A/N: Something a bit different, based on a plot bunny hatched by aragonite and me during a SH film discussion. Canon doesn't mention whether Moriarty had a butler, so I've taken a few liberties and invented one... and then I've added a twist to the tale.

I Was Moriarty’s Butler

“Good afternoon, sir, this is a surprise. Have we met? They said you asked for me in person, and my memory isn’t what it was where faces are concerned. We haven’t? No, I don’t recognise the name. Oh, well, it’s good of you to call, all the same. Any visitor is welcome these days.

“That’s right, sir, you pull up a chair and sit yourself down. Now, I bet I can guess why you’re here. You want to know about him, don’t you? Ah, I can see you’re surprised, but if I had a penny for everyone who came through that door asking about him, then I’d be a rich man.

“I suppose you’re wanting to know how I ended up working for a man like him. Well, it wasn’t on purpose, let me assure you of that, and had I known who and what he was, I wouldn’t have set one foot in that accursed house.

“Truth of it is, sir, I was down on my luck at the time. I was butler to old Sir George Hawkesworthy – God rest his soul – and he wasn’t cold in the ground before his son sold off his London residence and scarpered off to the south of France. He always said that young man would come to no good. I’m sure you know the sort; they’d sell the rings from under their mother’s eyes if they could find a buyer.

“But, there, I’m wandering off the story. The point of it was that I went round to the agency and threw myself on their mercy. I’m not a proud man or a young one, sir, so I was willing to take anything they had to offer. As it turned out, they had this position as butler to a learned gent, a professor of something or other. At the time, they didn’t tell me too much about it, except that the pay was good – a little above the going rate, to be exact – and that I had to know how to mind my own business.

“I did think it a bit strange that no one else had taken the post, but who can afford to turn his nose up at decent pay these days? I didn’t hang about; I went straight over to the address they gave me before someone else beat me to it.

“When I got there, I didn’t know what to make of it. I’ve often thought that houses are like their owners, and this was no exception. It was a thin, grey house, like the man himself, all solemn and foreboding. Of course, I didn’t know what he was like at the time or nowt about his business, but the sight of this house, sir, with not a single flower in the borders and the grass trimmed to within an inch of its life, I’ll tell you it fair sent shivers down my spine. Like a haunted house it was, except it was haunted by real people, if you take my meaning.

“The master of the house was expecting me and I was shown into his study. Queer sort of room it was, with a picture of a pretty lass on the wall and all these strange metal instruments about the place, like those thumbscrews and whatnot you see in the dungeons at the Tower of London. He didn’t look like no professor I’d ever seen, but then I’ve not seen many so you can’t go by me.

“It’s true what they say though about first impressions, and mine of him was that he was a nasty bit of work, not the sort of man you’d want to cross. Even though he was sitting down at his desk when I saw him, with his back to the window and the sun in my eyes, I could tell he was tall. And thin, sir, like a garden rake and just as sharp.

“I don’t mind telling you I was right uncomfortable about the whole situation, and would have bolted out of that door like a rabbit there and then if it hadn’t been for the money he was offering. All the while I’m sitting there, he’s staring at me with those puckered eyes of his, like he’s trying to reach through my eyeballs and tear out my soul.

“ ‘Mr Henry Harris,’ says he at last, reading my references. ‘These, I take it, are genuine?’

“ ‘Genuine they are, sir. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

“ ‘If they are not, believe me, Mr Harris, you will. I shall of course have to verify them.’

“I tell you, sir, that more than anything put the wind up me. All the while he’s looking at me and speaking, his head was moving about from side to side, like one of them snakes you see at the zoo. Horrible things, snakes. That’s what he put me in mind of, what with his face being clean-shaven and his forehead shining like that.

“ ‘Are you a discreet man, Mr Harris?’ he asks me.

“ ‘I’ve never betrayed an employer’s confidence in my life,’ says I.

“ ‘That is what my last butler said after I caught him going through my papers. A few days after that, he met with a regrettable accident.’

