The Return of Moriarty Page 18

  In private, however, Crow was of the opinion that crime would only be truly contained when an efficient crime index was linked with some form of individual registration—and to hell with the privacy of the individual.

  He was, naturally, a strong champion of anthropometry, as taught and practiced, by M. Alphonse Bertillon;* also of the growing science of dactyloscopy, † which, he was convinced, would eventually prove itself to be the miracle weapon of detection. But at that moment neither M. Bertillon nor the art of fingerprinting were part of his armory, and he could only wade through the tedious pile of paper.

  The facts Crow had before him now seemed to add little to those of which he was already aware. Professor Moriarty, at the apogee of academic success, had resigned under a cloud, come to London, set himself up as an army tutor and then suddenly changed his way of life. Certainly his name appeared on many reports dating from the seventies.

  There was, of course, the long and somewhat complicated Patterson Report of April-May 1891, in which Moriarty’s name figured prominently.

  Inspector Patterson had, from the summer of 1890, been alerted to and was working on the plot which undoubtedly existed both to steal the crown jewels and discredit the royal family. As the world knows, the latter part of this outrageous action all but succeeded with the so-called Tranby Croft affair concerning the Prince of Wales. The question of Moriarty and the crown jewels was, as we shall later see, a matter of some moment.

  Throughout the report there were messages and cables passing between Patterson and Holmes, and it became clear that Holmes was convinced that Moriarty was the brains behind both plots. Patterson, it would seem, tended not to believe the Baker Street detective, yet appeared to humor him, as. much evidence regarding the men eventually arrested came directly from Holmes.

  The appendix to the case documents was of special interest, containing as it did a message, relayed to Patterson by Holmes’ friend Dr. Watson, drawing attention to absolute proof of Moriarty’s involvement. The proof, so the message claimed, was contained in a blue envelope inscribed “Moriarty” to be found in pigeonhole M.

  Patterson noted that the pigeonhole referred to was that of the poste restante at the General Post Office, St. Martin-le-Grand, which he and Holmes often used. But no such envelope was discovered and Patterson, who was unhappily killed in a riding accident in the following year, was of the opinion that Holmes, despite all his brilliance, had made a terrible mistake—though there was still a lingering suspicion regarding the theft of the “Moriarty” letter from St. Martin-le-Grand.

  During the interrogation of the six plotters, no link could be established with the Professor, and Patterson had put the final “case closed” seal on the file.

  Crow read the Patterson documents twice, remembering the blank look on Holmes’ face when he had talked with him earlier. Something, he concluded, had gone very wrong with that case. In 1891 Holmes had appeared almost obsessional about Moriarty’s complicity. Now he refused even to discuss the man.

  Inspector Lestrade himself had written a large number of the reports, mainly, it seemed, after talking with Sherlock Holmes. His private view was undoubtedly that Moriarty had for long been engaged in criminal activities of the highest order. Yet none of the reports included any firm evidence: not a shred of proof appeared to exist.

  True, the late unlamented Colonel Moran was a proven rogue and cheat who had spent much time with the Professor, as did a number of other dubious characters. Though, once more, there was scant proof—nothing that could ever be taken into court.

  As now, the detective force of the 1890’s relied heavily on intelligence, culled from the world of thieves and villains, so the thick dossier included references to Moriarty made by dozens of informers—criminals of few principles who blew their colleagues for small sums of cash. Crow had his own blowers and, although he had little time for them, was determined to seek them out, to inquire if they could add anything to the pages of handwritten records that now littered his table. Yet on that score he was pessimistic, for the villain is a strangely gullible person. The inspector knew many who, against all logic, believed extraordinary things about the law and the police force—for instance, that the senior police officers and the judges were in league; and he shook his head sadly as he read the umpteenth notation from some young detective or uniformed man.

  The rogues to whom they had all talked certainly mentioned Moriarty—or the Professor, as they called him. (You could almost hear their tones hushed with awe.) According to these men and women, the petty criminals, small-time footpads, dips and failed cracksmen, Moriarty was up to his neck in villainy, running from murder to fraud, yet not one of them would volunteer to stand evidence. As soon as any officer mentioned a written statement or an appearance in court, they would shy away like nervous mares. The more he read, the more Angus McCready Crow became dubious about Moriarty, not simply because of the reluctance of the informers, but rather in spite of it. Many of them had even invested the Professor with supernatural powers, claiming that the man had ways of changing—not just his face, using the arts of disguise, but his whole body and personality.

  To Crow it seemed as though a large proportion of London’s criminals found the idea of Moriarty more useful than the reality: a mythical figure with magical powers. Maybe even a convenient scapegoat. In any case, thought Crow, it was absurd to think that one man could wield so much power and confusion among the shifty, treacherous criminal masses.

  There was a knock at his door, and the inspector gladly pushed the papers away as the plump, sweet Mrs. Sylvia Cowles came into the room.

  “I have a little cold roast beef left over, Inspector.” She smiled brightly, the dark eyes inviting. “If you’d care to take a few slices with me downstairs, there’s good hot mustard to go with it.”

  It was their private jest.

