Also I had the dawning realisation the other day that like, if Moriarty knows that Watson is Holmes’s weak spot in the way that Holmes is Irene’s, then Holmes and Watson are definitely in love and also probably aren’t being all that subtle about it.
Like, we never spot Moriarty himself in the first movie - he never reveals his face and he doesn’t meet Holmes until the second film - so all information prior to this is coming in from either Irene or Moran, and seeing as Moran doesn’t appear in the first movie, he’s either really good at hiding or it’s all coming from Irene. Obviously Moran probably exists somewhere in the canon of the first movie as one of Moriartys henchmen, maybe just not in as predominant a role as the second movie.
I’ve gotten off topic but basically Holmes and Watson do not know how to be subtle about the fact they’re in love because Moriarty knows it before he’s even met the two of them, which means Irene must have been the one to pick up on it. Though it does seem highly unlikely Irene would go so far as to put Holmes - and definitely Watson - in extreme danger, so maybe Moran does have something to do with it.
(There may also be someone else in the first movie who can report back their findings to Moriarty, but to be honest I’ve forgotten who was working for him and who was working for Blackwood. I think Riorden might have been working for Blackwood, can’t remember about Dredger or anyone else. So yeah, enlighten me.)