“My blood was running colder than a mountain stream in December. I’ve had a fair few masters in my time, but none like this. Oh, there’ve been some bullies among them, all talk and throwing things about. But this man, he said it like he meant it. As I say, if it hadn’t been for the money… well, to cut a long story short, I accepted his offer and started the same day.

“It was a rum old household, sir, to be sure. It was just me, the cook, and a housemaid, which for a house of that size wasn’t enough. A rough-looking fellow came in once a week to do the garden, and he always let himself in through the French windows. Tight with the master he was, like they were old friends or something, and if there was a personal errand to do, like running letters to the box, he would always ask the gardener to do it.

“He didn’t have many visitors and never the same twice. And strange talks they had, sir, oh, very strange. Whenever I entered the room, it would all go quiet and the master wouldn’t say a word until I had gone. Once I lingered outside the door just to hear what it was all about. There I am when all of a sudden the door opens and there’s the master, demanding to know what it was I thought I was doing. As luck would have it, my shoelace was undone, so I made a show of tying it up and then off I went. After that, he would always walk me to the door and watch me go.

“I have to say that it made me nervous being in his presence. I had the feeling he was studying me all the time. When I know I’m under scrutiny, I tend to make mistakes, and the master, he didn’t like that, not one bit.

“ ‘You’re a clumsy fool, Harris,’ he would say. ‘I don’t know why I put up with you.’

“He said that a lot, but beggars can’t be choosers. Truth was, the reason I’d walked into such a position straight off was because no one else wanted it. I needed somewhere to work and he needed a butler. I dare say we neither of us liked the situation, but necessity had made us uneasy bedfellows, and me the uneasiest of all.

“Oh, he was a hard taskmaster and very hard to please. First, it was small things, like having too much starch in his collars or not enough salt in the soup. Then, one night, I was serving him at dinner and he draws my attention to the fish knife.

“ ‘This is dirty, Harris. Get me another,’ says he.

“So I do, and prompt like, because he was in a funny mood that night. I replaced the one he said was dirty – I couldn’t see any mark on it, that’s for sure – and he looks up at me and says: ‘You’re a fool, aren’t you, Harris?’

“Well, sir, I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t.

“ ‘Look at you, creeping about this place with that obsequious expression on your face. You’re a snivelling, inconsequential wretch of a man. You live quietly, and that is how you will die, buried in a small insignificant plot in a small insignificant graveyard, forgotten as soon as the last sod of earth is thrown on top of you.’

“ ‘If you say so, sir,” says I.

“ ‘I do say, Harris, because I’ve known a thousand men like you and the pattern never varies. You lack that ambition that separates you from better men. You expect nothing from life and that is what you get. And yet…’

“Then he picks up the knife I’d just put there and turns it over and over in his hand, and looks at me with an expression on his face like the very devil.

“ ‘Experience teaches us to be wary of still waters,’ says he. ‘I expect you would like to kill me, wouldn’t you, Harris?’

“ ‘Oh, no, sir,’ says I, right alarmed at what the master’s saying. ‘The thought never entered my mind.’

“ ‘Yes, it did, just now when you came round behind me with this knife. You thought how easily it would be to stab me in the back with it.’

“ ‘No, sir, I never did.’

“ ‘Do you know what stopped you? Lack of ambition. To murder a man in cold blood requires that hunger of which you are bereft. Now, get out of my sight.’

“I didn’t hang about. By the time I got back to the kitchen, I was shaking down to my boots, I was that afeared of what he had said. But after that, I noticed a change with him. He stopped watching me and carried on with his business as though I wasn’t there. One night when I was serving tea, one of his ‘friends’ objected to my being there while the master was plotting – oh, some awful business, sir, it makes my stomach turn to think of it.

“ ‘It’s only Harris,’ says he. ‘He won’t tell, will you, Harris?”

“ ‘No, sir,’ says I.

“ ‘Of course you won’t. You haven’t the intelligence to know what to do with such information. But you know what will happen if I find out that you have, don’t you, Harris?’

