A Study in Graffiti

A Study in Graffiti

Chapter 1

Letters to Harald

Hello my dearest Harald,

In a futile attempt to make me move along with my life and rid myself of my depression, my therapist has prescribed me to write you these letters. None the less, even if it is the doctor’s order, this does not mean that I will not fully commit my entire heart to the task, for I miss you every second of the day. From this day forward, I shall continue these letters extending and sharing the proceedings of my life with you, Sweet Harald.

The school semester is starting again at Malmö University, and with it my duties as a professor follow. I recently enrolled a great deal of international students in my Chemistry of the Human Anatomy class, for doctoral graduates. In this class, I have found a student of particular interest named Charlotte Holmes; who despite her rough rugged and somewhat disarranged appearance, she might just be the most intelligent student I ever had, and whom I got the fortune to teach. I look forward to see how this semester further develops.

With love,

John

Gosh, my dear Sweetheart!

This day made sure to suck the energy out of me, for I have gotten a rude wake up call. My fellow staff member Björn approached me earlier today, discreetly whispering in my ear, “have you heard the news, John?”

“What news?” I replied in a low tone of voice.

“There has been some talk at the school; I overheard a few of your students chatting.”

“And?”

“Apparently, that Holmes girl from overseas seems to be homeless,” Björn exclaimed proud of himself with his new-found gossip.

“What!?” I continued, almost dropping the coffee mug.

“I was quite gob smacked myself, and that is not the end of it.”

“Quit your jabbering Björn and get to the point; this girl might be in an actual danger.”

“Oh, I do not believe it is so, why should she? Nevertheless, what I am most certain of is that the girl does not have any friends to share a roof with.”

This remark alarmed me a lot; what a fool I have been blinded by my eagerness to show off; I missed out on the human behind the brilliance.

After a long restless night, I decided to embark on a rescue mission of sorts. The first thing on my agenda was locating this lost girl—Holmes—and offer her my assistance. I found her early that morning at the hospital morgue, where our medicine students are allowed to conduct their research. She truly stood out in appearance with her tall and slender frame; she was dressed in a long, sterile titanium white lab coat as she was up to date with the hygiene standards of the hospital; the only thing exposing her true condition was her frizzy greasy hair, which was put up in a tail.  As I approached her, she said with a rather blank expression, “I know why you are here.”

“Do you, Charlotte?” I said, while observing her experimenting on her assigned body with an intense focus.

“You might ask me to move in with you, but I promise you that will not undo your loss.”

“How did you…?” I started to ask when she interrupted me.

“It is rather simple,” was her reply, “it is common for doctor professionals in the medical field to wear their rings in necklaces for hygienic reasons; however, you do not bear one but two with very distinct inscriptions and dates; hence, I deduce it to be two wedding rings, furthermore, the simple fact that you do not iron your trousers anymore, nor trim your beard tells me that you do not want to put yourself out on the market anytime soon.”

“Is that so?” I remarked, in an attempt to mask how insulted I felt.

“Yes,” she exclaimed while digging deeper in the body with the tools of our trade.

“And I assume you have heard the rumors, yes?” she said without taking her eyes of the subject of her work; “and that is why you ran down here to rescue me, is that right?”

“I felt some obligation to you as my student, of course,” I replied, but her answer however was not the one I expected.

“I am not interested of becoming your pet Professor Watson; moreover, I am not dependent of human presence around me, do not take it personally.”

“Surely you are, we all are!” I said.

“That is enough personal chit-chat for today Professor, for can you not see that I am busy!”

I left her feeling deeply ashamed, having conducted myself in such an unprofessional manner.

That is about all for the moment; I really wish I could hold your hand, how I wish I could tell you these tales in person.

I miss you,

John

My Dearest,

My life has turned out to be quite eventful even with you not being around, the events unfolding are of a very unfortunate nature; what more, I know that you would not find them enjoyable in the least. The situation has taken a turn for the worse; to explain, Charlotte Holmes appeared at my doorstep looking rather sick, and she was talking deliriously in circles. I immediately recognized her symptoms from my medical practices; she was experiencing the effects of withdrawal from an opiate drug of sorts. I tried my best to act quickly demanding bedrest for Charlotte, while I ran to the hospital’s pharmacy. At the hospital, I took advantage of my doctors’ license and acquired methadone, a narcotic classed drug for rehabilitating addicts. As I returned with the antidote to Charlotte´s distress, I found her pacing all around my flat shouting, “where are the bugs? they are watching me!” while examining all my belongings from top to bottom. I told myself that it was simply a drug addict’s paranoia speaking, and I gave her the dose of medication that set her asleep which brings me to this morning’s coffee, where our center of conversation was a gang-related murder; that was published in this morning’s newspaper. 

