The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (7 page)

This revelation will probably come as no surprise to those discerning readers who have followed Holmes’s adventures. There have been clues enough of Holmes’s origins. Holmes’s greatest adversary, James Moriarty, was of a similar background. Most people will know that the Moriarty family are from Kerry, the very name being an Anglicization of the Irish name Ó Muircheartaigh meaning, interestingly enough, “expert navigator”. Moriarty once held a chair of mathematics in Queen’s University in Belfast. It was in Ireland that the enmity between Holmes and Moriarty first started. But that is a story which does not concern us.

If there were not clues enough, there was also Holmes’s fascination with the Celtic languages, of which he was something of an expert. In my narrative “The Devil’s Foot” I mentioned Holmes’s study on
Chaldean Roots in the Ancient Cornish Language.
I did not mention that this work won high praise from such experts as the British Museum’s Henry Jenner, the greatest living expert on the Cornish language. Holmes was able to demonstrate the close connection between the Cornish verb and the Irish verb systems.

The Holmes family were well known in Galway. Indeed, it was Holmes’s uncle, Robert Holmes the famous Galway barrister and Queen’s Counsel, whom the Irish have to thank for the organization of the Irish National School system for the poorer classes, for he was a member of the Duke of Leinster’s seven-man education commission in the 1830s and 1840s responsible for many innovative ideas.

These few brief words will demonstrate, therefore, the significance of this
aide-mémoire
, which Holmes’s passed to me in the spring of 1894.

My initial encounter with my second most dangerous adversary happened when I was lunching with my brother, Mycroft, in the Kildare Street Club, in Dublin, during the September of 1873. I was barely twenty years old at the time and thoughts of a possible career as a consulting detective had not yet formulated in my mind. In fact, my mind was fully occupied by the fact that I would momentarily be embarking for England where I had won a demyship at one of the Oxford Colleges with the grand sum of £95 per annum.

I had won the scholarship having spent my time at Trinity College, Dublin, in the study of chemistry and botany. My knowledge of chemistry owed much to a great Trinity scholar, Maxwell Simpson, whose lectures at the Park Street Medical School, advanced my knowledge of organic chemistry considerably. Simpson was the first man to synthesize succinic acid, a dibasic acid obtained by the dry distillation of amber. It was thanks to this great countryman of mine that I had produced a dissertation thought laudable enough to win me the scholarship to Oxford.

Indeed, I was not the only Trinity man to be awarded a demyship to Oxford that year. My friend, Wilde, a brilliant Classicist, a field for which I had no aptitude at all, was also to pursue his education there. Wilde continually berated me for my fascination with sensational literature and one day promised that he would write a horror story about a portrait that would chill even me.

My brother, Mycroft, who, like most of the Holmes family of Galway, was also a product of Trinity, had invited me to lunch at the Kildare Street Club. Mycroft, being seven years older than I, had already established his career in the Civil Service and was working in the fiscal department of the Chief Secretary for Ireland in Dublin Castle. He could, therefore, afford the £10 per annum which gave him access to the opulence of the red brick Gothic style headquarters of the Kildare Street Club.

The Club was the centre of masculine Ascendancy life in Ireland. Perhaps I should explain that these were the Anglo-Irish élite, descendants of those families which England had despatched to Ireland to rule the unruly natives. The Club was exclusive to members of the most important families in Ireland. No “Home Rulers”, Catholics nor Dissenters were allowed in membership. The rule against Catholics was, however, “bent” in the case of The O’Conor Don, a direct descendant of the last High King of Ireland, and a few religious recalcitrants, such as the earls of Westmeath, Granard and Kenmare, whose loyalty to England had been proved to be impeccable. No army officer below the rank of major, nor below a Naval lieutenant-commander was allowed within its portals. And the only people allowed free use of its facilities were visiting members of the Royal Family, their equerries and the Viceroy himself.

My brother, Mycroft, basked and prospered in this colonial splendour but, I confess, it was not to my taste. I had only been accepted within this élite sanctuary as guest of Mycroft, who was known as a confident of the Chief Secretary and therefore regarded as having the ear of the Viceroy himself. I had only been persuaded to go because Mycroft wished to celebrate my demyship and see me off to Oxford in fraternal fashion. I did not want to disappoint him.

