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Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not? I dont take much stock of detectives in novelschaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. Thats just inspiration: not business. Jonathan Wild wasnt a detective, and he wasnt in a novel. He was a master criminal, and he lived last century1750 or thereabouts. Then hes no use to me. Im a practical man. Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circleseven Professor Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals, to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent. commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. Its all been done before, and will be again. Ill tell you one or two things about Moriarty which may interest you. Youll interest me, right enough. I happen to know who is the first link in his chaina chain with this Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting men, pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with every sort of crime in between. His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian Moran, as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself. What do you think he pays him? Id like to hear. Six thousand a year. Thats paying for brains, you seethe American business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance. Its more than the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an idea of Moriartys gains and of the scale on which he works. Another point: I made it my business to hunt down some of Moriartys checks latelyjust common innocent checks that he pays his household bills with. They were drawn on six different banks. Does that make any impression on your mind? Queer, certainly! But what do you gather from it? That he wanted no gossip about his wealth. No single man should know what he had. I have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts; the bulk of his fortune abroad in the Deutsche Bank or the Crédit Lyonnais as likely as not. Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty. Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as the conversation proceeded. He had lost himself in his interest. Now his practical Scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap to the matter in hand. He can keep, anyhow, said he. Youve got us side-tracked with your interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes. What really counts is your remark that there is some connection between the professor and the crime. That you get from the warning received through the man Porlock. Can we for our present practical needs get any further than that? We may from some conception as to the motives of the crime. It is, as I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least an unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the source of the crime is as we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. In the first place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one punishment in his code. It is death. Now we might suppose that this murdered manthis Douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of the arch-criminals subordinateshad in some way betrayed the chief. His punishment followed, and would be known to allif only to put the fear of death into them. |
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