The Return of Moriarty Read online

  “A very proper way of looking at it.” He leaned forward across the desk. “Now, Fanny, there is a small service which you can render me.”

  An hour later, Moriarty had made all the arrangements. He had spoken to Mrs. Wright, and Fanny would be on her way within a short time. Spear was going to deal personally with friend Halling. Lee Chow would have the help of Terremant. And before the night was over, John Tappit would be amply repaid for Ann Doby’s scarred face. Parker and his lurkers were about to report on the whereabouts of Jonas Fray and Walter Roach, the two most important Peg lieutenants; once either of them was in the open, the punishers would be out. As yet, Paget had not returned from Harrow. Moriarty hoped that he would not be back before Fanny Jones had completed her mission to Horsemonger Lane Jail. In the meantime, Moriarty himself had to prepare for his meeting with Alton, the turnkey from the ’Steel.

  * There is no doubt, as will be seen later, that Moriarty was well furnished with information from police sources throughout his entire career.

  * It is fact that after the next horrific events, those of the early hours of September 30, the Lord Mayor of London added 500 pounds to the official reward, but by that time Moriarty was heading straight toward the true identity of the killer.

  * Until now the facts appertaining to Catherine Eddowes’ movements have left a gap of six hours unaccounted for: from two o’clock in the afternoon until eight o’clock in the evening. The information at our disposal is based on Kelly’s own evidence and the police reports—particularly those from the Bishopsgate police station, where she was taken, very drunk, at eight o’clock and then released at one o’clock on the Sunday morning. Forty-five minutes later she was found dead. The missing six hours have always been of interest to criminologists and theoreticians who have asked such questions as—Did Eddowes visit her daughter? How did she provide herself with money and/or drink to be found in such an advanced state of inebriation by eight o’clock? From the coded extracts of James Moriarty’s personal diaries there is little doubt about her movements during the missing six hours.

  * It is interesting to speculate about what happened to the money, for, in the time available, Eddowes could not have spent a whole pound and, when her body was found, there was no cash among her effects. One can only suspect that she was either drunken-careless or robbed, perhaps by another inmate of the Bishopsgate police station.

  * This statement will undoubtedly confuse scholars and academics who, until now, have relied wholly upon the testimony of Sherlock Holmes as reported by his faithful chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson, plus the additional and highly specialized research of such eminent men as Mr. William S. Baring-Gould and Mr. Vincent Starrett. It appears, however, that everybody, including the great Sherlock Holmes himself, was taken in by the most dastardly and villainous act of all. Holmes, and hence his chronicler and those who have patiently sought to analyze, coordinate and annotate the evidence, accepted that Professor James Moriarty—”the Napoleon of Crime … organizer of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected”—was undoubtedly the James Moriarty who was born around 1844, proved himself a singularly brilliant mathematician, writing his treatise on the Binomial Theorem in his early twenties, an academic coup that led him to be appointed to the chair of mathematics at one of the smaller universities, which he left, under a cloud, in the latter part of the 1870’s. Indeed, why should Holmes doubt that the man he knew of as Moriarty was not the same fallen Professor? His eyes and ears told him that the Napoleon of Crime and the genius of mathematics were one and the same person. However, as we shall later discover, the real Professor Moriarty who left that little university town in about 1878, ceased to exist, in every sense of the word, once he set foot in London, his place being cunningly taken by the one person who knew him closely, envied him most and hated him above all men.

  Friday, April 6, 1894

  (THE REAL MORIARTY)

  THE SURREY COUNTY Jail was known to all as Horsemonger Jail. It stood grimly in the Parish of St. Mary’s, Newington, in the Borough of Lambeth, enclosed by a dirty brick wall, which almost kept it from the public eye.

