Chapter Text
I was fascinated by the importance of music in The Reichenbach Fall, particularly Rossini's "La Gazza Ladra", The Thieving Magpie, and Bach's Unfinished Fugue, Contrapunctus XIV, mentioned by Moriarty and Sherlock at tea in 221B. Also, the idea that the game was couched in code, as Moriarty states -- just not the code that he tried to make Sherlock believe that it was. I introduced Elgar's Enigma Variations because it is perhaps the biggest unsolved musical code in history, and Elgar himself was a noted "code breaker." (It's rather fun that BC's next movie role will be about a tragic genius code-breaker).
The Enigma is love. Moriarty chose to make the game with Sherlock very much about John Waston; at the pool, and in the end, the fall he had to take to save John. And so, we have the Engima chapters: "The Enigma Variation," in which John contemplates Elgar's enigma; "The Macau Variation," in which Lestrade and Mycroft find each other; "The Brighton Variation," in which Sherlock deduces that someone burned Moriarty's heart out in Brighton; and the final chapter, "The London Variation," John and Sherlock's homecoming, where things "won't go back to what they were before," because now they have a different kind of love. Note: Readers can listen via links to Elgar's The Enigma Variations Theme in Chapter 3, as well as Rob Dougan's brilliant modern symphonic interpretations, Clubbed to Death/Kuryamino Variation.
I also felt that it was possible that all of the fairy tale clues could mask the real clues that Moriarty was trying to hide - for SH to discover if he could. Because angels, and graffiti angel wings, and I.O.U don't clearly fit into the whole "Fairy tale" set of clues, but they do fit with the Bible. As I explain in Sherlock's deductions, I extended the angel references in TRF to a biblically-based set of clues, leading to "I.O.U." meaning Rev. 9:15 -21 based upon a basic alphanumeric code. Hence the coming of the Four Angels that will slay a third of all mankind, Sherlock's next challenge in the next adventure in this series.
I was fascinated by the Carl Powers story. So much more to know: "I stopped him laughing." Given that in the series, Richard Brook is from Ireland, and Moriarty being an Irish name, I endeavored to create a narrative that made sense for a young Irish boy to be living in Brighton at the time of the Carl Powers killing. And so, we come to the IRA bombmakers, and the Brighton bombing, as a backstory for the Moriarty family. *Minor Spoiler* I was pleased when John Watson mentioned that "the IRA is restless" or some such in Ep7. I also was intrigued by the stray reference in ASiB when John says, "I wasn't even home yesterday, I was in Dublin." So I felt there were enough nibbles being thrown out about Ireland in the series itself for me to go there.
The Babes in the Woods killings in Brighton as described in the chapter of that title are a true crime, and the murders remain unsolved. These killings fit the chronological timeframe of Moriarty (and his older brother) in Brighton.
As for Moriarty having an older brother (here, Mick Moriarty), from ACD we know that Professor Moriarty had at least one brother, but it was unclear whether he was also called James (see Watson's remarks in The Final Problem that "Colonel James Moriarty" had written letters defending his brother's memory and reputation.). In The Valley of Fear, Holmes says that Professor Moriarty has a brother who is a station master in the West of England, and that may well mean that Moriarty had two brothers, one a station master and the other a Colonel. I chose to use this device and give Moriarty a brother who is a station master in Dublin, but to make him Moriarty's sometime partner in crime. I felt that there was more room, too, to play with the hint given by Moriarty, the only hint he ever overtly gave Sherlock: "The clue's in the name: Janus Cars." Janus, the two-faced god.
As for the subplot concerning Sebastian Moran being a gambling cheat on a sophisticated scale, that is also from ACD canon, where in The Empty House, Moran is shown to be living as a card cheat in London's gambling houses after the death of Moriarty. I imagined the modern Moriarty brothers only being interested in gambling if it was in the biggest and richest arena, which is Macau, today, where more money changes hands than in any other gaming capital in the world.
The subplot concerning the Graff heist and the Curse of Scotland diamonds is a tip of the hat to the several stories about jewels in ACD canon, e.g., The Blue Carbuncle and The Mazarin Stone.
Thank you for reading The Enigma Variations! I hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks to the ever-faithful and brilliant Maggie_Conagher for constant pre-reading; hushedjournal6, velma68 and jcporter1 for stalwart support where this author needed it when the going got tough.
There is a planned sequel, "The Infernal Cavalry."
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