Moriarity's Reprise - Part 2

“Your observations are truly noteworthy, Watson,” he said, as he returned to his seat, drink in hand. “But, in the end, none of the women documented in those case files from 160 years ago can hold a candle to Sylvia Moriarity.”


There was no getting around the subject now. “How has Sylvia come under your scope again?” I asked. “I thought you were tying up loose ends on that John Stewart case we just completed.”

“I was,” Holmes said. “It is true we caught the assassin – Leona Ducati, as cold-blooded a killer as ever there was – but I was interested in the power behind Miss Ducati. I found my thread, Watson, and I followed it, until, after a thousand cunning windings, it led me to Sylvia Moriarty, CEO of Lexitant Technologies.”

I sat up straight. “Then you have evidence to indict her?” I said.

Holmes shook his head, and setting aside his drink, rose to his feet again. “She is the greatest schemer of the millennium,” he said as he began pacing, “the power behind every deviltry, the controller of organized crime, gifted with a brain that is inexorably shaping the world to her wishes – and yet, so exhaustive is her self-effacement, so immune is she from criticism, that I cannot find enough evidence against her to stand in a court of law.”

“It is remarkable, come to think of it,” I said. “All that I have read about her paints her as an upstanding citizen. Born to wealthy parents, attended only the best schools, graduated summa cum laude from Universal Technological Institute… Even today, the news was touting some philanthropic venture or other of hers.”

“Ah, but there’s a dark side to Sylvia Moriarity, one that the journalists dare never show for fear of their own safety,” Holmes said. “For instance, were you aware that, at the age of 13, Sylvia was caught hacking into the American security network? Her parents hushed the matter up quickly, of course. And that treatise she wrote at the age of 21 – ‘Microprocessors, the Third Wave.’ Did you know that it was based in large part on the work of the brilliant but relatively unknown software pioneer Vincent Chang, a man who happened to disappear shortly before Sylvia’s dissertation was published? That is not to imply that Miss Moriarty doesn’t have a brain of the first order – she does, make no mistake. But it illustrates what lengths she will go in order to eliminate any and all competition.”

“But then, how can you possibly hope to beat her?” I asked, as our general-use computer beeped, warning that new mail had just arrived.

“No one is infallible, Watson,” he said, crossing over to his desk. “One day, Sylvia will make a trip – perhaps only a little, little trip – and then, I will be upon her.”

I rose from my chair and stretched as Holmes pulled up the new message and scanned its contents. To my surprise, I heard him mutter a low oath. “No sender; virtually untraceable,” he added, as I came up behind him and stared at the note’s brief contents.

The words - “Dear me, Mr. Homes. Dear me!” - were all that met my eyes.

“A point for you, Sylvia,” Holmes said, straightening, his grey eyes growing dark with cold fury. “But one day, my time will come, I promise you.”

“May I be there to see it with you,” I said. But even as I spoke, the icy fingers of a dreadful premonition crept slowly down my spine.