Chapter 1 ― The Wanderings of James Moriarty (Part 2)

Professor Moriarty departed at about half past 9.

After a brief interval we set off after him. The gas lamps and shop windows glittered along the length of Teramachi Street. The professor was dressed in black from head to toe: black cloak, black bowler hat, black gloves, leaning upon a black cane as he made his way slowly past the shops.

"Come on, Holmes," I urged my reluctant companion.

At Nijō Teramachi Professor Moriarty turned right. Dim, squeezed Nijō Street was a stark contrast to the twinkling lights of Teramachi Street. Peeling mortar walls loomed in close on both sides, and gas lamps dotted the road like stepping stones. At each veil of light the professor's dark silhouette slipped forth before melting back into the shadows. There was something of the phantasmagorical to the sight, and I began to wonder whether the professor might not be of this world. Holmes and I stuck to the shadows, trying not to make too much noise with our footsteps, and continued our pursuit.

At Yanaginobanba Street that the professor at last did something unusual.

A little flower seller wearing a wool cap was standing beneath a gas lamp at the intersection. I doubted whether she would find many customers here, and indeed the basket which he carried in her arms was still full of blooms yet unsold. Professor Moriarty paused and eyed the girl.

"Holmes!" I whispered, hastening forward. There was a terrible gleam in the professor's eyes, and the girl was rooted to the spot as if petrified by fear.

The professor drew a banknote from his pocket and from what I could make out said, I would like all the flowers you have left.

The flower seller blinked, then tentatively held out the basket. Professor Moriarty clumsily scooped out the remaining flowers. "You may keep the change," he brusquely muttered with a slight wave of his hand, and then he strode off. The girl watched him go with a look of bewilderment.

Holmes and I wore much the same expression on our faces. "Why on earth would he buy flowers?"

Thereafter Professor Moriarty continued resolutely southward, until he reached Shijō Street.

Lights glowed mysteriously within the gas-lit valley that lay between the magnificent facades lining the boulevard. Though it was growing late, the grandest street in all Kyoto was still bustling. In that crowd could be seen every species of life known to man: homeward bound tradesmen; retired military men; vagabonds; patrolling constables; troops of guardsmen; street merchants hawking every good imaginable; and sandwich-men standing slack-jawed in the road. An uncountable multitude of carts clattered along the cobbles; broughams raced on bearing their aristocratic occupants towards Gion, while wagons laden with goods plodded along the street. Through the thick mist which lay draped over this mad diorama, Professor Moriarty walked unflappably onward, his arms full of flowers.

"I wonder if he means to propose," Holmes remarked drily.

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Two hours later, Holmes and I found ourselves in a pub.

I sat forward with my elbows placed upon the table, gazing at the Takase River which rushed onward before me. I was reminiscing about the period after I had returned from Afghanistan, before I had met Holmes. At the time I had could afford nothing better than a doss-house near Bukkō-ji, having nothing to lean on but what little pension the empire allotted to her former soldiers. The meager contents of my pocketbook were hardly enough to avail me much in the way of entertainment, yet unable to bear another night of solitude in my dreary quarters I would find a cheap bar and while away the hours watching the reflections of the gas-lamps shimmer on the surface of the Takase.

I glanced at the counter and saw Professor Moriarty scowling at his glass, as motionless as a hulking gargoyle. The flowers which he had bought from the girl were piled up beside him. His was certainly an odd sight, an otherworldly spot of gloom amid the otherwise bright lights of the bar, and neither the bartender nor the cheerful wastrels whom he tended made any attempt to engage him in conversation.

Holmes was meanwhile pondering over a map which he had spread out over the table.

"I can discern no pattern to his movements."

"None at all?"

"To my eye he is walking completely at random," replied Holmes, sliding the shilling map over to me to examine.

The route which Professor Moriarty had taken was marked upon it. The line followed close along Shijō Street, winding westward through a tangled maze of innumerable alleyways. I scrutinized it for some time, but just as Holmes had said it appeared that he was walking entirely at random.

I had never participated in a stranger chase than I did that night. Not the slightest hint of any sort of criminal activity had we detected, yet it seemed to me that there must be more to this nighttime autumn stroll than met the eye. Professor Moriarty exuded a sense of purpose as he strode on, and yet I had detected something close to desperation, as though the professor was trapped in a labyrinth and was searching for the way out. At times he had suddenly halted during his wandering, sometimes in front of a shuttered shop, or before an empty plot of land; and yet we could never perceive anything out of the ordinary about any of those places. Each time he stopped he would silently bow his head as if offering a silent prayer before resuming his journey. And each time he would leave a flower on the ground, like a tribute upon a gravestone.

"Whatever is he up to?"

"Buying flowers is not a crime," observed Holmes. "And neither is taking a nighttime stroll." He lapsed into silence, puffing disinterestedly on a handrolled cigarette.

I glanced around the bustling Admiral Benbow inn. The middle-aged innkeeper, Windigate by name, had once plied the trade routes on a merchantman, and befitting his seafaring past the walls were adorned with anchors and compasses. Professor Moriarty sat at the counter leaning on his elbows, hunched over as though he were in some pain. Then again perhaps he was only nodding off.

