is chair is worth seven hundred a year.
And he owns a Greuze."

"Well?"

"Surely the inference is plain."

"You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an
illegal fashion?"

"Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so--dozens of
exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web
where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. I only mention
the Greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own
observation."

"Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting: it's more
than interesting--it's just wonderful. But let us have it a little
clearer if you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary--where does the
money come from?"

"Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?"

"Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not? I
don't take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things
and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not
business."

"Jonathan Wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel. He was a
master criminal, and he lived last century--1750 or thereabouts."

"Then he's no use to me. I'm a practical man."

"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would
be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day
at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles--even Professor
Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals,
to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent.
commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all
been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things
about Moriarty which may interest you."

"You'll interest me, right enough."

"I happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain with
this Napoleon-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