Taking a Moriarty Day

 Early this morning, I recieved one of those odd e-mail that makes one wonder if an attempt at hacking is being foist upon you. The sending address was but a number, the subject line blank, and the content a simple JPEG image. Gmail claimed to have scanned it, and the preview looked a bit like Paul Thomas Miller with a bit more hair than last I saw him. Still, I just didn't want to trust it enough to double-click for full view. And then, while at the theater waiting for a matinee of Napoleon to start,  I received a query with the same image from another friend.

I examined it more closely. Paul Thomas Miller was holding a copy of an extremely rare monograph on Professor Moriarty, that was only known to exist in Michigan, far, far away from Plymouth and Paul's usual environs.

Suddenly, pieces fell into place. A known defender of Canonical criminals from Michigan had been in possession of two copies of that black item, and had recently been heard of in London. Had Rich Krisciunas met up with Paul Thomas Miller? It seemed so. I knew Talon King was due to have a meeting with Paul tomorrow about certain Moriatian plottings, so I made a mental note to ask him.

While all this was going on, I had finally let the ongoing encouragement of Madeline Quiñones to listen to the Audible Moriarty audio drama push me to do that thing. The alternate universe of Moriarty: The Devil's Game, created by Charles Kindinger, is a splendid little drama which lays out a quite different origin story for the professor than we normally expect for "the Napoleon of Crime." And watching a movie laying out the career of Emporer Napoleon in the middle of listening (and considerations of Moriarty as any sort of successor to Napoleon) made for a stark contrast in Moriartys.

Moriarty's stationmaster brother being called "J.J." in Moriarty: The Devil's Game, when just two days ago I got to see a certain family member of that same moniker fit right into the theme of things, which was the omnipresence of the professor. After more listening to the audio drama, I dropped in on the Theatre-Goers Homeward Bound and their viewing of They Might Be Giants, which features continual references to Moriarty until his leads face him at the film's mystifying finish.

"He's out there somewhere," George C. Scott's Sherlock Holmes says of Moriarty as they head toward the supermarket on their late night mission to find him, before his Watson deduces the final clue that leads them to their weird final face-off. (Which is such the early seventies sort of . . .  well, this is one of the reasons Star Wars was such a hit. Not doubts about that ending!)

A little break for the return of David Tennant to Doctor Who, and I was back to finishing up Moriarty: Devil's Game before bringing the day to an end. And after that finished, one thing was left, one bit of Moriarty mischief to manage. And that, shall be here in the morning . . . when it will be someone else's day.