, cut and bleeding but alive, ‘by the blessing of God’, he adds, a rare example of Holmes openly expressing any religious convictions. Once safely on the path, he immediately took to his heels and made off across the mountains under cover of darkness.

Watson’s own departure for England was probably delayed. There was evidently an official inquiry, for he mentions ‘an examination by experts’ of the scene of the tragedy, possibly by the Swiss police, which almost certainly involved the search for the bodies already referred to. Whether or not an inquest was held either in Switzerland or in England or in both countries is not clear. English coroners are not obliged by law to hold an inquest on a British citizen who has died abroad unless they feel justice would be served by doing so. Certainly a trial was held, probably at the Old Bailey, of those members of
Moriarty’s gang whom the police had rounded up and against whom Holmes’ evidence, contained in the blue envelope which he had asked Watson in his farewell letter to pass on to Inspector Patterson, was vital in bringing about their conviction.
*
Accounts of the trial were featured in the newspapers but, oddly enough, considering his international reputation, Holmes’ death was not widely reported. Only three accounts were published, one in the
Journal de Genève
, and a Reuter’s report which appeared in the press on 7th May, both condensed, and finally three letters from Colonel Moriarty, defending his late brother’s name, which were printed some time after the events at the Reichenbach Falls.