Colonel Sebastian Moran is a fictional character, the villain of the Sherlock Holmes short story The Adventure of the Empty House. He was born in London, 1840, and formerly served in the 1st Bangalore Pioneeers. He has written the books: Heavy game of the Western Himalayas in 1881 and Three Months in the Jungle in 1884. He is the son of the late Sir Augustus Moran, former Minister to Persia. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. His address is Conduit Street, his clubs are The Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville and the Bagatelle Card Club. Sherlock Holmes once remarked that he was the second most dangerous man in London.

The second-in-command of Professor James Moriarty, Moran had gone with Moriarty to Reichenbach Falls and following Moriarty's death at the hands of Holmes, Moran attempted to kill the detective by rolling boulders down upon him, but Holmes escaped. Following Moriarty's demise Moran became self-employed, and earned a living back in London by playing cards at several clubs.

However one of the other players, Ronald Adair, noticed that Moran won by cheating and threatened to expose him. Thus Moran murdered Adair by shooting him with a silenced air rifle that fired revolver bullets. Dr. Watson and a returned Holmes took the case, and Moran, learning that Holmes was back in London, attempted to kill the detective by firing his air rifle from a vacant house across the street from Holmes' residence. However Holmes, who had figured out how Moran killed Adair, fooled the Colonel: what Moran ended up shooting was a wax dummy of Holmes while the real Holmes, with Watson and Inspector Lestrade in tow, hid within the vacant house with Moran without the Colonel's knowledge. As soon as Moran fired, he was seized and arrested.

Other appearances

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Moran also appears in the George MacDonald Fraser novella Flashman and the Tiger, and as a boy in the novel Flash for Freedom!. (MacDonald gives him a birth-date of 1834, and the full name "John Sebastian 'Tiger Jack' Moran".)

In the film Without a Clue, Moran (portrayed by Tim Killick) appears as Moriarty's tall bodyguard and has a scar down one side of his face. His weapon of choice is a switchblade which he uses to stab and cut his victims, and he is also a highly skilled knife thrower.

He also appears as a vampire character in Kim Newman's alternate history horror novel Anno-Dracula.

Sherlock Holmes characters | Literature villains | Fictional henchmen

Sebastian Moran