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; the
bulk of his fortune abroad in the Deutsche Bank or the Credit Lyonnais
as likely as not. Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I
commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty."

Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as the
conversation proceeded. He had lost himself in his interest. Now his
practical Scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap to the
matter in hand.

"He can keep, anyhow," said he. "You've got us side-tracked with your
interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes. What really counts is your remark
that there is some connection between the professor and the crime. That
you get from the warning received through the man Porlock. Can we for
our present practical needs get any further than that?"

"We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime. It is, as
I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least an
unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the source of the crime is as
we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. In the first
place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his
people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one punishment in
his code. It is death. Now we might suppose that this murdered
man--this Douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of the
arch-criminal's subordinates--had in some way betrayed the chief. His
punishment followed, and would be known to all--if only to put the fear
of death into them."

"Well,