The Final Problem
A dark and empty room, there is only the presence of death and the ones, he summed. In the middle of the room a bier with a stiff body on it. It is the body of somebody, who seemed invincible. No one would have expected to ever see dead. The whisper of a man. The evil genius himself. They say, legends never die. And this man was a legend, even though his soul was black as the devils. He wrote history, when he challenged the greatest detective of his time. A legend, like him, undefeated in solving crimes, yet, beaten by this slight, plain man, that's lying on that bier.
On the day, that the dark legend died, he took the light one with him.
And yet, everything he wanted was an equal. Someone, who was as brilliant and therefore as lonely as him. The other half of the medal. Like the missing piece to make him whole. But his soul was black and full of hate. He didn't know how to handle his match right, so as their powers collide they destroyed each other.
Now he's history and all that's left is the cold, white body of a genius, who could've stand up to everyone and everything and yet, not even he could cheat death...
The door opens and a thin, blinding ray of light pierce through the darkness. A tall, blond man enters and activates the bright, long fluorescent lamps, which plunge the room into an aseptic, blue-white light. The man is of slim but athletic stature. The hair short, the eyes brown and the harsh look on his face, like a general before an attack. He seems to be in his mid-twenties, even though he's much older. Nevertheless the years couldn't leave visible marks on his face and so the blond beard and the deep wrinkle between his eyebrows are the only thing, revealing his true age.
With a slow, but steady pace he walks towards the bier in the middle of the room. He looks upon the famous face of the dead with unreadable countenance. He has known him far longer, then his fleeting fame in the London tabloids lasted. He has known him before he became the most dangerous criminal in the whole world and it's only ‚consulting criminal'.
The blond raises his hand and with a cold smacking he cuffs the corpse.
„Hey, sunshine! You slept enough!" he grumbles in a dark voice towards the dead.
For a moment there is cold silence, only the whirring of the fluorescent lamps cuts through it.
Then another slap. Stronger, louder than the one before; strong enough to yank the head to the side.
Silence. Then a sharp breathing-in. The corpse is gasping for air, it chest is raising and it opens its eyes. It rattles and coughs as it slowly sits up.
The white shroud slips down to his hip; the hair ruffled and still a little bit gooey from the fake-blood, which looked real in the right moment. Sleepy he rubs his eyes, tests his jaw, stretches his neck. The man, who brought down Sherlock Holmes! Whose name became a legend: Moriarty!
„H… How long... has it been?" he ask the blond with throaty voice, which is repeatedly breaking up.
„Long enough! Now come on, before they want to dissect you!" replies the blonde, while he is handing him a lab coat, who hung beside the door.
Moriarty takes the coat and after a strained clearing of his throat, he asks: „The body-double?"
„Had been prepared, will be delivered soon." said the blond.
„And the pathologist?" gasps Moriarty, while stripping on the lab coat.
„Had been paid of and is ready to confirm everything we want." responses the blonde. In a slight hurry he hands Moriarty some improvised shoes.
„Sebastian..." The blonde stopped, realizing that the evil genius got his soft, yet threatening voice back.
„What about Sherlock Holmes?" ask the soft voice calm but portentous.
The blond hesitates for a moment, unable to look Moriarty in the eyes, he says: „He is fallen... He failed! "
That moment one can almost feel the hateful look on Moriarty's face, without seeing it. It's like dark storm-clouds gathering and one can only wait for the storm to break loose. When Sebastian decides to look at him, Moriarty literally pierced through him with his forceful, dark eyes, the eyebrows harshly contracted and an aggressive twitch around the nares, like a bull ready to attack. Sebastian prepares himself for the storm, but nothing happens. All of the sudden the rage changes into disappointment. Moriarty stares anemic and tired at the ground. It seems as if something just died inside of him.
„He's dead..." his suddenly rough and off-breaking voice cuts through the tense atmosphere. A disappointed sighing, then Moriarty jumps from the bier, slides into the shoes and leaves the room the same moment two men are carrying a corps inside. After Sebastian instructed the men, he follows Moriarty.
The blonde goes along with the consulting criminal, thinking of something to say, thinking if he should say anything at all. Is there anything right to say in that situation anyway? Finally he decides that it is no moment for words.
They reach the backdoor of the building and go outside. A black car is waiting for them, there behind the bins of the hospital.
Merciless Moriarty rips open the co-driver's door and jumps inside. The look on his face is frozen, bitter, angry, disappointed; all at once.
Sebastian takes the seat on the driver's side. He starts the car and turns into a barely used backstreet. He is one of the only people, who actually know where the true home of the criminal mastermind is, but within the ‚sacred halls' itself nobody has been but Moriarty himself. One should presume that this great, rich man would live in an equally rich apartment, but quit the opposite is the case. In the south-east of London, on a plain, but modern apartment block the black car stops. It's in the middle of the night.
Moriarty leaves the car without saying a word. He's still covered in nothing more than the white coat, but there is not a single soul on the street to witness the strange arrival. Sebastian understands that any kind of talking, asking or every other way of communication is absolutely inappropriate. So he take one last look at Moriarty, who disappears in the main entrance and heads off.
It's no particularly noble nor expensive way of living. The only luxury, if you may call it that way, is the lift and that Moriarty owns the whole upper floor, to which only he has access to. Most of the neighbors are old people, who are usually in their beds in those hours Moriarty is coming home. They don't get to see, when or how Moriarty is returning home. Be it with nothing more than a white lab coat and with blood on the back of his head or in a expensive suit. But even if they would see, who would expect the nice, handsome, rich man from the upper floor to be anything other than the charming young man, he occurs to be, whenever he meets some of the other inhabitants in the apartment block. People only see, what they want to see.
