"You know where the kitchen is," Moriarty says as they enter, setting down the basket, and the violin next to it. "I'll be with you momentarily.

The moment in question, it seems, is being mostly devoted to finding a change of clothes from his wardrobe. Victorian clothes are all good and well, but they're stiff, and a lot of layers, and they tend to pick up the smell of London like nothing else.

(Moriarty rather hates the smell of London.)

The kitchen is, at least, in the same place. It would be inconvenient if it was somewhere totally different.

Moriarty's room is - much as someone would expect. There's a bed, a desk with an array of soil samples and various examining equipment (as well as a pile of unmarked papers) and a few large armchairs and a leather sofa set around a coffee table.

Moriarty holds open the door for Oswin, before setting the bottles on the coffee table and taking off his coat, hanging it up by the door. His boots are deposited beneath it. After all, it's rude to wear a coat and boots inside.

"I hope you don't mind losing too much," he says cheerily.

Moriarty returned to our lodgings that evening with an air of feverish elation about him. At first, I thought he had been on the opium again – that he had, as he was wont to do, taken too much (at first, I thought this to be a mistake – now I realise that it is deliberate), or combined it with drink and violence, or any of the other follies he was prone to.

But I realised this was not so when I caught a glimpse of the fierce steeliness that lay behind the enthusiasm. This was not the effect of any drug, save that most commonplace of stimulants, anger. I did not believe I had ever seen Moriarty angry before – irritated, certainly, testy and generally intolerable to be around, yes, but not angry like this, like a barely restrained storm waiting to burst loose.

One by one, he reached into his bags and pulled two vials – one of a clearish liquid, and the other vividly green. He pointed first at the clear liquid: “Boric acid, mixed with strong alcohol. It will produce a bright green flame.” Then at the green liquid: “A recipe of my own creation. It will induce in its victim a strong delirium that feeds off their fears – amongst other effects.”

I stared at the two vials, quite convinced for a moment that Moriarty had lost his mind – or what he had left of it, at least. “I see. And for what purpose have you made these concoctions?”

Moriarty grinned. It was like a wolf flashing its fangs in warning. “Abernathy Senior visited me today. Eager to take credit for his – trafficking operation, and equally eager to make threats against me. I saw in his pocket a feather of He Who Presides, an old charm against ghosts and hauntings. We shall be prising a confession out of him, Moran, with the help of some phantasmagoria.”

As I watched, Moriarty poured a brandy for himself. I tilted my head.

“Moriarty, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were making this personal.”

Moriarty sipped his brandy. Those eyes, as starkly green as the delirium, stared out our window. He smiled thinly. “Completely personal. Abernathy will regret making it thus. Brandy, Moran?”

Wearily, and with more than a little concern, I accepted.

- Major S. Moran.

Abernathy has a talent for the small touches. The ceremony – such as it is, a load of businessmen and university professors, and a few students who were friends of the younger Abernathy, gathered around a fire and a platform, extolling the boy’s virtues (often completely fabricated) and tripping over themselves to please their host – is presided over by the new Bishop of London, just that day sworn into service, filling the shoes of his deceased predecessor faster than anybody could have imagined.

The fire is, admittedly, also a nicely macabre touch. Moriarty wonders if he’s noticed, for a moment, before realising that of course he has – everything about the ceremony is designed to goad the killers, to project in massive sparkling letters ‘I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU.’

Moriarty lurks at the edge of the crowd with Lestrade on one side (in disguise as a businessman, but anybody would see through the disguise in a second. His shoes are too scuffed, his suit too cheap, his trousers are charcoal while his jacket is black) and Jacobson on the other, his face already red with drink.

He hates it. He hates all of it. The noise, the throng of people, every detail jumping out at him and burning itself into his mind. It makes it nearly impossible to concentrate, to think about anything. The new Bishop is intoning solemn words, and Abernathy is standing behind him, arms folded behind his back, face a mask of grave sadness.

Moriarty pinches the bridge of his nose. Time to earn his rates.

