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