The Return of Moriarty Page 3

  Moriarty stood by the windows, looking out into the night gathering about the river, the low mist creeping up the waters to seep over the embankments and flow into the lanes and alleyways. At Paget’s knock, he called gently:

  “Come.”

  Paget closed the door behind him.

  “There are many waiting, Professor.”

  “I know. There is much on my mind, Paget. It is a strange feeling to have, shall we say, risen from the dead.”

  Paget inclined his head toward the door.

  “To them down there, guv’nor, and to us for that matter, it is nothing short of a miracle. But they’re patient. They’ll wait.”

  Moriarty sighed.

  “No, we must go on as before. They have come for help, favors, to supply ideas and to show their respect for my position. I would not be facing my responsibilities if I did not see them. After all, they are family men and women. Who are the most important?”

  Paget was silent for a moment.

  “There’s Hetty Jacobs, whose two sons have been taken in custody and her left with little, with no help and none to bring in a ha’penny. Millie Hubbard, whose husband, Jack, got hisself done in last month. It’s a matter that should be set to rights. And there’s Rosie McNiel whose daughter, Mary, got took by Sally Hodges’ girls—against her will Rosie claims. I got Sal here with the girl.”

  “Are there none but women?”

  “No, Bill Fisher’s here, with Bert Clark and Dick Gay. They’ve a case they want to work. It’s in the monkery and sounds worthy.”

  “Good.”

  “And old Solly Abrahams is here with a load of ream swag. Then there’s a dozen or so more.”

  “I will see Hetty Jacobs,” Moriarty allowed one of his rare smiles. “She has always been reliable and deserves some justice.”

  Paget nodded.

  “It would be best if you and Lee Chow remained with me during the meetings.”

  Paget looked pleased.

  “Very well, Professor.”

  “That will be a regular situation,” said Moriarty. “There are certain alterations I wish to make in our daily and weekly routine. When I am advising or giving favors, I shall have you, Paget, and Lee Chow present. Inform Chow before we start.”

  Paget left the room, and Moriarty turned again to the window. Over the past three years his life had been free of trouble. True, he had not completely kept to the terms of his bargain. He had seen Moran, advised him, and remained in touch. He also tightened up certain matters on the Continent, as he traveled from town to town and city to city. The European side of his operation had been in need of consolidation, and the time spent there was already paying off handsomely.

  Through Moran he had been able to make up his mind about other important matters, particularly the role he would have to play, together with his agents and those who worked for him, in the political arena. Moriarty had long been aware that large-scale crime, organized crime, would never be a total end in itself. Early in his career he came to the conclusion that if the organization was smoothly run, efficient, covering all departments, there would inevitably be a saturation point, a time when the whole machinery would run with a minimum effort from himself. Therefore, fresh fields, new pastures, would constantly be needed.

  For many years now there had been wealth, indeed riches undreamed of, the end product of burglaries, murder for profit, blackmail, forgery and the like, prostitution, profits from dens that existed to supply strong drink or the necessary substances to dope fiends, from the simple pressures of supply and demand, ranging from special sexual services that could not be satisfied through normal prostitution, to making arrangements for some wanted man to escape from the country. A large proportion of this money was already being ploughed back into more profitable ventures within the field of Moriarty’s criminal influence, and also into financing quite legitimate ventures: few people knew, for instance, that James Moriarty was the controlling financial backer behind half a dozen music halls and a dozen restaurants in London, some of them in the glittering West End, others in the smug areas of suburbia.

  Lee Chow came quietly into the room, bowing low and grinning pleasure. He was a second-generation immigrant, in his mid-twenties, who had never seen China, and there was nothing inscrutable about his flat, jaundiced face, as he so obviously showed delight at both Moriarty’s sudden return to London and the new status he had acquired together with Paget.

  Paget followed, one great hand resting on the shoulder of a plump little middle-aged woman, whose naturally ruddy moon face was filled with anxiety.

  “Mrs. Hetty Jacobs,” announced Paget after the manner of the grand majordomos of the upper classes.