“No doubt you’ll be asking me why I didn’t pack my bags and go that night. I’ll not lie to you, sir – he scared me. He made it plain what would happen if I left. I suppose I could have gone right away, but a fellow has to eat, and it’s better the devil you know. And he was the devil all right. The things I’ve heard, sir, and I’ve never breathed one word of them to another soul for fear of my life. So I kept my head down and did my work, quiet just like he said, trusting to God and justice that his crimes would catch up with him.

“Then, in early 1891, as I remember, a terrible change came over him. He was angry and did a lot of shouting, speaking about some fellow called Holmes having ‘incommoded’ him. Well, I didn’t know what he meant, although I’ve heard of Mr Holmes, having read that story about him and the one-legged man. He seemed to me that if someone that clever was on the master’s trail, then he’d soon end up behind bars where he belonged.

“Things came to a head at the end of April. Oh, the master was a demon then. He had all his papers taken out into the yard and burned. The following morning he left early without explanation or telling us when he would be back. The next I hear of him is in the papers, telling of how him and Mr Holmes have had a fight and fallen to their deaths over a waterfall somewhere abroad.

“I wasn’t sorry to read that the master was dead, although I was sorry to hear about Mr Holmes, him being a good and clever man. Not long after that, we had the police round at the house, and by heavens they did make a mess with their searching, not that they found anything. So, I’m thinking that’s the end of it and I’d have to be looking for a new position, which at my time of life isn’t the easy thing in the world.

“Then the master’s brother turns up, the Colonel, and he says that he wants someone to keep an eye on the place until he decides he’s ready to sell. Well, it seemed a bit strange to me, keeping on the house when there’s no one to live in it, but the Colonel promised to keep me on at full pay, so who am I to question his wishes?

“Suited me right enough it did. The cook and the housemaid were given their notice, the furniture was covered up and there I was, rattling around in that big house all on my own. Then came the night of the fire. That’s what you want to hear about, I expect. What really happened. Well, I tell you now as I told them, as God is my witness, I’ve never told a falsehood about that night, and nor will I, regardless of what they say.

“It was a Thursday, that being my night off, and I’d taken myself to the local, where me and a few others used to meet for a friendly game or two of shove-halfpenny. That night we learned that old Barnes had died, and none of us felt like being too jolly, if you see what I mean. I left earlier than I would usually have done, and as I started walking up the drive, I saw a light in one of the downstairs window, moving about like someone was walking from room to room with a candle.

“I should have gone for the police, but the house was my responsibility and I didn’t like admitting that I wasn’t up the job. So I crept round to the back of the house, picking up the gardener’s shovel on the way to defend myself against the burglars. The French windows were open – that’s how he got in, I dare say – and, plucking up all my courage, in I rushed.

“Well, sir, what d’you think I saw? An old tramp, with a straggly grey beard and a dirty old coat, going through the late master’s desk. I challenged him and he stopped what he was doing and round he turned. Then I had the fright of my life, for who should it be but the Professor, and him in disguise. There’s no mistaking those eyes, sir, or that way he had of moving his head.

“ ‘So, Harris,’ says he. ‘You appear to have discovered my little secret.’

“ ‘They said you were dead, sir,’ says I, scarce able to believe my eyes.

“ ‘Death to the man of intellect is merely an inconvenience,’ says he, straightening up to his full height and removing his battered old hat. ‘Appearances are never quite what they seem.’

“ ‘Are you a ghost?’ says I, because for the life of me I can’t believe that he’s there, stood before me.

“He laughed then, sir, right in my face. ‘Is that the best you can do, Harris? Is that the limit of your imagination? What a comfort is ignorance – it spares you the pain of having to think at all.’

“ ‘Then what are you, sir?’

“ ‘I am as I have ever been, Harris. Do you think I am so dull-witted as to allow myself to hauled away by the incompetents at Scotland Yard, or to fling myself into an abyss?’

