The Return of Moriarty Read online

  As always, the Professor’s orders were obeyed to the letter, and at five minutes before eleven o’clock only a handful of people were waiting at the church. Paget was sitting in the front pew with Parker—spruce and smartly dressed, shaved and looking almost respectable—beside him as best man. Spear was not allowed to come over to the church, but Bridget, Kate Wright and her husband were there, as were Ember, Lee Chow and a couple of the punishers with Terremant. There was no fuss, no choir or organ, for Moriarty did not wish to call any undue attention to the church wedding. The music, dancing and loud roister could safely be conducted behind the locked and bolted doors of the warehouse later.

  Parker had set his watchdogs around and about, but nobody paid any special heed to the few old ladies, and a couple of men roughly dressed in corduroy, with red chokers at their necks, who sat at the back of the church. Weddings, christenings and funerals always drew a few strays who liked to wallow and weep for people they did not know.

  Angus Crow felt conspicuous in the unaccustomed garb, but the detective with him was quite used to posing in disguise and he assured his inspector that he looked nothing like a policeman.

  Promptly at eleven o’clock there was a stir at the back of the church. The curate appeared before the altar and walked down to the nave as Paget, nudged by Parker, took up his place.

  They came slowly down the aisle: Fanny, composed and radiant behind her white lace veil, clad in a dress she had labored over for many hours—white silk, tight-waisted with a short train and high-necked lace cape. She looked undeniably small on the arm of the tall, dignified and stooping Moriarty, who had removed the sling from his damaged arm for the first time since the attempt on his life. Behind them walked Mary McNiel, the maid of honor, nervous and ill at ease.

  Crow was fascinated, particularly by the man on whose arm the bride leaned. This was his first glimpse of the Professor, and the whole scene had about it an air of unreality for him, as though the characters in a novel were suddenly coming alive before his eyes.

  The bridal procession came to a halt, the couple giving each other a quick and hesitant glance before the curate began to intone:

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.…”

  Crow hardly heard any of the service, so intent was he in gazing at Professor Moriarty. It was a strange, depressing and brooding feeling to see the man standing there in the church. In some ways the very fact of Moriarty being in such a holy place made it worse; as though a great sea of invisible evil surrounded the man, emanating from him. Crow experienced odd and vivid sensations, associated with clear pictures in his mind, of huge and unquenchable waves breaking remorselessly upon rocks. The rock of the church, he thought, under assault from the heavy swell of Moriarty’s powers.

  When the time came for the bridal party to follow the curate into the vestry, Crow could have sworn that Moriarty turned and looked down the church, the deeply circled and sunken eyes seeming to gaze straight into his own, penetrating through his skull. It was an unnerving moment that sent an unaccustomed icy shiver running from the back of Crow’s neck to the base of his spine.

  When the happy couple emerged to return down the aisle, two things took the inspector by surprise: First, the man Paget was most certainly one of the people shown on Frome’s adept sketch of the party at the Alhambra; secondly, the bride, looking happy and most fetching with her veil now thrown back, answered the description of the young woman who had taken the basket of victuals into Horsemonger Lane Jail on the day Colonel Moran died.

  Though Crow was outside the church as quickly as possible, he was amazed to find that the whole wedding party appeared to have melted into the side streets, lanes, and alleys like the thin wraiths of smoke that drifted through all the byways of this area. The whole episode had about it an eerie quality, akin to what he had felt on first sighting the Professor.

  The evidence and his reasoning did seem to be adding together, and although he had not been able to detect anything strange in the Professor’s appearance—such as the use of disguise—he was sure and certain that the connection between Moriarty, the professor of mathematics, and Moriarty, his youngest brother, was the answer to one of the problems. The man, Paget, was now fully proven to be an associate, not simply of Moran, but also of Moriarty; it would also be of importance to speak with the woman who had become Mrs. Paget; Crow was positive that the servant girl at Horsemonger Lane and Paget’s bride were one and the same.

  But how best to act? That was difficult. To begin with these people had to be found in the warren of byways that ran through the maze of the city’s East End; then, once found, could they be held? If Moriarty’s power were really as great as Sherlock Holmes had originally indicated, then he would be protected by almost an army and his ways of escape would be manifold. Should they wait for him to show himself again? Issue a directive for his apprehension? The latter course seemed unreliable, for a directive of this sort meant dozens of people being alerted, and undoubtedly the word would get back to Moriarty within the hour. The last thing Crow wanted was for his man to go to earth.

  In the meantime, Crow decided as they rattled back to Scotland Yard, he would still have to wait. Inevitably the Professor or one of his confidants would make a move. The feeling of gloom and frustration began to lift. The answers were there, near to the surface, and it could only be a matter of time now before this archvillain would stretch his head too far from his world into Crow’s.

  Nobody had ever seen the warehouse looking like this before. The place smelled of flowers, the lamps were lit and the atmosphere bright with gaiety. It was also full to capacity: a very wide cross-section of Moriarty’s family of villains present to pay respects and celebrate Paget’s wedding.

