‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘what do you make of such a view! Doesn’t it bring out the poetry in a man’s soul. You know, Watson, every time you and I confront the Grim Reaper’s rapscallions, I am forced to wonder about the Life Hereafter.’
Holmes continued, ‘At the very least, after we are gone, I believe a vaporous emanation of our lives will linger on until everyone who knew us has also departed.’
‘Holmes, without question I accept Hamlet’s argument there may well be more things in Heaven and Earth, but could we get on, please?’
‘Certainly, Watson, but first I have a further question. Are you prepared to play just the smallest of deceits on your publisher?’
I replied cautiously, ‘What are you suggesting?’
Holmes reached into a pocket and withdrew his Baedeker guide book. He waved the stocky volume at me and read out loud:
‘“The narrow gorge, with the copious brook fed by the glaciers, is rendered accessible by steps and rough paths. The sun forms beautiful rainbows in the spray which bedews trees and meadows far and wide”.’
‘Holmes, I am fully apprised of such descriptions of the Reichenbach Falls,’ I retorted. ‘You may recall I was with you only minutes before you plunged Moriarty to his death.’
Holmes’s eyes sparkled. He sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from the briar pipe and slid the guide book across the table.
‘Turn to Page 192.’
I did as ordered. Astonished, I exclaimed, ‘The passage you read refers to the Falls on the Trümmelbach yet it could hardly be bettered as a description of the Reichenbach.’
‘Precisely. For the fifteen minutes or so required for your photograph, given an exact angle, the Trümmelbach Falls will become the Reichenbach Falls. Hats and boots, Watson! Our hegira commences.’
Holmes flicked the hotel bill across to me.
‘Deal with this, there’s a good fellow. Tell them the telegrams require us to return at once to Interlaken. Ask about trains. Mention in passing that we shall be travelling on to Tuscany by the quickest route. Our real destination lies in the opposite direction.’
We set off for our new destination, driving hard on the bicycle pedals until my lungs panted in the thin air. The bulky camera and tripod were due to follow us to the Stechtelberg by dog-cart. It could act as a dagger to our hearts if Moran’s men spotted it. Not too soon for my unaccustomed legs, Lauterbrunnen hove into view. The pretty village was tucked into a deep, long valley of rocky cliffs and green pastures. To the left rose the great snow-mountain Jungfrau, towering above the rocky precipices of the Schwarze Mönch. Not far away we could see the Staubbach. Fed by the melting snow its waters tumbled nearly a thousand feet, resembling a silvery veil, wafting to and fro in the breeze. By the time we reached the Hotel Pension Stechtelberg the mountain peaks had begun to cast their evening shadow. The photograph would have to wait for the following day.
I spent much of the next two hours at a vantage point, purporting to survey scenes of interest for postal cards. Anxiously I scanned the track we had taken to the hotel. Colonel Moran’s malign presence seemed to envelop the very mountains around us. I had last faced him eleven years earlier, in The Adventure of the Empty House. I described him thus: ‘one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals.’
At a wretchedly early hour we set off, leaving the bicycles at the hotel. The journey to the Trümmelbach was almost entirely uphill. Holmes strode out with the Lancaster’s Patent oak and brass tripod while I carried the heavy Sanderson camera. Jutting among the boulders were the descendants of the plants we had trodden on fourteen years before - the large Yellow Vetch, dog’s mercury, Star-of-Bethlehem, purple Betony and Giant Ragweed. After frequent stops pretending to survey for a general photographic purpose we arrived at a ledge identical to the one at the Reichenbach Falls.
I set the camera on the tripod and opened the shutter, focusing with the ground glass screen. I had carefully worked out the exposure time and aperture the day before. Holmes watched me fumbling for the exact position for the tripod, edging it as close to the precipice rim as I dared. His lips tightened as the minutes passed. I raised a hand, counted out loud from one to three and operated the shutter. With a click I had the precious plate, my subject suitably bedraggled and grim-visaged. In a few months’ time his iconic image would appear on the cover of the Strand’s bumper Christmas edition.
A second plate was needed to be sure of success. I was about to duck under the black cloth when small particles of rock fell from the cliff above. I threw myself in front of Holmes with as much haste as I could muster on the uneven soaking ground. I tugged at the revolver in my jacket. My elbow struck the tripod. The apparatus jerked backwards. It seemed to hold at the very edge like a man trying his utmost to stay upright, then the Sanderson toppled into the abyss, taking with it the precious plate. I heard the crack of camera and tripod cannonading from rock to rock.
I stared frantically upward for sight of an enemy. There was no-one to be seen.
‘Holmes! Someone is spying on us,’ I hissed, uttering the words from the corner of my mouth as though ventriloquising.
With surprising composure Holmes replied, ‘I noticed him too. He has been following us for a while. You may put away your revolver. He is not an assassin.’
Despite my companion’s assurance I kept the revolver pointing at the cliff-face and commanded,
‘You up there. Come out and reveal yourself!’
‘You’d best address him by name,’ Holmes advised. ‘Try “Professor Sobel”.’
Chapter V
Albert Einstein
Professor Eli Sobel emerged from behind the rock face and scrambled down to join us. ‘Gentlemen, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he apologised. ‘I couldn’t approach you at the University among all those people because of the confidential nature of a request I wish to make. ’With a diffident look at Holmes, he continued.
‘I wouldn’t normally ask such a thing of a world-famous sleuthhound but it is a matter of some account to the Physics Department. It concerns a Swiss citizen of German birth; a young physicist at present employed as a technical assistant in the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Berne.’
‘His name?’ asked Holmes.
‘Albert Einstein. He seeks the post of Lecturer in my Department. The Rector needs to be entirely sure of his good character before we can accept him in the faculty.’
‘My dear Professor,’ Holmes returned, with the flicker of a frown, ‘establishing the bona fides of this Albert Einstein seems to me entirely routine. Check with the police or Doctors’ Commons or their equivalent where-ever he has lived over the past ten years and you have it. I see no difficulty on your part in discovering all you need.’
‘I assure you we carried out the usual investigation into the young man, then two mysterious messages in German were sent anonymously to the Rector.’
Our guest thrust a torn piece of paper at us.
‘Mr. Holmes, I know of your facility with the language. Most of the great works of chemistry are in German. You will have read them in the original. For Dr. Watson’s benefit I have put the English translation by its side.’
Written with a sharp pen in red ink the note stated