The dining room of the club was truly luxuriant. The club had the reputation of providing the best table in Dublin.

A solemn-faced waiter, more like an undertaker, led us through the splendidly furnished dining room to a table in a bay window overlooking St Stephen’s Green for the club stood on the corner of Kildare Street and the green itself.

“An apéritif, gentlemen?” intoned the waiter in a sepulchral voice.

Mycroft took the opportunity to inform me that the cellar was of excellent quality, particularly the stock of champagne. I replied that I believed that I would commence with a glass of sherry and chose a Palo Cortaldo while Mycroft, extravagantly, insisted on a half bottle of Diamant Bleu.

He also insisted on a dozen oysters, which I observed cost an entire shilling a dozen, and were apparently sent daily from the club’s own oyster bed near Galway. I settled for
pâté de foie gras
and we both agreed to indulge in a steak with a bottle of Bordeaux, a rich red St Estèphe from the Château MacCarthy.

In truth, Mycroft was more of a
gourmand
than a
gourmet.
He was physically lazy and already there was a corpulent aspect to his large frame. But he also had the Holmes’s brow, the alert, steel-grey, deep set eyes and firmness of lips. He had an astute mind and was a formidable chess player.

After we had made our choice, we settled down and I was able to observe our fellow diners.

Among those who caught my immediate eye was a dark haired man who, doubtless, had been handsome in his youth. He was now in his mid thirties and his features were fleshy and gave him an air of dissoluteness and degeneracy. He carried himself with the air of a military man, even as he slouched at his table imbibing his wine, a little too freely I fear. His discerning brow was offset by the sensual jaw. I was aware of cruel blue eyes, drooping, cynical lids and an aggressive manner even while seated in repose. He was immaculately dressed in a smart dark coat and cravat with a diamond pin that announced expensive tastes.

His companion appeared less governed by the grape than he, preferring coffee to round off his luncheon. This second man was tall and thin, his forehead domed out in a white curve and his two eyes deeply sunken in his head. I would have placed him about the same age as his associate. He was clean-shaven, pale and ascetic looking. A greater contrast between two men, I could not imagine.

The scholarly man was talking earnestly and his military companion nodded from time to time, as if displeased at being disturbed in his contemplation of his wine glass. The other man, I saw, had rounded shoulders and his face protruded forward. I observed that his head oscillated from side to side in a curious reptilian fashion.

“Mycroft,” I asked, after a while, “who is that curious pair?”

Mycroft glanced in the direction I had indicated.

“Oh, I would have thought you knew one of them – you being interested in science and such like.”

I hid my impatience from my brother.

“I do not know, otherwise I would not have put forward the question.”

“The elder is Professor Moriarty.”

At once I was interested.

“Moriarty of Queen’s University, in Belfast?” I demanded.

“The same Professor Moriarty,” confirmed Mycroft smugly.

I had at least heard of Moriarty for he had the chair of mathematics at Queen’s and written
The Dynamics of an Asteroid
which ascended to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that no man in the scientific press was capable of criticizing it.

“And the man who loves his alcohol so much?” I pressed. “Who is he?”

Mycroft was disapproving of my observation.

“Dash it, Sherlock, where else may a man make free with his vices but in the shelter of his club?”

“There is one vice that he cannot well hide,” I replied slyly. “That is his colossal male vanity. That black hair of his is no natural colour. The man dyes his hair. But, Mycroft, you have not answered my question. His name?”

“Colonel Sebastian Moran.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“He is one of the Morans of Connacht.”

“A Catholic family?” For Ó Mórain, to give the name its correct Irish form, which meant “great”, were a well-known Jacobite clan in Connacht.

