Moriarty

I took out my watch and glanced at it. It was already eleven o’clock with half the morning wasted and I was afraid the rest of it would go the same way, but just then the front door opened and, feeling the breeze on the back of my neck, I turned to see a man standing there, silhouetted against the morning light. He said nothing, but as he moved inside I saw that he was about the same age as me, perhaps a little younger, with dark-coloured hair lying flat on his forehead and soft grey eyes that questioned everything. There was a sort of seriousness about him, and when he stepped into a room, you had to stop and take notice. He was wearing a brown lounge suit with a pale overcoat, which was unbuttoned and hung loosely from his shoulders. It was evident that he had recently been quite ill and had lost weight. I could see it in his clothes, which were a little too large for him, and in the pallor and pinched quality of his face. He carried a walking stick made of rosewood with an odd, complicated silver handle. Having approached the counter, he rested on the stick, using it to support him.

‘Können Sie mir helfen?’ he asked. He spoke German very naturally but with no attempt at a German accent, as if he had studied the words but never actually heard them. ‘Ich bin Inspector Athelney Jones von Scotland Yard.’

He had examined me very briefly, accepting my presence and filing it away for later use, but otherwise he had ignored me. His name, however, had an immediate effect on the two policemen.

‘Jones. Inspector Jones,’ they repeated, and when he held out his own letter of introduction they took it with much bowing and smiling and, having asked him to wait a few moments while they entered the details in the police log, retired to an inner office, leaving the two of us alone.

It would have been impossible for us to ignore each other and he was the first to break the silence, translating what he had already said.

‘My name is Athelney Jones,’ he said.

‘Did I hear you say you were from Scotland Yard?’

‘Indeed.’

‘I’m Frederick Chase.’

We shook hands. His grip was curiously loose, as if his hand were barely connected to his wrist.

‘This is a beautiful spot,’ he went on. ‘I have never had the pleasure of travelling in Switzerland. In fact, this is only the third time I have been abroad at all.’ He turned his attention briefly to my steamer trunk which, having nowhere to stay, I had been obliged to bring with me. ‘You have just arrived?’

‘An hour ago,’ I said. ‘I guess we must have been on the same train.’

‘And your business …?’

I hesitated. The assistance of a British police officer was essential to the task that had brought me to Meiringen, but at the same time I did not wish to appear too forward. In America, there had often been conflicts of interest between Pinkerton’s and the official government services. Why should it be any different here? ‘I am here on a private matter …’ I began.

He smiled at this, although at the same time I saw a veil of something in his eyes that might have been pain. ‘Then perhaps you will allow me to tell you, Mr Chase,’ he remarked. He considered for a moment. ‘You are a Pinkerton’s agent from New York and last week you set off for England in the hope of tracking down Professor James Moriarty. He had received a communication which is important to you and which you hoped to find about his person. You were shocked to hear of his death and came directly here. I see, incidentally, you have a low opinion of the Swiss police—’

‘Wait a minute!’ I exclaimed. I held up a hand. ‘Stop right there! Have you been spying on me, Inspector Jones? Have you spoken to my office? I find it pretty bad that the British police should have gone behind my back and involved themselves in my affairs!’

‘You do not need to concern yourself,’ Jones returned, again with that same strange smile. ‘Everything I have told you I have deduced from my observation of you here, in this room. And I could add more, if you wish.’

‘Why not?’

‘You live in an old-fashioned apartment block, several floors up. You do not think your company looks after you as well as it might, particularly as you are one of its most successful investigators. You are not married. I am sorry to see that the sea crossing was a particularly disagreeable one — and not just because of the very bad weather on the second or perhaps the third day. You are thinking that your entire trip has been a wild goose chase. I hope, for your sake, it is not.’

He fell silent and I stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. ‘You are right in almost everything you say,’ I rasped. ‘But how the devil you managed it is quite beyond me. Will you explain yourself?’

‘It was all very straightforward,’ he replied. ‘I might almost say elementary.’ He chose the last word carefully, as if it had some special significance.