Crime is common, Logic is rare
"Some months after Ratigan's escape, several crimes were committed for which I had been given the commission to find the culprits. The felonies were so atrocious that journalists had written about them. At first, I was unaware of the fact that many of them were actually part of a grander scheme, which could be traced back to their root, one and the same person – you might have guessed who. For a long time, Ratigan had been thought merely one of several escaped asylum patients, who could not do any truly severe harm while he was at liberty... until the murder of one of our country's most successful physicists, Donald McIvors. There were a number of clues which clearly indicated that this had been none other than Professor Ratigan's doing – naturally, he saw to it that he kept his hands clean, but instead, arranged for an assassin, who had already been imprisoned before, to commit the crime, which is why none of the Scotland Yard detectives suspected there was much more to this case than met the eye. When I informed them that I had clear evidence that this was no ordinary killing, they simply laughed at me and said that I read into it far too much –Ratigan was a lunatic incapable of a carefully calculated criminal act, they said, completely ignoring the fact that he once was a prize-winning, highly intelligent scientist! Obviously, he fooled the prison and asylum so remarkably well that people were even blind to the truth when I laid it before them. Well…Ratigan was right about the majority of citizens – too blind and foolish for their own good. I knew that he knew perfectly well that I would recognize the crimes as little games of his to amuse himself at people's naivety. Scotland Yard would not attempt, or rather, I would suggest, dare, to hunt down the scoundrel, unable to realize that the supposed insane genius was in truth an exceptionally, mortally dangerous criminal, and in fact, London's most dangerous, freely roaming about, undetected, in the city! After a while, I gave up on trying to make the police realize that I was telling the truth. I knew I had to find and expose the villain myself – more than that, I knew that he had designed many of his wicked acts especially for me to investigate, because he knew I would. The cases were often so incredibly tangled and complex that I am certain he was aware that only I would possess the determination and attention to details to discover that he was the mastermind behind the crimes, which, to the casual observer, were not linked to each other in any way. He must have been relishing the amount of attention I was giving him. Years and years passed, and at least twice a year a felony was committed which I could trace back to him. Of course, crime is common in this superficially secure city of ours, and most cases I dealt with – excluding those which were not related to crime but other types of strange and often foul business – had nothing to do with him. Yet I knew that he was hiding somewhere, secretly spinning his web of evil behind drawn curtains. He had become a master of puppets, who viewed his life as a constant stage play. He needed no training to play the role of the villain so convincingly, for he was the villain.
"Nevertheless, to his displeasure, I had, after some years, worked abundantly enough on 'his' cases that I had conceived a vague suspicion about where he was hiding, though I had only discovered the exact location of his lair when working on the Flaversham case with you, Doctor. It had become clear that he had assembled a whole little army of followers, mostly uneducated thugs and former jailbirds, who would do his dirty work for him whilst he, living amongst lowlifes in the underworld, was respected by his lackeys as a refined gentleman, though in reality he was only an unemployed criminal and public enemy. Though he had lost his title, he still had his people address him as 'Professor', and if I'm not mistaken, he never got rid of his top hat, cane and gloves, in spite of dwelling near the sewer, far away from more sophisticated areas. As he had predicted – if people are blind, they will bow to anyone who stands above them. It appears he did not even need to manipulate their minds with his nootropic pills… Yet, as it turned out, he never ceased to truly seek control over the population, as he was not satisfied with having solely the adoration of a bunch of vandals. Which is why he, after 13 years of plotting and scheming, came to the idea to have someone build a mechanical robot for him which was to impersonate the Queen, so he could do away with her and claim the empty throne, power-hungry as he was. Thankfully, as we all witnessed, not everyone allowed themselves to be deceived by the fiend, as he, finally, after years of absence, appeared before the public in an ermine coat and excessive amounts of jewellery…
"But why did he abduct poor Mr. Flaversham instead of creating the robot himself? After all, you said he was a highly gifted scientist…" Dawson inquired.
"True, my dear fellow. But his forte was mostly theory. He did the thinking; but let others do the acts. I highly doubt he was so good with his hands as to build a machine as workmanlike as Mr. Flaversham. That's a sort of ingenuity on a different level," Basil smiled briefly at Flaversham, who blushed. "Yet of course, it was his idea. I presume he had somehow found out about Mr. Flaversham's outstanding talent at toy making, and therefore knew whom he needed to extort so he could have his vision realized as perfect as possible." Olivia gazed in horror at this statement.
