Nicholas Meyer by The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (pdf) Page B
Authors: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (pdf)
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Moriarty!"
Our host turned slowly to him, allowing for the full effect of his piercing gaze, and said, in a soft voice:
"My name is Sigmund Freud."
*7*—Two Demonstrations
There followed a long silence. Something in the manner of the physician gave Holmes pause. Excited though he was, he controlled himself with a visible effort, and approached the man, who had quietly eased himself into a chair behind the cluttered desk. He gazed at him steadily for some moments and then sighed.
"You are not Professor Moriarty," he conceded at length. "But Moriarty was here. Where is he now?"
"At a hotel, I believe," the other answered, maintaining his steady gaze.
Holmes withdrew before it, turned, and resumed his chair with a look of inexpressible defeat.
"Well, Iscariot," he turned to me, "you have delivered me into the hands of my enemies. I trust they will recompense you for the trouble you took in their behalf." He spoke with a lassitude underlined by a calm certainty, and his words would have convinced me had I not known for a fact that he was utterly deluded.
"Holmes, this is unworthy of you!" I flushed, mortified and angered by the outrageous epithet.
"That is the pot calling the kettle black, if I am not mistaken," he retorted. "However, let us not quibble.
I recognized your footprints outside the professor's home; I perceived that you brought with you a Gladstone bag, suggesting that you knew we should be going on a journey. The amount of luggage told me you knew in advance how long it would be, and I was able to see for myself that you prepared for a voyage precisely as long as the one we undertook. I only wish to know what you plan to do with me now that I am in your power."
"If you will permit me a word," Sigmund Freud interjected quietly, "I believe you are doing your friend a grave injustice. He did not bring you to see me with any intention of doing you harm." He spoke calmly, easily, and with soft assurance, despite the fact that he was speaking in a foreign tongue.
Holmes refocused his attention on the man. "As for Professor Moriarty, Dr. Watson and your brother paid him a considerable sum of money to journey here in the hope that you would follow him to my door."
"And why did they do that?"
"Because they were sure it was the only way they could induce you to see me."
"And why were they so eager for that particular event?" I knew that Holmes must be badly confused but he was no longer showing it. He was not a man to err twice.
"What reason occurs to you?" the doctor countered surprisingly. "Come, I have read the accounts of your cases and just now have I seen a glimpse of your astonishing faculties. Who am I and why should your friends be so eager to have us meet?"
Holmes eyed him coldly. "Beyond the fact that you are a brilliant Jewish physician who was born in Hungary and studied for a time in Paris, and that some radical theories of yours have alienated the respectable medical community so that you have severed your connections with various hospitals and branches of the medical fraternity—beyond the fact that you have ceased to practice medicine as a result, I can deduce little. You are married, possess a sense of honour, and enjoy playing cards and reading Shakespeare and a Russian author whose name I am unable to pronounce. I can say little besides that will be of interest to you."
Freud stared at Holmes for a moment in utter shock. Then, suddenly, he broke into a smile—and this came as another surprise to me, for it was a child-like expression of awe and pleasure. "But this is wonderful!" he exclaimed.
"Commonplace," was the reply. "I am still awaiting an explanation for this intolerable ruse, if ruse it was. Dr. Watson may tell you that it is very dangerous for me to leave London for any length of time. It generates in the criminal classes an unhealthy excitement when my absence is discovered."
"Still," Freud insisted, smiling with fascination, "I should very much like to know how you guessed
Our host turned slowly to him, allowing for the full effect of his piercing gaze, and said, in a soft voice:
"My name is Sigmund Freud."
*7*—Two Demonstrations
There followed a long silence. Something in the manner of the physician gave Holmes pause. Excited though he was, he controlled himself with a visible effort, and approached the man, who had quietly eased himself into a chair behind the cluttered desk. He gazed at him steadily for some moments and then sighed.
"You are not Professor Moriarty," he conceded at length. "But Moriarty was here. Where is he now?"
"At a hotel, I believe," the other answered, maintaining his steady gaze.
Holmes withdrew before it, turned, and resumed his chair with a look of inexpressible defeat.
"Well, Iscariot," he turned to me, "you have delivered me into the hands of my enemies. I trust they will recompense you for the trouble you took in their behalf." He spoke with a lassitude underlined by a calm certainty, and his words would have convinced me had I not known for a fact that he was utterly deluded.
"Holmes, this is unworthy of you!" I flushed, mortified and angered by the outrageous epithet.
"That is the pot calling the kettle black, if I am not mistaken," he retorted. "However, let us not quibble.
I recognized your footprints outside the professor's home; I perceived that you brought with you a Gladstone bag, suggesting that you knew we should be going on a journey. The amount of luggage told me you knew in advance how long it would be, and I was able to see for myself that you prepared for a voyage precisely as long as the one we undertook. I only wish to know what you plan to do with me now that I am in your power."
"If you will permit me a word," Sigmund Freud interjected quietly, "I believe you are doing your friend a grave injustice. He did not bring you to see me with any intention of doing you harm." He spoke calmly, easily, and with soft assurance, despite the fact that he was speaking in a foreign tongue.
Holmes refocused his attention on the man. "As for Professor Moriarty, Dr. Watson and your brother paid him a considerable sum of money to journey here in the hope that you would follow him to my door."
"And why did they do that?"
"Because they were sure it was the only way they could induce you to see me."
"And why were they so eager for that particular event?" I knew that Holmes must be badly confused but he was no longer showing it. He was not a man to err twice.
"What reason occurs to you?" the doctor countered surprisingly. "Come, I have read the accounts of your cases and just now have I seen a glimpse of your astonishing faculties. Who am I and why should your friends be so eager to have us meet?"
Holmes eyed him coldly. "Beyond the fact that you are a brilliant Jewish physician who was born in Hungary and studied for a time in Paris, and that some radical theories of yours have alienated the respectable medical community so that you have severed your connections with various hospitals and branches of the medical fraternity—beyond the fact that you have ceased to practice medicine as a result, I can deduce little. You are married, possess a sense of honour, and enjoy playing cards and reading Shakespeare and a Russian author whose name I am unable to pronounce. I can say little besides that will be of interest to you."
Freud stared at Holmes for a moment in utter shock. Then, suddenly, he broke into a smile—and this came as another surprise to me, for it was a child-like expression of awe and pleasure. "But this is wonderful!" he exclaimed.
"Commonplace," was the reply. "I am still awaiting an explanation for this intolerable ruse, if ruse it was. Dr. Watson may tell you that it is very dangerous for me to leave London for any length of time. It generates in the criminal classes an unhealthy excitement when my absence is discovered."
"Still," Freud insisted, smiling with fascination, "I should very much like to know how you guessed
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