“Hardly so,” rebuked Mycroft. “His branch converted to the Anglican faith after the Williamite conquest. Sebastian Moran’s father was Sir Augustus Moran cb, once British Minister to Persia. Young Moran went through Eton and Oxford. The family estate was near Derrynacleigh but I believe, after the colonel inherited, he lost it in a card game. He was a rather impecunious young man. Still, he was able to buy a commission in the Indian Army and served in the 1st Bengalore Pioneers. He has spent most of his career in India. I understand that he has quite a reputation as a big game hunter. The Bengal tiger mounted in the hall, as we came in, was one of his kills. The story is that he crawled down a drain after it when he had wounded it. That takes an iron nerve.”

I frowned.

“Nerve, vanity and a fondness for drink and cards is sometimes an unenviable combination. They make a curious pair.”

“I don’t follow you?”

“I mean, a professor of mathematics and a dissolute army officer lunching together. What can they have in common?”

I allowed my attention to occupy the problem but a moment more. Even at this young age I had come to the conclusion that until one has facts it is worthless wasting time trying to hazard guesses.

My eye turned to the others in the dining room. Some I knew by sight and, one or two I had previously been introduced to in Mycroft’s company. Among these diners was Lord Rosse, who had erected the largest reflecting telescope in the world at his home in Birr Castle. There was also the hard-drinking Viscount Massereene and Ferrard and the equally indulgent Lord Clonmell. There was great hilarity from another table where four young men were seated, voices raised in good-natured argument. I had little difficulty recognizing the Beresford brothers of Curraghmore, the elder of them being the Marquess of Waterford.

My eye eventually came to rest on a corner table where an elderly man with silver hair and round chubby red features was seated. He was well dressed and the waiters constantly hovered at his elbow to attend to his bidding like moths to a fly. He was obviously someone of importance.

I asked Mycroft to identify him.

“The Duke of Cloncury and Straffan,” he said, naming one of the premier peers of Ireland.

I turned back to examine His Grace, whose ancestors had once controlled Ireland, with some curiosity. It was said that a word from Cloncury’s grandfather could sway the vote in any debate in the old Irish Parliament, that was before the Union with England. As I was unashamedly scrutinizing him, His Grace was helped from his chair. He was, I judged, about seventy-something years of age, a short, stocky man but one who was fastidious in his toilet for his moustache was well cut and his hair neatly brushed so that not a silver strand of it was out of place.

He retrieved a small polished leather case, the size of a despatch-box, not more than twelve inches by six by four. It bore a crest in silver on it, and I presumed it to be Cloncury’s own crest.

His Grace, clutching his case, made towards the door. At the same time, I saw Professor Moriarty push back his chair. Some sharp words were being exchanged between the professor and his lunching companion, Colonel Moran. The professor swung round and marched swiftly to the door almost colliding with the elderly duke at their portals. At the last moment, when collision seemed inevitable, the professor halted and allowed his Grace to move thorough the doors before him.

“Some argument has taken place between the professor and his companion,” I observed aloud. “I wonder what the meaning of it is?”

Mycroft looked at me in disgust.

“Really, Sherlock, you always seem to be prying into other people’s affairs. I would have thought you had enough on your plate preparing for your studies at Oxford.”

Even at this time, I had become a close observer of people’s behaviour and it is without any sense of shame that I record my surveillance into the lives of my fellow luncheon room occupants.

I returned my attention to the colonel who was sitting looking disgruntled at his wine glass. A waiter hovered near and made some suggestion but Moran swung with an angry retort, indicating the empty wine bottle on the table, and the waiter backed away. The colonel stood up, went through the motions of brushing the sleeves of his coat, and strode out of the dining room. I noticed that he would be returning for he had left his glass of wine unfinished. Sure enough, the waiter returned to the table with a half bottle of wine uncorked and placed it ready. The colonel, presumably having gone to make some ablutions, returned after some fifteen minutes and reseated himself. He seemed in a better mood for he was smiling to himself.

I was distracted to find that my brother was continuing to lecture me.

“I know you, Sherlock. You are an extremely lazy and undisciplined fellow. If a subject doesn’t interest you, you just ignore it. It is a wonder that you have achieved this demyship, for I did not expect you to gain a degree at all.”

I turned to my elder brother with a chuckle.