Chapter 2

The Graffiti on the Wall

“This is a set-up!” Charlotte said looking at a newspaper article related to a murder; then she added, “are you up for some adventure Professor Watson?” she continued, “I promise it will be fun,” this she said with an out-of-character pleading look.

Doubtful as I was, I still agreed. I said to her, “if you promise me that you will stay in my flat, so I can watch over you, and no more street drugs for that matter! you will turn to me now for methadone and only when you are sick from withdrawal,” she nodded quietly in response like a child after receiving a scolding from a parent.

“Now, tell me Charlotte, whatever you mean when you call this murder a set-up?”

“The paper describes this murder simply as a gang-related murder, is that right? well, the police are unmistakably wrong. This murder is no ordinary murder.” After saying this, Charlotte looked at me to make sure that I had followed her this far, as I nodded my agreement she continued, “we can start deducing by looking at the victim.”

“Deducing?” I asked mystified.

“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. I like to call it the Science of Deduction. Now and again, when I find myself facing a more complex problem, I tent to follow a certain set of rules of deduction. You see, I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those rules of deduction I laid down in an article which you can easily find online in a site called logicmanual; lamentably it only aroused scorn. You see, observation with me is second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our last meeting, that you had recently separated from your husband; I knew this only by observation. Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study; I can learn at a glance to distinguish the history of a person, and the trade or profession to which this person belongs.”

She paused for only a few seconds and then continued, “now, going back to our subject matter in question, the victim is a 34-year-old man, white, of a middle-class background; he makes his living selling popular drugs bought in Christiania, plus the eventual rare-mixes bought in Amsterdam—which consequently are smuggled here by all sorts of non-guilty-looking people—these rare-ones are much more expensive and deplorably for the victim, it was not the real source of his income (his income being the cheap drugs). I mentioned earlier that he came from a middle-class family, that obviously clarifies the fact that he is in this trade because he himself is a user, and he has found a way to comply by his vice. Whatever the details of his operation are, they have little to do with his death except for one detail: he is a drug user himself, and that is the reason he was killed.”

“How in the world do you know all this?” I said.

“Quite simple, Professor Watson,” she added quickly.

“Please call me John,” I interrupted, to which she replied—

“No, I believe Watson works better for me. I never really feel like calling people by their first names. My Mother—Mrs. Holmes—had me checked, and the half-wit of the doctor concluded that I have some syndrome in the autism spectrum; that can be your explanation if you must have one,” with this she looked at me as if giving me time to agree; then, going back to the subject of our conversation, she continued—

“Let us consider three aspects surrounding his death. First and of the foremost importance, he was a drug user himself. Second, his body was found in an abandoned building facing the canal by Beijerskajen; the building is soon to be demolished, in fact, a demolition crew was bound to work on it by the next day, so the murderer made sure that his body should be discovered in less than 24 hours. To assist your understanding, I will describe the situation of the crime scene. His body was lying in a pool of dark blood, his tongue dissected from his body, and it was placed in his right hand; in addition, the body displayed several deep cuts; however, the amount of blood was not representative of the cuts. This leads me to deduce that the dissection of the tongue, and the cuts, were done post-mortem as an attempt to disguise the real cause of death: poison. The third aspect, was the newly painted graffiti on the wall with the word Rache painted in a bright scarlet nuance.” 

“A graffiti?... well… what does Rache mean? somebody certainly tried to write Rachel and could not finish the writing?” I said trying to sound affable.

To this she laughed loudly, “Rache means, of course, revenge in German; regardless of this, this graffiti is just a distraction.”