  Moriarty’s face visibly softened and he stretched out his arms toward the small woman, who now appeared to be on the verge of tears. She came forward with a look of wonder and adulation spreading over her face.

  “Oh, Professor … you’ve come back to us … it’s really you.”

  She took the Professor’s hand and kissed it with the reverence of the faithful paying homage to a relic of the True Cross.*

  Moriarty, with some dignity, allowed the woman to kiss his hand, giving the appearance that the respect shown by the action was his due. At last he withdrew his hand and allowed the woman to unbend. As she did so, Moriarty placed both his hands on her shoulders in a fatherly manner.

  “Hetty, it is good to see you,” he said.

  “Sir, we never thought to have you amongst us again. There will be dancing in the streets tonight.”

  Moriarty did not smile.

  “And whoring and drunkenness, too, I’ll be bound. But come, Hetty. Paget has told me that you have a severe problem. Sit and tell me about it.”

  Mrs. Jacobs retreated to one of the easy chairs and seated herself on it.

  “It’s justice I want, Professor. Justice for my boys.”

  Moriarty nodded, a wealth of understanding passing between him and the dumpy woman.

  “That would be young William and … what’s the name of your elder boy?”

  “Bertram, after his father, God rest his soul.”

  “Amen to that.” Moriarty remembered Bert Jacobs, Sr., who had died in prison six or seven years previously—a forger of great talent. “So what happened to your boys, Hetty?”

  “They were taken, six months ago, with old Bland.”

  “Bland, the fence who lives near Wapping Old Stairs?”

  Hetty Jacobs nodded in a resigned manner.

  “They just went over there to see the old man, he was a friend of their father’s as you know and they would visit him once a month, sometimes more often. Just friendly visits, Professor. They’re good boys, I never ask them questions, but I know they’re good boys and they’ve never been in trouble.”

  More by luck than judgment, thought Moriarty, for both Bill and Bert Jacobs were artful pickpockets who worked the West End crowds, and had done since they were quite small. The young men were well set up and on their excursions to the theaters, music halls, and parks in the West they looked and behaved like a pair of young gentlemen on a night out. Moriarty himself had seen to their training, and they would have passed as upper-class bucks anywhere. Moriarty well knew that if the boys had been operating some forty or fifty years previously, they would have been part of the Swell Mob, though now they were in a class of their own with techniques well adapted to the modern conditions.

  “What happened?” he asked gently.

  “They was there with old Bland, taking a glass, listening to the old man talk. He was a great talker, remembered times long gone. They always enjoyed his company.”

  Moriarty understood. Bland was a man with an extraordinary memory who recalled events and people, thieves, villains, murderers from his youth. Lads like the Jacobs brothers could have done worse than listen to him, for they could learn a great deal.

  “They were there when the pigs came.* It seems that Bland had been careless. He’d got all the swag from the Maidenhe
ad Manor break right there, in his drum. Nibbed proper.”

  “And they took your boys along for good measure.”

  “The bastards took ’em all right, not that they didn’t put up a fight.”

  Moriarty sighed. After all, those two boys had been trained at his personal expense and he had been getting a fair share of what they earned. They should have known better than to resist arrest. That neither of the Jacobs boys could possibly have been involved in the Maidenhead Manor robbery went without saying. They knew their place, expert dippers as they were; nothing could have persuaded them to take on anything like a robbery of those proportions.

  “So they were taken for being accomplices of Bland’s …?”

  “They’re all in lumber now.”

  “Yes, Bland for the swag, and the boys for accomplices and resisting arrest?”

  “But they weren’t accomplices, sir. Never on my life would they have been involved in that.”

  “I know, Hetty, I know that, but English justice is a strange thing.”

  “There ain’t no justice.”

  “There will be. How did the boys fare?”

  “Three years each. They’re both in the ’Steel. Vile place, that is.”†

  “They tell me it’s better now, better than it used to be, they’re not strictly separated anymore.”

  “Don’t you believe it, sir. They’ve still got those cells there, and the turnkeys are brutal.”

