The Return of Moriarty Read online

  “It’s a pleasure to have you back.” Moriarty’s thin smile lit his lips but not his eyes.

  “You can see it’s their pleasure also,” Paget nodded. “Look at them, grinning like baskets of chips.”

  “There is work, lads. Much work. I need you about the house, both for protection and special labors that are being arranged.”

  He went on to speak of the difficulties they had experienced with Green and Butler, letting them into the secret of the traitor in their midst, and the facts concerning the important meeting with his Continental agents, set for the following day.

  “I need you close, with your eyes skinned and fists ready. Then, of course, next week we have a celebration. Friend Paget here is to be married on Tuesday. After that there is a caper that should bring us a mild fortune—silver, gems, some paintings of note, and cash.” He continued to talk of the arrangements already made. “The three lads who brought it to me are of good reputation, but it is necessary that I have at least one I can trust to go with them. Two heads are better than one and your muscle could be a help. I’d feel happier with you two there.”

  “You can count on us for anything, Professor,” said William Jacobs.

  His brother nodded. “Your life itself would be safe with us.”

  “Good.” Moriarty came near to beaming. “I need stout and true boys around me at this time. I want both of you close to me at tomorrow’s meeting. Paget and Lee Chow will be there also, so stick by them. And remember that in my absence they are to be obeyed as if it were myself.”

  When he had seen the Jacobs brothers settled for the night, Moriarty went over to Spear’s chambers. The invalid was sitting up, propped by pillows, the faithful Bridget still by his side. Moriarty noticed with interest that she was reading to her patient from an old copy of Harper’s Magazine. The thought of Spear listening to the middle-class jottings of that periodical made Moriarty smile inwardly as much as the fact that Bridget could read made him wonder.

  “Well, has your little nurse not left your bedside?” he asked brightly.

  “Hardly for a moment.”

  Spear’s voice was still weak, though the look of adoration which passed between him and the golden-haired Bridget spoke of one thing only.

  “You’re being a good girl to him, Bridget?”

  “And why not?” she answered, forthright as ever. “He is one of the few men in my life that’s shown kindness to me.”

  There was little arguing with her and, after a few minutes inquiring after Spear’s wounds, the Professor departed, to await news from Parker, who had been down to Victoria Station with some of his men to watch for those arriving on the boat train from the Continent.

  Parker and his lurkers saw all four of them come off the train. First, the short, thin Jean Grisombre from Paris, a rare jewel thief who had long worked the capital city of France with his own band of burglars and cutthroats until, some years before, Moriarty had suggested a form of alliance. The pair had worked in loose harmony ever since, and it was during his three years’ sojourn in Europe that Moriarty had spent much time with Grisombre—as he had with the other Continental arrivals—in an attempt to found a grand alliance.

  Jean Grisombre had with him a pair of young men whose manner and bearing was distinctly that of the apache: lithe, slim and deadly.

  One of Parker’s men strolled after them, following their hansom and making certain that the party booked into the Royal Exeter in West Strand.

  The visiting representative from Berlin was the tall, correct-looking Wilhelm Schleifstein, who had more of the appearance of a banker than an organizer of crime, his full beard making him look older than his thirty-nine years. In fact he had been in the world of commerce as a young man, though forced to leave the banking house which employed him after it was discovered that several thousand marks were missing and his books did not balance.

  Schleifstein had progressed from those relatively small beginnings to become somewhat of an expert in defrauding banks and gathering of intelligence concerning the most rewarding areas for jewel robberies. He also gathered together a growing band of dippers, whom he sent out after particular quarry, earmarked as carrying large quantities of currency.

  During his many visits to Berlin since 1891 Moriarty had discovered that the German’s large hand was in the flesh trade—running numerous brothels and taking a share from vast numbers of street women. The Professor was also acquainted with the huge fellow who walked with his Berlin visitor—Franz, a seven-foot giant who acted as Schleifstein’s personal servant and bodyguard.

  This pair was followed by one of the lurkers who later reported they were staying at the expensive Long’s Hotel in New Bond Street, where it could cost you as much as a pound a day including meals.

