The Three Monarchs (5 page)

After Watson has left, according to Holmes, Professor James Moriarty makes his appearance, walking along the narrow path that curves halfway around the falls. This path comes to an abrupt end, so there can be no question of Holmes attempting to escape – not that such a course of action would ever have crossed his mind. Give him his due: this is a man who has always faced his fears square on, whether they be a deadly swamp adder, a hideous poison that might drive you to insanity or a hell-hound set loose on the moors. Holmes has done many things that are, frankly, baffling – but he has never run away.

The two men exchange words. Holmes asks permission to leave a note for his old companion and Professor Moriarty agrees. This much at least can be verified for those three sheets of paper are among the most prized possessions of the British Library Reading Room in London where I have seen them displayed. However, once these courtesies have been dispensed with, the two men rush at each other in what seems to be less a fight, more a suicide pact, each determined to drag the other into the roaring torrent of water. And so it might have been. But Holmes still has one trick up his sleeve. He has learned
bartitsu
. I had never heard of it before but apparently it's a martial art invented by a British engineer, which combines boxing and judo, and he puts it to good use.

Moriarty is taken by surprise. He is propelled over the edge and, with a terrible scream, plunges into the abyss. Holmes sees him brush against a rock before he disappears into the water. He himself is safe . . . Forgive me, but is there not something a little unsatisfactory about this encounter? You have to ask yourself why Moriarty allows himself to be challenged in this way. Old-school heroics are all very well (although I've never yet met a criminal who went in for them) but what possible purpose can it have served to endanger himself? To put it bluntly, why didn't he simply take out a revolver and shoot his opponent at close range?

If that is strange, Holmes's behaviour now becomes completely inexplicable. On the spur of the moment, he decides to use what has just occurred to feign his own death. He climbs up the rock face behind the path and hides there until Watson returns. In this way, of course, there will be no second set of footprints to show that he has survived. What's the point? Professor Moriarty is now dead and the British police have announced that the entire gang has been arrested so why does he still believe himself to be in danger? What exactly is there to be gained? If I had been Holmes, I would have hurried back to the Englischer Hof for a nice Wiener schnitzel and a celebratory glass of Neuchâtel.

Meanwhile, Dr Watson, realising he has been tricked, rushes back to the scene where an abandoned alpenstock and a set of footprints tell their own tale. He summons help and investigates the scene with several men from the hotel and a local police officer by the name of Gessner. Holmes sees them but does not make himself known, even though he must be aware of the distress it will cause his most trusted companion. They find the letter. They read it and, realising there is nothing more to be done, they all leave. Holmes begins to climb down again and it is now that the narrative takes another unexpected and wholly inexplicable turn. It appears that Professor Moriarty has not come to the Reichenbach Falls alone. As Holmes begins his descent – no easy task in itself – a man suddenly appears and attempts to knock him off his perch with a number of boulders. The man is Colonel Sebastian Moran.

What on earth is he doing there? Was he present when Holmes and Moriarty fought and, if so, why didn't he try to help? Where is his gun? Has the greatest marksman in the world accidentally left it on the train? Neither Holmes nor Watson, nor anyone else for that matter, has ever provided reasonable answers to questions which, even as I sit here hammering at the keys, seem inescapable. And once I start asking them, I can't stop. I feel as if I am in a runaway coach, tearing down Fifth Avenue, unable to stop at the lights.

That is about as much as we know of the Reichenbach Falls. The story that I must now tell begins five days later when three men come together in the crypt of St Michael's church in Meiringen. One is a detective inspector from Scotland Yard, the famous command centre of the British police. His name is Athelney Jones. I am the second.

The third man is tall and thin with a prominent forehead and sunken eyes which might view the world with a cold malevolence and cunning were there any life in them at all. But now they are glazed and empty. The man, formally dressed in a suit with a wing collar and a long frock coat, has been fished out of the Reichenbach Brook, some distance from the falls. His left leg is broken and there are other serious injuries to his shoulder and head, but death must surely have been caused by drowning. The local police have attached a label to his wrist, which has been folded across his chest. On it is written the name: James Moriarty.

This is the reason I have come all the way to Switzerland. It appears that I have arrived too late.

“Exceptionally entertaining . . . One can only applaud Horowitz's skill . . . Impressive . . . An altogether terrific period thriller and one of the best Sherlockian pastiches of our time.”—
Washington Post

“The latest edition to [Sherlock's] distinguished legacy . . . Admirers of Horowitz's TV series
Foyle's War
and Sherlockians will delight in equal measure. With consummate grasp, Horowitz unfolds an intricate and rewarding mystery in the finest Victorian tradition . . . For all its deft and loving fidelity,
The House of Silk
sees the great detective in grisly and unfamiliar straits.”—
Vanity Fair

“Cliffhanger plotting . . . Watson's elegiac voice should silence the objections of even the most persnickety Sherlock scholar.”—National Public Radio (NPR)

“A book firmly rooted in the style of Doyle, faithful to the character as created and with just enough wiggle room to allow the author to say all the things he's been longing to say about the world of 221b Baker Street . . .
The House of Silk
will satisfy.”—
Huffington Post

“A tone-perfect, action-packed story of corruption, greed and dissolution, all the while capturing the sights, smells and social problems of 1890s London . . . This reader, albeit no Holmes expert, totally forgot the novel wasn't from Doyle himself. Grade: A.”—
Plain Dealer

“Worthy of [its] canonical inspiration . . . An impressive read . . . Horowitz plots masterfully, foregrounding Holmes's trademark investigative techniques against Watson's pacey narration.”—
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Horowitz truly pulls off the wonderful illusion that Arthur Conan Doyle left us one last tale . . . Close your eyes and you can smell the shag tobacco of Holmes's church-warded pipe as he sorts through the evidence.”—
San Diego Union Tribune

“The hype surrounding what's being billed as the first pastiche ever officially approved by the Conan Doyle estate is amply justified . . . [and] authentic. Horowitz gets everything right—the familiar narrative voice, brilliant deductions, a very active role for Watson, and a perplexing and disturbing series of puzzles to unravel—and the legion of fans of the originals will surely be begging for Horowitz to again dip into Watson's trove of untold tales.”—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Nicely captures the storytelling tone of Holmes's inventor in a galloping adventure that boasts enough twists, ominous turns and urgent nocturnal escapades to make modern moviemakers salivate . . . Author Horowitz delivers some dramatic tableaux in these pages, including a railway robbery, a prison escape and a horse-drawn carriage chase . . . The Holmes we see here is just as cryptic and clever as we've come to expect.”—
Kirkus Reviews

One of the UK's most prolific and successful writers,
ANTHONY HOROWITZ
may have committed more (fictional) murders than any other living author. His recent novel
The House of Silk
has sold over 450,000 copies worldwide in more than 35 countries. His bestselling Alex Rider series for young adults has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide. As a TV screenwriter, he created
Midsomer Murders
and the BAFTA-winning
Foyle's War
, both of which were featured on PBS's
Masterpiece Mystery
; other TV work includes
Poirot
and the widely acclaimed miniseries
Collision
and
Injustice
. Anthony regularly contributes to a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines, and in January 2014, he was appointed an Officer of the British Empire for his services to literature. He lives in London.

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The Three Monarchs

Excerpt from
MORIARTY
. Copyright © 2014 by Anthony Horowitz.

THE THREE MONARCHS
. Copyright © 2014 by Anthony Horowitz. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Published in Great Britain in 2014 by Orion Books, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

EPUB Edition November 2014 ISBN 9780062387844

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