  “I know about the turnkeys, Hetty.” His voice became sharp. “Who was the judge?”

  “Hawkins.”

  Moriarty smiled. So Hawkins was still sitting on the bench. One would have thought he would have retired by now. Sir Henry Hawkins was a renowned judge, the man who, sixteen years previously, had sentenced Charlie Peace to life imprisonment only to find that Peace was shortly afterward arraigned on another charge, that of the willful murder of Arthur Dyson at Banner Cross, Sheffield.

  “And they are now in the ’Steel, Hetty?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will get justice. I’ll see to it.”

  “But how…?”

  “Hetty, have I ever failed any of my people? Did I ever fail your husband? Or any of your friends, my friends, your family, my family?”

  She cast her eyes downward, shamed by his soft statements.

  “No, Professor. No, you have never failed any family people.”

  “Then trust me, Hetty. When I tell you that you will get justice, then believe that you will get justice. Wait and be thankful that I have returned.”

  “Thank you, Professor.”

  She fell to kissing his hand again, and Moriarty had to look severely toward Paget so that the bodyguard moved in behind Mrs. Jacobs, took her by the shoulders and gently moved her away.

  Paget returned a few moments later,

  “Parker’s here, Professor.”

  Moriarty was again sitting behind his desk.

  “He looks worried?”

  “Very.”

  “It will keep. Paget, tell me about the Maidenhead Manor break. Are we involved?”

  “Not directly, sir, no.”

  “Do we know who?”

  “The word is that it’s Michael the Peg and a con-head called Peter the Butler.”

  Moriarty rose again, looking toward the window. He knew Michael the Peg (so called because one of his favorite disguises was that of a one-legged tinker, or sailor), and there was little love lost between them.

  “Peter the Butler, otherwise Lord Peter, eh?”

  “The same.”

  “I would not have thought either of those gentlemen would have used Bland; after all they come from the other side of the river.”

  Paget nodded sagely.

  “Did they get much from Maidenhead?”

  “A lot of silver, jewels; they do say there was coin and paper worth one thousand pound also.”

  “And it was recovered by the police at Bland’s swagshop?”

  “The lot. When the case came up, it only took an hour or so from start to finish.”

  “It does not smell right, Paget, not right at all. It smacks of someone blowing on Bland.”

  “Yea, blowing to the peelers?”

  “Precisely. We have had occasion, I seem to recall, to warn off our wooden-legged friend before this.”

  “I was there when it was done.”

  “When we have finished here, I would be grateful if you would nose around for me, Paget. Old Bland is my man, as are the Jacobs boys. Michael the Peg may well have to be taught a lesson. It could just possibly be that Maidenhead was done for more devious reasons.”

  It worried Moriarty that Bland was in prison; the old man had fenced for the Professor and his people for a long time. His removal was a serious inconvenience and, what was worse, Moran had omitted to mention the case. It was almost certain that he would have to mete out justice to Michael the Peg, but there was also the problem of Bill and Bert Jacobs. Their mother would settle for nothing less than seeing them with her around the family hearth once more.

  “I shall also need you to arrange a meeting with Robert Alton,” he said. “Alton is a turnkey at the ’Steel, so this will have to be performed with great stealth. You understand?”

  “Understood, Professor.”

  “Good. I’ll see Parker now.”

  It was difficult to tell whether Parker was naturally dirty or simply disguised as a vagrant. Certainly he smelled like one who had not seen soap or water for a lengthy stretch of time; his hair and beard were long and matted and the loose, shapeless coat he wore over stained and thin trousers and shirt was ragged and threadbare.

  “You’ve lost him,” announced Moriarty as soon as Parker was shown into the room.

  “Not me, Professor. Machin lost him—or them, really, but we’re certain sure that they are now back in Baker Street.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Parker launched into the tale of how his group, all acting as lurkers (beggars), had observed Holmes, disguised as an elderly and deformed man, make contact with Dr. Watson at the Oxford Street end of Park Lane and later follow the doctor to his Kensington practice.

