The Final Problem

sidneyhummel asked: In "The Great Game", the killer who kept Carl Powers' shoes is the bomber-- has Moriarty been following Sherlock around since they were gradeschool kids? If so, I would assume they grew up in the same area, maybe went to the same school. I would assume Sherlock would have known of him earlier, been more... prepared. Something's not adding up for me, and I'm not sure why.

The Great Game:

Sherlock: Carl Powers, John.

John: What is it?

Sherlock: It’s where I began.

Sherlock: 1989, young kid, champion swimmer, came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament, drowned in the pool. Tragic accident. You wouldn’t remember it. Why should you.

John: But you remember.

Sherlock: Yes.

John: Something fishy about it?

Sherlock: Nobody thought so. Nobody except me. I was only a kid myself. I read about it in the papers.

John: You started young, didn’t you?

Sherlock: The boy, Carl Powers, had some kind of fit in the water, but by the time they got him out, it was too late. There was something wrong somewhere and I couldn’t get it out of my head.

John: What?

Sherlock: His shoes.

John: What about them?

Sherlock: They weren’t there. I made a fuss. I tried to get the police interested but nobody seemed to think it was important. He’d left all the rest of his clothes in his locker. But there was no sign of his shoes. Until now.

So Carl wasn’t from London. He was only at that swimming pool for a sports tournament.

And Sherlock had no personal connection to the case. It was only something he’d read about in the newspaper. He couldn’t even get anyone interested in the shoes, so he didn’t meet Jim or find out who was behind Carl’s murder until The Great Game.

Considering Jim knew to leave Carl’s shoes as a puzzle for Sherlock later, though, it seems likely that young Jim had noticed young Sherlock’s efforts at the time.

Hopefully that helps make things add up a little better?