"THE EMPTY HOUSE" "In 1891 the Reichenbach Falls near Meiringen in Switzerland," "Sherlock Holmes finally closed his account with Professor Moriarty, the most dangerous criminal of his generation." "The two men were alone in that dreadful place but the outcome of their struggle was obvious to a trained observer." "Holmes had achieved the destruction of his archenemy, only at the cost of his own life." "It is now three long years since my dear friend plunged to his death." "There deep down under the swirling water the infamous Professor Moriarty and the foremost champion of law of his generation will lie together for all time." "Even now, there is hardly a corner of London that does not remind me of my old friend." "I never walk down Baker Street where we shared rooms for so many eventful years without it reminding me only too keenly of the past and the loss of one I shall ever regard as the best and wisest man I have ever known." "I retained a keen interest in criminal matters and supplemented my meager practice by working as a police surgeon." "It was in the early spring of 1894 that I was called out early in the morning to an appointment in the West End." "Good morning Constable." "Good morning Doctor." "Inspector Lestrade is waiting for you, first floor sir." "Thank you." "Inspector?" "Early call I'm afraid Doctor." "I'm glad to see you." "The Honorable Ronald Adair." "Not there sir if you please." "I'm sorry." "Age twenty-three, the second son of the Earl and Countess of Maynooth, father is governor of one of the Australian colonies, mother in London for the winter, son and daughter are living in this house with him." "Suicide?" "No." "No weapon." "Oh uh, this." "This found on the floor beside the corpse." "It's one of those soft nose revolver bullets, horrible things." "Must have gone right through the poor fellows head." "It's unusual, isn't it, for a pistol to have such velocity?" "More like a rifle." "Yes." "Well it's murder then Inspector." "Oh yes." "Any idea who it was?" "No." "It's early days yet but this one looks to me as if it could turn out to be a bit of a puzzle." "Well presumably he was sitting in that chair." "I suppose counting that money." "Oh the murderer doesn't appear to have been a thief." "Adair had spent the evening playing cards at his club." "Time for one last hand?" "Oh yes indeed." "Now we can get our revenge." "Thank you." "Now Ronald, what's the damage?" "Ronald?" "Ronald?" "Ronald?" "I don't think Ronald couldn't have gone out again." "No my lady." "I heard him come home at about half past ten." "And he hasn't gone out again, that I'm sure." "Mr. Ronald?" "Mr. Ronald sir." "Let's break it down my lady." "From the condition of the body death was instantaneous." "I suppose the murderer came in through the window." "The window was open." "Same spot of the matter is there are no signs of any intruder, nothing, inside or out." "I wouldn't like to climb up here at night." "It must have been a monkey." "As you say Doctor, an impossibility." "Looks like the murderer had wings." "Sort of case that would have interested our old friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes." "Yes indeed." "What a loss he is Doctor." "I didn't always approve of his methods but he was the best amateur there was or ever likely to be." "There were times when he even got the better of me." "All right, Inspector, if you arrange for our friend to be brought down the mortuary" "I'll conduct an autopsy this afternoon." "Yes indeed Doctor." "See you at the inquest." "Till then." "Doctor Watson, you are a police surgeon?" "Yes sir." "You examined the deceased," "Ronald Frances Adair, who is the subject of this inquest and later conducted a postmortem on the corpse?" "I did sir." "Prey what are your findings?" "Well death occurred as the result of a bullet wound from a point four-five revolver." "Dr. Watson?" "I beg you to keep to fact." "My business is to establish the facts of this case." "I'm sorry sir." "I don't understand." "You say that the bullet came from a point four-five revolver that is pure speculation on your part." "It is not your business to start guessing at the type of weapon used." "That is a subject for the police." "I'm sorry sir." "Prey continue." "Death occurred as the result of a wound from a soft-nosed lead bullet." "The bullet penetrated the skull above the left eye, traversing the left frontal lobe through the cerebellum and then exited from the skull at the back of the head by the left occipital parietal suture." "Your opinion, when did death take place?" "Oh it would have been instantaneous." "Have you any idea how far this bullet had traveled before it entered the body?" "I cannot be sure but it would certainly be more than four or five feet." "Time of death?" "Death occurred between 10:30 and 11:30 post meridian on the twentieth of this month." "Thank you Doctor..." "Watson." "Ronald Adair and I played cricket together." "He was a first-class bat, pretty effective leg spinner." "A good sportsmen, in fact?" "Absolutely first class sportsman sir." "Straight as a dime." "One of the most popular fellows I know." "Thank you Mr. Murray." "Sir John Harvey." "I was Ronald Adair's godfather and a trustee of the estate." "Of course the family's absolutely devastated by this appalling tragedy." "I put the boy up for the Bagatelle Cup as a matter of fact." "He always enjoyed the game of cards." "Win or lose?" "Would that affect Mr. Adair in any way, Sir John?" "Lord no, not in the least." "He never paid such high stakes that could affect him at all." "The family fortune is a very considerable one." "Thank you Sir John." "You have been a great help and may I say that evidence from such a distinguished person, as yourself, is greatly valued by the court." "Colonel