I looked at her flummoxed, wondering if she was under the influence of some sort of narcotic that I failed to find last night. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps, she was already beyond help. She looked at me understanding—by the look of my face—my astonishment.  She added with confidence, “both by observation and by deduction, I know this to be right. The theories which I have expressed here, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely reasonable. You see, I was supposed to meet up with the victim in the abandoned lot, the place which is conveniently close to Niagara—the university’s building—this is the reason why the victim was there; however, Prof. Sauro’s lecture was longer than expected, and I was extremely late for my refill appointment; this the victim knew, and my educated guess is so did the murderer, since I texted the victim while hastily gathering my affairs; I later found both his mobile and the drugs, tossed in a corner of the building; by the way, you yourself confiscated them from me last night.”

“My God, have you killed this man Charlotte?” at this moment I was so taken by her story that I could not but express out-loud my thoughts.

To this, she laughed and said, “that, Watson, would be too easy of an answer to the puzzle. That is also what the police might think, if they ever recoil of the murder label given to the press: gang-related murder. However, both assumptions are extremely wrong,” then she looked as if talking to herself, “now all the details in the place were meant to be confusing, there are too many details. That is it!” then turning back to me with a rush of adrenaline, she exclaimed, “we have a fantastic puzzle in front of us! I ask you, now that you know more about the case, are you up for some adventure Watson??”

Crazy enough I answered, “yes!”

Harald, I am up for an adventure! life for me has turned out to be quite exciting, as you can see. I will keep you informed.

Love,

John

Chapter 3

Drebber’s Place

Dear Harald,

Today I write to you to fill you in on this unbelievable tale which currently unfolds in front of me.

The following day, Charlotte and I went out; the cold was more noticeable and the street lights had just turned on. The building which Charlotte had brought me to was located in an exceedingly modest part of town, with no decorations or signs of excess municipal routines. I presume she picked a late hour to avoid any unnecessary eyes; I wondered if her rather abrupt withdrawal of recreational use had turned her paranoid; however, she was collected, and there was something meticulous about her.
“I must admit, when you asked me to accompany you tonight, I half expected us to examine the scene of the crime, where you found the body,” I said as we approached an entrance to a rather grey and dilapidated building, one of several a-like buildings, also surrounded by plots of dead grass and scattered city rubbish.
“Why, no dear Watson,” she chuckled, then added, “however, this is the scene of a much more interesting part of our investigation.”
Charlotte went into the building as a flickering light started to glow lighting up the shabby, concrete hallway. There were some old wooden doors each leading into separate apartments on the floor, with the red door-paint mostly or fully scraped off. She walked slowly through the passageway, her head only slightly turning from side to side—as if she was looking for something. Near the end, she suddenly stopped and walked back two paces, where she turned to the door at her right.
“Welcome to the residence of the late Mr. Drebber, Enoch J. Drebber is the name,” she said, and placed her hand on the brass door knob; “I am certain he will not mind our intrusion,” she added, as she opened the unlocked door.
“How do you know this was his home, if you have never been here before?” I asked, immediately feeling rather sheepish in her presence.
“Simple, the doormat in front of this apartment is riddled with cigarette burns, as was everything else in Mr. Drebber’s possession,” she remarked calmly.
“There are no signs of forced entry on the door,” she continued, while walking through Mr. Drebber’s vestibule, looking down at the floor surrounding her.
“This man,” I said while she inspected the shabby apartment, “how did you say you were acquainted?”
“Oh, he provided certain services to my interests, he was a provider-sort of person.”
It seemed as if she tried to avoid the subject, I found the courage to return to it straight forward.
“Why is it you need these recreational services? Does it not bring you more trouble than it solves?” I asked.
“There is something about the dull routine of existence I abhor,” she said, pausing her investigation to look directly at me. “I crave for mental exaltation, without problems and work, my existence becomes the very dull routine I despise.”
I felt contrite, here I had simply presumed Charlotte to be homeless due to her drug abuse. She, as a matter of fact, sought out all means possible to avoid routines by creating mental challenges where there was none. Perhaps her sudden agreement to move in with someone simply corresponded to the same exclusive rationale. Her words interrupted my thoughts:
“I believe we have everything we need.”
“I cannot imagine we do; we have only been here a few minutes!”
“Oh, I am quite certain,” she said imperturbably, walking out of the apartment with long, confident steps.

The night had been a weary one. Not only had my head been filled with murder theories and new insights, but at several occasions during the night I could hear Charlotte’s pacing steps, not having a destination to reach but going back and forth; her mind undoubtedly deep in thought.