Downing his whiskey, he staggers forward. The movement is just exaggerated enough to suggest that he’s enjoying the instability, that he’s taking pleasure in the looseness of his joints. He snatches a glass of whiskey from a passing waiter and stumbles up onto the stage, the drink sloshing around him. With a triumphant yelp, he raises the glass into the air.

“To … to …” he trails off, and pretends not to notice Abernathy glaring at him. “To the lad! Aye! Aheh. Heh. Ha.” He trails off into childish snickering, shaking the glass in the air and then downing what little is left in it. He lurches forward, grabbing Abernathy by the lapels of the jacket.

He can see several people tense visibly. This, they know, may be the prelude to violence.

“I …” Moriarty starts, and frowns heavily. “I am so sorry for your loss. And, and the other stuff. You are – you are a fine gentleman. Shake my hand!”

Abernathy stays completely still. Moriarty wraps him in a hug. One hand flicks inside his jacket, fastens around the red, oily feather, and slips it out and into his sleeve just as Jacobson pulls him away.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” Jacobson says, pulling Moriarty away. “He’s had a few too many to drink.”

“Quite understandable,” Abernathy says icily.

“Drinks! Lemme get you a drink, Abernabby. Nabby. Nathy. Abernatheeeee,” Moriarty grins, chuckling for a few seconds too long. “I’ll – aye, get you a drink.”

Jacobson pulls him away a little more forcefully, and Moriarty shrugs off his arms with an indignant mumble and slopes over to a table lined with drinks.

“Maybe you should go home, James,” Jacobson says sternly.

Moriarty pretends not to hear him. He nudges Jacobson, pointing shakily at an elderly, distinguished businessman with a beaklike nose, and his rather demure looking teenage wife. “Hey, hey, Jaco’son. Look over there.” Jacobson obeys wearily. “I give it a year before she stabs him in his sleep.”

“James.”

Without looking, Moriarty tips the delirium into a glass and starts filling the rest up with whiskey.

“Of course, she’s fuckin’ the gardener anyway,” Moriarty chirps. “There’re traces of grass and pollen in her hair, but none on her shoes, and her clothes show signs of disa – disarray.”

“James! Queen help us, how much have you had?”

“And why not? Good for her! He’s decrepit, they both know that they’re not in it for love. He wants a trophy, and her family wants the wealth and social standin’. I don’t reckon she does, though, she doesn’t seem too chuffed.”

“Ja - …”

“I should give Abernathy his drink,” Moriarty says suddenly, eyes as wide as dinnerplates.

He can feel Jacobson holding him in place and taking the glass from him before he’s even finished the sentence.

“You just – stay here. I’ll give Abernathy his drink. With your compliments.”

“No, no, don’t give him my compliments. That’ll seem so weird,” Moriarty protests. “And he’ll be angry.”

“Quite so,” Jacobson says soothingly. “I’ll just give it to him.”

Moriarty smiles dopily at Jacobson. Once he’s satisfied the other professor is, indeed, approaching Abernathy, he straightens up sharply, slipping through the crowd to Moran.

“Professor,” Moran says. “Feeling all right?”

“Never better,” Moriarty says briskly. “Although I plan to get extremely drunk after this. You have the boric acid?”

“I do.”

“Three minutes, Moran.”

“As you say. Do you see our would-be assassins?”

“Not yet. They might try to strike while Abernathy is disorientated. We must stop them if they do.”

Moran sighs. “You couldn’t have just not gotten involved, could you.”

“You should know by now that I am the king of busybodies,” Moriarty replies wryly.

He can see Abernathy drinking from the cup. He nods to Moran, and Moran nods back, checking his pocketwatch. Three minutes.

Something moves along the edge of the crowd, against the shuffling flow of it, pacing in a wide ring towards Abernathy. Moriarty recognises the figure’s muscular bulk, his short hair and wide neck – it is the unnamed Bell, Emma Bell’s accomplice-and-fake-husband, the silent brawn of their assassination duo.

He makes a beeline through the crowd, murmuring apologies to elderly professors and businessmen. There’s a gate, just six feet from Bell, set into a stone archway. It would take them out of the courtyard and into a covered path, just out of sight of the crowd. As he reaches Bell, he raises an arm, swinging it around the other man’s neck and dragging him. Surprise is on his side. He gets five feet before Bell can resist.