  “Aye, Sylvia. I’ve had enough paperwork for one day; and tomorrow will be all bustle, I’ve to be at Horsemonger Lane by eight.”

  “We’ll perhaps …” She verged on a blush. “Perhaps spend …”

  “Make up for lost time ye mean, lassie. Aye, perhaps we’ll do that.” Crow waggled a provocative index finger. “It’ll depend on your cold beef.”

  She came to him, burying her face in his shoulder.

  “Oh, Angus, my dear, you do not know what a boon it is to have a man like you to lean upon. I do not have to feel … well … ashamed of my appetites. Mr. Cowles was a good man, but too good, I fear.” She leaned back and kissed him on the mouth. “He would have prayed for me night and morning if I had shown desire for him. You are so different.”

  “Not so different. Perhaps more understanding.”

  Crow smiled at her, experiencing the small worry, which he had found getting larger of late. He knew well enough what it was—the unease of a bachelor who could feel himself being drawn into the web of marriage. Crow had been a successful bachelor for long, knowing of old that young widows were more able to let their hair down than most respectable women. Indeed, he had been pleasantly surprised on the first occasion of bedding Mrs. Cowles, for she had moved, panted, and even screeched her enjoyment of their coupling: something she had obviously longed to do for many years. Angus Crow was her first outlet, and they both knew that she meant business—the kind of business that led to the altar.

  “How long before supper?” he asked, pulling away slightly.

  “Give me fifteen minutes, Angus dear, and all will be ready.”

  She stressed the all with a voluptuousness difficult to describe in words.

  Crow watched her move toward the door, roused at her kiss and the undulation of her body, the swell of her breasts and the hidden grace of those two fine thighs hidden under the long checked skirt. Beneath that, he knew, she would be wearing colored short silk drawers, which respectable people held to be most unladylike, worn only by women of the night; for if drawers were to be worn at all in polite circles, they should be only of a plain white color, and usually made
of cotton. Those Mrs. Cowles had recently taken to wearing were the work of the devil.

  Crow felt his blood rise. He nodded. Work of the devil maybe, but the removing of them was damned hot work. He sighed, not bemoaning the fact he had faced for some weeks now—that Angus McCready Crow was a lecherous man who might well have met his match in Sylvia Cowles.

  Idly he picked up the next document in the pile and allowed his eyes to stray across the precise script. It was a report written by a police constable who had been called late one night to a dying man in a house near the Embankment. It appeared that the man, whose name was Druscovich, had recently been released from prison. He knew that he was dying and desperately wanted to supply the police with some new evidence connected with his crime.

  But by the time the constable, who had been called off the street, got to his bedside, Druscovich was all but gone. The only words noted in the officer’s report were, “Tell them Professor Moriarty was behind it all. Tell them, Moriarty.”

  The report had obviously been only recently refiled among the documents relating to Moriarty. Crow looked at the original date: July 1879.

  Druscovich? It was a name the inspector knew, and presumably a name many other members of the force knew also, yet at the time the young constable (A 363 Jackson, D.H.) and his superiors had missed the significance. Angus Crow was missing the significance now. Yet there was something nagging away, leaving him with a feeling of great unease.

  Spear’s heart sank. A fury raged within him for being so foolish as to fall into such a trap. The fury was also edged with concern, for Green and Butler were now obviously alerted.

  “What do you want with me?” His voice was sullen.

  Behind Green, Butler lounged against a small heavy table, a tankard held loosely in his right hand. Spear also glimpsed other faces, some known to him, others belonging to men he may have seen often enough but to whom he could put no names. In all there were some ten or fifteen persons in the room.

  “What do we want him for, Peg?”

  Peter Butler’s accent was almost affected, like a man who tried too hard to better himself and was guilty of excessive imitation of the class to which he aspired.

  “What indeed, Bert Spear, what indeed? We want to know what the game is, that’s what.”

  Spear’s head was aching; it felt as though someone were swelling a pig’s bladder inside it.

  “What game?” he croaked from the back of his dry throat.

  Michael Green took a pace forward.

  “The rumors that are set about—the talk that Moriarty has returned from the grave.”

  “You’ve heard that, have you?”

  Spear hoped that it was a trace of fear he detected in Green’s voice, pleased in some small way that the Peg was talking about rumor: it meant they were still uncertain.

  “We hear a lot of things, and it’s my mind that one of you bastards is being a sight too fly.”

  “Oh?”

  Spear shifted, pain shafting across his head like a sudden light thrown through a casement.

  Peter Butler moved, pushing himself forward from the table.

  “All this talk of the Professor’s return,” he said, smooth as treacle. “Then Moran gets the devil’s whisper. It’s too good to be true, Bert. Moran’s been takin’ his ease since the Professor got his—takin’ his ease and more besides. There are only four of you who’d have the brains to see him off up the stairs—you, Pip Paget, that little yellow heathen, Chow, and the weasel, Ember.” He paused to spit, turning his head.

  “And there’s only two of you would try it on your own,” Butler continued. “You and Paget, or you or Paget. So what’s the game, Bert?”

  “If it’s you …” The Peg grinned unpleasantly, showing blackened teeth. “If it’s you, perhaps we can come to terms.”