  The newlywed pair sat at the table set before the “waiting room” door, together with Moriarty himself, Ember, Lee Chow, Parker, the Jacobs brothers, Terremant, and Spear propped up in a chair. On their right a small dais had been set up for a band—a brace of violins, a cornet, two banjos, a zither and an accordion—ready to launch into The Happy Peasant, Il Corricolo, Mona, and later, when the party was in full swing, ’Appy ’Ampstead, Knocked ’Em in the Old Kent Road and My Old Dutch.

  At twelve noon the wicket gate, set in the big double doors, was locked and bolted, the warehouse full and the party ready to commence. Moriarty’s orders were no admissions after noon.

  The long series of trestle tables running down the left side were crowded with pies and molds, cold chickens and turkeys, hams and pickles, in the center of which stood a three-tiered wedding cake. There was champagne and ale to drink and a myriad pastries, jellies and trifles to choose from. In many ways it was a strange sight, as though this odd mixture of people were trying to ape the manners, style and etiquette of the middle classes.

  This was most apparent on the table running down the other side of the floor, crammed as it was with gifts for the pair. The finders had been out and about to provide their tokens and tributes, though, apart from one or two objects, a certain sameness was visible. There were gold Albert chains and Langtry Alberts, bracelets and bangles decorated with Oriental pearls and diamonds; “Love Laughs at Locksmith” brooches; rings in abundance; gold keepers and knot rings, signet rings and heart charms and gold scarf pins. There were at least a dozen silver pencils, and four of gold; watches, both ladies’ and gents’, with Swiss horizontal and lever movements, and barrel movements; two sets of antique patterned fruit spoons; a solid silver-back brush set in a case, for Fanny; a silver combined match box and sovereign purse; a pair of field glasses; bottles of the Royal Perfumery’s Chypre and New-Mown Hay.

  In effect all the gifts were things that could be easily pocketed or taken quickly from their rightful owners. The only larger items being those given by the Professor himself: a haberdashery cabinet for Fanny, containing cottons, silks, tabs, buttons, needles, pins and all the paraph
ernalia women used; and, for Paget, a dressing-and-shaving case in dark French Morocco, with razors and the usual cutlery.

  The guests who crowded the warehouse were of an unlikely variety: men and women dressed fashionably, some with taste, others looking flashy, gaudy even, in contrast with the more sober-suited men, who could easily have been professional people, doctors and bankers, maybe politicians; and it was notable that both these groups were at variance with the rougher, down-at-heel folk—people one could see daily on the streets of East and West Ends alike.

  To an outsider the strangest thing of all was the fact that all these class divisions appeared to intermingle easily, laughing and jesting with each other, so that a bruising bully was seen talking merrily with an elegant city gent; a recognizably flash woman could be observed twinkling her eyes and undulating her charms at an elderly man who might have just walked in from the Stock Exchange; a delicate lady of high fashion clinked her champagne glass with a man who, even to the least experienced eye, could be little else but a person of dubious habits.

  Paget and Fanny remained almost oblivious to the throng, except when one or another of Moriarty’s employees—for everyone there served the Professor in one way or another—came over to the table to offer congratulations, after first paying their respects to Moriarty himself.

  Yet in the far corner of Paget’s mind there were the two-pronged, irksome nags of concern and despair. He could not deny that he had never before felt the warmth and tenderness that flowed between him and Fanny; nor could he deny the paradoxical sense of suspicion that his bride could just possibly be the one within the Professor’s private domain who had already betrayed Moriarty and was willing to do it again. There was also the overriding unease, which had first come to him at Harrow, manifesting itself in the consistent knowledge that his present life was no way to achieve that happiness he so earnestly desired for the two of them.

  Moriarty sat near, receiving the guests as they came to the table, rather like some princely father: shaking their hands or accepting their embraces, listening to their sweet, dripping words or requests with the same firm and unshakable concentration he always displayed. Yet deep within him there was a disquieting anxiety. He doubted if anyone else had noticed the two men sitting at the back of the church during the wedding ceremony. He had. He had also smelled the danger, that same scent that had reached his seventh sense when Holmes had come too near. The two men were he was certain, police; and one of them probably bore the name Crow.

  Moriarty glanced along the line of favored men who sat with him and the bridal pair. Spear appeared to be enjoying himself, but the bruises were far from healed and his hands would need time yet before he could use them properly. The Professor sighed inwardly. Paget was his best lad, no doubt of that, but the bright Fanny Jones had him by the balls and there was no accounting for men who became enslaved by women. If only Spear had been better recovered.

  The afternoon wore on, food, drink and music flowing through the heads and bellies of the guests, generating a false sense of security. Even the punishers were relaxing, and outside the few lurkers whom Parker had placed on watch began to grow restive, bored and not a little discontented that they were banned from the festivities.

  Inside people began to sing to the band and groups started to dance, until the whole ground floor of the building reverberated to the music and stamp of feet.

  The woman passed through the crowded floor, pausing for a word here and there, stopping to be kissed by some old comrade, quipping a jest with others. Nobody took heed when she reached the wicket gate in the warehouse doors; nor were they concerned—even if they saw—as she slipped back the bolts and snapped the lock free.

