Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(4)

“My point exactly. Maybe that’s how I became an ex-professor, although even that doesn’t sound plausible, given that I can’t remember how I was supposed to have become a professor in the first place, especially in a subject about which I know absolutely nothing. Which brings me to the next matter: how did you come to be so expert in all that stuff about poisons and types of dirt and whatnot? Did you take a course?”

Holmes considered the question.

“I don’t profess to be an expert in every field,” he replied. “I have little interest in literature, philosophy, or astronomy, and a negligible regard for the political sphere. I remain confident in the fields of chemistry and the anatomical sciences, and, as you have pointed out, can hold my own in geology and botany, with particular reference to poisons.”

“That’s all well and good,” said Moriarty. “The question remains: how did you come by this knowledge?”

“I own a lot of books,” said Holmes, awkwardly. He thought that he could almost hear a slight question mark at the end of his answer, which caused him to wince involuntarily.

“Have you read them all, then?”

“Must have done, I suppose.”

“Either you did or you didn’t. You have to recall reading them.”

“Er, not so much.”

“You don’t just pick up that kind of knowledge off the street. There are people who’ve studied dirt for decades who don’t know as much about it as you seem to.”

“What are you implying?”

“That you don’t actually know anything about dirt and poisons at all.”

“But I must, if I can solve crimes based entirely on this expertise.”

“Oh, somebody knows about this stuff—or gives a good impression of it—but it’s not you. It’s like me being a criminal mastermind. Last night, I decided that I was going to try to commit a perfectly simple crime: jeweler’s shop, window, brick. I walk to jeweler’s, break window with brick, run away with jewels, and Bob’s your uncle.”

“And what happened?” asked Holmes.

“I couldn’t do it. I stood there, brick in hand, but I couldn’t throw it. Instead I went home and constructed an elaborate plan for tunneling into the jeweler’s involving six dwarfs, a bald man with a stoop, and an airship.”

“What has an airship got to do with digging a tunnel?” asked Holmes.

“Exactly!” Moriarty exclaimed. “More importantly, why do I need six dwarfs, never mind the bald man with the stoop? I can’t think of any situation in life where the necessity of acquiring six men of diminished stature might arise, or none that I care to bring up in public.”

“On close examination, it does seem to be excessively complicating what would otherwise be a fairly simple act of theft.”

“But I was completely unable just to break the window and steal the jewels,” said Moriarty. “It wasn’t possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not written that way.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s not the way I was written. I’m written as a criminal mastermind who comes up with baroque, fiendish plots. It’s against my nature even to walk down the street in a straight line. Believe me, I’ve tried. I have to duck and dive so much that I get dizzy.”

Holmes sat back, stunned, almost dropping the revolver from his hand at the realization of his own true nature. Suddenly, it all made sense: his absence of anything resembling a past; his lack of a close familial bond with his brother, Mycroft; the sometimes extraordinary deductive leaps that he made, which baffled even himself.

“I’m a literary invention,” he said.

“Precisely,” said Moriarty. “Don’t get me wrong: you’re a good one—certainly better than I am—but you’re still a character.”

“So I’m not real?”

“I didn’t say that. I think you have a kind of reality, but you didn’t start out that way.”

“But what of my fate?” said Holmes. “What of free will? If all this is true, then my destiny lies in the hands of another. My actions are predetermined by an outside agency.”

“No,” said Moriarty, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation if that were the case. My guess is that you’re becoming more real with every word that the author writes, and a little of that has rubbed off on me.”

“But what are we going to do about it?” asked Holmes.

“It’s not entirely in our hands,” said Moriarty.

And with that he looked up from the page.



And that was where the manuscript ended, with a fictional character engaged in a virtual staring contest with his creator. In his letter, Conan Doyle described letting the papers fall to the floor, and in that moment Sherlock Holmes’s fate was sealed.

Holmes was a dead man.



Thus began the extraordinary sequence of events that would come to imperil the Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository. Conan Doyle completed “The Last Problem,” consigning Holmes to the Reichenbach Falls and leaving only his trusty Alpinestock and silver cigarette case as a sign that he had ever been there at all. The public seethed and mourned, and Conan Doyle set out to immerse himself in the historical fictions that he believed would truly make his reputation.