When the lift opens, Jim stays inside the cabin for a little longer, till he steps into the spacious but barely furnished room with a wide window-frontline. The most remarkable in there is the book shelf, which is as high as the ceiling. Many expensive collectors' pieces he owns, are stored there.
Tired he drags himself throw the apartment towards the bathroom. It's maybe the first time, he's not in a hurry or the phone is ringing nonstop. It's quiet; so quiet, like it was in the morgue. But he's enjoying the silence, the quiet. He doesn't even bother to turn on the lights, except a little lamp in the bathroom, which muffles everything in a soft, warm, yellowish light.
He throws the coat into a corner and goes in the shower. When the warm water meets his still cold skin, he feels all tensions go away. In long, thin pathways the fake blood flows down the drain together with the water-stream. He takes his time. The time he usually doesn't have. Only now he can afford it, while everybody things he's dead or Richard Brook or however not existent.
But the dominant feeling inside him is disappointment. Disappointment and anger towards Sherlock. How could he not tell his bluff? Not figured out that his death was a fake? How couldn't he see his trick? How could he really actually kill himself? Was he that distracted by interpersonal relations, that he couldn't see through the game, he was playing?
How could Sherlock not pass the test? How could he have been so wrong about him...?
Actually the whole initiative with Richard Brooks was just a test! A test, if Sherlock could affront him in a straight confrontation. To see if a real battle is generally worth it. If Sherlock could actually stand up to him. But he was wrong! Sherlock was ordinary and easy to manipulate, if you push the right buttons. Just like everybody else. Jim thought he finally found his match, but it was wasted, because Sherlock didn't had the same passion for the game like him. His ‚friends' were more important to Sherlock. In the end... he wasn't worth the effort.
When Jim gets out of the shower his fingers were already crumpled. Usually he would have just covered his hips with a towel, but because he was still a little over-chilled, he muffles inside the warmth of his black bathrobe. The apartment was as over-chilled as he was. When everything went according to plan, which was out of question, nobody was here for almost a month. But he couldn't really orientate. He doesn't know exactly how long he laid unconscious in the morgue.
A cup of coffee, comfortable clothes, the daily newspapers from the last couple of days and his laptop; like this he gets comfy on the black leather couch with a bit defused light. First of all: informing, how the world moved on since his death, before he would resurrect himself from the dead and picks up his old contacts. Just catching a little breath and letting one's hair down, before the phone starts ringing nonstop and he becomes again the most wanted criminal of the whole world.
The papers have just one topic: ‚Reichenbach hero a fraud'; ‚Shocking suicide of Sherlock Holmes'; ‚He couldn't live with the truth anymore'. The buzz on the internet weren't any different. A part of him is proud, that his masterpiece was playing out so perfectly, but still the disappointment is stronger. For many hours he sits there; one coffee after the other; one newspaper after another and forum after forum. Till suddenly he stumbles upon a comment, who contents just an internet-address: ‚ '. How could he possibly resist that kind of provocation? There have been other comments, who didn't believe in the suicide or the fake Moriarty. But not a whole website, which thought it is smarter then everybody else. And then there is something else, that gets Jim to click on the link. He would've never admitted it, but there is a little spark of hope. The hope, that the website gets a big response, that everybody discovered the truth, that maybe Sherlock himself made the side.
One click; a new tab and a picture of Sherlock appears, with this ridiculous head and in red letters a 'I BELIVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES' above it all.
Jim's second thought, while he hoovers over the side, is that it's more likely, that John Watson, personal friend and author of the diary about Sherlock's cases, made the website, rather than Sherlock himself. But judging by the design of it, it was probably made by high school students. Everywhere funny buttons and photos with letterings saying stuff like, ‚I believe in Sherlock Holmes' and ‚Moriarty is real'. They were even selling t-shits with those slogans. Everything looks very non-serious. But what was written there was quite alarming. Not only claims the side, that the newspapers are wrong, but it also proves it. Probably not as profound as someone, with the necessary background information, like John Watson would have done it, but still very solid.
The writer not only sorted out that ‚Richard Brook' is an English allusion for ‚Reichenbach', he also discovered that this actor ‚however good he was staged' not really excites, if you go back far enough. There is no prove of a collage-degree or even a pre-school-verification. However the hell he found that out. Probably not really legal.
He also got theories about the break-ins and the acquittal: ‚Pretty lame of Moriarty to use bribery! Maybe he should open up his mind and come up with something clever next time!' What a punch in the face from such a little smart-ass! But nothing that serious, that it would've bothered him for long. Because the real fun part he didn't even checked out yet. The forum!
Always the biggest fun there. That's also the reason he prefers online-news. The poorly written comments from all and everyone about all and everyone. Armed with dangerous superficial knowledge, everyone could spread ones conspiracy theories all over the world. The gift of the internet!
So Jim scrolls from one amusing weirdo to the next, until he tumbles upon an anomaly. This comment wasn't for the world, not for those nutcases; but rather only for him: James Moriarty!
It is only a little different from the others, but still he recognizes immediately that this one was special. Because of the last sentence: ‚I believe in James Moriarty'. One could assume it's just been a typing error and it was meant to be ‚Sherlock Holmes', but when he saw who wrote the comment, it becomes clear who send him this message. In plain letters, without an icon, it says ‚Carl Powers'. There is only one person on this earth, who would send him this insider! A satisfied smile spread over Jim's face.
The game is back on!