They barrel through the gate and around a corner, just out of sight before Bell throws him off, driving him against the wall. Moriarty swings himself off the wall, circling, hands raised.

They come together in a crash of flesh and bone, trading blows. Bell is stronger, each punch forcing Moriarty to take steps backwards, but Moriarty is faster. He almost manages to move out of the way of the blow to the temple, impacting against the healed remains of the wound Abernathy’s men had made. Almost.

Moriarty sees constellations, whirling and nauseating in a sickly night sky, and then he’s on he’s back, and Bell is atop him, the punches coming down heavily. Moriarty tries to push him off. He’s too strong. He gropes around at his jacket. There’s a pocketknife there.

He considers jamming it into Bell’s arm. No. The time for politeness is not when a man is trying earnestly to beat you to death. He rams the blade into Bell’s neck with vicious force, and Bell lets out a near-silent yell. Moriarty struggles out from underneath him, and shakily to his feet.

Bell is up too, though, pulling the knife from his neck. Moriarty raises an eyebrow in question, and Bell gives him a shrug back.

“You should probably get that seen to,” Moriarty says, gesturing at the neck.

Bell gives an amicable, but helpless nod. Then they’re clashing again, locked together, and Bell’s fist is being driven against Moriarty’s side, over and over. There’s a sickening cracking noise. Moriarty snaps his head forward. Another crack. He’s pretty sure Bell’s nose is broken.

Hands around his throat. His back shoved up against the wall. Just as Moriarty’s vision starts to blur, he hears a dull thunk. As Bell sinks to the ground, he sees Lestrade, holding his truncheon, his expression one of total bewilderment.

“What in the blazes is going on?”

Moriarty takes a second to find his voice. “That man is here to assassinate Joshua Abernathy. Get some men to take him into custody.”

Lestrade does so, with all the characteristic subtlety of an enthusiastic bulldog. As two police officers handcuff the unconscious Bell, Moriarty takes Lestrade by the arm, pulling him back out into the courtyard. He checks his pocketwatch.

“Twenty seconds,” he mumbles. Lestrade doesn’t seem to hear.

Slipping through the crowd, almost unnoticeable even for him, with confident grace is Emma Bell. She has a pistol in her hand. The crowd is too thick, too intent – Abernathy is coming forward now, taking the podium to make a speech, and Moriarty knows that he will never get through the crowd before she takes the shot. She won’t miss. He knows she won’t.

Ten seconds. Abernathy is blinking like the sun is in his eyes. It isn’t. The delirium is starting to take effect, slowly but surely, working its way through his body. But Emma is taking aim now, not in ten seconds, and Moriarty is fairly sure that no bullet in history has ever slogged its way through the air slow enough to save Abernathy.

“The bishop!” He yells, pointing at some empty space in the air. Abernathy looks up sharply and so does Emma. Emma looks down nearly immediately, giving Moriarty a look of disdain, because did he truly think that could delay her for more than a second or two? But Abernathy is still looking, squinting as if to make out a shape.

Three seconds. Emma is taking aim again.

With a flash, the bonfire flares into a pillar of acid green. Moriarty sees Moran slipping back into the crowd. Everyone turns to it. Emma pauses, too shocked for the moment to fire. Abernathy’s eyes widen, and he slips his hand in his jacket, searching for his charm against ghosts.

Moriarty sees the moment when he realises it isn’t there. He freezes, staring at the whirling column of green, and then a gibbering laugh bubbles its way up from his lips. His chin is flecked with froth as he staggers forward to the edge of the platform, bends his knees, and screams, so long and loud that Moriarty imagines it might be heard even at the edges of London.


Recalling it now, I am somewhat disturbed. To one measure or another, Abernathy demanded to know the purpose of the phantasm’s arrival, justified that he was suffering from indigestion, then as the drugs took hold in full, screamed accusations, sobbed, violently threw off attempts to take him from that podium, and finally, weak at first but swelling in volume and power, listed his crimes in staggering detail.

