The Valley of Fear (alternative version) | Page 9

fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled
La Jeune Fille a l'Agneau fetched one million two hundred thousand
francs -- more than forty thousand pounds -- at the Portalis sale may
start a train of reflection in your mind."
It was clear that it did. The inspector looked honestly interested.
"I may remind you," Holmes continued, "that the professor's salary can
be ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference. It is seven
hundred a year."
"Then how could he buy --"
"Quite so! How could he?"
"Ay, that's remarkable," said the inspector thoughtfully. "Talk away,

Mr. Holmes. I'm just loving it. It's fine!"
Holmes smiled. He was always warmed by genuine admiration -- the
characteristic of the real artist. "What about Birlstone?" he asked.
"We've time yet," said the inspector, glancing at his watch. "I've a cab
at the door, and it won't take us twenty minutes to Victoria. But about
this picture: I thought you told me once, Mr. Holmes, that you had
never met Professor Moriarty."
"No, I never have."
"Then how do you know about his rooms?"
"Ah, that's another matter. I have been three times in his rooms, twice
waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he came.
Once -- well, I can hardly tell about the once to an official detective. It
was on the last occasion that I took the liberty of running over his
papers -- with the most unexpected results."
"You found something compromising?"
"Absolutely nothing. That was what amazed me. However, you have
now seen the point of the picture. It shows him to be a very wealthy
man. How did he acquire wealth? He is unmarried. His younger brother
is a station master in the west of England. His chair is worth seven
hundred a year. And he owns a Greuze."
"Well?"
"Surely the inference is plain."
"You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an
illegal fashion?"
"Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so -- dozens of
exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web
where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. I only mention the
Greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own

observation."
"Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting: it's more
than interesting -- it's just wonderful. But let us have it a little clearer if
you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary -- where does the money come
from?"
"Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?"
"Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not?
I don't take much stock of detectives in novels -- chaps that do things
and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not
business."
"Jonathan Wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel. He was a
master criminal, and he lived last century -- 1750 or thereabouts."
"Then he's no use to me. I'm a practical man."
"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would
be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at
the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles -- even Professor
Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals,
to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent
commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all
been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things about
Moriarty which may interest you."
"You'll interest me, right enough."
"I happen to know who is the first link in his chain -- a chain with this
Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting men,
pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with every
sort of crime in between. His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian Moran,
as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself. What do
you think he pays him?"
"I'd like to hear."

"Six thousand a year. That's paying for brains, you see -- the American
business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance. It's more than
the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an idea of Moriarty's gains and
of the scale on which he works. Another point: I made it my business to
hunt down some of Moriarty's checks lately -- just common innocent
checks that he pays his household bills with. They were drawn on six
different banks. Does that make any impression on your mind?"
"Queer, certainly! But what do you gather from it?"
"That he wanted no gossip about his wealth. No single man should
know what he had. I have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts;