Philip Jose Farmer (30 page)

(e) Mathematical and scientific genius: This has been amply demonstrated for both men.

(f) Another curious point of resemblance is to be found in Nemo’s interest in scientific men. Clearly the only sensible thing for a pirate captain to do when he found Aronnax, Land, and the valet squatting on top of the Nautilus was to attach a few heavy weights and drop them overboard. A man who practiced wholesale murder could have had no moral scruples about so trifling a gesture, but Nemo, a proficient amateur biologist, had discovered that one of these men was an internationally famous zoologist whose works were in his own library—and by this time the captain, whose only associates were a crew of hardbitten buccaneers, must have been desperately lonely for intellectual companionship. Consequently he saved Aronnax. (Incidentally, observe the smug satisfaction with which Nemo-Moriarty impresses his superiority upon a professional colleague such as M. Aronnax. There can be no doubt that this man was a college teacher.)

(g) A young mathematical genius of criminal tendencies is very likely to start his illegal career by engaging in some activity in which he can exploit his special talents. Only later, when Moriarty had the time, the capital, and the foundation provided by his information service for the Nautilus, would he develop a vast organization of pickpockets, burglars, thugs, and gunmen. Members of these particular criminal strata are not found on the campus in very great numbers.

It is, therefore, difficult indeed for the writer to resist the identification of Professor Moriarty and Captain Nemo and to refrain from suggesting that here we have the first major step up in a spectacular criminal career whose final step down was a long one to the bottom of Reichenbach Falls.