Moran." "You were the last person known to of seen Mr. Adair." "Did you know him well?" "I wouldn't say that I knew Ronald Adair well." "I knew his father, Lord Maynooth, very well." "We used to play polo together in India but Ronald." "I've seen quite a good bit in the dark clubs over the past few months we played cards together from time to time." "Oh charming boy." "Good manners, intelligent." "Matter of fact, he's just the stamp of a young fellow" "I'd like to see joining my old regiment." "Did you notice anything unusual about him?" "Did he seem worried or upset on the last evening you saw him?" "Not in the least." "Quite the opposite in fact." "Have you any idea why someone should choose to murder him?" "No idea at all." "I doubt if he had an enemy in the world." "Thank you Colonel Moran." "Inspector Lestrade would you give me your opinion as to the cause of the" "Honorable Ronald Adair's death?" "Yes sir." "Willful murder by person or persons unknown." "Cab." "Willful murder by person or persons unknown." "Yes?" "A gentleman to see you Doctor." "Is it an urgent matter?" "I don't know Doctor." "Well did he give you his card?" "No Doctor." "Ivy if I've told you once" "I've told you hundred times, my consulting hours are plainly displayed outside." "Now please..." "Oh sir." "Doctor Watson?" "Yes indeed sir." "You may go Ivy." "I am exceedingly busy sir." "Oh of course you are Doctor." "Of course you are a man of considerable responsibilities but I heard you give your address to that cab driver outside the courtroom." "I said to myself" "I'll just hobble around and see that kind gentlemen," "I have a conscience." "I felt as if I was a little gruff in my manner" "I meant no harm by it" "I'm much obliged to him for helping me pick up my books." "You make too much of a trifle sir." "You should have spared yourself the journey." "Now if you'll excuse me." "No great journey sir." "I am a neighbor of yours." "You will find my little bookshop on the corner of Church Street." "I'm very happy to see you and I'm sure that... perhaps... you collect..." "I have British Birds quite a rare volume of The Holy War bargains every one." "Just the books you need to fill up your bookcase." "Give it a little weight." "It does look untidy, does it not?" "Watson, do you mind if I smoke a cigarette in your consulting room?" "A thousand apologies my dear Watson." "I had no idea that you would be so affected." "Holmes!" "Is it really you?" "Can it really be that you're alive?" "But are you really fit enough to discuss things?" "I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic reappearance." "No, no, no," "I'm all right." "I'm all right." "But indeed, Holmes," "I can hardly believe my eyes." "Good heavens, to think that you you of all men- should be here in my consulting room." "Well you're not a spirit at least." "My dear chap," "I'm overjoyed to see you." "Sit down, sit down and tell me how you came alive out of that awful chasm." "Oh I'm glad to stretch myself." "It's no joke when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end." "Now, my dear fellow, we have a hard and dangerous night's work ahead of us." "Perhaps it would be better if I gave you an account of the whole situation when that work is finished." "No, no, no." "I'm full of curiosity." "I should much prefer to hear now." "But you will come with me tonight?" "When you like, where you like." "Ha!" "Watson." "This is just like the old days." "We might have a chance for a mouthful of dinner before we need go." "Dinner of course but first you must tell me everything." "You sure you're all right?" "Yeah, I'm fine." "Well then... about that chasm." "I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I was never in it." "You were never in it?" "No, Watson." "I never was in it." "The note that I left on the rock at the Reichenbach Falls was absolutely genuine." "I had little doubt that my career had come to an end when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway that led to safety." "I read an inexorable purpose in his gray eyes." "I managed to obtain his courteous permission to write the note, which you afterwards received." "It has remained my treasured possession." "It was a few months later that I read with great interest your description of my death." "It was excellently done, the most picturesque and exciting piece of fiction." "Well I'm certainly glad from the bottom of my heart that it was fiction, but what did really happen?" "When I reached the ledge" "I stood at bay." "He drew no weapon, but rushed at me and threw his long arms around me." "He knew that his game was up." "He was only anxious to revenge himself upon me." "I have, however, some knowledge of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has on more than one occasion, been very useful to me." "My God." "But... but how did you get away from that place?" "It was not a pleasant business." "Even as Professor Moriarty disappeared into oblivion it struck me what an extraordinary lucky chance" "Fate had placed in my way." "I knew that at least one of Moriarty's henchmen would seek my demise now." "With even keener determination to revenge their dead leader but if I could convince the world that I too was dead," "so I decided to disappear then and there." "Heavens above." "But the tracks Holmes?" "I saw them with my own eyes." "Two went down the path and none returned." "I'm not a fanciful person Watson, but I give you my word there were times during that climb when I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me from out of the abyss." "At last I reached a place where I was able to remain unseen." "Holmes?" "Holmes?" "Holmes?" "From my concealed place" "I watched you and your followers investigate in the most sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death." "At last, when you had all formed your inevitable but totally erroneous conclusions, you departed." "It was time for me to be on my way." "Of course, the meaning of this was obvious." "Moriarty had not been alone." "A confederate from a distance had been witness to his friend's demise and my escape." "I did not take long to think about it, Watson." "I took to my heels and covered ten miles over the mountains in the pending darkness." "A week later" "I found myself in Florence, with the certainty that no one in the world knew what had become of me." "I had one confidant- my brother Mycroft." "I had to confide in him in order to obtain the money I needed to live." "Of course." "I owe you many apologies, my dear Watson, but it was all-important that it should be thought I was dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have written so convincing an account of my unhappy end" "had you yourself not thought that it was true." "I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard might tempt you to some indiscretion, which would betray my secret." "I would have thought" "I was as trustworthy as your brother." "Of course you are Watson... but you have a kinder heart." "But what have you done all these long years?" "As you may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian called Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend." "You?" "For two years I traveled to Tibet and amused myself by visiting Lhasa and spending some time with the head Lama." "I then moved to Persia, and paid a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa in Khartoum, the results of which I have passed on to Lord Ketchum in the Foreign Office, anonymously of course." "You mean you actually saw the palace where Gordon was murdered?" "It was a sorry sight." "His blood still upon his jacket." "Lately I've been in France in Montpellier, researching into the coal tar derivatives." "Then came the news of this remarkable murder, which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but would seem to offer some most peculiar personal opportunities." "So here I am." "Have you been to Baker Street?" "Yes." "I called there this morning in my own person." "Mycroft had preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been." "So it was, that I found myself in my old rooms, sitting in my old chair, and only wishing that I could have seen my dear friend, Watson sitting in the other chair which he has so often adorned." "And so I hope I will be." "What... what a remarkable story." "Are you still in possession of your army revolver?" "Well I think I have it somewhere." "See that you bring it with you tonight." "I have piece of work for both of us which if we bring to a successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man's life on this planet." "I beg you to tell me about it." "You will see and hear enough before morning." "Watson?" "May I occupy your couch for a few hours?" "The sea was exceeding rough during the channel crossing and the prospect of seeing London again and an intimate encounter with one of Moriarty's confederates plus the added pleasure of seeing my old friend Watson quite prohibited sleep on the railway train." "My dear Holmes, please, my bedroom is at your disposal." "No, no, no." "This will suit me very well." "I've had harder beds than this over the past few years." "Do you know where we are?" "Surely that is Baker Street." "Exactly." "But in the empty house opposite our old quarters." "Why are we here?" "Because it commands such an excellent a view of that picturesque pile." "Might I trouble you, Watson, to be so kind as to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to reveal yourself, and then to look into our old rooms?" "Let us see where the three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you." "Good heavens!" "It's marvelous." "I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety." "It is rather like me, is it not?" "I should be prepared to swear it was you." "The construction is due to a Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble." "The bust is in wax." "The rest I arranged during my visit to Baker Street earlier." "But why?" "Because I have the strongest possible reason for wishing certain people to believe that I was there when I was really elsewhere." "You thought the rooms were watched?" "I knew that they were being watched." "By whom?" "By the one remaining member of that charming society whose leader lies in the Reichenbach Falls." "Sooner or later he believed that I would come back to my rooms." "So he had them watched continuously." "I was observed when I arrived this morning." "I recognized the sentinel." "Parker by name, a garrotter by trade, and a remarkable exponent upon the jew's-harp." "Now I understand the reason for the old bookseller." "I cared not a jot about Parker but I care a great deal about the much more formidable person who is behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty." "That is the man who is after me tonight and let us hope that he is also the man who is totally unaware that we are after him." "Holmes!" "Look!" "Just beyond the house." "Couple of shady characters in the doorway." "Yes I see them." "Well, shouldn't we do something?" "No." "Holmes, the shadow's moved." "Certainly it has moved." "I involved Mrs. Hudson." "We have been in this room two hours and she has made some change in that figure eight times, or once every quarter." "Mr. Holmes." "Lestrade how nice to see you." "So it really is you?" "When I received your message" "I could scarce believe it." "You seem to want some unofficial help." "Three undetected murders in one year won't do you know." "Holmes, I know this man." "Of course you do Watson." "So does the