12 The Ultimate Crime
“The Baker Street Irregulars,” said Roger Halsted, “is an organization of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts. If you don't know that, you don't know anything.”
He grinned over his drink at Thomas Trumbull with an air of the only kind of superiority there is—insufferable.
The level of conversation during the cocktail hour that preceded the monthly Black Widowers' banquet had remained at the level of a civilized murmur, but Trumbull, scowling, raised his voice at this point and restored matters to the more usual unseemliness that characterized such occasions.
He said, “When I was an adolescent I read Sherlock Holmes stories with a certain primitive enjoyment, but I'm not an adolescent any more. The same, I perceive, cannot be said for everyone.”
Emmanuel Rubin, staring owlishly through his thick glasses, shook his head. “There's no adolescence to it, Tom. The Sherlock Holmes stories marked the occasion on which the mystery story came to be recognized as a major branch of literature. It took what had until then been something that had been confined to adolescents and their dime novels and made of it adult entertainment.”
Geoffrey Avalon, looking down austerely from his seventy-four inches to Rubin's sixty-four, said, “Actually, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not, in my opinion, an exceedingly good mystery writer. Agatha Christie is far better.”
“That's a matter of opinion,” said Rubin, who, as a mystery writer himself, was far less opinionated and didactic in that one field than in all the other myriad branches of human endeavor in which he considered himself an authority. “Christie had the advantage of reading Doyle and learning from him. Don't forget, too, that Christie's early works were pretty awful. Then, too”—he was warming up now—”Agatha Christie never got over her conservative, xenophobic prejudices. Her Americans are ridiculous. They were all named Hiram and all spoke a variety of English unknown to mankind. She was openly anti-Semitic and through the mouths of her characters unceasingly cast her doubts on anyone who was foreign.”
Halsted said, “Yet her detective was a Belgian.”
“Don't get me wrong,” said Rubin. “I love Hercule Poirot. I think he's worth a dozen Sherlock Holmeses. I'm just pointing out that we can pick flaws in anyone. In fact, all the English mystery writers of the twenties and thirties were conservatives and upper-class-oriented. You can tell from the type of puzzles they presented—baronets stabbed in the libraries of their manor houses—landed estates—independent wealth. Even the detectives were often gentlemen—Peter Wimsey, Roderick Alleyn, Albert Campion—”
“In that case,” said Mario Gonzalo, who had just arrived and had been listening from the stairs, “the mystery story has developed in the direction of democracy. Now we deal with ordinary cops, and drunken private eyes and pimps and floozies and all the other leading lights of modern society.” He helped himself to a drink and said, “Thanks, Henry. How did they get started on this?”
Henry said, “Sherlock Holmes was mentioned, sir.”
“In connection with you, Henry?” Gonzalo looked pleased.
“No, sir. In connection with the Baker Street Irregulars.”
Gonzalo looked blank. “What are—”
Halsted said, “Let me introduce you to my guest of the evening, Mario. He'll tell you. —Ronald Mason, Mario Gonzalo. Ronald's a member of BSI, and so am I, for that matter. Go ahead, Ron, tell him about it.”
Ronald Mason was a fat man, distinctly fat, with a glistening bald head and a bushy black mustache. He said, “The Baker Street Irregulars is a group of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts. They meet once a year in January, on a Friday near the great man's birthday, and through the rest of the year engage in other Sherlockian activities.”
“Like what?”
“Well, they—”
Henry announced dinner, and Mason hesitated. “Is there some special seat I'm supposed to take?”
“No, no,” said Gonzalo. “Sit next to me and we can talk.”
“Fine.” Mason's broad face split in a wide smile. “That's exactly what I'm here for. Rog Halsted said that you guys would come up with something for me.”
“In connection with what?”
“Sherlockian activities.” Mason tore a roll in two and buttered it with strenuous strokes of his knife. “You see, the thing is that Conan Doyle wrote numerous Sherlock Holmes stories as quickly as he could because he hated them—”
“He did? In that case, why—”
“Why did he write them? Money, that's why. From the very first story, 'A Study in Scarlet,' the world caught on fire with Sherlock Holmes. He became a world-renowned figure and there is no telling how many people the world over thought he really lived. Innumerable letters were addressed to him at his address in 221b Baker Street, and thousands came to him with problems to be solved.