  The fat, suave Italian who came off the boat train was Luigi Sanzionare, the son of a baker now risen in the hierarchy of Italian criminals, becoming, at the age of thirty-three, one of the four most sought-after men in Rome—looked for by the questori and villains alike.

  Sanzionare brought with him a pair of smooth-faced, swarthy young men, dressed somewhat floridly. He was also the only visitor to be accompanied by a woman—dark, oliveskinned, and emanating a beauty that smoldered behind her eyes and stirred men’s loins when she walked. If the Italian had wished to draw attention to himself, he could not have done better, for the eyes of all men on the platform were drawn to the lady, as though by a feat of mesmerism, as she promenaded haughtily from the train.

  Sanzionare’s party was lodged at the Westminster Palace in nearby Victoria Street, and Parker’s man was not slow in learning that the lady, a Signorina Adela Asconta, had a room adjoining that of Signore Sanzionare.

  By comparison with the other visitors Esteban Bernado Segorbe was positively dowdy. Short, neat and quietly dressed, he carried his own portmanteau from the train, was diffident in engaging a porter, and almost slipped through Parker’s net. But not quite, for it was later reported that Segorbe had put up at the modest Somerset House in the Strand.

  Esteban Segorbe was the least known to Moriarty. When sounding out representatives in Spain, the Professor had been advised to contact this quiet resident of Madrid, who had welcomed him into his pleasant, though not luxurious, home, listened carefully to all Moriarty had to say, agreed in principle to some form of alliance, and thereafter conducted any business between them with minimum fuss and scrupulous fair dealing.

  Moriarty was aware that the man controlled large areas in prostitution and had a hand in numerous unlawful interests. There was little doubt, for instance, that he was engaged in the pernicious white-slave trade. Yet Esteban Bernado Segorbe was something of an enigma.

  “What’s up, Pip, you’ve been so strange, as close as wax?”

  Fanny sat at their makeshift dressing table, clad only in her chemise and drawers. Paget reflected that she was very different from other women he had known. For one thing, in his limited experience only high-class whores wore drawers, though they seemed to be correct for the snotty middleclass ladies if the drawings in the magazines were anything to go by. He remembered looking through a copy of The Gentlewoman, which Ember had picked up somewhere, and laughing at the advertisements for stays and other undergarments. There were also the postcards Spear had got hold of—from Paris he said—showing young women in colored drawers trimmed with yards of lace. They had made him exceedingly hornified, just as the sight of Fanny sitting there was doing now.

  Yet Paget could not get the terrible suspicion from his head. It haunted him practically all the time now. Fanny Jones had come from nowhere and yet everywhere, a woman of so different a background and experience that it almost made Pip Paget afraid on some nights even to touch her. He supposed that what he felt was the strange thing they called love, though Christ knew what that meant.

  He could not have truly put the fears into words, yet they were strong enough. If Fanny turned out to be Green’s agent, or—and the thought had crossed his mind—some interloper inserte
d like a chimney boy by the police, he did not know what he would do. The Professor would have only one answer, and that frightened Paget to the limit.

  “Pip?” Fanny called again. “Is something troubling you? Is it our wedding?” She rose from the chair and came to him, putting her arms around his neck so that his nose was nuzzled in her hair. “Is it that? Do you not want to wed me?”

  Paget, basically a rough man with women, held her close. How could he tell her that more than anything else in the world he wanted them married? How could he admit, even to himself, that in truth he would do anything for her, even if she had cross-bitten Moriarty.

  “I love you, Fan,” was all he said. “I love you and we’ll be married on Tuesday. There’s little else I think about.”

  Friday, April 13, 1894

  (THE CONTINENTAL ALLIANCE)

  ANGUS CROW FELT that he was making a little headway. He did not quite know in what direction, but there were now some distinct leads. He also found it heartening to know that if he came close to Professor James Moriarty, there was a legal reason for arrest.

  Some names had cropped up both from the original files and the questioning of those arrested on Monday night. Holmes himself had mentioned a man called Parker who, it seemed, acted as a spy, or watcher. Among Moran’s more shady acquaintances the name Spear constantly recurred, and from the Monday’s gleanings there were references to a Chinese called Lee Chow and a man called Paget—this last had certainly been present at the affray in Nelson Street.

  But there was still no sign of either Michael Green or Peter Butler, though a good number of their associates were in custody. Crow ordered these men to be questioned regularly and with considerable tenacity. Meanwhile the watch for Green and Butler continued.

  It was almost eleven o’clock when the telegraph arrived from the questore’s office in Rome. It was addressed to the commissioner and read:

  SUBJECT LUIGI SANZIONARE REPORTED TO HAVE ENTERED

  ENGLAND STOP SUGGEST HE BE WATCHED IF CONTACTED STOP

  WANTED HERE SUSPECT MURDER THEFT AND OTHER CHARGES

  STOP SANZIONARE ACCOMPANIED BY TWO YOUNG MEN AND

  WOMAN KNOWN AS ADELA ASCONTA STOP

  There followed a description of Sanzionare based on the anthropometric system. The message was circulated, and Crow, paying little heed to it, reflected on the efficiency of the Italian police. One day, he dreamed, there will be a united organization of both British and Continental forces to ensure any criminal moving from one country to another can be traced and hunted down.

  But that was thought for the future, of little value in Crow’s present investigation. He set his mind, therefore, to the task. If Moriarty was the general of some criminal army, then some of the stories that appeared and reappeared in the files must have at least a germ of truth.

  Crow began to examine the most incredible of the recurring themes—that Moriarty was the same Professor Moriarty who had achieved fame in the academic world, yet somehow possessed the power to change both face and body at will. By sifting the evidence, he was able to separate at least one fact—Moriarty appeared to manifest himself in only two ways: first, as the tall, very thin man with the unmistakable physiognomy known to countless academics; second, as a shorter, younger, and more stocky man, who, instead of the domed bald pate, possessed a good head of hair.

  The logical conclusions were simple: Professor Moriarty, the criminal commander, must either be two men masquerading as one; or one man masquerading as two. If the latter conclusion was correct, then the man concerned could not be the academic Professor Moriarty. He had to be the younger man. Quod erat demonstrandum.

  Crow smiled and began to hum to himself, eventually breaking into song.

  Oh! Mr. Porter, what shall I do?

  I wanted to go to Birmingham,

  But they’ve taken me on to Crewe …

  Mrs. Cowles had gone with him to see Miss Marie Lloyd at the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square only a few weeks before, and they had both nudged one another at the salacious innuendoes Miss Lloyd was able to convey.

  Take me back to London,

  As quickly as you can,

  Oh! Mr. Porter, what a silly girl …

  He stopped short at the discreet cough from the doorway.

  “Did you call, sir?” asked Sergeant Tanner.

  “No, no, I didn’t call,” Crow huffed, his accent more pronounced with his embarrassment. “But now y’here there’s a job for ye.”

  Tanner was deployed with one of Crow’s other detectives to begin a long and detailed search into Moriarty’s life—his relatives, the affair at the university, anything and anyone who was connected with him before his arrival in London as a military tutor.

  In the outer office the harassed Sergeant Tanner rearranged his schedule, had another detective carry on his work regarding the late Colonel Moran, and started out on his new duty, leaving Crow to let his mind and logic dwell on other aspects of the situation.

  “What do you think all the fuss is about then, Jim?”

  It was the punisher with the bent and mutilated nose who addressed Jim Terremant.

  “Don’t know and I don’t know that I want to know,” replied Terremant. “There’s been some trouble with the women, no doubt about that, what with the lad an’ all. The Professor’s a careful man. My advice to you is to do as you’re told, keep your eyes peeled and trust nobody, except the Professor, Mr. Paget, Ember and Lee Chow.”

  “That yellow ’eathen, he gives me the creeps.”

  “Then if it’s ’eathens that give you the creeps, you’d better mind yourself today, that’s all.” Terremant spat with some feeling. “We’ll have the place full of ’eathens before long. Foreigners, Eye-talians, Germans, Froggies and Spaniards. They’re all coming in ’ere for this meeting the Professor’s got together.”