  Fanny Jones pushed her way through the throng of people moving up and down, happy and quarrelsome, quiet and noisy, selling, buying and loitering along Stone’s End. It was a particularly busy street, a good-natured thoroughfare with undertones of roguery. The Professor had been kind but firm, and Fanny was still nervous, particularly at visiting the scene of so much pain and misery. She could not believe she was actually going to see the inside of a prison, smell its odors and taste, even for a brief moment, the horrors of incarceration. She had heard enough about it in the servants’ lurk where Pip had found her. There were several men and women there who had experienced the inside of one or another of the houses of correction, and the tales they told—of the rigors, discipline, diet, restriction and brutality—were enough to make a young girl tremble her way into waking nightmares.

  When Moriarty had said to her, “I need you to visit Colonel Moran in Horsemonger Lane Jail,” her immediate reaction had been a vigorous negative. She had even said that she was prepared to leave the Professor’s house rather than enter that place. But Moriarty had smoothly persuaded her that there was little to fear.

  “It is not as though you are going to be incarcerated,” he said softly. “Nor do the police want you for anything.” A pause before he asked, “Or do they, Fanny?”

  “No. No, Professor, of course they do not.”

  “Well, then. We simply wish for the colonel to have a few luxuries, which he is allowed until they take him for trial and sentence. You must realize, my dear Fanny, it is important that whoever takes the basket Mrs. Wright is preparing for him should not be known to the authorities, and it is unlikely anyone will recognize you. Except perhaps the colonel himself.”

  “I doubt that, sir. But the prison—will it be a terrible experience?”

  Moriarty gave a short, almost gentle, laugh.

  “Not as terrible as if they did not release you. It will be nothing. A short visit to another world. Be demure. A servant. Draw no attention to yourself. Dress in a manner becoming those things.”

  When she left his chambers, Moriarty allowed himself the briefest fantasy. Her clothing did nothing to deny the lithe limbs and soft body beneath—at least not to a man like the Professor, who was well versed in reading the shapes and realities under outer garments. He leaned back, closing his eyes and wondering about her. The legs would be long and slender, the buttocks neat and firm, breasts as smooth and plump as ripe exotic fruit. She would enjoy the sucking of that fruit, and in her eyes he detected that deep smolder that men looked for in women. Paget, he considered, was a lucky man. Then his mind drifted off at a tangent toward the inevitable benefits of Mary McNiel, who was to visit him, there is his chambers, at eleven o’clock that very evening.

  Fanny had gone to the kitchen, where Kate Wright told her to change. By the time that was done, she said, there would be a basket filled and ready to take to the colonel.

  Fanny donned one of the two black dresses she had brought from her time with the Brays, set the white collar and buttoned it, then slung her cloak around her shoulders and returned to the kitchen.

  Kate Wright and her husband, Bart, appeared to have been talking in low tones, stopping abruptly when she entered, standing somewhat embarrassed in the doorway.

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Kate smiled and touched the big basket that stood in the middle of the table, its contents covered by a starched linen napkin.

  “It’s ready,” was all she said.

  Bartholomew Wright, a large man of few words, shuffled his feet.

  “One of the Professor’s people is to take you by hansom cab, Fanny.”

  He did not smile, and she imagined she could detect a hint of concern in his eyes, but passed it off as her own nervousness.

  “He will take you to Stone’s End, show you the way through to the prison and then await your return. You underst
and, girl?”

  “Of course.”

  There were uncanny images running through her mind: lurid pictures of criminals, convicts in the rough uniform striped with broad arrows, hideous men and women, warped in visage, shackled and dangerous. Mixed up with these fantasies were the overtones of violence, the instruments of correction, the bars and cages, the terrible treadmill (a small tweak of her own sexuality here as she remembered it was known as the cock-chaffer), the cat.

  “You’re trembling.” Kate’s hand was on her shoulder. “Come on, Fan, it’ll be all right. There’s nothing to worry over.”

  “No, I’m sorry, but I dread the whole business.”

  Bart said, “These places exist, Fan. It’ll do you no harm to see the inside of one.”

  “As long—”

  “As they don’t keep you there, eh, gel?”

  “It worries me.”

  Bart laughed. “The bogeyman. They won’t keep you, Fan, not a lovely young girl like you.”

  Kate put an arm around her shoulders.