“ ‘But it said in the papers you were dead, sir.’

“ ‘Someone who looks like me is dead, Harris, that much is certain, but as you can see, I am very much alive.’

“ ‘A double, sir? It’s him who is dead?’

“ ‘Excellent,’ says he, grinning away like the cat who got the cream. ‘You do have a brain in that thick skull of yours. Yes, my ‘double’ as you call him came in very useful. There is lesson for you, Harris: never do yourself what you can get some other fool to do for you. I have been fortunate in finding a fool to act as butler for me and another to die for me. Moriarty’s crimes have died with him, but I endure. Would that you could aspire to such heights, Harris.’

“By now, I was scared out of my wits, even more so now he had a gun in his hand and pointed in my direction.

“ ‘No one outside this room save my trusted second-in-command knows that I have survived, not even my brother, who was persuaded to retain this house in the ownership of the family until I was able to retrieve a few personal items. The police were careless, I see. This Louis XIV desk was immaculate when I left; now I find the lock is broken and the wood scored and scratched. You allowed this desecration, Harris.’

“ ‘I swear, sir, I didn’t. They wouldn’t pay any heed of what I said.’

“ ‘This desk was a thing of beauty, a rarity in an ugly world populated by crass bunglers like you. Now I find it defiled, as your presence defiles the very air I breathe. What price, the destruction of beauty, Harris? Men have been hanged for less.’

“ ‘I’m sorry, sir—’

“ ‘Sorry?’ says he with a snort. ‘The phrase of choice for the weak and ineffectual. Well, now you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. Why don’t you bring me coffee, Harris.’

“He sat down after that, with that gun of his next to his hand. He had his back to me, sir, like he was daring me to do something but knew I wouldn’t. All I could think was that if I walked in front of that desk, I’d have a bullet in my back before I could get halfway to the door. He meant it, sir; he had that look in his eye. And it didn’t seem right, him sitting there alive, while some other poor fellow and that Mr Holmes were dead, and he was planning to start doing all those evil things I’d heard him talking about all over again.

“So I did it, sir. I don’t know what came over me. I just picked up the shovel and… well, I hit him. He went down without a word. I rolled him over to see if was still alive and he was, sir, looking up at me with those terrible eyes of his, like he couldn’t believe what had happened. Then he was gone and I knew the danger I was in.

“In my hurry to escape, I knocked over the candle he’d been using. The dustsheet went up like an oily rag and before I knew it, the room was ablaze. Well, by the time the fire engine arrived, the house was in ruins. I was in fear of my life, sir, so I told the police and this detective from Scotland Yard what had happened, about how the Professor had faked his own death and come back. I had to tell them, sir, in case this second-in-command of his came after me. I’d never met the man nor heard his name, so I didn’t know if he was there, waiting to take his revenge for what had happened to the Professor.

“I kept insisting, but the police just laughed at me. Then they found the body. They said I was a lunatic, that I was having delusions and that I’d killed an old tramp because I thought he was Moriarty. But he was, sir, on my mother’s grave, I swear it.

“And that’s how I’ve ended up in here, in an asylum for the criminally insane. I don’t get many visitors, sir, so I thank you for your kindness in coming. It’s not where I thought I’d be spending my old age, but at least I’m safe from that other fellow. He couldn’t find me in here, could he, sir? And perhaps they’ll catch him one day and they’ll know I was telling the truth that Moriarty didn’t die in that waterfall and that I was the one who killed him, not Mr Holmes, but me, Henry Harris. Who’d have thought it?

“Oh, are you going now? Well, it’s nice to have had this talk. And thank you for the nip of brandy. Your good health, sir. Funny how the memory plays tricks, isn’t it? I never noticed that brandy smelt of bitter almonds before. Good day to you and bless you for your kindness, Colonel Moran.”

The End

Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty et al are the creations are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Characters and incidents mentioned in this work are entirely fictitious. This work of fan fiction has not been created for profit nor authorised by any official body.