The Return of Moriarty Read online

  After wholly mastering this act of physical change, Moriarty’s next step was to destroy his brother’s career, a relatively easy matter for one who had so carefully observed the failings of others. He had long known that the professor was not as other men regarding the natural inclinations of the flesh. Indeed his preference lay in the company and intimacy of young men, a fact that made him particularly vulnerable as a senior don in charge of the academic progress of reasonably wealthy scions from the upper classes and county nobility.

  Early in life, while still in Liverpool, Jim had foreseen the way in which that peculiar sexual hypocrisy, so rife in Victorian cities, could be exploited and used to best advantage.

  Although homosexuality, in all its forms, flourished openly in all strata of life and was readily available on the streets and in bordellos, as well as being practiced in private, the mature homosexual in high office or a responsible post risked ostracism and loss of status if that deviation from the norm created any public scandal. Young Moriarty knew well how easily he could turn his elder brother’s failings to advantage. He began with a whispering campaign, not simply in the university, but near to the homes of those young men in whom the professor appeared to have most interest. The results surpassed even his wildest dreams.

  There were two, both students of the professor, in whom the younger Moriarty showed especial curiosity. One was the elder son of a country gentleman with large estates in Gloucestershire; the other’s father was a notable London rake who had already squandered two fortunes and seemed intent on parting with a third.

  The young men—Arthur Bowers and the Honorable Norman De Frayse—were in their late teens, both already bearing the marks of early degeneracy: the languid good looks, limp hands, weak mouths, bloodshot eyes following days of overindulgence, and a style of conversation that affected a quick, if cheap, wit.

  Moriarty had them both marked. They spent many evenings in the company of the professor—sometimes staying until early morning—and, in spite of their mentor’s genius, appeared to have little aptitude for the kind of studies that consumed the professor of mathematics.

  Through carefully cultivated friends, young Moriarty spread the word that both Bowers and De Frayse were being corrupted by the older man, the whispers quickly reaching both Squire Bowers in rural Gloucestershire and Sir Richard De Frayse in the whorehouses and gaming rooms of London.

  As often happens in such cases, it was the rakehell father who reacted first—obviously stung by a sudden concern that his beloved son should not be dragged into the web of destructive pleasure and libidinous ways that were remorselessly pulling the father himself into eternal damnation. Sir Richard descended on the university, spent an hour or so with his son, and then arrived, wrathful and spleen-choked, at the vice-chancellor’s lodgings.

  The situation could not have been better if young Moriarty had himself maneuvered matters. First, the vice-chancellor was an elderly cleric, a man full of the paradoxical saintly hypocrisy that so often besets clerics of a Christian persuasion when they are cut off from the mainstream of life in the world. Secondly, the professor had been more of a fool than anyone would have credited.

  Brilliant of mind and with incredible perception as far as mathematics and its attendant sciences were concerned, Professor Moriarty had a blind spot that even his youngest brother had not foreseen: He did not understand money. During the previous year he had worked hard and been lionized, spending his spare moments of relaxation with the two young men, all three of them indulging their particular passions and whims. Yet on many occasions he had found himself low in funds, so what was more natural than to borrow from his young friends?

  In all, the great Professor Moriarty was in debt to the tune of three thousand pounds to De Frayse, and, as it was later discovered, a further fifteen hundred to young Bowers. All this on top of the fact that he was an older man undoubtedly leading his students into an abnormal way of life.

  The vice-chancellor, whose sanctity did not include either forbearance or understanding, was shocked and scandalized. He was also concerned for the good name of the university. Squire Bowers was summoned and rumor spread through the colleges like a raging pestilence: The professor of mathematics had stolen money; he had been caught, in flagrante delicto with a college housemaid; he had abused the vice-chancellor; he had used his academic skills to cheat at cards; he was a dope fiend; a satanist; he was involved with a gang of criminals. Inevitably Professor Moriarty resigned.

  Moriarty the younger chose his time carefully, turning up, innocent and unexpected, at the professor’s rooms late one afternoon, feigning surprise at the boxes and trunks open and packing in progress.

  His brother was a beaten man, broken, the stoop more pronounced, the eyes sunken deep into his head. Slowly, and not without emotion, Professor James Moriarty unfolded the sad story to his brother Jim.

  “I feel that you might have understanding at my plight, Jim,” he said, once the terrible truth was out. “I doubt if Jamie ever will.”

  “No, but Jamie’s in India so there’s no great or immediate trouble there.”

  “But what will be said, Jim? Though nothing will be revealed publicly, there are already stories—many far from the mark. The world will know that I leave here under some great cloud. It is my ruin and the destruction of my work. My mind is in such a whirl I do not know where to turn.”

  Moriarty faced the window lest any sign of pleasure could be read on his countenance.

  “Where had you planned to go?” he asked.

  “To London. After that …” The gaunt man raised his hands in a motion of despair. “I had even thought of coming to you down at your railway station.”*

  The younger man smiled. “I have long given up my job with the railways.”

  “Then what—”

  “I do many things, James. I think my visit here this afternoon was providential. I shall take you to London, there will be work for you to do there.”