A man came in through the front door, which lead out to Kiyamachi Street. At first I paid little attention to him. He was of short stature, and his disheveled hair and shabby attire pointed to him being a clerk, and likely drunk. There was no shortage of that sort of man around this part of town. The man made his way past our table, his feet dragging listlessly upon the ground, and set himself down on the seat beside Professor Moriarty. He spoke to Windigate and ordered a beer. He glanced around in our direction, and the idea struck me that I had seen his ferret-like face somewhere before.

I turned to Holmes and whispered, "Do you know that man? I am convinced that I have seen him before."

Holmes turned, then snorted. "Of course I do. It's Lestrade."

"Lestrade!? Can it be? He looks nothing alike!"

"I suppose he's on watch in some disguise. Leave the fool alone."

As we whispered back and forth, Lestrade realized who we were. He stood up and stumbled near to our table, with an expression I could not decipher on his unshaven face, and suddenly burst into tears.

"Mr. Holmes!" he cried, falling to his knees upon the dust- and crumb-encrusted floor. "Forgive me, Holmes!"

The bar went deathly silent.

"I am fit only to crawl on my belly like a worm," he choked out. "I deserve to eat only crumbs and sawdust."

Certainly the floor of the Admiral Benbow did seem to be host to all manner of nutritious detritus, but it was astonishing to hear this querulous voice issuing from the lofty Inspector Lestrade of Shinchō Yard.

Even Holmes was taken aback. "What's come over you, Lestrade?"

"I too have fallen into a slump," moaned the inspector, grinding his chin into the ground. "I understand completely now the pain you must have felt."

One year ago Holmes had become the laughingstock of society for his great failure in the case of the Red-headed League, and rather than shielding the detective, Lestrade had saved his own skin and roundly castigated him for interfering with the official investigation. Since then Holmes and Lestrade had had no communication.

"How can I apologize for the many wrongs I have done you?" the inspector cried, sounding on the verge of tears.

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"It's almost comical, how inept I have become at solving cases."

Lestrade was seated on the filthy floor, his knees hugged to his chest. Ever since he and Holmes had parted company following the case of the Red-headed League, each and every one of his investigations had run into a dead end, and his once keen intuition now failed to produce even the most rudimentary of insights.

"How odd. Perhaps it is merely a slump," he reflected, but all the while his rivals on the force―Inspectors Jones, Bradstreet, Hopkins―were steadily cracking case after case. Before long he had lost such confidence in himself that he could hardly bring himself to look at a case.

No sympathy was forthcoming from his colleagues, who must have been silently smouldering with envy while he had basked in the limelight. Where once he had been the darling of the top brass at Shinchō Yard, hardly a month went by now where he was not summoned to the superintendent-general's office for a thunderous dressing-down. At this rate there was no question that it would only be a matter of time before he was dismissed from the criminal investigation department.

To add insult to injury, the Daily Chronicle, which had so gleefully followed Holmes' downfall, had run an article headlined Inspector Lestrade in Shambles. And so the inspector had spent the last several days stumbling around Kiyamachi in despair, drowning himself in the bottle.

"So it is not only I who has suffered," said Holmes earnestly.

But to me the cause of Lestrade's slump was evident, for in the first place he owed his meteoric rise to the top of Shinchō Yard to the meticulous advice of one Sherlock Holmes. In short, he was, like me, only a member of the crew aboard the jolly old S.S. Holmes who was destined to go down with the ship.

It was astonishing that Lestrade himself was insensible to this fact, but even more astonishing that Holmes sincerely sympathized with him. Then again perhaps it should not have been surprising that a man who had been in the dumps for over a year should sympathize with another who knew the same pain as he.

Holmes patted Lestrade kindly on the back. "Come, the time for groveling is past."

"You would forgive a sniveling worm such as I, Holmes?"

"If you are a worm, then I suppose so am I. Come, let us let bygones be bygones."

Taking Lestrade's arm Holmes stood him up, brushed off the dust and pabulum from his chin, wiped the tears and snot which dribbled down his face, then sat him down at our table.

"It's like I've wandered into some pitch-black labyrinth," Lestrade remarked, as he nursed a beer. "I've lost faith in myself so utterly...I can hardly believe that only a year ago things were going so well. My colleagues on the force scoff at me; the papers ridicule me; even my own wife and daughter have given up hope in me. If I'd known things would fall so far, I would gladly have accepted a demotion to chase around sheep rustlers in the fields of Ohara-no-sato all day. How I wish I could hide myself away in a place where no one could find me, or even turn into one of the wild violets blooming in the fields!"

"I understand perfectly how you feel, Lestrade," Holmes said encouragingly. "Our fortunes have sunk to rock bottom. Meaningful achievement eludes us; the world has turned her back on us. But it is precisely at this juncture, when all others have abandoned us, that we must lean upon one another. Whenever you are in travails, come to 221B Teramachi Street. Let us persevere, hand in hand, to overcome our present predicament. A slump! What of it? For a year I have grappled with the matter. Alas, I have yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I shall not lose hope. I shall see this case to its very end, and unravel it!"

Lestrade grasped Holmes' hand, overcome by emotion.