Outside the university building this day, it was a perfect day with the sun shining bright and birds’ songs filled the air. Charlotte had met me by the docks to discuss our next step, “I need to talk to another associate of mine. I cannot help but to think that the whole situation I have put you in has a distinct element of danger. I do not yet fully comprehend where this will lead us.”
“Can I be of assistance?” said I, looking intensely at my friend.
“Your presence might be invaluable Watson.”
“Then I will most certainly come.”
“It is very kind of you,” she said, still in deep thought.
“You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in this apartment than was visible to me,” I said at last, interrupting Charlotte’s thoughtful stance.
“No, but I fancy that I may have deduced a little more,” Charlotte said; then she added, “the scene in the apartment was one of uttermost chaos, a small space of spotlessness stands out. Someone had cleaned an area of Drebber’s apartment.”
“Whoever it was must have been knowledgeable; as a layman, I saw nothing,” I added.
“Precisely,” Charlotte concluded, looking out over the water, as she stated, “in spite of this, the victim was found with indisputable more evidence than that of a gang-related crime. There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” she stated; looking back at me, my friend said, “come now, my acquaintance can only see us this hour.”

We walked not too far from the campus site, amongst a few of the city’s oldest buildings. Where the crowd started to diminish, there stood an odd-looking fellow with greasy hair and odd socks sticking out over bleak, worn trousers somewhat too short. He took a look around, hastily, before settling his eyes on us; then he met us halfway in the alley.
“Mr. Stangerson, I hope your morning has been pleasant so far,” Charlotte said when we reached each other, doing a slight, polite bow to the man.
“Yes, Charlotte; on the other hand, I cannot say the pleasure of time is on my side; I only agreed to this meeting because you are my best customer,” he answered with a slightly disturbed smile, his eyes wandering off nervously to the side.
“Charming; however, I am not here for any of your usual commodities,” said my friend.
“Is that so? I cannot see why else would you need to summon me so urgently,” he said, looking behind his back.
“Oh, how rude of me, allow me to introduce my companion, Professor Watson – Mr. Stangerson, Mr. Stangerson – Watson,” she said while Stangerson eyed me suspiciously.

I was taken a bit by the bedside of her sudden introduction, but I tipped my hat courteously. There was a short silence.
“Charlotte, I am not in the mood for mind games,” said Stangerson, leaning towards Charlotte, he then added in a low voice, “is he a copper?” his eyes staring into Charlotte’s.
“Interesting that you should ask, I was wondering if you had interacted with any lately.”
The man became rather flustered.
“What kind of question is that? I told you, I do not have time for this.”
“Then I only have one more question to bother you with,” there was a pause, then she said, “can I have the usual?”
The man looked at her with concerned eyes; I, too, could not stop myself before looking at her with raised eyebrows.
“I thought you said you were not here for that,” said Stangerson.
“I changed my mind,” my friend added.
The man had his hand halfway down his left pocket, looking at Charlotte with a distrusting look on her face. Then he suddenly changed pockets, and took out a small package from his right pocket.
“Thank you Mr. Stangerson. I will reimburse you in the usual way, later.”
“As always,” he responded, nodding once to me and once to Charlotte before hastily walking away.

After a quiet walk back to the campus, I was urged to break the silence; however, she acted quicker, “who would have the most thorough knowledge of crime scene regulations, dear Watson?”
“I would suppose a detective,” was my answer.
“Did Mr. Stangerson seem like a thorough individual?”
“Hardly so,” I answered.
“I can assure you, the rest of his kin are extraordinarily alike in that way. This amongst all other evidence we have encountered has left me with a troubling theory.”
I tried to recollect the evidence she was mentioning but stopped myself.
“And what would this theory be?” I asked as she stopped walking to face me instead.
“Unfortunately, being in my presence at this time seems to be more unsafe than I first imagined. We should not go to the police with our evidence just now, since the police is compromised.”

I stared at her with big eyes, “surely you cannot mean this you say.”
To this my friend said, “when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Chapter 4

What Remains: The Truth

It was her second day staying at my place, and already it felt as if she were part of the usual landscape of my flat.

“Good morning my friend!” she greeted me merrily.