It was a painful affair – his crimes were more numerous and greater than we had even suspected, and he described them in vivid detail, and once or twice I thought I saw a grin cross his face. For the sake of any who read this, I shall not describe the vile acts he confessed to.

When it was done, Lestrade ordered his officers to take Abernathy, and I took Moriarty from him, letting the professor rest on me. He was barely recognisable – his face swollen, bruised and bloody, his long form hunched in pain. Only the ragged tufts of yellow hair streaked here and there with copper, and the bright green eyes that stared out of that bloodied mass gave his identity away to me.

“Do you still want that drink?” I asked, attempting to maintain some good humour. Moriarty simply snorted, watching as in the crowd, a woman in black pocketed a pistol and slipped away, satisfied but conflicted somehow. When I asked Moriarty later who she was, he feigned ignorance.

- Major S. Moran.

Professor Charles Jacobson hated the docks. No part of London, other than the rookeries, churned with so much wrack and ruin. Everything that held society together broke down here – sailors swore and fought, thieves flitted amongst the crowds, the dockside taverns and brothels swallowed people up and spat them staggering and dazed out onto the street.

He stood out like a sore thumb – soft and round in a mass of muscle and ribs; smart and well-dressed amidst rags and bloodied uniforms; upright and clear-eyed among hunched, leering degeneracy. He could feel people’s eyes on him as he strode down the docks to where a ship from France waited – small, shimmering, its gangplank settled down.

There was a man striding down it. Tall, broad, his brown hair streaked with grey, with a well-trimmed beard and sharp grey eyes. He was wearing leather gloves with his long, winter coat. An aide hurried behind him, clutching a clipboard, and around him, six suited mountains stomped their way along the plank, warding the sailors and the thieves off with coldly furious glares.

“Professor Charles Jacobson, I presume?” The man asked. His voice was thick with a New World accent.

Jacobson inclined his head. “Correct. Mister Joshua Abernathy?”

A quirk of the lips. “Correct. Business brought me near to your shores, luckily.”

“Allow me to extend my deepest condolences for your son, Mister Abernathy. I know this must be a difficult time for you.”

Abernathy stared at him for a moment, before settling one gloved hand on his shoulder. “I have other sons, professor,” he squeezed Jacobson’s shoulder, and stepped past him, drawing in a deep breath. “I loathe this country. I swear, every time I come here, I find more sickness and moral degradation festering in the damp and the fog.”

“… Indeed.”

“I don’t know how you stand it, professor,” Abernathy murmured. “But enough about me.”

“Yes. Of course,” Jacobson said quickly. “I expect you’ll be wanting to collect your son’s body.”

“Is it going anywhere?”

Jacobson blanched. “I – no, Mister Abernathy, I suppose not.”

“Then it can wait. I’ve been hearing such interesting things over the telegram, from my friends in your Scotland Yard,” Abernathy said softly. “No doubt the university will be eager to help me, if I wanted an appointment with one of your professors.”

“And which professor would you want an appointment with?”

Abernathy’s gaze was bright as he turned it on Jacobson. “Professor James Moriarty, of course.”

Moriarty was barely through the door when I was upon him, so to speak, babbling what I had learned at Scotland Yard, so insensible was I with the excitement of discovery. Moriarty, for his part, seemed oddly subdued (and perhaps even a little testy) and waved me down into a chair while he poured himself a whiskey.

“I was investigating the bishop,” I explained, “and stumbled upon a case some sixteen years ago wherein a boy, being lodged at the bishop's hospital for sick children, which is on the same grounds as his home, was the victim of an accidental but violent murder by another boy.”

“That's hardly remarkable. Boys are raucous and vicious, even when sickly,” Moriarty said, “thus I presume that this story is merely a prelude to something more interesting.”

“It was when reading the case notes that I discovered something a little unusual about the Bishop of London's practices. You see, whenever a child passed away – by illness or, in this case, violence – he would secret them away within the hospital and estate, and do all the necessary procedures and funeral rites himself, with only a few select staff members – he would cremate the bodies, even, leaving only ashes. Ostensibly, this is to keep the hounds of the papers away from a sensitive affair.”