  Later that night the professor’s luggage was loaded into a cab and the brothers set out for the railway station and London.

  Within the month there was talk that the famous professor’s star had fallen. He was running a small establishment tutoring would-be army officers, for mathematics was a science that was more and more playing an important part in the arts of modern warfare.

  For some six months following his resignation, the former professor of mathematics appeared to go about this dull and demanding work as an army tutor. He conducted this business from a small house in Pole Street, near its junction with Weymouth Street, on the south side of Regent’s Park—a pleasant place to live, handy for skating in the winter, friendly cricket in summer, and the interest of the Zoological and Botanical Societies all year round.

  Then, without any warning, the professor closed his establishment and moved, to live in some style in the house off the Strand—the place where he was still living during the Ripper murders of 1888.

  Until now those were the known facts about the professor’s movements after he had been driven from the high echelons of academic life. The truth was a different matter, marking the most important and ruthless move in the career of the Professor Moriarty we know as the uncrowned king of Victorian crime.

  It happened some time after ten o’clock on a night in late June—an unseasonably cold night with a threat of rain and no moon.

  The professor, having dined early and alone on boiled mutton with barley and carrots, was preparing for bed when there was a sudden agitated knocking at his front door. He opened up to reveal his younger brother, Jim, dressed in a long, black, old-fashioned surtout, a wide-brimmed felt hat pulled down over his eyes. In the background the professor saw a hansom drawn up at the curb, the horse nodding placidly and no cabbie in sight.

  “My dear fellow, come in,” began the professor.

  “There’s no time to waste, brother. Jamie’s back in England with his regiment. There’s trouble, family trouble, and we have to meet him immediately.�
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  “But where…? How?”

  “Get your topcoat. I’ve borrowed the hansom from an acquaintance, there’s no time to lose.”

  The urgency in young Moriarty’s voice spurred the professor, who was trembling with nervousness as he climbed into the cab. His brother set the horse off at a steady trot, going by unaccustomed side streets toward the river, which they crossed at Blackfriars Bridge.

  Continuing along side alleys and byways, the hansom proceeded down through Lambeth, eventually turning from the streets to a piece of waste ground, bordered by a long buttress falling away into the muddy, swirling waters of the Thames, much swollen at this time of the year. The cab was drawn up some ten paces from the buttress edge, close enough to hear the river, the distant noise of laughter and singing from some tavern, and the occasional bark of a dog.

  Professor Moriarty peered about him in the black murk as his brother helped him down from the hansom.

  “Is Jamie here?” The tone was anxious.

  “Not yet, James. Not yet.”

  The professor turned toward him, suddenly concerned by the soft and sinister timbre of his brother’s voice. In the darkness something long and silver quivered in the younger man’s hand.

  “Jim. What—” he cried out, the word turning from its vocal shape and form into a long gutteral rasp of pain as young brother James sealed the past and the future, the knife blade pistoning smoothly between the professor’s ribs three times.

  The tall thin body arched backward, a clawing hand grasping at Moriarty’s surtout, the face hideously contorted with pain. For a second the eyes stared uncomprehendingly down at young James. Then, as though suddenly perceiving the truth, there was a flicker of calm acquiescence before they glazed over, passing into eternal blindness.

  Moriarty shook the clutching hand free, stepped back and looked down on the body of the brother whose identity he was so cunningly to assume. It was as though all the kudos of the dead man’s brilliance now passed up the blade of the knife into his own body. In the professor’s death the new legend of the Professor was born.

  Moriarty brought chains and padlocks from the cab, emptied the cadaver’s pockets, placing the few sovereigns, the gold pocket watch and chain, and the handkerchief into a small bag made of yellow American cloth. He wound the chains around the corpse, locked them securely and then gently tipped his departed brother off the buttress into the water below.

  For a few silent moments Moriarty stood looking out across the river into the blackness, savoring his moment. Then with a quick upward movement he flung the knife out in the direction of the far shore, straining his ears for the splash as it hit the water. Then, as though without a second thought, he turned on his heel, climbed into the hansom and drove away, back to the new house off the Strand.

  On the following afternoon, Spear, accompanied by two men, went to the small house in Pole Street and removed all traces of its fomer occupant.

  Now, sitting in the back of the hansom taking him from his meeting at the Café Royal, Moriarty dragged his mind back from the past and the look in his dying brother’s eyes. They were almost at the warehouse. It had been a long day and, while he wanted most to refresh himself and rest, Moriarty knew there would still be work to do before Mary McNiel arrived to tend to his more personal needs.

  * Rackets. Like so much criminal slang, it is often thought that the word “racket” (meaning a criminal dodge, swindle or particular series of illicit operations) has only come to us in recent times, and then from the United States of America. In fact the term appears to have originated in England. (See Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.) One presumes that this word, and many others, crossed the Atlantic, went out of use for a while in England and then returned, possibly in the 1920’s, as a newly coined Americanism.