“Conan Doyle was surprised, as no doubt anyone would be under the circumstances. He wrote additional stories and the prices they commanded rose steadily. He was not pleased. He fancied himself as a writer of great historical romances and to have himself become world-famous as a mystery writer was displeasing—particularly when the fictional detective was. far the more famous of the two. After six years of it he wrote The Final Problem,' in which he deliberately killed Holmes. There was a world outcry at this and after several more years Doyle was forced to reason out a method for resuscitating the detective, and then went on writing further stories.
“Aside from the value of the sales as mysteries, and from the fascinating character of Sherlock Holmes himself, the stories are a diversified picture of Great Britain in the late Victorian era. To immerse oneself in the sacred writings is to live in a world where it is always 1895.”
Gonzalo said, “And what's a Sherlockian activity?”
“Oh well. I told you that Doyle didn't particularly Iike writing about Holmes. When he did write the various stories he wrote them quickly and he troubled himself very little about mutual consistency. There are many odd points, therefore, unknotted threads, small holes, and so on, and the game is never to admit that anything is just a mistake or error. In fact, to a true Sherlockian, Doyle scarcely exists— it was Dr. John H. Watson who wrote the stories.”
James Drake, who had been quietly listening from the other side of Mason, said, “I know what you mean. I once met a Holmes fan—he may even have been a Baker Street Irregular—who told me he was working on a paper that would prove that both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were fervent Catholics and I said, 'Well, wasn't Doyle himself a Catholic?* which he was, of course. My friend turned a very cold eye on me and said, 'What has that to do with it?'“
“Exactly,” said Mason, “exactly. The most highly regarded of all Sherlockian activities is to prove your point by quotations from the stories and by careful reasoning. People have written articles, for instance, that are supposed to prove that Watson was a woman, or that Sherlock Holmes had an affair with his landlady. Or else they try to work out details concerning Holmes's early life, or exactly where Watson received his war wound, and so on.
“Ideally, every member of the Baker Street Irregulars should write a Sherlockian article as a condition of membership, but that's clung to in only a slipshod fashion. I haven't written such an article yet, though I'd like to.” Mason looked a bit wistful. “I can't really consider myself a true Irregular till I do.”
Trumbull leaned over from across the table. He said, “I've been trying to catch what you've been saying over Rubin's monologue here. You mentioned 221b Baker Street”
“Yes,” said Mason, “that's where Holmes lived.”
“And is that why the club is the Baker Street Irregulars?'*
Mason said, “That was the name Holmes gave to a group of street urchins who acted as spies and sources of information. They were his irregular troops as distinguished from the police.”
“Oh well,” said Trumbull, “I suppose it's all harmless.”
“And it gives us great pleasure,” said Mason seriously. “Except that right now it's inflicting agony on me.”
It was at this point, shortly after Henry had brought in the veal cordon bleu, that Rubin's voice rose a notch. “Of course,” he said, “there's no way of denying that Sherlock Holmes was derivative. The whole Holmesian technique of detection was invented by Edgar Allen Poe; and his detective, Auguste Dupin, is the original Sherlock. However, Poe only wrote three stories about Dupin and it was Holmes who really caught the imagination of the world.
“In fact, my own feeling is that Sherlock Holmes performed the remarkable feat of being the first human being, either real or fictional, ever to become a world idol entirely because of his character as a reasoning being. It was not his military victories, his political charisma, his spiritual leadership—but simply his cold brain power. There was nothing mystical about Holmes. He gathered facts and deduced from them. His deductions weren't always fair; Doyle consistently stacked the deck in his favor, but every mystery writer does that. I do it myself.”
Trumbull said, “What you do proves nothing.”
Rubin was not to be distracted. “He was also the first believable super-hero in modern literature. He was always described as thin and aesthetic, but the fact that he achieved his triumphs through the use of brain power mustn't mask the fact that he is also described as being of virtually superhuman strength. When a visitor, in an implicit threat to Holmes, bends a poker to demonstrate his strength, Holmes casually straightens it again—the more difficult task. Then, too—”
Mason nodded his head in Rubin's direction and said to Gonzalo, “Mr. Rubin sounds like a Baker Street Irregular himself—”
Gonzalo said, “I don't think so. He just knows everything —but don't tell him I said so.”
“Maybe he can give me some Sherlockian pointers, then.”
“Maybe, but if you're in trouble, the real person to help you is Henry.”
“Henry?” Mason's eye wandered around the table as though trying to recall first names.
“Our waiter,” said Gonzalo. “He's our Sherlock Holmes.”