I could feel she was up to something; it was quite bizarre, by now I did consider myself to know her quite well; if there was ever something close to calling it that. I pondered about what had happened the day before when we met with Stangerson, and I immediately became suspicious of her behavior; was she on drugs at this very moment? had she forgotten about our agreement? I gathered myself for a moment, and then approached and asked her to reveal her agenda.

She answered me by saying, “Watson, do not worry about me—please—I am certainly not under the influence of drugs of any kind, I am simply in a terrific mood and just under the influence of my natural dopamine!”

“I am sorry to have misjudged you, Charlotte; please elaborate,” I pondered, was my disbelief that obvious? I felt somewhat embarrassed.

“I will elaborate, indeed,” she said with a smile, “did you know that this search engine Google is a rather fantastic, or may I say a magical thing? if you look hard enough, and if you are deductive enough, you are bound to find anything you need.”

“What in the world do you wish to convey with this?”

“To put it simply, I found the detectives in the Drebber case and much information about their life and their work. I believe that they are trustable fellows; however, they are not the sharpest of types; Gregson and Lestrade, are the names they go by. Gregson is the smartest detective amongst the district’s force, he and his fellow Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional—shockingly so. They have their knives into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties,” she added with a short chuckle; “they will come for a visit here later today, but we have another visitor who is scheduled to arrive shortly.”

“When did you have the time to make these arrangements?” I asked.

“My dear Watson, while you are asleep, I think, and deduce, and plan,” my friend said while we heard the doorbell. “There! Our visitor has arrived,” to the sound of the bell, she walked over to the door and opened it.

“Do you even know what you are doing? what more, how can I make sure this is to keep my life!?” screamed Stangerson as he came thru the door.

“Your life I care not; however, I assure you that your safety now is more precarious than it has ever been. I guarantee you a better chance of surviving if you work with us,” my friend replied.

Charlotte swiftly grabbed an undisclosed burner phone (this surprised me, for I thought I had managed to preciously confiscate everything, but that, however, I obviously missed). She toyed with the features on the screen.

“It will record everything, this is the piece of evidence that will bring this lamentable events to an end,” she said looking at our visitor.

“The truth is that, I am not entirely comfortable with the distributing of this poison to people who are well-known to me,” Stangerson proceeded, as he nervously paced back and forth, and then he extended his hand to Charlotte; there was a pill in it.

“So this is the poison,” she reached out for the pill and inspected it against the light of the lamp; “interesting,” she said, and while in intense observation, she added, “do you have more?”

“Yes; it is introduced to my clients as a methamphetamine of sorts; but this one will kill you,” he said; then added with a nervous laugh, “in fact, it will kill you within a few seconds.”

“Was it you who poisoned Drebber?” I asked, telling myself as if I were able to play in Charlotte’s league.

“By God, no!” said Stangerson, while looking at Charlotte he added, “I thought that was established already.”

“Watson, it is quite amusing that you can consider such a thought,” said Charlotte; then as if this comment was a source of fun for her she said, “I have no access to the unfathomable realms where Stangerson would be the perpetrator of that sort of gruesome scene as the one where Drebber’s body was found.”

To my intense relief, she showed no wish to continue, but handed the phone to our guest who eagerly looked at me as if he were demanding a translation of what Charlotte just said in his defense.

“The time has come; Stangerson, call Moriarty,” she said.

Stangerson kept the phone close to him while the beeping sound of the receptors’ rings filled the room.

“The social cleansing has begun, you are on the side of heroes: a knight,” I heard the voice in the phone speaking.

“Why should I do this, is there really no other way?” Stangerson asked while looking anxiously at us for support.

“My pupil, they want to die; we are just giving them what they want, and soon they will be gone, and you will rise as a hero,” was the cold response of the voice in the phone; then the voice added, “I hear hesitation in your words, I thought we were over that. You do not want to end up as your friend Drebber.”

“Was that you… ah… the one who took out Drebber?” said the dealer Stangerson.

After this there was a long pause, the voice in the phone then said, “let’s just say I have knights in every corner of the city that are willing to do anything for me; now tell me, are you one of my knights? Or should I simply dismiss you for a lost cause?”

“Yes, I am your knight,” then the voice was no more, just silence; the conversation was over.

