Colonel Moran

Colonel, late Indian Army — Moriarty's chief of staff

“The second most dangerous man in London.”

At a glance

Best heavy-game shot of the Eastern Empire Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas Von Herder air-gun, soft revolver bullets Card cheat at the Bagatelle Club

The profile

Sebastian Moran had the career of a hero — Eton, Oxford, campaigns, a tiger crawled down a drain after — and the soul of a predator. When India grew too hot for him he came home to the only employer suited to his talents: Professor Moriarty, who paid him more than a Prime Minister and used him for the jobs no ordinary criminal could do. He watched Reichenbach from above and rolled rocks at the survivor.

Three years later Holmes baited him with his own methods: a wax silhouette in a lamplit window drew the old shikari into the empty house opposite, air-gun and all, to shoot a shadow. Holmes kept the tiger metaphor going to the end — the empty house was the crooked tree beneath the tethered kid. Moran's conviction could never quite be secured for Reichenbach; the Adair murder sufficed.

In the canon

The Adventure of the Empty House

1903

Holmes returns from the dead with a wax bust in the window and Colonel Moran's air-gun in the dark — the great hiatus ends with a snap of handcuffs.

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