Monthly Archives: March 2016

From the Memoirs of Criminal Genius Professor James (Napoleon) Moriarty

Via M-CRaP

I am documenting this narrative via a recent, and fantastically clever, invention of mine. It is a relatively small and inconspicuous device, which I am easily able to conceal about my person by means of an elasticised waistband.

As I speak, my patented Moriarty-Conical-Rite-a-Phone (or M-CRaP) machine, interprets my words and scribbles them down by means of a copper nib onto a wax cylinder. The cylinder will be replayed at a later date by one of my evil assistants and transposed into text, a copy of which I shall send to that pea-brain Watson, to be included in what I am certain will be yet another of his ridiculous ‘adventures’ for the Strand Magazine, assuming he lives to tell the tale, which of course he won’t, in which case I shall publish it myself under the pseudonym ‘Maury Artie’.

Of course, all this information is already known to me so I am actually wasting my time telling myself this.

[Note to Evil Assistant – please delete the last sentence. And obviously that one as well. And this one. You know what I mean]

So, having left Sherlock Holmes and his dim-witted associate in the under stairs chamber, I am now making my way to the Stabb Inn to meet another idiot – Inspector Lestrade. If my calculations are correct, I expect that at this very moment, Holmes has already found the second underground chamber, discovered the wax head of Lestrade that my men swiped from the Policemen’s Benevolent Society, and put two and two together to make six and a half. In other words, he thinks the so-called thriller writer Hannay is in league with me and will no doubt be in hot pursuit of that very man as we speak! What a fool.

The truth, as always, is far simpler – I stole the Bruce Partridger plans, planted them in the public park where I knew Hannay took his morning walks, and ensured he found them. Then, knowing the man has a photographic memory, it was simply a matter of time before the stupidest detective in Londen got involved via the stupidest villain in Londen, Bill Sikes. Then it was simply another matter of time until Holmes and Watson ‘found’ my hideout here in Edinburgh.

[Note to Evil Assistant – there were too many mentions of the word ‘simply’. Have them shot. I mean er, removed]

And so, as I stroll nonchalantly down to Fleshmarket Close, I know in my dark heart that Holmes and the troglodyte Watson will follow Hannay into the subterranean passages I happened to mention in my earlier monologue. And as I’m sure you’ve guessed dear reader (whoever you are) there are in fact no subterranean passages. Ha ha ha! That was simply a ruse [note to Evil Assistant – please remove the word ‘simply’], to enable me to lure all three of them into taking part in my next moving picture project entitled ‘Moriarty and the Death of that Stupid Detective Sherlock Holmes’, which I suspect may do rather well at the box office. Especially in the penultimate scene when Sherlock Holmes actually dies at the hands of his arch-enemy – me.

[Note to Evil Assistant – find out what a box office is]

I am now approaching the Stabb Inn so I will stop talking to myself in case the local peasants think I am a little soft in the head. Clearly I am not a little soft in the head or I wouldn’t have been able to invent such a clever device as I am now utilising for the celebration of my evil ways. I will stop talking now.

Ah, there is Lestrade, sitting in the corner like a virgin at a funeral.

[Note to Evil Assistant – remove that last line. And this one]

To be continued

From the Diary of Doctor J. Watson

We stared at the severed head and I felt a familiar sensation in my bowels as my nether regions prepared themselves for an immediate loss of control.

I glanced at Homes who, with his eyes fixed on the shocking sight before us, muttered “Keep ‘em clenched, Watson. Keep ‘em clenched.”

I nodded, took a few deep breaths to reassure myself, and a moment later the feeling had passed. I was once more myself – though I suspected a small stain might have manifested itself in my undergarments. I looked back at the grisly scene.

Hannay was the first to speak. “Arrrgh!”

I leaned towards him and patted his arm with my head. “There, there, it’s not so bad. He had a good life. Relatively speaking.”

“I think we may have succumbed too easily in our conclusions.” said Holmes. “Answer me this, friend Watson, how could this gruesome article before us be what we think it is?”

I blinked several times and steeled myself. Staring hard at Lestrade’s head, I studied it’s all-too familiar lines, it’s jutting cheekbones, it’s manly forehead and flabby mouth. “I must say, on closer inspection…” I paused. “You think it isn’t Lestrade?”

“Consider – Moriarty left this building to meet Lestrade less than ten minutes ago.” He raised in eyebrow. “Even allowing for the man’s murderous genius, how could this so-called murder have been committed with such speed?”

A thought struck me. “It’s Lestrade’s death mask!”

“Exactly, “said Holmes. “Or to be more precise – his near-death mask. The very near-death mask I created myself when Poor Lestrade was holed-up in bed with Yellow Fever last year.” His gaze moved away from mine and I could see his pleasure at recalling that special day, with hot wax, rubber gloves and an almost dead policeman to play with. “Lestrade’s wife wanted something to remember him by – I had suggested removing a certain appendage and popping it along to my old pal Risible Ronnie the Teasing Taxidermist, but she said she never let him shag her when he was alive, and he certainly wasn’t going to when he’d passed on!”

“I remember it well,” I said. “You covered her dear husband’s head with wax in the style of a death mask, but of course, as the fellow didn’t die, it ended up as an unclaimed raffle prize for The Policemen’s Benevolent Society.”