“A curious practice, though,” Moriarty noted.

“It was the cremation that truly caught my attention – it's possible the killer is mimicking the practice.”

Moriarty considered this, steepling his fingers. For a few minutes, he stared off into space, eyes flickering occasionally, as if he was performing a series of intricate calculations using values and formulae only he could see. Eventually, still distractedly, he gulped down some of his drink and shook his head.

“Possibly. Or maybe it is just a coincidence. I do not believe that the cremation, per se, is an ill doing on the part of the bishop, or maybe even a doing at all. It is a matter of being meticulous, instead.”

“I hate it when you're cryptic,” I said, but Moriarty seemed not to notice.

“Tell me, Moran, did you at any point when going through these case files discover who the matron of the hospital was twenty years ago?”

“A Mrs. Amelia Oakwood,” I said, frowning, “but the boy's murder was sixteen years ago, not twenty.”

“Forget the murdered boy. His killer was precisely who it appeared to be, the circumstances exactly as they are noted in the file,” Moriarty said. “Contact Lestrade. Ask him to find this Amelia Oakwood's address.”

Major S. Moran.


The block of flats that Amelia Oakwood lived in was a desolate affair, a dingy grey building wedged uncomfortably between a run down doss-house and a brothel. When the door opened, the building's landlady peered out at them, one hand inside her floral dress – Moriarty assumed there was a pistol there.

“What the fucking fuck do you want?”

Moriarty tried to put on his best charming smile. The landlady was utterly unimpressed. “Good afternoon, ma'am. We were hoping to visit Mrs. Oakwood and speak to her about a particular matter. We're old friends of hers.”

“Fuck,” the landlady said sharply. “You're a pretty fucking awful liar, ain't you? It's Miss Oakwood – poor woman's been divorced for fifteen years. Accusation of adultery – utter fucking nonsense of course, but nobody's going to tell her ex-husband that, even if he is a fucking wanking tosspot. That's how she ended up here – once you're an openly accused adulteress, fucking nobody'll fucking give you the fucking time of the fucking day.”

Moriarty squinted. He was very rapidly starting to lose track of this conversation.

“She's a nice lady,” the landlady said, suddenly soft and quiet. Then, with renewed fervour, she reached up and jabbed Moriarty's chest. “What are you really, then? One of her fucking so-fucking-called gentle-fucking-man callers? Wank. You're younger than most of 'em. Doddering old men, for the most part, potbellies like sows, limp dicks the size of malnourished slugs, and about as healthy. What are you, sixteen?”

“I'm twenty-two,” Moriarty protested weakly, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Queen save us from kinky young boys with a thing for older women and too large wallets,” the landlady snorted.

Moriarty spluttered. Mercifully, Moran stepped in to save him. “Ma'am,” he said with military briskness, “my name is Major Sebastian Moran, this is Professor James Moriarty. We're working with Scotland Yard and would like to ask Miss Oakwood a few questions.”

“Why didn't you say that? Do you have any tobacco on you?”

Moriarty wordlessly (and hastily) handed over his supply. The landlady pulled an ancient, ragged pipe from her dress and started filling it. Minutes passed. She lit it, and took several long puffs on it.

“Shame, really. Amelia's pretty spry for a woman of her age, she would probably have enjoyed a younger man,” the landlady paused. Then, thoughtfully: “Especially if your fucking dick is in propor - ...”

“We really are in a hurry,” Moran said quickly, cutting off Moriarty's helpless spluttering and stammering. “May we?”

“Sure. Second floor, first door on the right. Not seen her for a few days, but she keeps herself to herself, you know what I mean,” the landlady said mildly, stepping aside. “But no fucking funny business or I'll fucking shoot your fucking brains fucking out onto the fuck-fucking floor.”

Moriarty nodded meekly. Moran ushered him in, steering him up the stairs before the landlady could say anything else.

Gingerly, half expecting another barrage of swearing, innuendo, and crass single entendres, Moriarty knocked on the door. “Miss Oakwood? … Ma'am?”

No response.

He knocked again. “Miss Oakwood?”

