The Return of Moriarty Read online

  “You might, but …” The sentence trailed off into an unspoken query.

  “Is it your safety that concerns you?”

  “What do you think, Mr. Crow? What do you really think?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. Meiklejohn. All I know is that we have strong evidence that the name of one man was withheld in a case which is dormant. I have reason to believe that you know that name. It is your public duty to make a statement to me now, because it is important for me to have evidence that will stick.”

  Meiklejohn let out a long sigh. “You are saying that you’ll hound me to the grave if I don’t tell you.”

  “I would not use such strong terms.”

  “Does it have to be a formal statement?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you all that I know, which is not great. Kurr and Jonge were, as far as I was concerned, the two ringleaders of that particular series of frauds. As you know, they paid me to tip them when the police were getting close. The details are all set down in the text of the trial. It was not until almost the end that I became aware they were not acting alone, that they were marionettes for another man. I heard his name on several occasions and saw him once—in Jonge’s house at Shanklin. His name was Moriarty. James Moriarty.”

  “Would you be able to identify him?”

  “It’s a long time ago—but, yes, I think I would.”

  “Can you give us dates?”

  “I kept no records—no diaries, and my memory is not what it was.”

  “Which means that if we took you into court, your memory would fail you regarding the identification?”

  A small and watery smile crossed Meiklejohn’s face.

  “Possibly.”

  Crow concealed his frustration as Tanner penned the statement, handing it over to Meiklejohn to sign—an act he performed with some reluctance.

  Crow noted, as they left, that Meiklejohn appeared to have aged in the half hour or so that they had spent with him. Crow would have preferred to ask more, to have probed and questioned at length, but that could come later. At least this document, small as it was, might be the battering ram to send the Professor on a downward slide. The rest of his day would now be spent examining the Monday night’s reports and, possibly, talking to some of those involved.

  Back at the Yard he instructed Tanner to get about the second line of his investigations: to make a detailed examination of the life, times, friends and relatives of the departed Colonel Moran.

  Roach and Fray had been dreading the moment when the Professor would give final judgment upon them. They were both aware by now that some major battle had been fought and won against their former leaders, Green and Butler. It remained only for some kind of sentence to be passed, and Moriarty’s cold ruthlessness was legendary among the brotherhood of crime.

  Paget came with one of the punishers, leading them from their cramped quarters, down the spiral staircase, along one of the passageways, through the “waiting room”—in which a number of men and women sat intent on seeing the Professor—and up to the leader’s chambers, where they were placed in front of the desk, much after the manner of prisoners in the dock awaiting the verdict of the court.

  Moriarty, his arm still in the white sling, had the air and manner of a hanging judge. When he spoke, the words dripped from his lips with the same self-satisfied plumminess both men had heard in the court of law.

  “In other circumstances I would have had you done away with, like anyone else who had abused my patronage,” he began. “But I have promised that you will hold your destiny in your own hands.” He paused, as though for dramatic effect. “The choice is simple: You can either die—tonight, quickly and with no fuss”—his good arm moved in a graphic mime across his throat—“or you can remain silent, do exactly as you are told, and serve a term of some three years—in the ’Steel.”

  It was hard for the two men to digest. In those few words Moriarty appeared to conjure all the legends that surrounded him. Here he was, the all-powerful leader of the criminal world, proposing to send the prisoners to jail: to use the legal powers of the land for his own advantage, by having them incarcerated in the most dreaded of London’s penitentiaries.

  Hard as it may be, the men were not foolish. Three years’ misery was little to pay in bargain for their lives. It took them only a few moments to murmur out their acceptance of the sentence.

  Moriarty nodded, as though to signify that they had made a wise choice.

  “You must understand,” he said, the voice dropping to a whisper, “that any breach in our arrangement can only bring you certain death. You know me well enough to be sure that my arm has power to reach you wherever you may be. Retribution can be swift.”

  They were told to stay quiet in their cell. Tomorrow the full instructions would be given to them.

  Once Fray and Roach were removed, Moriarty sent for Lee Chow and issued orders regarding the people waiting to see him. The remainder of the day would be spent giving audience, dispensing favors, dealing with complaints; for this was part of the pattern of life which surrounded a man in Moriarty’s position.

  Thursday, April 12, 1894

  (THE MANNER IN WHICH MORIARTY PROCURED FREEDOM FOR THE JACOBS BROTHERS)

  EVEN THE CHARMS of Mrs. Cowles were lost on Crow during Wednesday night. The bit was between his teeth, and he had lost little time making some discernible method of the muddle of paper and dossiers littering his office.

  “Planning,” he said to Tanner. “Planning and organized method. It is the only way we can possibly expect to catch this villain. If he is a villain—for never be foolish enough to forget that any man is not guilty until he is so proved.”

  With the tiny chink of light glimpsed during the short interview with Meiklejohn, Crow now set out to take a bold look at the major crimes of the past twenty-five years, giving special attention to those in the five years preceding 1891—the year in which Moriarty was said to have disappeared.

  He also had men looking at the crime reports of the last week, and by Wednesday night there was at least one small act among many which seemed to interest him—the unconfirmed report of a shooting incident in Limehouse, near the docks.