Stangerson left the flat in a rack. He told us that he would take good precautions and hide himself for protection. He recorded his testimony into our camera and left us. It was the last time we saw him alive.

“This Moriarty character is, if I may say, awe-inspiring,” I shrugged, as to throw the voice off my shoulders.

“Opinion is not any of my stronger features,” replied my friend, “nevertheless, I might agree with you, Watson, in that Moriarty is a very determined person, and his determination is all about cleansing this town of any form of life that disturbs his sense of quality. I doubt that he thinks of himself as anything else than a servant of a Higher Goodness; or, eventually, that his so-called knights are servants of a Higher Goodness, meaning Himself. Whether a person is called Drebber or Stangerson, he can be certain that Moriarty does not despise him for the sake of a political gain, but for real conviction of being immeasurably superior. Just as other persons seek a position to be able to unselfishly help even the less honored of their fellow human beings, thru deeds such as curing diseases or teaching English; consequently, Moriarty would always seek a position that enables him to extinguish even the smallest creature who is not of his liking. I presume that might inspire awe, yes.”

As we were discussing Moriarty and his master plan of social cleansing, we heard the doorbell ring once again.

“Right on time!” said Charlotte, still in a merry mood.

This time as I opened the door; I found myself looking down the throat at two gentlemen.

“Tobias Gregson”, said the tallest, as he introduced himself.

“Lestrade,” said the other one. He was a lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking.

They came inside and assessed the flat with their eyes.

“This better be worth it,” said Gregson looking at me and then at Charlotte.

For some reason, they gave me the impression that I was to be chosen to be the leader at this gathering. It gave me quite some pleasure to see their surprised faces when Charlotte took command of the situation; she provided them with an over view of their case with her infallible reasoning. Our visiting gentlemen appeared to be perfectly astonished, remembering neither how to use the mouth for speaking, nor how to close it.

Yet, when she mentioned Moriarty, Lestrade interrupted her, “Moriarty who? I suppose you are not talking about the chief of police?”

“Our suppositions in this case differ as strongly as ever,” she launched, immediately to    produce a lab ampoule of some forensic evidence, the recordings and the pills.

The sound of my friend’s clear young voice filled the room with her explanations as she was saying to them that they will find the microscopic samples in the vial quite interesting; nevertheless, the most sensitive part was the recordings. Since I myself repeatedly encountered parts of my profession that I was never trained in, I could not help but pity their humble regards when listening to the recordings of their Master´s voice. I, paradoxically enough, felt compassion for their wrecked masculine-pride. Needless to say, my friend´s face spoke of no such pity.

Chapter 5

In Conclusion

Later that week, Stangerson was found dead in a cabin room in a ferry to Germany. 

There was something so methodical, and yet incomprehensible about the way he was found dead; he was stabbed to death; beside his body was a pocket edition of Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron,’ with the name of Joseph Stangerson upon the fly-leaf. In addition to this, two pills: one with poison and the other with unharmful minerals.

“Of course!” said Charlotte as Gregson told her the news, and she smiled as if in recognition of some intangible truth while Gregson and I looked at each other with the realization—luckily—that we were not alone in our scarce understanding of the situation.

As of the chief of police, Moriarty, he had vanished into thin air; we found a note on our dinner table a few days later. It was addressed to my friend—Charlotte Holmes—it was signed by Moriarty himself. Charlotte passed it to me, and I read it:

Dear and most honorable miss Holmes,

I want to express my deepest gratitude for the relief that you imposed upon me, liberating me from the mask I until now forced myself to wear. Due to your heroic deed, a sign of a most knightly zeal, I will now obey more freely my vocation for cleanliness, hopingly expanding it from Malmö to the entire world and its inhabitants. I count on our operations transcending each other in the future, and it will be an unspeakable pleasure to assist you in reciprocity, unveiling your true self for the benefit of mankind.

Yours humbly,

Moriarty

There was no mention of the whole affair in the newspapers. We were strongly advised not to divulge the matters, and it became the end of this adventure; however, it was not our last adventure, but one of many; Moriarty was, certainly, bound to come back to us.

Now, I must certainly deal with you, Harald; you went away without caring much what that would mean to me. You are certainly not here, but I am. I do not miss you anymore. I am alive; in fact, I want to live!

Farewell Harald,

John