No response.

Moran tapped his shoulder gently. “I'll try.”

Moriarty stepped aside. Carefully, Moran lifted a foot and kicked the door open with a sharp crack of hinges and locks breaking. There was a shout of 'fuck' from downstairs. Moriarty gave Moran an alarmed look.

Still no response. Frowning, Moriarty padded into the flat.

Facing the open window, in a mothbitten armchair, was a woman who Moriarty imagined had once looked elegantly severe, but now predominantly looked ragged, worn down, and several days dead. A red mark on her forehead had crusted over. Her eyes – what was left of them – stared blankly ahead.

“The killer got to her,” Moran said.

“No, no,” Moriarty frowned, “this isn't his work. This was a hired killing.”

“Sniper, by the looks of it, shooting from the building opposite,” Moran said, peering through the open window. “But who would've hired a sniper to shoot an elderly former hospital matron?”

“Only one person involved in this case that we know of has the funds and the inclination to do so,” Moriarty said. “Abernathy Senior, ordering a hit to protect a secret. The secret that fuelled this murder.”

“The hospital.”

“The hospital. I would warrant that Samuel Abernathy's mysterious woman was a patient there, at one point,” Moriarty said, “perhaps our killer too. I have a theory forming, but I don't have enough evidence for it yet. Everything is still foggy.”




A long silence passed.

“I'm not telling the landlady,” Moran said quickly.

“You are the worst person I've ever met, Moran.”

When Moriarty returned from the large cupboard in his room, having been within for less than a second, he agitatedly remarked that we’d wasted enough time – although in truth we’d wasted none at all – and must away to the Abernathy Mansion immediately. In typical fashion, I chose not to question his strange ways, and instead finished my whiskey and pulled on my coat.

Moriarty threw me a grin, and then we were away, to find the evidence that he needed – and, I suspected, wanted - to connect the two murders.

- Major S. Moran.

The Abernathy’s London estate was a vast, old mansion of the type that Moriarty knew his more architecturally inclined colleagues would refer to as ‘proto-classical’, projecting a kind of super-Englishness that had never actually existed at any point in history. It was like something out of a picturebook – imposing, grey-stoned, lined with vines and ivy in an artistic fashion, with enough balconies that you could mount riflemen on them and have a solid defence, if you removed the distractingly fluttery curtains before hand.

Also, it had rose bushes. It was in these that Moriarty and Moran had hidden.

“The Abernathys have eschewed the services of a traditional mortician in favour of their family physician. I fear on this matter, Scotland Yard is powerless to press them,” Moriarty muttered to Moran from their vantage point, “too much money. We shall need to take out that guard without causing a ruckus.”

The guard in question was a rather large man with a blond beard, as tall as Moriarty and considerably stockier. Moriarty sized him up. He was sure he could take him down, but not quick enough to keep any attention from being drawn to them.

“A distraction is in order, I should think,” Moriarty murmured, “I will attend to that, while you – do whatever it is you’re wont to do, I suppose. The knocking out part of the plan.”

Without waiting for the answer, he broke cover, hands behind his back, smiling broadly. The guard clocked him after a few moments, staring at him warily. Moriarty hoped Moran was getting ready to knock him out.

“Excuse me! If it isn’t too much trouble, might I distract you for a moment?”

The guard barely got three steps forward before Moran swooped in behind him, one arm wrapping around his neck. He was unconscious in less than a minute. Moriarty smoothed down his coat and nodded to Moran.

“Shall we?”

Slipping into the mansion’s clinic was hardly difficult, and as Moran barricaded the door Moriarty swept over to the dead body and pulled back the sheet over it. It was a gruesome sight – whatever Samuel Abernathy looked like in life, he now looked like nothing so much as a charred, person-shaped hunk of cooked meat. Moriarty produced a case from his coat, unrolling it on the nearest table.

He selected the scalpel first, hunching over the body to cut loose a strip of flesh and gnaw on it briefly. Moran made a disgusted sound.

“As I suspected,” Moriarty said triumphantly. “Clear taste of benzene. We are looking at a single killer for both gentlemen. But in this case … Observe the knee, Moran, and tell me what you think.”