“I don't think—” began Mason doubtfully.
“Wait till dinner is over. You'll see.”
Halsted tapped his water glass and said, “Gentlemen, we're going to try something different this evening. Mr. Mason has a problem that involves the preparation of a Sherlockian article, and that means he would like to present us with a purely literary puzzle, one that has no connection with real life at all. —Ron, explain.”
Mason scooped up some of the melted ice cream in his dessert plate with his teaspoon, put it in his mouth as though in a final farewell to the dinner, then said, “I've got to prepare this paper because it's a matter of self-respect. I love being a Baker Street Irregular, but it's difficult to hold my head up when every person there knows more about the canon than I do and when thirteen-year-old boys write papers that meet with applause for their ingenuity.
“The trouble is that I don't have much in the way of imagination, or the kind of whimsy needed for the task. But I know what I want to do. I want to do a paper on Dr. Moriarty.”
“Ah, yes,” said Avalon. “The villain in the case.”
Mason nodded. “He doesn't appear in many of the tales, but he is the counterpart of Holmes. He is the Napoleon of crime, the intellectual rival of Holmes and the great detective's most dangerous antagonist. Just as Holmes is the popular prototype of the fictional detective, so is Moriarty the popular prototype of the master villain. In fact, it was Moriarty who killed Holmes, and was killed himself, in the final struggle in The Final Problem.' Moriarty was not brought back to life.”
Avalon said, “And on what aspect of Moriarty did you wish to do a paper?” He sipped thoughtfully at his brandy.
Mason waited for Henry to refill his cup and said, “Well, it's his role as a mathematician that intrigues me. You see, it is only Moriarty's diseased moral sense that makes him a master criminal. He delights in manipulating human lives and in serving as the agent for destruction. If he wished to bend his great talent to legitimate issues, however, he could be world famous—indeed, he was world famous, in the Sherlockian world—as a mathematician.
“Only two of his mathematical feats are specifically mentioned in the canon. He was the author of an extension of the binomial theorem, for one thing. Then, in the novel, The Valley of Fear, Holmes mentions that Moriarty had written a thesis entitled The Dynamics of an Asteroid, which was filled with mathematics so rarefied that there wasn't a scientist in Europe capable of debating the matter.”
“As it happened,” said Rubin, “one of the greatest mathematicians alive at the time was an American, Josiah Willard Gibbs, who—”
“That doesn't matter,” said Mason hastily. “In the Sherlockian world only Europe counts when it comes to matters of science. The point is this, nothing is said about the contents of The Dynamics of an Asteroid', nothing at all; and no Sherlockian has ever written an article taking up the matter. I've checked into it and I know that.”
Drake said, “And you want to do such an article?”
“I want to very much,” said Mason, “but I'm not up to it. I have a layman's knowledge of astronomy. I know what an asteroid is. It's one of the small bodies that circles the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. I know what dynamics is; it's the study of the motion of a body and of the changes in its motion when forces are applied. But that doesn't get me anywhere. What is The Dynamics of an Asteroid about?”
Drake said thoughtfully, “Is that all you have to go by, Mason? Just the title? Isn't there any passing reference to anything that is in the paper itself?”
“Not one reference anywhere. There's just the title, plus the indication that it is a matter of a highly advanced mathematics.”
Gonzalo put his sketch of a jolly, smiling Mason—with the face drawn as a geometrically perfect circle—on the wall next to the others and said, “If you're going to write about how planets move, you need a lot of fancy math, I should think.”
“No, you don't,” said Drake abruptly. “Let me handle this, Mario. I may be only a lowly organic chemist, but I know something about astronomy too. The fact of the matter is that all the mathematics needed to handle the dynamics of the asteroids was worked out in the 1680s by Isaac Newton.
“An asteroid's motion depends entirely upon the gravitational influences to which it is subjected and Newton's equation makes it possible to calculate the strength of that influence between any two bodies if the mass of each body is known and if the distance between them is also known. Of course, when many bodies are involved and when the distances among them are constantly changing, then the mathematics gets tedious—not difficult, just tedious.
'The chief gravitational influence on any asteroid is that originating in the Sun, of course. Each asteroid moves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit, and if the Sun and asteroids were all that existed, the orbit could be calculated, exactly by Newton's equation. Since other bodies also exist, the gravitational influences, much smaller than that of the Sun, must be taken into account as producing much smaller effects. In general, we get very close to the truth if we just consider the Sun.”