  Spear could have shouted with relief. They did not believe the Professor was indeed back, preferring to imagine the whole thing had been arranged by Moriarty’s lieutenants.

  “What sort of terms?”

  In spite of the throbbing and a rising nausea, Spear did his best to appear sly, even grasping.

  “We’d be reasonable.” The Peg’s voice softened. “The Professor’s organization is not altogether smashed, and you’ve the means to put the Butler and I in top places. We’d see you right—if it is you. We’d see you with a third share, equal to Peter and myself.”

  “Is it you?” asked Butler.

  Spear allowed a full minute to pass, lingering for effect, keeping his eyes from meeting those of either Green or Butler. Then:

  “You’ve more brains that I took you for. Untie me and give me a glass. Yes, it’s me, with a little help from the others.”

  It was not possible to divine Green’s true intentions, but Spear could be certain that once he and Butler thought they had control over what remained of Moriarty’s lays, they would be none too choosy about what happened to him. If the circumstances had been real, Spear thought, his life would have been worth less than a duff fawney.

  The Peg motioned with his hand, and two of the other men came out of the smoke and shadows to kneel and work at the knots on Spear’s wrists and ankles. One of the men smelled as though he slept in a midden.

  Spear climbed carefully to his feet, rubbing his wrists, fighting the sickness and the cleaving hurt that was in his head. A hand grasped one arm, and he was led, painfully, to the table and there seated in a chair. A cup of gin with hot water was placed in front of him and, looking up, he saw he was being served by a young woman.

  “You can get downstairs again now, girl,” the Peg said roughly.

  Spear caught a glimpse of light blue eyes, holding his for a moment and felt the girl’s hand brush softly against his arm. She could not have been more than twenty years of age, yet there was immense fatigue in the eyes, and lines above the nose, as though she had grown old and worn out long before her time.

  “You heard him, Bridget.” Butler’s tone was less sharp. “Down to the others. You’re paid to keep them happy, so see you do it well.”

  Bridget gave a quick nod and turned away, but Spear sensed that she was trying, in some desperate manner, to communicate with him. He shook his head and took a long sip of the gin, trying to clear his mind.

  “You’re with us then, Bert Spear?” Green was leaning across the table.

  “It seems sense.”

  “And the others?”

  “They’ll listen to me.”

  “They’d better.”

  “Let me go to them and talk.”

  Green grinned his black smile. “Not so fast. You’ll go when we’ve spoken more. When you’ve told us the full condition of Moriarty’s family.”

  “And when you go,” added Butler, “there’s a pair of our family men who’ll go with you.”

  Spear nodded slowly. He would have done the same. All he could do now was play out the time, hoping that he was in one of Green’s flash-houses which Moriarty already knew. Play out the time, hoping the Professor would strike quickly.

  The gaslight in the streets filtered through the eternal mixture of smoke, grime, soot and wispy fog. It hit people’s faces changing their pallid color to an even more ghastly shade, making them appear as if they were the walking dead. It also cast shadows in which lurkers skulked, watching on behalf of others or out for some villainy of their own.

  There were many streets and lanes in London through which it was dangerous, if not fearsome, to travel alone at night, yet the streets did not appear to hold any particular terror for the boy Slimper.

  The boy could not be more than ten years old, yet he showed no fear as he ran through the eerie alleys and lanes, far from the broad and better lit thoroughfares. He turned a deaf ear to the moans and the noises that came out of the smoke and fog. His job, he had learned as an infant, was to survive the best way he could, and his survival now meant doing as he was told, which in this instance was to run as though Satan were at his heels, over the uneven cobbles, past the ghos
tly wraiths of beggars, and those not lucky enough to have a room or a bed to hide in at night. He scampered under arches, through the evil smells, across the more salubrious roads, with their lighted and warm windows, swerving back into the shadow as he saw a constable patrolling the pavement.

  His trousers and coat were ragged and the shirt on his back thin, giving little protection against rain or cold. But to run with haste and deliver his message meant a warm place to sleep, when he was allowed, and a glass of gin with some soup, meat and bread to fill his belly.

  So the boy ran and swerved and scampered, holding the message in his head until he reached the warehouse; he was serving an apprenticeship that would make him a man apart from rich or poor.

  Ember, Moriarty reflected, was not a likable specimen, what with his rodent appearance and stunted stature, and the note of a whine which crept so easily into his voice. But there was no denying the man was a professional.

  He sat across the desk from Moriarty now, giving his report on the day’s findings—a report that barely missed a detail, whether it was in names, places, rackets or takings.

  Moriarty was pleased with Ember. “Good, as always, you’ve done well. Is Spear back yet?”

  “Not when I came up, Professor. He’s running late.”

  “He had some extra work to do, but I would have expected that concluded by now.”

  Moriarty leaned back in his chair and stretched to ease his muscles. Somehow waiting always seemed to fatigue him more than action, as though the nerves and muscles of his body became knotted with the unease that was always with him when others were about his business.

  “I want you to pass a message out,” he continued. “Get Parker in here as quickly as is convenient. I’ll need to see you all tonight.”