Moran dutifully approached, peering at the knee. It’s knobbly, disjointed, looking as though it’s very nearly sticking free of the leg. “A pretty severe injury. You think it’s connected?”

“I believe so,” Moriarty said, frowning. “An injury like this would prevent a man from walking unaided. Yet Jacobson mentioned no injury, which would’ve surely been forefront in his mind if he had reason to suspect that this phantom mob had attacked a severely injured teenage boy.”

“Good build,” Moran remarked, pacing around the body, “he could’ve given an assailant a run for their money.”

“Aye. Rugby player, by my reckoning, but note the shape of the knuckles – they’ve sustained damage, which tells me that he is a boxer and brawler,” Moriarty said, “a young man in his prime, with combat experience and the build of a rugger. He would’ve made an awkward opponent indeed, unlike our elderly bishop. So our killer – or our killer’s accomplice, perhaps – is not a small man, nor elderly, nor sick. He is hale, hearty, one would presume large and strong, and well-trained.”

“A soldier?”

“Soldier, sailor, career criminal with a talent for violence,” Moriarty remarked. “We have too many possibilities. We have to narrow them down somehow. Are his clothes around here?”

“The locker, I believe,” Moran remarked.

Moriarty hummed to himself, brushing past Moran to get to the locker. A few seconds of lockpicking was all it took to open the case and haul out Samuel Abernathy’s clothes. Moriarty laid them on the table one by one.

“My, my, these are some fine clothes. Dinner jacket in red velvet; a white shirt that unless I am much mistaken is meant to, ah, accentuate his build; a very fine cravat. Do you smell roses?” Moriarty sniffed the air.

“Mostly,” Moran remarked dryly, “what I smell right now is burned human.”

“He has scented his clothes with the odour of roses,” Moriarty said incredulously. Bending down, he rummaged in the pockets one by one. “Empty, empty, empty, empty – aha!” Moriarty tugged a long box from a pocket, opening it. “A necklace with a diamond. A very expensive gift – not, I think, his jewelry. Our man was on his way to a dalliance – and without a chaperone. The scandal of it.”

“He was on his way to a meeting with a … ah … lady friend,” Moran said, “when he was attacked, then?”

“No,” Moriarty said dubiously. “No, I do not think so. Look at the shoes and tell me what you see.”

Moran plucked up a shoe, turning it over in his hands. “Fine leather, well made, more aesthetically pleasing than made to impress and not very practical. Some scuffing on the heel and the toes.”

“From the struggle, I’d imagine,” Moriarty said.

“Apart from those, nearly brand new. Perfect condition, and spotless.”

“Aye, spotless. Moran, have you ever walked the streets of London for even a moment and emerged with spotless shoes at the end of it? I myself have not,” Moriarty said, tapping the shoe. “I can’t imagine this boy travelled any stretch of London greater than hopping over the gap from the doorstep of his house to the interior of his carriage.”

“That meticulous about it, was he?”

“Of course. He is insensible with love. Or lust. That matter remains to be proven.”

Moran sighed, putting the shoe down. Moriarty irritably shuffled it into position next to the other shoe. “This boy was not murdered on the route to his lady friend’s abode, so it follows that he was murdered there. Perhaps in her presence – but either way I’d warrant that she’d know at least something about it.”

“It is rather hard to miss a struggle and immolation in your own home,” Moran said mildly. “Although I’m sure you might manage, and only uncover it much later through a convoluted series of clues and deductions. Don’t get testy, I’m only jesting.”

Moriarty sniffed. “We shall have to find out her identity. A simple enough task – the boy was young, cocky and egotistical. I’m certain he will have bragged to his friends at length.”

“To the university, then?”

“Yes,” Moriarty grinned. “But not you, I fear, my friend. I have a far more tedious and important job for you. Unfortunately, you shall have to deal with Lestrade for it.”

“I suppose you’re going to accuse me of being a dream.”

Moriarty’s eyes snap open. The voice is French-accented, with hints of Italian (a parent, perhaps, who never lost their accent) and he recognises it immediately. Catarina, he knows, the last of the Viceroy’s wives, now dead from the noose.