Avalon said, “I think you're oversimplifying, Jim. To duplicate your humility, I may be only a lowly patent lawyer, and I won't pretend to know any astronomy at all, but haven't I heard that there's no way of solving the gravitational equation for more than two bodies?”
“That's right,*” said Drake, “if you mean by that, a general solution for all cases involving more than two bodies. There just isn't one. Newton worked out the general solution for the two-body problem but no one, to this day, has succeeded in working out one for the three-body problem, let alone for more bodies than that. The point is, though, that only theoreticians are interested in the three-body problem. Astronomers work out the motion of a body by first calculating the dominant gravitational influence, then correcting it one step at a time with the introduction of other lesser gravitational influences. It works well enough.” He sat back and looked smug.
Gonzalo said, “Well, if only theoreticians are interested in the three-body problem and if Moriarty was a high-powered mathematician, then that must be just what the treatise is about.”
Drake lit a new cigarette and paused to cough over it. Then he said, “It could have been about the love life of giraffes, if you like, but we've got to go by the title. If Moriarty had solved the three-body problem, he would have called the treatise something like, An Analysis of the Three-Body Problem, or The Generalization of the Law of Universal Gravitation. He would not have called it The Dynamics of an Asteroid.”
Halsted said, “What about the planetary effects? I've heard something about that. Aren't there gaps in space where there aren't any asteroids?”
“Oh, sure,” said Drake. “We can find the dates in the Columbia Encyclopedia, if Henry will bring it over.”
“Never mind,” said Halsted. “You just tell us what you know about it and we can check the dates later, if we have to.”
Drake said, “Let's see now.” He was visibly enjoying his domination of the proceedings. His insignificant gray mustache twitched and his eyes, nested in finely wrinkled skin, seemed to sparkle.
He said, “There was an American astronomer named. Kirkwood and I think Daniel was his first name. Sometime around the middle 1800s he pointed out that the asteroids' orbits seemed to cluster in groups. There were a couple of dozen known by then, all between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but they weren't spread out evenly, as Kirkwood pointed out. He showed there were gaps in which no asteroids circled.
“By 1866 or thereabouts—I'm pretty sure it was 1866— he worked out the reason. Any asteroid that would have had its orbit in those gaps would have circled the Sun in a period equal to a simple fraction of that of Jupiter.”
“If there's no asteroid there,” said Gonzalo, “how can you tell how long it would take it to go around the Sun?”
“Actually, it's very simple. Kepler worked that out in 1619 and it's called Kepler's Third Law. May I continue?”
“That's just syllables,” said Gonzalo. “What's Kepler's Third Law?”
But Avalon said, “Let's take Jim's word for it, Mario. I can't quote it either, but I'm sure astronomers have it down cold. Go ahead, Jim.”
Drake said, “An asteroid in a gap might have an orbital period of six years or four years, let us say, where Jupiter has a period of twelve years. That means an asteroid, every two or three revolutions, passes Jupiter under the same relative conditions of position. Jupiter's pull is in some particular direction each time, always the same, either forward or backward, and the effect mounts up.
“If the pull is backward, the asteroidal motion is gradually slowed so that the asteroid drops in closer toward the Sun and moves out of the gap. If the pull is forward, the asteroidal motion is quickened and the asteroid swings away from the Sun, again moving out of the gap. Either way nothing stays in the gaps, which are now called 'Kirkwood gaps.' You get the same effect in Saturn's rings. There are gaps there too.”
Trumbull said, “You say Kirkwood did this in 1866?” “Yes.”
“And when did Moriarty write his thesis, supposedly?” Mason interposed. “About 1875, if we work out the internal consistency of the Sherlockian canon.”
Trumbull said, “Maybe Doyle was inspired by the new: of the Kirkwood gaps, and thought of the title because of it. In which case, we can imagine Moriarty playing the role of Kirkwood and you can write an article on the Moriarty gaps.”
Mason said uneasily, “Would that be enough? How important was Kirkwood's work? How difficult?”
Drake shrugged. “It was a respectable contribution, but it was just an application of Newtonian physics. Good second-class work; not first class.”
Mason shook his head. “For Moriarty, it would have to be first class.”
“Wait, wait!” Rubin's sparse beard quivered with growing excitement. “Maybe Moriarty got away from Newton altogether. Maybe he got onto Einstein. Einstein revised the theory of gravity.”
“He extended it,” said Drake, “in the General Theory of Relativity in 1916.”
