PROFESSOR MORIARTY’SLOW BLOW – Page Three

Holmes and Moriarty met, of course, at Reichenbach for their final confrontation. As they grappled at the falls, Holmes took advantage of Moriarty’s inability to maintain his balance due to his Parkinson’s affliction. Showing no mercy, Holmes tossed the professor over the brink into the falls. We may deduce the rest. As he plunged into the chasm, Moriarty stuck out his tongue derisively at the Master, and clenched his teeth. His tongue muscles, weakened from years of attempting the tongue sandwich maneuver, gave out. Moriarty’s drooping tongue severed easily upon impact as his head struck the rocks below.

Since the forks in his tongue were evenly balanced, the organ floated rhythmically to shore. There it was recovered by a search party looking for Moriarty’s body. To keep it fresh, the tongue was refrigerated. It is presently housed near Charles Peace’s missing forefinger in the Meiringen Museum of Anatomical Parts.

The exhibit now is closed to the public for fear that current followers of Moriarty may try to steal the organ in an attempt to produce a clone of the professor. Reports that the organ

mysteriously wiggles once a year on the date of the Holmes/Moriarty final confrontation have never been substantiated.

Footnote: There is some evidence that Colonel Moran may have accompanied the trio of Moriarty, Peace, and Parker, as a drummer. His book, Three Months in the Jungle allegedly features a chapter on playing the tom-tom. I attempted to confirm this by obtaining a copy of the manuscript. Unfortunately, the demand for this book was such that it was out of print before it was published. To make a claim that Moran was a member of the Moriarty musical quartet, therefore, would be purely speculative.

JOSEPH J. FINK, BSI (The Martyrdom of
Man), spoke with forked tongue at the Spring Dinner of The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes in a tale of Moriarty, the Master, and their music.



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