“No,” he says, looking at the ceiling, “my dreams are not commonly haunted by figures from the past.”

He sees her shift. She’s wearing a deep blue dress with the arms exposed (it’s a very daring look, from Moriarty’s understanding of fashion), and he can’t see her face. Or her neck. He considers it of the utmost importance that he not see her neck.

“And what do you dream of, James?” Moriarty doesn’t flinch at the sound of his name, even though he wants to. There’s a rustle of fabric as she settles at the foot of the bed.

“I run scenarios. Calculations. A sleeping state is better for the process, it removes outside interference. The world is – very noisy when you’re awake,” Moriarty says, peering at the ceiling. There’s a crack in it. That seems unusual for this place. “And what do you dream of, ma’am?”

“I dreamt,” the word is emphasised sharply, “of a better world. My dreams, I fear, were larger than yours.”

“You act,” Moriarty says quietly, “as if I killed you. I did nothing but expose your crime. I performed the duty required of me.”

Catarina makes a sound of distaste. She pushes off the bed, pacing restlessly about the room. Moriarty swings himself up into a sitting position, reaching for the bedside table. There is a hypodermic needle within, and a bottle of opium.

Moriarty sets himself to the task of filling it up. It is a distraction from the conversation.

“My objection was never a moral one, or a philosophical one,” he says, and wonders why he’s trying to placate some spirit who has naught better to do than visit him in his sleep, “it was mathematical. A calculation of damages against gains. A war against the royals is not one we could have won.”

“I succeeded.”

“The Viceroy was third-generation, and you had the element of surprise. In the years since, more impressive assassinations have been completed.”

“And your calculations?”

“Unchanged,” briskly, “it doesn’t matter if one dies. An ant may, striking lucky, fell a soldier; a million ants may fell ten. But all the ants in the world will never bring down an army. You – and Rache, and his doctor friend, and every other seditionist – would convince me that the cost of this era is too high. I say that the cost of ending it would be higher.”

Catarina turns. He keeps his eyes squarely away from her face, on the hypodermic needle. He finishes filling it. He will not look at her neck.

“Is that how you rank us, then? The royals are soldiers, and humans are ants?”

“No. The gap in power and intelligence is far too grand for that analogy,” Moriarty says. He turns his arm over and searches for a vein. He can tell that Catarina is watching. “Might I ask a question?”

Catarina doesn’t reply. He takes that as an affirmative.

“What is the aftermath of death like?”

“Cold,” she says immediately, “cold and caged. The Old Ones’ servants rule there too. Even when we think we might escape, we just stumble into another one of their kingdoms. Servitude in eternity.” She doesn’t sound bitter. She doesn’t sound much of anything.

“I see.”

“I suppose you’re going to say you’re sorry.”

“No,” Moriarty says. “I’m not sorry. I – regret what happened, but I’m not sorry for it. There would’ve been open war again.”

Catarina laughs. “You’re an amoral bastard, Professor Moriarty.”

Moriarty grins. “I know.”

He injects the opium. As the fog descends, Catarina vanishes into it, and Moriarty can’t help but feel a little sad about it.

The world of A Study in Emerald is the world of Sherlock Holmes with a few key differences that I'll briefly go over here.

Firstly, the world is ruled by the Great Old Ones, who conquered it seven hundred years prior. The UK and British Empire has Queen Victoria; China has the Ancient Goat, Parent To A Thousand; the USA has He Who Presides over the New World.

Secondly, the roles of Moriarty and Holmes have been switched, with Moriarty as a consulting detective and Holmes as a criminal, and the same for Moran and Watson.

Also, the moon is red.


For the purposes of fleshing out the world, I'm choosing to say that there are a few other differences in the world of ASiE too.

Firstly, technology levels are higher courtesy of the Great Old Ones, forming a kind of eldritch-fueled clockpunk tech level.

Secondly, the volume of Great Old Ones all gathered in close proximity to each other has had a warping effect on reality, causing the laws of physics to break down, an increase in plagues and famines, and a generally more malleable reality.