PROFESSOR MORIARTY’S LOW BLOW – Page Two

In order to hide the fact that he was missing a digit, Peace constructed a false arm which he slid up his sleeve. He hung his violin from a hook connected to the arm.

When it came time to eat, Peace unscrewed the hook and screwed a fork in its place. Watching Peace manipulate the fork no doubt gave Moriarty innovative ideas of how to play his instrument.

It is likely that Peace introduced Holmes (in disguise) to Moriarty as an up-and-coming criminal violinist. Such men, known as “villainists,” were in great demand by roving bands of highwaymen. While their cohorts staged robberies of stage coaches, these violinists entertained the passengers as they were being robbed.

If Holmes could infiltrate the band, he might catch Moriarty off guard and obtain evidence to capture and imprison all the principal members of his gang. Further, Holmes’ vanity would make him seek to outshine Moriarty musically.

Holmes’ going in disguise to meet Moriarty would explain Moriarty’s curious remark in FINA that Holmes had “less frontal development than [he] would have expected”, indicating that they had never met, whereas Holmes commented that he was very familiarwith Moriarty’s appearance, indicating that he had seen him before.

Peace’s playing the violin on a G string no doubt served as an inspiration for Holmes’ trick of playing the violin across his knees. This necessitated changing the angle of the dangle of his bow as he stroked his instrument. According to Wilhelmina Norman-Neruda, to achieve the desired pure pitch and tone requires an elongated bow about six inches longer than an ordinary one.

Nicolò Paganini

When used correctly, it enables the musician to produce low notes in the range of the contra-bassoon. There is no direct evidence in the Canon that Moriarty and Holmes ever played together. I wish to call your attention, however, to the fact that in the Canon Holmes praised Paganini, whose featured work “Napoleon Sonata for the G String” was adapted for violin and contra-bassoon. Is it just coincidental that the Napoleon Sonata was performed at St. James’s Hall, that Moriarty was known as the Napoleon of Crime, and that Moriarty admitted to Holmes that he was incommoded by him on January 23, 1891? I think not.

Holmes’ description of his musical duel with Moriarty appears in The Final Problem: “Never have I risen to such a height and never have I been so hard-pressed by an opponent. He [Moriarty] cut deep and yet I just undercut him.” This is the perfect description of the musical duel in Paganini’s duet.

The contra-bassoon is very complex to play. Basically, it makes a grunting sound like that of a pig in heat, known as a “low blow.” Paganini’s music calls for a simultaneous agitato passage in which the sounds of the two instruments rise to a crescendo followed by a staccato movement. Then the bassoon and violin alternately play fast and furiously, as each musician attempts to dominate the performance.

We may deduce that Moriarty was caught by surprise by Holmes’ frantic bowing technique which featured his across-the-knee strokes. Holmes achieved one low note after another, and Moriarty made an attempt to outdo him. Egged on by Holmes’ virtuosity, the professor tightened his grip on his instrument with his quivering lips.

Using both sides of his split tongue, he made an effort to achieve the quadruple climax. The maneuver involves compressing both forks of the tongue, simultaneously, between the two reeds. The greater the penetration of the reeds, the greater the quality of the sound, but the greater the danger of cracking the reeds with an ill-timed low blow. No one had successfully reached the quadruple climax before, using the tongue sandwich technique. Whether Moriarty knew he was being challenged by Sherlock Holmes is not clear.

Moriarty knew his musical foe, an amateur violinist, was upstaging him with his trick violin-across-the-knees maneuver. Using his lowest blow ever, Moriarty in turn tried to upstage Holmes by attempting a perfect grunt. Just when it looked as though it was within his grasp, Moriarty prematurely ejaculated the note and cracked his reeds. The note vibrated against the head bones of the bassoonist. In effect, Moriarty blew his brains out — that is to say, he permanently damaged the nervous system in his neck and head. From then on, his face protruded forward, slowly oscillating from side to side. It was a classic case of burned out bassoonist syndrome, a variant of Parkinson’s disease, described by Holmes in FINA.
The professor’s days as a virtuoso contra-bassoonist were over. Having silenced Moriarty’s tongue musically, Holmes noted ironically in FINA that Moriarty’s hope for revenge “lay in silencing my tongue”.