WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 8 of Moriarty the Patriot, "A Study in 'S', Part One," now streaming on Funimation.
Having spent its first handful of episodes almost entirely on his famed adversary, Professor Moriarty, the Moriarty the Patriot anime shifts focus fully to Sherlock Holmes in Episode 8. The detective was first introduced in Episode 6 while Moriarty was in the middle of his latest criminal case aboard The Noahtic -- framing an evil Count for murder before pushing him to his own violent end. Once the criminal consultant's work was done, Holmes then revealed to the mathematician in the last episode that he suspected a third party had been involved in the dramatic turn of events on the ship. Though he didn't point the finger of blame at Moriarty, it was clear he saw his new acquaintance as his intellectual equal, at least.
The latest episode takes this spark and fans it into the start of a full-on cat-and-mouse game between the two -- one that viewers will have been hotly anticipating since Holmes' first appearance in the series.
Though Moriarty dismissed the detective previously, he seems to have since changed his tune. Not only does he dish out another daring punishment to another high-profile member of British society (Count Drebber), but he directly calls Holmes out by having the murderer write 'Sherlock' in blood next to Drebber's corpse. Holmes is shocked when Inspector Lestrade -- a mainstay of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's world -- arrives to arrest him for the crime as he and Miss Hudson toast his new roommate's arrival, Dr. John Watson. Naturally, Holmes demands to be taken to the crime scene, allowing his new partner a chance to flex his medical knowledge, and Holmes to exonerate himself.
Examining the bloody lettering on the carpet, Holmes points out that the Count's fingers are far too slim to have written the word; plus, the four gunshot wounds on his body, all of which miss vital organs, are strangely clumsy for a crime that has otherwise been so meticulously well-planned. Therefore, just like the case was on The Noahtic, someone else had to have been pulling the murderer's strings. A flashback confirms that this 'someone' is Moriarty: we see the titular antihero meeting a large man matching Holmes' profile of the killer. The man is dying, which a hooded Moriarty states makes him the best person to put "him" to the test.
What we can conclude from this is that Moriarty needed a killer who wouldn't object to being caught if Holmes is indeed able to solve the case. The murdered Count was likely on Moriarty's hit list already, killing two birds with one stone. But figuring out who this terminally ill criminal is won't be the real test for Holmes -- tracing the crime back to Moriarty will. Moriarty has so far been unparalleled on his mission to bring down Victorian Britain's corrupt social hierarchy. It's hard to tell if he really wants Holmes out of his way or if, like Homes, he's after the thrill of the chase.