  By late afternoon the mists came in to join with the smoke in the streets, making it difficult for a man to see much more than a couple of yards ahead, distorting the sound of footsteps on the roads and cobbles, damping the echo and confusing the sense of direction.

  The neat little coach drawn by a pair of grays set the two men down some three hundred yards from the archway and alley leading to the front of the warehouse. They moved without sound, shadows clinging to shadows, pressing against walls and doorways, flitting between the darker patches of mist and smoke like specters on the haunt.

  Finally they reached the archway and the last yards through the lane, which brought them in front of the warehouse.

  “You think she’ll have got the latch off the wicket by now?” one whispered, peering hard through the murk at his companion’s muffled face.

  “If hot, then we have to wait,” replied the other.

  Gently they glided into the open space, nearing the door, the first man pressing himself against the flaking woodwork, his hand gripping the iron hoop of the wicket latch, testing it. From inside the sounds of revelry penetrated doors, windows and walls alike.

  The latch responded and the door moved a fraction.

  “We go like lightning once we’re inside,” breathed the one at the latch. “You ready?”

  His partner nodded, and together they slipped out of their topcoats, revealing themselves to be dressed soberly in gray, with long fashionable jackets falling just below the knee. Both were bearded, almost distinguished looking, with gray streaking their hair.

  The man at the door looked back, nodded again, appeared to take a deep breath, and then quickly pushed the door open. Within seconds they were inside, few even noticing them as new arrivals, so fast did they mingle with the guests.

  Both men ate a little chicken and drank two or three glasses, before surreptitiously weaving their way through the chattering and happy groups, until they reached a vantage point to the right of the top table. Again they chose their moment; when Moriarty was engaged in earnest discussion with two men—whom they recognized as cracksmen named Fisher and Gay—and there was much toing and froing through the door to the “waiting room,” kitchens and the Professor’s private quarters. Using stealth, as before, the pair of interlopers casually slipped through the door and moments later were padding silently up the wooden stairs to the Professor’s darkened chambers.

  The party showed no signs of ending: Moriarty knew well enough that if left to the guests, it would go on throughout the night. But being a man with a constant eye to the needs of his organization, he intended that all would be well finished by eight. It was seven o’clock, therefore, when he leaned over and whispered to Paget, telling him that the time had come for him to remove his bride to the privacy of the bridal chamber.

  Paget had been reasonably abstemious, but still could not resist a crude gibe, pointing out to the Professor that all that was required from bride and groom had long since been accomplished. The remark was met with withering disapproval and a cold reply that left Paget and Fanny in no doubt that however they felt, this was their legal bridal night and out of respect for their marriage it was necessary for them to go through at least the motions of “the leg business,” as Moriarty put it.

  “If I don’t get these fuddlers out of here, the lot will be hoodman blind and there’ll be no work done tomorrow. So get at it, the pair of you.”

  There was much raucous laughter, jeering and cheers, as the newlyweds attempted to take their farewells, and it was almost a full half hour before they were able to complete their departure through the “waiting room” and back along the passage to the spiral stairs leading to the second floor and Paget’s room.

  Moriarty immediately signaled to Terremant, and those punishers who were not already too tipsy to comply began the task of speeding the parting guests on their way.

  It was plain that a good number of those residing within the warehouse had made arrangements with ladies they had met during the celebration. There would be more people than usual sleeping within these walls tonight.

  The atmosphere, combined with the drink, had taken its toll, and even Sal Hodges was flushed as she approached the Professor’s table, bending low and whispering in his ear:

  “You said you’d like to dance
a jig with me, then why not tonight? Get rid of little fairy-Mary, and I’ll give you a prick in the garter you won’t forget for a long year.”

  Moriarty smiled with undisguised lechery. “Sal—” he leered—“it has been too long since we played the two-handed put.”

  He glanced around to catch Kate Wright’s eyes, signaling for her to join them.

  “Get young Mary out of the way.” He spoke low. “Let Terremant or one of the others have her tonight; then make up the fire and light the lamps in my chambers.”

  The housekeeper registered mild surprise, then grinned, nodded, and turned away, pushing past Spear, who was being helped up by the tenacious Bridget.

  As the slow procession of wedding guests made its way from the warehouse, Pip Paget clutched his new bride to him in their bed.

  “I reckon I love you, Fan,” he whispered. “How does it feel to have it legal?”

  She lifted her head, kissing him gently on the cheek.

  “I didn’t really notice that time, dearest. Try again and I’ll pay more attention.”

  They both giggled.

  Later he said, “Truly, Fan, how will you like it, being here permanent with a husband?”

  She was silent for a long minute. “I’ll like it fine, having you and looking after you, Pip. But it worries me, all the things you have to do. Is it truly to be permanent? I’m sometimes at sixes and sevens in case you get taken like Spear. Or worse, by the coppers. I got the horrors after going to Horsemonger Lane, and I couldn’t bear it if they put you in one of them places.”

  Paget had no answer, and did not dare reveal what was in his heart.

  It was only a few minutes later that the loud knocking came at their door, and shouts along the passage.