“Right. Forty years after Moriarty's paper. That's got to be it. Suppose Moriarty had anticipated Einstein—”
Drake said, “In 1875? That would be before the Michel-son-Morley experiment. I don't think it could have been done.”
“Sure it could,” said Rubin, “if Moriarty were bright enough—and he was.”
Mason said, “Oh yes. In the Sherlockian universe, Professor Moriarty was brilliant enough for anything. Sure he would anticipate Einstein. The only thing is that, if he had done so, would he not have changed scientific history all around?”
“Not if the paper were suppressed,” said Rubin, almost chattering with excitement. “It all fits in. The paper was suppressed and the great advance was lost till Einstein rediscovered it.”
“What makes you say the paper was suppressed?” demanded Gonzalo.
“It doesn't exist, does it?” said Rubin. “If we go along with the Baker Street Irregular view of the universe, then Professor Moriarty did exist and the treatise was written, and it did anticipate General Relativity. Yet we can't find it anywhere in the scientific literature and there is no sign of the relativistic view penetrating scientific thought prior to Einstein's time. The only explanation is that the treatise was suppressed because of Moriarty's evil character.”
Drake snickered. “There'd be a lot of scientific papers suppressed if evil character were cause enough. But your suggestion is out anyway, Manny. The treatise couldn't possibly involve General Relativity; not with that title.”
“Why not?” demanded Rubin.
“Because revising the gravitational calculations in order to take relativity into account wouldn't do much as far as as-teroidal dynamics are concerned,” said Drake. “In fact, there was only one item known to astronomers in 1875 that could be considered, in any way, a gravitational puzzle.”
“Uh-oh,” said Rubin, “I'm beginning to see your point.”
“Well, I don't,” said Avalon. “Keep on going, Jim. What was the puzzle?”
Drake said, “It involved the planet Mercury, which revolves about the Sun in a pretty lopsided orbit At one point in its orbit it is at its closest to the Sun (closer than any other planet, of course, since it is nearer to the Sun in general than the others are) and that point is the 'perihelion.' Each time Mercury completes a revolution about the Sun, that perihelion has shifted very slightly forward.
“The reason for the shift is to be found in the small gravitational effects, or perturbations, of the other planets on Mercury. But after all the known gravitational effects are taken into account, the perihelion shift isn't completely explained. This was discovered in 1843. There is a very tiny residual shift forward that can't be explained by gravitational theory. It isn't much—only about 43 seconds of arc per century, which means the perihelion would move an unexplained distance equal to the diameter of the full Moon in about forty-two hundred years, or make a complete circle of the sky”—he did some mental calculations—”in about three million years.
“It's not much of a motion, but it was enough to threaten Newton's theory. Some astronomers felt that there must be an unknown planet on the other side of Mercury, very close to the Sun. Its pull was not taken into account, since it was unknown, but it was possible to calculate how large a planet would have to exist, and what kind of an orbit it must have, to account for the anomalous motion of Mercury's perihelion. The only trouble was that they could never find that planet.
“Then Einstein modified Newton's theory of gravitation, made it more general, and showed that when the new, modified equations were used the motion of Mercury's perihelion was exactly accounted for. It also did a few other things, but never mind that.”
Gonzalo said, “Why couldn't Moriarty have figured that out?”
Drake said, “Because then he would have called his treatise, On the Dynamics of Mercury. He couldn't possibly have discovered something that solved this prime astronomical paradox that had been puzzling astronomers for thirty years and have called it anything else.”
Mason looked dissatisfied. “Then what you're saying is that there isn't anything that Moriarty could have written that would have had the title On the Dynamics of an Asteroid and still have represented a first-class piece of mathematical work?”
Drake blew a smoke ring. “I guess that's what I'm saying. What I'm also saying, I suppose, is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle didn't know enough astronomy to stuff a pig's ear, and that he didn't know what he was saying when he invented the title. But I suppose that sort of thing is not permitted to be said.”
“No,” said Mason, his round face sunk in misery. “Not in the Sherlockian universe. There goes my paper, then.”
“Pardon me,” said Henry, from his post at the sideboard. “May I ask a question?”
Drake said, “You know you can, Henry. Don't tell me you're an astronomer.”
“No, sir. At least, not beyond the average knowledge of an educated American. Still, am I correct in supposing that there are a large number of asteroids known?”
“Over seventeen hundred have had their orbits calculated, Henry,” said Drake.