  He sat until the early hours of Thursday morning going through the painful process of thinking himself into the shadowy Moriarty’s skin—an exercise which had proved most useful on other occasions when dealing with much smaller fry.

  It was only when he arrived at the Yard on the Thursday morning that Inspector Crow realized he had not followed one glaring line of reasoning. Meiklejohn was a frightened man; even the name of Moriarty had unnerved him. True, he had admitted to a man of that name being behind the old turf swindles, but in the end even that admission was overshadowed by the obvious fear radiating from the man like the new miracle, electricity.

  If Moriarty was to be feared that much by a man who was once deemed to have the intelligence to be a detective, then there had to be a reason for it. He immediately dispatched Tanner and another officer to bring Meiklejohn into the Yard. But as he feared, they were out of luck: Meiklejohn’s office was closed, and other people in the building said that he had mentioned retirement. Further inquiries elicited that John Meiklejohn had paid off his assistant, packed his few belongings and taken the morning boat train to Dover. He was never seen again.

  “Terror,” observed Angus Crow, “is a great force. If we could harness terror to machines, we could move whole cities—no need for horses or these wretched carriages built to be driven without a four-legged beast. Terror could drive most things.”

  Indeed, terror could drive men across oceans or in other cases to silence. Crow remained unaware of Moriarty’s next move simply because a number of men—some in Her Majesty’s service—were prepared to remain blind, deaf and dumb; some because of money, but most from terror.

  The area surrounding the Middlesex House of Correction, Coldbath Fields, was drab, gray and unpalatable. Houses, once desirable red-brick dwelli
ngs, had over the years become seedy and neglected, for few people sought to live within sight of the grim, spiked walls of that vast prison.

  The ’Steel—an ironic nickname culled from the French Bastille—lay to the east of Grey’s Inn Road, flanked by Farringdon Road and Phoenix Place, fronting on Dorrington Street. All nine acres were enclosed by massive, buttressed brick walls, which obscured all signs of life except for the darting beam of the treadmill fan, which could be observed by daylight turning its monotonous and weary circle.

  In front of the prison was a small grass area, kept trim by sheep, the tall bow window of the governor’s house jutting onto it. To the right of the window was the familiar prison doorway topped by a black-lettered inscription dated 1794; below this were the stern, green folding gates, huge knockers, the decoration of vast iron fetters and the gridironlike wicket. Mounted on the stonework, on either side of the doorway, were black notice boards providing Information Respecting the Terms of Imprisonment and Fines to be Paid and announcing No provisions, clothing, or other articles for the use of the prisoners.

  The evening roster of warders and turnkeys came on duty at half-past five in the afternoon, while the prisoners were at supper, the changeover taking place in time for the duty warders to supervise the locking up, which began at six o’clock.

  On this evening Frederick Steadman Alton, one of the senior turnkeys at the ’Steel, came on duty with the night roster, having had two days’ leave following six months of day-roster work.

  With the other officers he waited outside the gates until the wicket was opened, a little before the half hour, and stepped into the narrow yard that housed the gate warden’s lodge on one side and, on the other, a gravelled court enclosed by the walls of the governor’s house and leading to the stables and offices.

  A glass awning covered the way to a double iron gate, which was opened to allow the prison officers passage into the brick and spike-hemmed yard. Alton took his place in the three ranks of warders and turnkeys as they formed up for a cursory inspection by the dapper little deputy governor. In Coldbath Fields the prisoners’ heads were counted night and morning, but few would have thought of doing the same to the warders. Certainly on that evening nobody noticed that there were three extra men wearing the blue uniforms of the Prison Service, or that one of them was carrying a small pocket pistol under his jacket.

  Coldbath Fields was in reality three prisons in one: a large and forbidding central building, the Felons’ Prison, and two others, one at each corner of the main block. These other jails were, respectively, the Vagrants’ and the Misdemeanants’ Prisons, both having been built to similar specifications—four long blocks spaced equally in a half-circle like the spokes of a wheel.

  In 1894 the ’Steel was nearing the end of its long and unhappy life, but it still bulged with inmates; so much so that many who should rightly have been quartered in the Felons’ Prison were fitted into cold and tiny cells within the Misdemeanants’ Prison. Two such unfortunates were William and Bertram Jacobs, housed in cells on the second floor of B Block. Alton was the senior warder of B Block, and it was to this area that he walked as soon as the deputy governor dismissed the incoming roster.

  A few paces behind Alton came the three extra warders, two walking ahead, the third a little behind them, his right hand in his uniform jacket pocket.

  The changeover of warders usually took around twenty minutes, some going straight off duty as soon as their replacements arrived, others forced to linger and assist in the counting of prisoners as they returned from work and were locked up for the night.

  The warders coming on duty slowly converged on their variously appointed buildings and blocks. Alton was the first to arrive at B Block in the Misdemeanants’ Prison. He greeted his daytime counterpart, signed the docket, and told him that he could move his warders out—the takeover always being an easy matter as far as he was concerned.

  The three warders coming up behind Alton lingered for a moment near the doorway, allowing others to pass them and listening to the greetings and chitchat that passed between the officers.

