1 The Evil Genius

ThE Final PROBLEM

Chapter 1 The Evil Genius On the evening of Friday, April 24, 1891, I was surprised to receive a visit from my old friend, the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. I had seen little of him during the previous few months. The last I'd heard, he was in Paris helping the French government on a secret matter. "Holmes!" I said. "How lovely to see you! Are you quite well? You look even paler and thinner than usual." "It's true, I've been under a little pressure lately," he said, wiping some sweat from his brow. "Do you mind if I close your shutters?" Without waiting for my approval, he began striding from window to window, throwing the shutters closed and bolting them securely. The room became gloomy, the only light coming from a lamp on the table where I had been reading.

"Are you afraid of something?" I asked. "As it happens, I am, yes." "Of what?" "Air guns." "My dear Holmes, what do you mean?" "I think you know by now that I am not a fearful man, Watson. Yet neither am I a stupid one, and it would be sheer stupidity not to recognize danger when it's close at hand." Holmes seated himself in an armchair. "I'm sorry for visiting so late," he said. "That's alright." "Would you mind very much if I were to leave your house later by scrambling over your back

garden wall?" "Why on earth would you want to do that?" Holmes held out his hand and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his knuckles were cut and bleeding. "This trouble I'm in is not imaginary, Watson," he said. "It's real enough to break a man's skin. Are you extremely busy right now?" "Not exactly." "Would you like to come away with me for a week on the continent" "Where on the continent?" "Oh, anywhere. It's all the same to me."

There was something very strange about all this. I didn't like the way he kept changing the subject, and this suggestion of an aimless holiday was quite unlike him. He had the pale complexion, bright eyes, and clenched jaw of a man under severe stress. I was seriously worried about him. "Holmes, please tell me what's going on?" Seeing the worry in my face, he folded his hands together, sighed deeply, and began to explain. "I don't suppose you've heard of Professor James Moriarty?" he said. "No." "Quite incredible!" said Holmes, shaking his head. "He's the greatest criminal of the century, yet no one has heard of him. That is his genius. I tell you, Watson, if I could rid the world of that man, it would be the most important thing I'd ever done. Nothing I could do after that would match it. With Moriarty behind bars, I could happily retire to my chemistry experiments and my violin. But while he continues to walk free on the streets of London, I can never feel at ease."

"What's he done, then?" "His life has been extraordinary. The pity of it is that with his intelligence, he could have done so much good in the world. From an early age, he displayed a natural gift for numbers. At the youthful age of twenty-one, he was appointed professor of mathematics at a top university. A brilliant career lay before him. "Yet he lacked many of the ordinary qualities most of us have, like compassion, pity, and guilt. He had no conscience—no sense of right and wrong. His heart was cold, his appetite for power and wealth, limitless.