  “Then we really will have to watch the women. I ’ere as how you couldn’t trust them Eye-talians with yer grandmother.”

  “Well, you watch away: the women, the grub—and the bloody silver.”

  Promptly at quarter-past eleven the cabs arrived at the various hotels. One of the young Italian men accompanied Luigi Sanzionare from the Westminster Palace; from Somerset House Esteban Segorbe traveled by himself; Fritz, the huge German, left Long’s with Herr Schleifstein, and both the French bodyguards were with Jean Grisombre when he walked from the Royal Exeter.

  Moriarty’s desk had been moved into the bedroom, a large dining table taking its place. Around the table were six chairs. Of Moriarty’s men, only Paget, Lee Chow and the two Jacobs brothers were going to be present in the room, though Terremant and his men would be within easy reach as they watched over the preparation of food and drink and its conveyance from the kitchens to Moriarty’s private rooms.

  Parker and a detachment of his lurkers, some of them armed with pistols and revolvers, were guarding the warehouse from all possible angles.

  Moriarty, not in his brother’s disguise, was dressed in black: a long frock coat, trousers and waistcoat, and a somewhat old-fashioned Mornington collar, looking for all the world like a doctor or banker. He waited, with Paget standing to his right and slightly behind him, to greet the arrivals at the top of the stairs. There were handshakes, smiles, bows and elaborate greetings. Sanzionare had not met Schleifstein, and Schleifstein had never met Grisombre. None of the visitors had ever seen Segorbe before today.

  Already there had been agreement about the language problem, and the conference was to take place in English. Some of the accompanying personnel, however, did not speak English, so there was a great deal of sign-language passing between the rank and file.

  Before matters could proceed toward luncheon, Moriarty called for silence.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “before I welcome you here officially, I have taken something of a liberty. We have another guest.”

  There was an exchange of brief, yet nervous, looks.

  “You need have no fears,” Moriarty smiled. “He is one of us. Inde
ed he hails from Europe, though he has taken on a new nationality.” He paused, his eyes searching the faces of his colleagues. “We are told that the United States of America is the great progressive country of our time—as indeed it is, for our friends there are already well organized. It is with our own interests at heart, then, that I have invited an emissary from that great country to—how can I put it?—to observe our deliberations.”

  He nodded toward Paget, who opened the door, admitting a tall, burly man, about thirty years of age, dressed soberly in dark suiting, a pearl-gray cravat at his throat.

  “May I present”—the Professor spread his arms wide in an extravagant gesture—” Mr. Paul Golden of New York City.”

  Though he was heavily built, Golden gave the impression of remarkable alertness, with bright eyes that never ceased to move in an inquiring manner. When he spoke, there was a heavy nasality underlying the strong, almost Germanic, guttural accent.

  “It is good to be here,” he said, a wispy smile crossing the thick lips. “My friends in The City—as we call New York—have asked me to carry their good wishes to you all. And I must thank you for the invitation which has allowed me to make the journey over the ocean. As the good Professor says, we are doing our best to work in an organized fashion. I shall enjoy and listen with interest.”

  With some diffidence the other guests approached the American visitor; they shook hands with him and exchanged a few words.

  Paget noted that Golden—whom the Professor had told him of only a short time before the meeting was about to commence—seemed reluctant to engage in any lengthy conversation.

  After two or three glasses of sherry the party sat down to luncheon, served by Bill and Bert Jacobs, overlooked by Paget and Lee Chow, correct as butlers of long experience; the dishes were brought up from the kitchens by Fanny Jones and Mary McNiel, each with one of the watching punishers in tow.

  Mrs. Kate Wright had excelled herself. Red pottage (made of haricot beans, tomatoes, beetroot, onions and celery) was followed by lobster cutlets. The meat course consisted of traditional roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, buttered carrots and turnips mashed together, baked potatoes and spring cabbage. Sanzionare made a joke by saying that Segorbe, Grisombre and himself should really have a papal dispensation, it being a Friday and them coming from families of the Roman Catholic persuasion. Schleifstein looked down his nose, thinking the remark neither funny nor in good taste. Golden smiled, as if he possessed knowledge of some secret jest.