  The cell floors each had an allotment of three warders and, standing by the door, Alton quietly held back the three men from his roster assigned to the second floor. There was an unhurried conversation, during which Alton told them to go back to the administrative office and take their tea now instead of waiting until after their charges had been locked away: a perfectly normal practice by which senior warders—with their gilt metal collar plates—showed favoritism to their juniors.

  As the three warders left, so the trio of extra men entered B Block and made their way up to the second floor, the largest of them taking the bunch of keys offered to him by Alton.

  At six o’clock the prison came alive, and for about twenty minutes the dull tramp of boots echoed through the yards and courts, up the stairs and along passageways as the drab-uniformed prisoners moved in regulated lines, from work and their meager supper to their allotted cells and dormitories.

  The prisoners looked exceedingly fatigued, as indeed they might, having worked a day which started at twenty-five past six to the sound of the cannon, with work beginning at seven and going on until half-past five; but for a break of one and a half hours for meals, the day was spent on the body-breaking treadmill or in moving piles of heavy cannon balls from one place to another in the shot drill field. Some, of course, picked oakum, and a few worked in the mat room or at a trade, such as plumbing or glazing, yet these fortunates were but a small number among the twelve-hundred-odd convicts forced to conform to the soul-destroying routine. Even then, some remembered that they could regard themselves as lucky—for a few years earlier the life at Coldbath Fields meant day after day of silence with no contact or converse between their fellow sufferers under the experimental silent system.

  Alton and a junior warder, identifiable by his silver metal badge, counted the heads of their charges in B Block, Alton hardly raising his head as the Jacobs brothers, clad in their rough, shapeless prison jackets, trousers and caps came through the entrance to B Block.

  With the other prisoners they marched up to the second floor where by now there seemed to be only one warder on duty—a very tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man with his uniform cap pulled down over his eyes. This warder had stationed himself midway between the cells normally occupied by the Jacobs brothers, which were halfway down the passage. From this vantage point he could see Roach and Fray inside the cells, stripped to the buff, their warders’ uniforms discarded and lying on the floor. They both looked miserable, yet resigned to the inevitable.

  As William and Bertram Jacobs entered their cells, so Terremant—for he was the third “warder”—turned away, walked up the passage and began to lock the cells.

  By the time “Warder” Terremant reached the cells formerly occupied by the Jacobs brothers, the two men were outside, dressed in the uniforms formerly worn by Roach and Fray.

  The trio moved slowly down the passage, pausing to lock each door and call good-night to the occupants. When this was complete, they made their way, unhurriedly, down the stairs, hardly changing their pace as Terremant passed the bunch of keys back to Alton.

  Without any undue haste the three men headed toward the main gate. The day-roster warders were still filtering through, tired and glad to be away to their own homes and hearths, and it was a simple matter for the unauthorized trio to mingle with the departing officers, lingering for a few seconds within the yard outside the gatehouse without actually entering to sign off. Nobody challenged or questioned them as they stepped back to allow a pair of senior officers to go through the wicket before them. A few seconds later they too were outside and free.

  A pair of hansoms waited in Gray’s Inn Road, Harkness and Ember in the driving seats whipping up the horses as soon as their passengers were aboard and setting off at a steady trot toward Limehouse.

  By quarter to eight Bill and Bert Jacobs were climbing the stairs to the Professor’s chambers, each clutc
hing a tidy glass of gin.

  The stay in the ’Steel did not seem to have done either of the lads any harm; if anything—apart from the fatigue that showed under the eyes—their young frames appeared harder and their faces tougher than ever. The Jacobs boys were both in their late twenties, sturdily built, though in no way running to fat, their faces strong with good jaw lines, and noses belying their natural parentage—chiseled and without the twists or breaks so prevalent among their class. Both had clear blue eyes, reflecting a capacity for deep tenderness and, conversely, fearsome cruelty. In plain language they were very hard men who could, given the correct mode of dress, pass as gentlemen.

  Moriarty greeted them as he would have greeted long lost sons, embracing each in turn in the Continental manner, while the lads themselves poured out their gratitude, though in no fawning way.

  When they were all seated, Paget appeared in the doorway, leading Mrs. Hetty Jacobs by the arm. For the next minutes the room became a place of profuse and fulsome thanks, coupled with the natural tears of a mother reunited with her sons.

  Presently the Professor quietened Hetty Jacobs.

  “I think it unwise, for the moment, for your boys to return home,” he said kindly. “They must stay here awhile, but you may see them as often as possible.”

  Still with tears lacing her plump cheeks, Mrs. Jacobs kissed Moriarty’s hand for the umpteenth time.

  “How shall I ever thank you?” she muttered. “How shall I ever repay?”

  “You are of my family, Hetty. You know that. There is no need for repayment. Not yet. But I can tell you that both Bill and Bertram can offer much in return for their freedom. I need well-set-up boys like this, so getting them from the ’Steel is a double-edged favor; it gladdens both our hearts.”

  When Hetty Jacobs was finally sent on her way, the Professor got down to business, as the boys drank their gin and ate the meal Kate Wright and Fanny Jones, still watched over with great care by the other men, had prepared and brought to them.