He nodded. “Yes, which is why, for the last few months it’s been sitting on top of the cistern in their toilet.” He cast me a quick glance. “From where Moriarty’s men undoubtedly swiped it.”

“We have to escape,” I muttered. And without further hesitation, I began shuffling my chair forward towards the workbench. Or at least, that was my intention. What actually happened was that my chair fell forwards and I whacked my face on the filthy floorboards.

Behind me I heard the twin sharp intakes of breath as Holmes and Hannay took in my calamity. But I didn’t care, for I had discovered something: wedged between the floorboards was a broken piece of blade – perhaps from an old knife. Sliding my aching face around in the muck, I was able to pick up the blade between my upper lip and my nose. Then, shuffling sideways, I made my way slowly and somewhat painfully towards Holmes’ chair.

A sudden “Ouch-fuck!” sounded in my ear and looking up I saw that Holmes himself was now on the floor beside me, though he’d had the foresight to turn his manly features to one side, thus avoiding damage to that handsome Roman nose.

“Good thinking, Watson,” said he, as he manoeuvred himself around so that I could pass the short blade into his tied hands. “Just like old times, eh?” he said with a sly wink. And then slowly, ever so slowly, he began to saw his way through the ropes…

From the Diary of Doctor Watson

As the three of us were still bound tightly to our chairs, I cannot describe the relief that flooded over me when Holmes confirmed he did in fact have a plan. I think I may even have closed my eyes for a moment and uttered a quiet prayer (highly untypical of me, I might add). But my relief was short-lived, for Holmes began to chant. And not just any old chant, but a droning, bagpipey screeching that seemed to emanate from his very bowels.

Now, while I have nothing against chanting per se, having witnessed my colleague’s distinct mantra several times, I could well imagine the utter nonsense behind yet another of his ridiculous theories. “I see, Holmes,” I muttered with more than a degree of irritation. “So you’re aiming to utilise your entire body in some ritualistic quivering, which I expect will rise up from your anal region, into your throat, cascade back down your manly torso and out through the souls of your feet, and then I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the vibration did not crack open the very floor on which we stand, allowing us to make our escape.”

Holmes ceased his monotonous droning and cast me a sidelong glance. “That’s right, Watson.”

“Oh, for f – ”

“Watson!” Holmes gave me a hard stare. “A little understanding, please?” He nodded to Hannay, whose face was drenched in tears.

“I say, old man,” I said in as kindly a voice as I could muster. “Don’t worry yourself – Holmes will have us out of this fix in a trice.”

Hannay turned to me, sniffling quietly. “It’s all my fault.”

“No, no, no…” I began. But he shook his head.

“If it hadn’t been for that damned book…”

I looked at Holmes. He looked at me. We both looked at Hannay.

“You mean,” said Holmes, “that if you had not included in your narrative the details of those secret plans you happened to find in a small paper bag down the side of a park bench a few weeks ago when you were strolling in the park one Wednesday evening, none of this would have happened?”

Hannay gasped. “You know?”

Holmes smiled that sardonic smile of his. “Of course. My brother Mycroft asked me to keep an eye on things vis-a-vis stolen Government documents detailing plans for a top secret steam-powered undersea torpedo-ship designed by the famous submarine boffin Bruce Partridger. That’s why I allowed my trusty companion here to inveigle himself into your affairs.”

I twisted round in my chair. “You’re fucking joking?”

“I’m fucking not,” quipped Holmes.

“You mean…” My gander was up and raring to go. “You knew all along? And you didn’t think to tell me? Oh, I can’t believe it – no wonder you weren’t interested in helping out! You absolute boundah!”

“Language, Watson.”

I shook my head in rage. “Not only do you keep me in the damn dark about EVERYTHING, but you sit there like the Mad Bloody Monk chanting that stupid tune. It really is the – ”

And at that moment my anger had piqued to such a height that I stamped my feet, lifting my chair clean off the ground. A second later it crashed back down with a resounding, well, crash.

“You see, Watson?”

“See what, damn you?”

Holmes looked at me, then swivelled his piggy little eyes downwards. I followed his gaze and saw (to my astonishment) that the wooden floorboards on which we sat had split right across from one side of the cellar to the other.

“Oh.” Said I.

Holmes smirked. “I know how much you despise my singing, Watson, so I knew if I wound you up tightly enough, sooner or later you would do what you always do in these circumstances.”

I frowned. “I haven’t wet myself.”

“No, I meant the other thing…”

I looked down at the floor again. “Ah, you mean have a temper tantrum?”

He nodded. “So now, if all three of us jump up and down a little more, I’m sure we can…ready? One, two…”

And as the three chairs and combined size-tens of our boots hit the floor again, the ground gave way and we tumbled into the cellar below.

“Ah ha,” said Holmes gazing up through the hole in the ceiling. “Now all we need to do is something to cut these bonds with…” And he cast his eyes around the dark room. “There we are.” He nodded towards a bench at the other side of the room where an array of bloodstained carving knives, hatchets and other stabbing instruments lay next to a pile of cardboard boxes of varying sizes, along with an abundance of brown paper, string and a few labels bearing the following meaty message:

Best Scottish Beef

However, it was not these chilling items that caught our attention, but the object that lay at the end of the bench. It was a head. A severed head. The severed head, in fact, of Inspector Lestrade…