“I am afraid that is basically our present position, Sherlock” Mycroft replied. “We have obtained the specifications for the machinery that was ordered we believe by Moriarty’s agents. It involves heavy hydraulic pumps, and water proof chambers. Since they have also shown a keen interest in our newest battleship, it is my inclination to lean toward a submerged type weapon. Perhaps a new form of the locomotive torpedo, perhaps a better propulsion engine than compressed air and an explosive charge greater than that of gloxyline or gun-cotton.” “But I speculate further that we have facts, I won’t continue this frivolous conjecture without more hard facts.” Mycroft was expounding my own frustrations. I once again dejectedly returned to my beloved bee-farm, awaited the call to further action.
Covert Convection It wasn’t until the first week of May, that I received my next communiqué from Mycroft. It was a telegram that simply declared: “Sherlock, the quarry has been traced.” I immediately took the afternoon train to London once again. Mycroft’s club was becoming a frequent haunt of mine. Once again entertaining me in the Stranger’s Room, Mycroft began: “Scotland Yard after an extensive hunt all over England and Scotland has turned up two possible leads, a sale of a residence to one Robert Catesby near the naval shipyard that the HMS Dreadnought moors and the renting of a house by one Bob Catesby. They sent an undercover team to the shipyards first as that seemed the higher probability. But upon investigation, they found out this Robert Catesby was a family man that had an extended local history and only recently had saved enough to buy a larger house for his nine children. He was a seller of ladies undergarments featuring whalebone support and was doing a brisk business as a traveling salesmen. The other lead of the rented house is located in the outskirts of Cambridge. The city of Cambridge is an old university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. It lies approximately 50 miles north-northeast of London and is surrounded by a number of smaller towns and villages. Despite having a University, Cambridge does not have a city charter since it does not have a cathedral, which is traditionally a pre-requisite for city status. Cambridge is best known for the University of Cambridge, which includes the renowned Cavendish Laboratory, King's College Chapel, and the Cambridge University Library. The Cambridge skyline is dominated by the last two, along with the chimney of Addenbrooke's Hospital in the far south of the city and St John's College Chapel tower in the north We are not certain when Mr. Catesby took up residence in Cambridge, but an unobtrusive lingering by agents disguised as local road workers has actually sighted an individual that most certainly could be our man. We believe this Bob Catesby is in fact Professor Moriarty. We have called our investigators off, as further surveillance might alert him to our interception. We have nothing to hold him on, and we definitely do not want to pick him up for questioning at this time. “We sent other inspectors undercover to roam the city and see what they might find out about his contacts. The University was an obvious target, and they hit bull’s-eye. “There is currently a series of lectures being conducted by a visiting Yale University professor, one Dr. Scot James, a protégé of Josiah Willard Gibbs. Gibbs was a preeminent American theoretical physicist, chemist, and mathematician noted for his famed 1876 publication of On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, a graphical analysis of multi-phase chemical systems. In these papers Gibbs applied thermodynamics to interpret physicochemical phenomena, successfully explaining and interrelating what had previously been a mass of isolated facts. Being one of the greatest American scientists of the nineteenth century, he devised much of the theoretical foundation for chemical thermodynamics as well as physical chemistry. As a mathematician, he was an inventor of vector analysis. Gibbs designed vector analysis to clarify and advance mathematical physics. In 1901, Gibbs was awarded the Copley medal of the Royal Society of London for being the first to apply the second law of thermodynamics to the relation between chemical, electrical, and thermal energy and capacity for external work. “A Mr. B. Catesby has paid a substantial fee to sit in on the lectures. Being a higher-level course with limited seating, he had to demonstrate his knowledge of the related sciences in order to secure a position.” “What can this tell us about what he is working on?” I interrupted. “I have had to get those more qualified than me to give me background and possible projections of what we are perhaps facing. Although it can get extremely technical, I was taught a lot without having to go into the required mathematics to use the knowledge. I only desired an understanding of the subject. This is what they told me. I will begin with basics as they did and quickly fly through to the current lectures. It is up to us to determine what may be his interest with this subject.”