"I am in your debt, Holmes. There is no one I can rely on but you!"

As the duo exchanged a firm handshake, a man at the adjacent table stood up.

"Excuse me, sirs," said he. He wore a moustache and a hunting cap. "You must be Sherlock Holmes, and you, Inspector Lestrade."

One look at his face, and Holmes' expression darkened. "Scoundrel!" he cried, standing up and thrusting a finger into the man's chest.

"What's this?" the man said, considerably startled. Holmes was so agitated that, fearing he might throw a punch, Lestrade and I rushed up to restrain him.

"You write for the Daily Chronicle!" Holmes shouted.

"All I want is to inquire about your recent affairs."

"Yes, and write some sordid article about it, no doubt! For God's sake, leave me alone!"

"Sure I will, and write my article too. If I'm to take a knock on the head I'll get my money's worth from it," sneered the man as he fled the bar. "I've already written the headline: a confederacy of nitwits!"

Holmes' fury remained unabated even after the reporter was gone. I suspected that the look of worry on Lestrade's face was not only out of concern for Holmes, but also out of trepidation at what tomorrow's papers might hold.

Holmes drained the rest of his mug. "I am confronted with the greatest case of my life," he growled. "And I won't suffer fools like that to stand in my way!"

I glanced at the counter then, and gasped, "Holmes!"

Professor Moriarty had vanished.

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I hastily bade farewell to Lestrade and dashed out onto Kiyamachi Street, its cobblestones gleaming with the cheerful light cast by the many seedy taverns which jostled along its length. Red-faced sots tottered back and forth, and one by one were swallowed up by the alleyways which led to Pontocho. I gave a kick to a top hat which came tumbling down the road; it rolled into the Takase River, gleaming in the light of the gas-lamps as it was swept away. Moriarty was nowhere to be found.

"I think we'd better call off the chase, Watson," said Holmes, coming up behind me. "I don't know what you expect to gain from running around after a doddering old man."

We walked to the west end of the Shijō Bridge. Big Ben towered above the majestic National Diet Building, which stretched southward along the Kamo River. The fog had rolled in thick over the river, and the Shijō Bridge looked as though it was suspended in a sea of cloud. Across the great span, the red lanterns of Gion glowed faintly in the mist. The grand theater of Minami-za loomed over the river, but it had long since closed for the evening, and the silhouette of its magnificent roof was as dark and forbidding as the ramparts of a medieval castle. The bell in the clock tower began to toll, echoing solemnly in the night over the streets of Kyoto. It was precisely midnight.

I grasped the handrail of the bridge and squinted upstream. "There!" I exclaimed, leaning forward and pointing. Professor Moriarty was trudging northward along the river.

I rushed down to the riverbank and picked up the old man's trail once more. Holmes muttered complaints behind me but followed along all the same. At first both banks of the river teemed with dazzling lights, but past the Sanjō Bridge the lights of downtown gradually receded into the distance, and the oppressive air became ever thicker.

The fog was an admixture of the noxious fumes of industry and the natural mist of the Kamo River. I had taken a particular dislike of it following my return from Afghanistan. Still bearing the scars of the battlefield, having neither kith nor kin in England, and having nothing with which to occupy my time but sit in my cheap lodgings, the fog which pressed in all around me seemed nothing less than the dismal future made physical.

"At this moment I should like nothing better than to go home and get a good night's rest," said Holmes as he walked along the river. "As you no doubt heard me tell Lestrade, this slump is the greatest case of my life; this is not the time for me to be frittering the night away on useless pursuits."

"Oh, do be quiet and keep up!"

"What's gotten into you, Watson?"

"I am only trying to restore your old confidence."

"Is that really all? There's something queer about you tonight."

As we crossed the Kōjin Bridge we saw ahead of us a bright glow in the fog. Approaching it we discovered that a band of vagabonds had lighted up a bonfire. As Professor Moriarty passed through the light the tramps recoiled; I could only assume that the professor's expression must have been a ferocious sight.

After we had passed the fire I glanced backward; the sight of the flickering flames warmed my heart. I felt like a traveler leaving the last friendly outpost and entering a vast wilderness, for from here on out the river moved into truly desolate territory. The moonbeams hardly pierced the smothering mist, and I was hard-pressed even to make out the path wending its way through the grass. It felt as though I was trudging a road that led to the edge of the world.

We came across a flower lying in the road, fallen from the professor's bouquet.

"Another one." I stooped down to pick it up, then squinted into the mist before me. The professor was still stumbling on, his cloak fluttering in the wind.

Why did Professor Moriarty occupy my mind so?

Enveloped in that black cloak, his silhouette radiated the intense melancholy of one who has no place in this world. Merely looking at it sent a shudder through me. It continued through the night, tired, dampened by the freezing mist, slowly fading from view. It reminded me of myself ten years earlier, before I had met Holmes, and it also seemed a portent of what Holmes' end might be should he despair of rising out of his slump. It did not occur to me then, but it seems to me that that vision may have been why I would not give up on my pursuit of the professor that night.

"Come on, Holmes!" I said in a low voice, walking on. Holmes followed, still muttering with resentment.