Title: The Truth 3/?
Author: Sailing Hearts
Rating: PG
Characters: Watson and Holmes, Moriarty indirectly.
Disclaimer: Not my characters. In a sense, not even my story ideas, simply a what if…
Summary: What if some of the events of The Final Problem and The Empty House were fictional? What if Mary Watson had already been dead, and Watson had known that Holmes was alive the whole time?
Through out a five-year period, Holmes increasingly pointed out signs that a master criminal was behind much of the crimes in London. It was after my engagement to my Mary, but before our wedding that Holmes was first threatened by Moriarty.
Holmes had been working on a kidnapping case. A middle-class family, the father of which worked in the offices at White Hall as an accounting assistant. The eldest girl, twenty and about to be engaged, went missing. The fiancé was a clerk at White Hall as well. So, Mycroft had requested that Holmes become involved.
All trace kept pointing to this Professor of Mathematics, a James Moriarty. Holmes began to watch him closely. In fact, Mycroft thought he was obsessed until Holmes laid the evidence before him. Then, White Hall began to quietly watch the Professor.
This was the first case that Holmes could pin-point Moriarty as the mastermind. The girl had been dead when found, and the father, who had lost his wife the year before, retired within 6 months, a broken man. The fiancé was hung for treason. He had stolen the information from Mycroft that had been demanded as ransom. We latter learned that part of what had affected the father so was that he had tried to steal the required information to find it already gone. It was a hard blow for White Hall.
Unfortunately, this case brought Holmes to Moriarty's attention. Coming out of an opera house one evening, Holmes was stopped by the man. I had begun to step forward to support Holmes, but he waved me away as Moriarty approached, glancing subtly at Mary and then towards a hansom. I understood at once, and hastened to get her away before the mathematician noticed her presence. To my knowledge that was the first face-to-face meeting of the great mastermind. From that point on, they each made it their business to be as aware as possible of each other's doings.