  “Guilty conscience, that’s what it is. You’ve got some terrible dark secret buried in that pretty head.”

  “Pip Paget, that’s our Fan’s dark secret,” chuckled Bart. “That’s what makes her feel guilty in the night, eh?”

  Fanny blushed, and with some clarity, saw what he meant. Ladies and gentlemen, like the Brays and all the grand people she had seen coming in and out of the house in Park Lane, always seemed devoid of those velvet and hidden feelings she seemed to experience. They were not like the people who had surrounded her in Kenilworth—farmers and those who lived so close to nature that they knew the fleshly acts were for pleasure as well as procreation. Those superior ladies and gentlemen she saw at the Brays appeared to be part of a different order, one in which sensuality in women was equated with sin, and men were the dominant force in all things.

  The driver of the hansom was a fat fellow with a red face veined with blue rivulets and deltas. Fanny Jones sat back, one hand resting on the handle of the wicker basket, her eyes restless, looking out on the changing scene as they drove down to the point where Stone’s End met with Trinity Street. Once there he gave her the directions she would need to traverse Stone’s End and find the alley to the jail. He would wait, he said, for one hour only, though he expected her back within half that time. He did not mention the young boy loitering nearby—a lad not quite in his teens, dressed in illfitting raggedy trousers, shirt and long jacket, the observers of better days. The boy pushed himself from the wall against which he had been leaning and began to saunter in the same direction as Fanny Jones. The Professor did not leave much to chance.

  One approached Horsemonger Lane Jail through a narrow and gloomy alley turning off Stone’s End and leading to the main gateway, a flat-roofed building that managed to house both the Governor and his family and the scaffold, the last meeting place of so many unfortunates.

  Fanny approached the gateway and rattled the iron knocker. It was only seconds before the grille opened to reveal a face that had the appearance of being made of well-worn leather. She glimpsed the top of the high blue collar and upper buttons of the man’s uniform.

  “Visiting?” the warder asked, his voice devoid of feeling.

  “I’ve come with victuals for a prisoner, sir.” She made a point of stressing the sir.

  “Name?”

  “Whose name, sir?”

  “The prisoner, girl.”

  He had taken her for a servant, which was not surprising. Apart from her mode of dress, the prison housed a large number of debtors who were the constant recipients of food, drink and clothing from friends in less constrained circumstances.

  “Moran. Colonel Moran.”

  The warder peered at her through the grille, rather as though he were viewing some curiosity at a fairground.

  “Moran the murderer, eh? And who’s sending him victuals, eh?”

  “A brother officer.” Fanny had been well schooled by Moriarty.

  The leather face crinkled into what was meant to be a smile.

  “Comrade in arms. His name?”

  “Colonel Fraser.”

  The leather face grimaced again.

  “Colonel Fraser knows how to pick his servants.” He began to withdraw the bolts and swing the door open. “When you’ve delivered the Fortnum and Mason’s, perhaps you would care to take a little tipple in my quarters.”

  The grimace had turned into a leer.

  Fanny did not have to force a blush to her cheeks, the blood rose fast, embarrassment mingled with fury. She fought back her anger.

  “I am expected back. The colonel runs a strict household.”

  The turnkey nodded. “Your day off then?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s very difficult.”

  “It is also difficult to obtain permission to visit prisoners.”

  Fanny felt relieved.

  “I do not have to see the prisoner,” she smiled. “The basket has to be delivered, that’s all.”

  She was inside the gatehouse by this time, the door closed and bolted behind her. Across the narrow courtyard she saw the lowering, depressing buildings, stray figures—prisoners, but not all in prison garb—interspersed with blue-uniformed turnkeys, their keys hanging from circles of metal attached to polished belts.

  The gatehouse warder looked at her, a hungriness in his sharp eyes. Eventually he shrugged and nodded.

  “As you wish.”

  There was a long, sloping wooden shelf bolted to the wall outside what she took to be his office. Three or four heavy books, or ledgers, rested on the shelf, and the leather-faced man consulted one of these before shouting across the yard to one of the turnkeys, who was intent on watching a group of shambling prisoners.