  * Here one has to give the villainous Moriarty the benefit of the doubt. It is natural to suspect the worst, yet it is a fact that while the details of the various stages by which Moriarty learned the art of disguise from Hasledean are meticulously documented in the diaries, the actor’s death is only briefly recorded, with no details.

  * It is, of course, still maintained by many that the professor’s youngest brother ended his days as a stationmaster in the West country. Undoubtedly he did hold such a job for a time, but we have no hint of when and how he left to further his criminal activities.

  Friday, April 6, 1894

  (A DAY IN THE COUNTRY)

  IT HAD ALSO been a long day for Pip Paget.

  After seeing the punishers with Moriarty in the morning, he had taken the train from Limehouse station to Paddington and from thence out to Harrow. The day was cold, yet the sun bright, and the journey proved a pleasant novelty for Paget, who did not often travel by the railway—underground or surface.

  At that time Harrow still retained much of its rural charm, now unhappily long departed, and when Paget finally alighted at the station, he was immediately filled with a sense of freedom. From where he stood, outside the main entrance, he could see but a few houses and the general backdrop of the vista was one of trees and rolling fields. The bustle and grime of central London had vanished with the outward thrust of the steam engine, and this feeling of space and room to move, experienced by Paget even while sitting alone in the third-class carriage, acted like a tonic. In his mind the heavy, almost cloying, burdens of Moriarty’s business disappeared, replaced by an overriding image of Fanny Jones.

  Paget, brought up among the teeming back streets and tenements of the city, had never experienced this kind of feeling before. For as long as he could remember, life had been one long battle for survival—a war waged with cunning and deceit, with the craft of knavery and, for much of the time, the hard and ruthless rule of fist, bludgeon, boot, razor, knife and even pistol.

  There had been few moments of tenderness in Pip Paget’s life; rather it was in retrospect peopled by men and women who were constantly in the front line of battle—with the authorities, poverty, each other, even with life itself. His mother had been a thin, tough and foul-mouthed woman, and his childhood had never known a steady or permanent setting. Countless uncles shared the meager and filthy two rooms occupied by his mother, two brothers and three sisters, and the nearest thing to true affection Paget had ever experienced was the occasional spilling out of lust that began in his early teens—first with his eldest sister, and later with the line of young women whose beds he had shared in return for small sums of money stolen during his daily work.

  The dramatic change in Paget’s life had come in the early eighties when—he was some twenty-six or -seven years old at the time, a certain vagueness surrounding his exact age—Professor Moriarty came into his life, gave him a place in his not inconsiderable household and a more tranquil, if still villainous, existence. In return he had remained loyal to Moriarty and had become possibly the most trusted of his entourage. Now a further dimension was added in the person of Fanny Jones. She had shown, to the big strong and graceful man, a new kind of respect, not born of fear, but of desire and gentle persuasion.

  As Paget walked down through the main street of Harrow, he allowed his fancies to play upon a dream—impossible to realize, yet undeniably firm and disturbing—of life with Fanny Jones in the kind of world Paget now saw moving gently around him. The women, graceful, many with their children, some with their men, passed along the pavements, intent on making purchases at the many well-stocked shops that flanked the street. An errand boy cycled past, his basket heavy, a dog barking as it ran beside him. A pair of well-dressed men talked at the corner, occasionally doffing their hats to acquaintances who passed by. What was more, there was an air of contentment, people smiled, there was no crush of hansoms or omnibuses, and none of the more unpleasant odors that hung heavy in the city.

  The house the three cracksman—Fisher, Clark and Gay—had their eyes on lay a mile to the north of Harrow proper. Paget enjoyed the walk, taking an interest in the small natural things he observed around him, the dream of Fanny a
nd himself set up in a small cottage in a place like this or even further afield in the country growing and glistening in his head. The image of himself as a man who went off to some job (as yet, naturally, indefinable) from a door surrounded by rose trellises, Fanny smiling and waving, cheeks rosy from the country air and several children clinging to her skirts, was strong, so deep rooted by the time he reached Beeches Hall that Paget had to impose an unusually strict mental discipline upon himself in order to shake the thoughts from his mind and get back to the professional work at hand.

  Beeches Hall was a large Georgian mansion, which, Paget deduced, contained some eighteen or nineteen main rooms and bedrooms. It was quite visible from the road, standing as it did in some twenty acres of open lawns, flower beds and rose gardens, while a small copse could just be seen behind the house.

  Access to the front of Beeches Hall was gained through large iron gates opening on a long drive that curved between bushes to end in a wide sweep before the façade. Paget ignored this, slowly working his way, first by road and then across some meadowland, to the rear, where he effected an entrance to the grounds by way of the copse. There was plenty of cover there and he lay for the best part of an hour at the edge of the trees taking in every point of interest the view afforded.

  There was plenty to be noted. The rear of the house would give them a number of easy entrances; people were strange, Paget mused, they would spend a great deal on bolts and locks for a good stout front door, yet leave the back door, or tradesmen’s entrance, with an old-fashioned lock and no bolts. If that door proved harder than it looked, there was a small, insecure pantry window, or an easy climb across an outhouse roof to an upstairs window, which, he judged, opened onto a landing.