d by nature with a phenomenal mathematical
faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the Binomial
Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won
the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to
all appearances, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had
hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain
ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and
rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.
Dark rumors gathered round him in the university town, and eventually he
was compelled to resign his chair and to come down to London, where he
set up as an army coach. So much is known to the world, but what I am
telling you now is what I have myself discovered.

"As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal
world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been
conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing
power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield
over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying
sorts--forgery cases, robberies, murders--I have felt the presence of
this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered
crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have
endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last
the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led
me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of
mathematical celebrity.

"He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that
is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a
genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first
order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but
that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of
each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are
numerous and splendidly organized. Is there a crime to be done, a
paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be
removed--the word is passed to the Professor, the matter is organized
and carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found
for his bail or his defence. But the central power which uses the agent
is never caught--never so much as suspected. This was the organization
which I deduced, Wats