  The turnkey—from the warder’s shout, Fanny learned that his name was Williams—walked quickly over to the gatehouse warder, who looked up sharply, first at Fanny and then at the turnkey.

  “Visitor for Moran. Men’s Block A, cell seven. She’s only delivering grub, so they need not be left alone—there’s instructions about that anyway.”

  Williams nodded. “This way then, girl.”

  Fanny followed him across the yard, moving to the right. The solid block of the Sessions House was on one side, the main prison building on the other. The prisoners they passed were not as she had ever imagined, for those in this section of the jail were mainly debtors, tradesmen who appeared down on their luck yet in good spirits.

  They turned left, through another gate, and then right. Fanny knew now that she was within the prison proper; there was a smell peculiar to it, soap and another, odd, oppressive odor she could not identify. There was also a quality of echoing awe—the sounds of a nightmare, of footsteps, the clang of doors and the hollow murmur of voices—all far away and muffled by brick and enclosed space.

  Eventually they came to a long narrow passage flanked at intervals by the iron cell doors, each marked in white paint with a number.

  “Men’s Block A, cell seven,” he intoned, taking his keys and selecting one.

  The bolt was drawn back and the door swung open.

  “Moran. A young woman bringing victuals,” Williams barked.

  Fanny did not know what to expect. There was no fully formed picture in her mind. The floor was wooden, the walls bare whitewashed brick, and light came from a small barred window set high in the far wall, though high would hardly be the word for the plain ceiling, which rose only some eight or nine feet. The furnishings were simple: a hammock, rolled and hanging from a hook on one wall, a basin and jug of water, a small table and stool.

  Moran sat at the table, head in hands, the classic picture of the man incarcerated. Fanny was shocked as he raised his head. Moran had never been the most attractive of men; now, in his moment of extreme peril, the deterioration was marked—a wildness in the eyes and tremors, which, while not excessive, were undeniably present in his hands, shoulders and face.

  His eyes showed no sign of recognition, the mouth
half opening as though he wished to speak and was prevented by some kind of paralysis.

  “Colonel Moran.” Fanny approached him, her voice softly modulated. “Your old friend, Colonel Fraser, sent this basket for you and wished to know if there was anything else you needed.”

  “Fraser?”

  His brow creased, his puzzlement so apparent that Fanny, for a fleet second, experienced consternation. Perhaps, she imagined, the Professor had made a mistake about Colonel Fraser. Then Moran’s face lapsed into a bleak smile.

  “Jock Fraser,” he murmured. “Old Jock Fraser. Kind. Kind of him.” Moran gave a throaty chuckle. “Tell him I will need his Jocks to cut me down from Ketch’s tree.”

  Fanny moved forward and placed the basket on the table.

  “He will send me with more later in the week, sir.”

  “Tell him that he is a good friend.”

  She waited for a moment, then realized the interview—if that was what one could call it—was terminated. She did not know that the basket she left on the small table of Moran’s cell would be his own particular termination.

  Fanny wanted to run as soon as the cell door closed behind her. The turnkey seemed to take his time with the lock and Fanny caught herself counting, a childhood and childish habit from which she could not break herself—a trick to get through nervous moments.

  Eventually Williams straightened and nodded.

  “We go back now, or is there anything else you would like to see?”

  “I prefer to go, sir.”

  Once outside the prison gates, Fanny wanted to break into a run; she felt like a criminal wishing to flee the scene of a felony. In the back of her mind she also knew that she had need of a bath to erase the scents of that horrible place from her nostrils and body.

  A little before six, Moriarty began to dress for his meeting with Alton at the Café Royal. At the same time the turnkeys and warders were coming on duty for the evening shift at Horsemonger Lane Jail.

  The man assigned to Men’s Block A started his rounds and eventually arrived at cell seven, taking the usual perfunctory squint through the Judas hole in the door. The fact of what he saw did not register for a few seconds. Then his head jerked back toward the hole. A moment later he was unlocking the door and shouting for help.