  “I let the others do the following as I had the feeling as how Holmes had spotted me in Baker Street,” he continued. “Anyhow, he was with Watson in Kensington for about an hour. When they come out, Holmes was without his disguise. They got into a hansom and Machin lost them. But since then I been back to Baker Street and Holmes is there without a doubt; you can see him sittin’ in the chair in front of the window.”*

  Moriarty was silent for a moment.

  “The main thing,” he said at last, “is that we know he is back and using his chambers in Baker Street once more. Presumably, Parker, you wish to clean yourself up and get out of your disguise.”

  At this, Parker looked a little surprised and hurt.

  “But leave your other men on watch,” Moriarty continued. “In the future it is essential that I have the best possible intelligence regarding the whereabouts of Mr. Holmes.”

  Paget took Parker out, returning to tell the Professor that Sweeper was downstairs. Nobody knew Sweeper’s true name. He was a man in his mid-sixties, known to the criminal world as Sweeper for more years than most would like to admit. Together with several of his cronies, Sweeper was used almost exclusively by Moriarty and Moran as a messenger, carrying information and orders throughout the city, thoroughly unsuspected because of his situation as a road sweeper. It was to Sweeper that Moran had spoken in Conduit Street earlier in the evening, and he now came to tell the Professor that Colonel Moran had contacted their chief agents in Paris, Rome, Berlin and Madrid, ordering them to present themselves for a conference in London on the twelfth of the present month.

  Moriarty listened patiently while Sweeper delivered his message, then, tipping the man generously, Moriarty asked him to return to Conduit Street and tell Colonel Moran that the watch was still being kept on Baker Street, where the evidence suggested Holmes and Watson were back in thei
r old chambers at 221B. He also reinforced his previous instructions by stressing that Moran should keep well away from the vicinity of Baker Street.

  Unhappily for Moran, Sweeper arrived back in Conduit Street too late. The Colonel had already left his chambers for the night and, as it turned out, forever.

  Sebastian Moran took a final look at himself in the mirror; he was a fastidious dresser and a trifle unhappy about the set of his tie. He was clad for dinner, his opera hat ready on top of the wardrobe. Tonight he would dine alone and at the Anglo-Indian, if only because his fancy was a good curry and the Anglo-Indian was the only place in London where you could be sure of getting the real thing. After the curry he had more serious work to do, for Moran had already decided to ignore the Professor’s instructions. Once satisfied with his appearance, the Colonel crossed the room to the large cabin trunk, a relic of his years in the Indian Army, took out his key chain and unlocked the trunk. Pulling back the lid, Moran revealed the contents, which appeared to be well-packed clothing, liberally spinkled with mothballs, if the aroma was to be believed. At the extreme top one could glimpse an officer’s dress uniform, the lapels peeping from the protective cover.

  Moran’s interest lay across the clothing and was in the shape of four items: what at first sight appeared to be a heavy walking stick; a skeletal metal rifle butt, a good deal smaller than the Lee-Metford Magazine Rifle, Mark I, the standard British military rifle of the time; a small hand pump; and, lastly, a heavy card box, which, from the label, seemed to contain some kind of ammunition. Moran recrossed the room, took down his heavy overcoat from the cupboard and began to distribute the last three articles in the pockets. Finally he shrugged his shoulders into the coat, picked up the heavy walking stick, relocked the trunk, placed the opera hat on his head and left the room, descending to the street door.

  Five minutes later, Moran was sitting in a hansom, on his way to the Anglo-Indian Club.

  Moriarty was tired. He had seen Solly Abrahams, the wily old fence who had come to welcome the Professor back to his native haunts and, let it be said, do himself some good at the same time: he brought with him a selection of uncut gems, the proceeds of a particularly brutal murder for profit that had taken place near the docks only a few nights previously. Frederick Warner, a thirty-two-year-old mate of the cargo steamship Royal George, was bludgeoned to death in Dorset Street, Spitalfields, known four years before as the most evil street in London, being at the heart of Jack-the-Ripper territory.