Inspector." "Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the best heavy game shot our Eastern Empire has ever produced." "I believe I'm correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remain unrivalled?" "I wonder that my simple stratagem could deceive so old a shikari." "How many times have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, laid above it with your rifle, and waited for your bait to bring up your tiger?" "This empty house is my tree, and you're my tiger!" "The parallel is exact." "You may or may not have just cause for arresting me but there can be no reason why I should be subjected to the jives of this person." "If I'm in the hands of the law let things be done in a legal way." "Well that sounds reasonable." "Anything further to say before we go?" "Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?" "What charge sir?" "Why of course the attempted murder of" "Mr. Sherlock Holmes." "Not so Lestrade." "To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of this remarkable arrest." "With your usual mixture of cunning and audacity and you have got him." "I don't understand you Mr. Holmes." "Do you mean this man?" "The man whom the entire police force has been seeking in vain" "Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the young Adair through the open window of his parent's house upon the twentieth of last month." "That is your charge Lestrade." "You were quite the heron of the occasion" "Mrs. Hudson." "Why I don't know, I'm short." "I hope you have preserved all precautions?" "Oh yes sir." "I went to it on my knees just exactly as you told me and a good crick in my back to prove it." "Oh I was frightened Doctor and when that window shattered" "I thought I should have died." "Yes you did it very well Mrs. Hudson." "There's no sign of the bullet." "Excuse me sir, a moment if you please." "What is it?" "I have it here." "I picked it up off the carpet." "Mrs. Hudson you are becoming indispensable." "A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive, there's genius in that" "for who would expect such a thing to be fired from an air gun?" "It's no ordinary air gun." "No indeed." "Remarkable and unique weapon." "Noiseless and of tremendous power" "I knew Von Herder the blind German mechanic who constructed it to the order of the late Professor James Moriarty." "Watson look at this." "The old shilkaris nerves had not lost their steadiness nor his eyes their keenness." "The results are appalling." "Yes indeed." "Have you heard of the name Moran before Adairs murder?" "No I had not." "Well, well, well, such is the price of fame." "Would you be so kind to hand me on my L-M index?" "Our biographies Watson?" "My list of M's is a fine one." "Mind you Moriarty's name is enough to make any letter illustrious." "I seem to remember" "Morgan the poisoner." "Merridew of abominable memory." "And there was Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in Charing Cross station." "Awe there is our friend of last night." "'Moran, Sebastian, Colonel." "Son of Sir Augustus Moran, once British Minister to Persia." "Educated Eton, Oxford." "Served in Jowaki Campaign," "Afghan Campaign, Sherpur, Cabul mentioned in dispatches." "The second most dangerous man in London.'" "This is astonishing Holmes." "This is the career of an honorable soldier." "It's true." "Up to a certain point he did well yet there are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity." "You will often find it in humans." "Whatever the cause," "Moran began to go wrong." "Without an open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold him." "He retired, came back to London but again he acquired an evil name." "It was about this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty." "When you were in Switzerland, Watson," "Moran followed us with Moriarty and it was undoubtedly he who gave me those evil five minutes above the Reichenbach Falls." "Well now I can understand why you disappeared." "With a fellow like this, free in London, your life would not have been worth living." "All I could do was wait and watch the criminal news knowing that if I was patient sooner or later he would make a mistake." "When I heard of the murder of Ronald Adair" "I knew that at last my chance had come." "Knowing what I did was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it." "He played cards with the lad followed him home from his club and shot him through the open window from the rooftop opposite." "Watson does anything else remain for me to explain?" "Yes." "You have not made clear what was Moran's motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair." "There we move into the realms of conjecture." "Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine." "Watson have you formed one?" "I think so." "Let me hear." "Well it's not difficult to explain the facts." "There must have been a considerable amount of money involved and Moran had undoubtedly played foul." "I think that Adair had discovered that he was cheating." "Splendid." "Very likely he spoke to him privately and threatened to expose Moran unless he voluntarily resigned membership in his club and promised not to play again." "Watson this is excellent." "Exclusion from his club would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card gains." "Therefore, he murdered Adair." "Will it pass?" "I think, without doubt, that you have hit upon the truth." "Anyway it will be verified or disproved at the trial." "Meanwhile, come what may," "Colonel Moran will trouble us no more." "And the famous air gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum." "Come in." "Once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems, which the complex life of London so plentifully presents." "Mr. Sherlock Holmes."