Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) Read Online Free

fired, by the by, from the same curiously constructed air-rifle he just used to shatter the facing window of my rooms on the opposite side of Baker Street.  Murder is the charge to which he will answer in the Assizes, Inspector, not window breaking, or even the attempted murder of a man all London has counted among the dead these past three years.  My congratulations, Inspector Lestrade, on your capture!”
    Dr John H Watson frowned.  The passing of three years had not changed his friend, neither in his impatience with minds less animated than his own, nor his tendency to let others absorb the credit for his work.  The chase was still the all-important game, and when that was ended he was more than content to step aside and let his inferiors seem his superior.
    The prisoner struggled against the stout police constables on either side but to no avail.  His red hair and broad moustache bristled like the fur of a maddened beast.  His face was virile yet sinister, a philosopher’s brow above a sensualist’s jutting jaw.  The man glared in rage at everyone who had participated in his capture, but especially at Sherlock Holmes.
    “You clever, clever fiend,” the prisoner snarled.  “This is not the end of it, Holmes!”
    “Ah, but it is, Colonel Moran,” Holmes quipped.  “’Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says.  I have hoped for the pleasure of meeting you again ever since you favoured me with your attention as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.”
    “You cunning fiend!”
    “Gentlemen, permit me to introduce Colonel Sebastian Moran, late of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, thought it was hardly an honourable separation, and the best heavy-game shot ever to prowl the provinces of our Eastern Empire.  I believe the Colonel’s bag of tigers still remains unrivalled, though he seems to have slipped up tonight.  The softness of civilisation must have dulled your wits, Colonel, else such an old shikari as yourself would easily have seen through the stratagem of tethering a young kid to a tree, waiting for the bait to bring the tiger into your sights.”
    Colonel Moran attempted to spring at Holmes, his cry of rage not unlike the savage snarl of the beasts taken by him in his time.  He could not, however, break free from the grip of the constables who dragged him roughly back and shoved him into place.
    “I confess it a small surprise that you chose to shoot into my rooms from the very same empty house I chose to watch for you,” Holmes said.  “I had imagined you working from an elevated position in the street, as you did in the murder of Adair, where my friend Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you.  Aside from that, all has gone very well – London will be short one murderer, and I can return to the free practice of my trade.”
    Moran looked to Inspector Lestrade.  “If I’m caught, I’m caught, but there’s no reason why I should have to submit to the gibes of this murderer.”
    “Murderer!” Watson exclaimed.
    “He speaks of his associate, the late Professor Moriarty, who perished alone at the Reichenbach Fall rather than myself, despite the Professor’s best efforts, and those of his confederate in hiding,” Holmes explained.  “A death, certainly, but just as certainly neither unfortunate nor murder.  I will  certainly never lose sleep over the part I played in the final moments of Professor Moriarty, just as I will never be troubled by the part, small as it may be, in bringing you to the gallows.”
    Moran stared with narrowed smouldering eyes.  “If I am in the hands of the law, let this be done in a legal way.”
    “That sounds reasonable enough,” Lestrade conceded expansively.  “Are there any further gibes you would like to make, Mr Holmes?”
    Holmes smiled thinly.  “The elapsed three years seem to have given you a certain puckish humour against which I shall have to keep guard, Lestrade.  But, yes, I am quite through with Colonel