Moriarty Returns a Letter Read Online Free PDF

poor blokes like me when we come out of hiding—I want you to know of the great favor that I have done for you.
    Professor Moriarty is now in fact dead. For I have killed him.
    How can I prove that, you say? How do I know the man I killed was Moriarty?
    Well, for one, he said he was. Just before I did him in.
    And I put him in some pain before he expired. No extra charge for that.
    I will not tell you my address or real name, of course, but I am known as Redgil. You can reply to me in The Times if you like. And all I ask of you is this—should Scotland Yard contact you regarding me and my endeavors, kindly decline. You may hear rumors. Kindly ignore them. What is fifty thousand pounds, after all, in the grand scheme of things? You have royal scandals and the fates of nations to worry about. Turn your attention to such other matters, and let the little fish like me swim through. That will be best for all concerned.
    Live and let live is my motto, Mr. Holmes. If you stay out of my way, I shall stay out of yours.
    Now the sergeant became as somber as the inspector. He put the letter down.
    “This man named Redgil, and this thing about fifty thousand pounds…” he said quietly.
    “Yes,” said the inspector. “That’s the counterfeit operation our American operative was infiltrating.”
    “And what it says about ‘pain before he expired’…”
    “Yes, Turner, they tortured him, I don’t doubt it at all, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    The inspector said that quite sharply, and then looked up at the young sergeant.
    “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long morning.”
    The sergeant sat down in the chair opposite the inspector’s desk. He stared at the letter, at the inspector’s somber face, and then back at the letter again.
    “So what’s all this about a Professor Moriarty?” said Turner. And then, quickly, very softly, “I suppose … our man was growing delusional under the duress?”
    The inspector shook his head. “Not at all. In point of fact, he and I had been considering something like this earlier.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Our American agent was so persuasive as a criminal recruiter that aspiring perpetrators flocked to him even more rapidly than we had hoped. We originally intended to just round a few of them up every couple of weeks or so—spaced out, you see, with time enough between each so that no one would make a connection. But there were too many, too quickly. We realized that a felon might get nicked, meet another in jail, they’d tell each other how it happened, and next thing you know, they realize that they’ve both been working for the same man. And once they discover that—well, these fellows aren’t bright, but even they would smell something wrong. So we needed a cover—something to explain why the nastier felons kept getting caught. Someone to blame it on. Just last week we began considering the use of Sherlock Holmes for that.”
    “You mean you seriously considered getting criminals to blame their failed plots on a character in The Strand ?”
    “The criminal element believe him to be real. So yes—a fictional character as the scapegoat for what our agent was doing in reality. Of course, if we’d known Conan Doyle was going to kill his character off, we wouldn’t have considered it. But we didn’t know. And if we could make Redgil and others think their plans were being foiled not by a snitch in their midst, but by an intellect so powerful that he could foil their plots by simply reading the morning paper and deducing the details of their criminal actions—well, yes. Why not?”
    Turner nodded. “All right. But I’ve heard of Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “I haven’t heard of this Moriarty character.”
    “You will. He just popped up in this month’s issue. I’d never heard of him, either, before that. But as you can see from the letter—anyone who can be persuaded that Sherlock Holmes is real is likely to believe the Moriarty line as