“And there were a number known in Professor Moriarty's time, too, weren't there?”
“Sure. Several dozen.”
“In that case, sir,” said Henry, “why does the title of the treatise read The Dynamics of an Asteroid! Why an asteroid?”
Drake thought a moment, then said, “That's a good point. I don't know—unless it's another indication that Doyle didn't know enough—”
“Don't say that,” said Mason.
“Well—leave it at I don't know, then.”
Gonzalo said, “Maybe Moriarty just worked it out for one asteroid, and that's all.”
Drake said, “Then he would have named it The Dynamics of Ceres or whatever asteroid he worked on.”
Gonzalo said stubbornly, “No, that's not what I mean. I don't mean he worked it out for one particular asteroid. I mean he picked an asteroid at random, or just an ideal asteroid, maybe not one that really exists. Then he worked out its dynamics.”
Drake said, “That's not a bad notion, Mario. The only trouble is that if Moriarty worked out the dynamics of an asteroid, the basic mathematical system, it would hold for all of them, and the title of the paper would be The Dynamics of Asteroids. And besides, whatever he worked out in that respect would be only Newtonian and not of prime value.”
“Do you mean to say,” said Gonzalo, reluctant to let go, “that not one of the asteroids had something special about its orbit?”
“None known in 1875 did,” said Drake. “They all had orbits between those of Mars and Jupiter and they all followed gravitational theory with considerable exactness. We know some asteroids with unusual orbits now. The first unusual asteroid to be discovered was Eros, which has an orbit that takes it closer to the Sun than Mars ever goes and brings it, on occasion, to within fourteen million miles of Earth, closer to Earth than any other body its size or larger, except for the Moon.
“That, however, wasn't discovered till 1898. Then, in 1906, Achilles was discovered. It was the first of the Trojan asteroids and they are unusual because they move around the Sun in Jupiter's orbit though well before or behind that planet.”
Gonzalo said, “Couldn't Moriarty have anticipated those discoveries, and worked out the unusual orbits?”
“Even if he had anticipated them, the orbits are unusual only in their position, not in their dynamics. The Trojan asteroids did offer some interesting theoretical aspects, but that had already been worked out by Lagrange a century before.”
There was a short silence and then Henry said, “The title is, however, so definite, sir. If we accept the Sherlockian premise that it must make sense, can it possibly have referred to some time when there was only a single body orbiting between Mars and Jupiter?”
Drake grinned. “Don't try to act ignorant, Henry. You're talking about the explosion theory of the origin of the asteroids.”
For a moment, it seemed as though Henry might smile. If the impulse existed, he conquered it, however, and said, “I have come across, in my reading, the suggestion that there had once been a planet between Mars and Jupiter and that it had exploded.”
Drake said, “That's not a popular theory any more, but it certainly had its day. In 1801, when the first asteroid, Ceres, was discovered, it turned out to be only about 450 miles across, astonishingly small. What was far more astonishing, though, was that over the next three years three other asteroids were discovered, with very similar orbits. The notion of an exploded planet was brought up at once.”
Henry said, “Couldn't Professor Moriarty have been referring to that planet before its explosion, when speaking of an asteroid?”
Drake said, “I suppose he could have, but why not call it a planet?”
“Would it have been a large planet?” ,
“No, Henry. If all the asteroids are lumped together, they would make up a planet scarcely a thousand miles in diameter.”
“Might it not be closer to what we now consider an asteroid, then, rather than to what we consider a planet? Mightn't that have been even more true in 1875 when fewer asteroids were known and the original body would have seemed smaller still?”
Drake said, “Maybe. But why not call it the asteroid, then?”
“Perhaps Professor Moriarty felt that to call the paper The Dynamics of the Asteroid was too definite. Perhaps he felt the explosion theory was not certain enough to make it possible to speak of anything more than an asteroid. However unscrupulous Professor Moriarty might have been in the world outside science, we must suppose that he was a most careful and rigidly precise mathematician.”
Mason was smiling again. “I like that, Henry. It's a great idea.” He said to Gonzalo, “You were right”
“I told you,” said Gonzalo.
Drake said, “Hold on, let's see where it takes us. Moriarty can't be just talking about the dynamics of the original asteroid as a world orbiting about the Sun, because it would be following gravitational theory just as all its descendants are.
“He would have to be talking about the explosion. He would have to be analyzing the forces in planetary structure that would make an explosion conceivable. He would have to discuss the consequences of the explosion, and all that would not lie within the bounds of gravitational theory. He would have to calculate the events in such a way that the explosive forces would give way to gravitational effects and leave the asteroidal fragments in the orbits they have today.”
Drake considered, then nodded, and went on. “That would not be bad. It would be a mathematical problem worthy of Moriarty's brain, and we might consider it to have represented the first attempt of any mathematician to take up so complicated an astronomical problem. Yes, I like it.”
Mason said, “I like it too. If I can remember everything you've all said, I have my article. Good Lord, this is wonderful.”
Henry said, “As a matter of fact, gentlemen, I think this hypothesis is even better than Dr. Drake has made it sound. I believe that Mr. Rubin said earlier that we must assume that Professor Moriarty's treatise was suppressed, since it cannot be located in the scientific annals. Well, it seems to me that if our theory can also explain that suppression, it becomes much more forceful.”
“Quite so,” said Avalon, “but can it?”
“Consider,” said Henry, and a trace of warmth entered his quiet voice, “that over and above the difficulty of the problem, and of the credit therefore to be gained in solving it, there is a peculiar appeal in the problem to Professor Moriarty in view of his known character.
“After all, we are dealing with the destruction of a world. To a master criminal such as Professor Moriarty, whose diseased genius strove to produce chaos on Earth, to disrupt and corrupt the world's economy and society, there must have been something utterly fascinating in the vision of the actual physical destruction of a world.
“Might not Moriarty have imagined that on that original asteroid another like himself had existed, one who had not only tapped the vicious currents of the human soul but had even tampered with the dangerous forces of a planet's interior? Moriarty might have imagined that this super-Moriarty of the original asteroid had deliberately destroyed his world, and all life on it, including his own, out of sheer joy in malignancy, leaving the asteroids that now exist as the various tombstones that commemorate the action.
“Could Moriarty even have envied the deed and tried to work out the necessary action that would have done the same on Earth? Might not those few European mathematicians who could catch even a glimpse of what Moriarty was saying in his treatise have understood that what it described was not only a mathematical description of the origin of the asteroids but the beginning of a recipe for the ultimate crime—that of the destruction of Earth itself, of all life, and Of the creation of a much larger asteroid belt?
“It is no wonder, if that were so, that a horrified scientific community suppressed the work.”
And when Henry was done, there was a moment of silence and then Drake applauded. The others quickly joined in.
Henry reddened. “I'm sorry,” he murmured when the applause died. “I'm afraid I allowed myself to be carried away.”
“Not at all,” said Avalon. “It was a surprising burst of poetry that I was glad to have heard.”
Halsted said, “Frankly, I think that's perfect. It's exactly what Moriarty would do and it explains everything. Wouldn't you say so, Ron?”
“I will say so,” said Mason, “as soon as I get over being speechless. I ask nothing better than to prepare a Sherlockian paper based on Henry's analysis. How can I square it with my conscience, however, to appropriate his ideas?”
Henry said, “It is yours, Mr. Mason, my free gift, for initiating a very gratifying session. You see, I have been a devotee of Sherlock Holmes for many years, myself.”
12 Afterword
Let me confess.
I am a member of Baker Street Irregulars. / got in despite the fact that I had never written a Sherlockian article. / was the one who thought it would be easy to write one if I had to and then found to my horror that every member of the Baker Street Irregulars was infinitely more knowledgeable in the sacred writings than I was and that I couldn't possibly compete. (Nevertheless, Ronald Mason in this story is not I and does not look anything like me.)
It was only under the urgings of fellow BSI-ers Michael Harrison and Banesh Hoffman that I finally stirred out of my paralysis, and then only after Harrison had suggested I take up the matter of The Dynamics of an Asteroid. I wrote a 1,600-word article with great enthusiasm and fell so deeply in love with my own clever analysis of the situation that I could not bear to think that only a few hundred other BSI-ers would ever see it.
I therefore converted it into “The Ultimate Crime” and made a Black Widowers story out of it for a wider audience.
And at last I feel like a real Baker Street Irregular.
And once again, now that I have come to the conclusion of the book, I will have to repeat what I said at the end of the first book. I will write more Black Widowers. For one thing, I have fallen in love with all the characters. For another, I can't help myself. It's gotten to the point where almost everything I see or do gets run through some special pipeline in my mind, quite automatically and involuntarily, to see if a Black Widowers plot might not come out the other end.