The Return of Moriarty (18 page)

As Moriarty looked back at himself from the mirror at this moment in the ritual, there was always a deep touch of fear: For that few seconds while the complete transformation was taking place in his head he would wonder which of them he was—the killer or the victim? It had been just like that at his brother's end and his own beginning.

Once he was mentally ready, Moriarty began what had become an almost automatic rite. First the long, tight corset to pull in his flesh so that he could take on the thin, near wraithlike proportions of the other Moriarty. This was followed by what appeared to be a more restricting device, a kind of harness—a slim leather belt that passed around his waist and was buckled tight. A series of crossover straps came over his shoulders and threaded through flat loops sewn into the front of the corset; from thence they passed down to buckles on the front of the belt. When these buckles were drawn tight, the effect was to pull his shoulders forward so that he could only move with a stoop. Moriarty next donned his stockings and shirt before climbing into the long striped trousers, which had to be hitched up to mid-calf until he had put on and laced the boots, specially designed with built-up soles to add the necessary height.

All that was left now to complete the required picture was skillful alteration of the face and head, ingeniously effected by the paints and brushes used by actors and those who were expert in disguise.

First, he tucked his mane of hair under a tight-fitting skullcap and began to work on his face, using firm, deft and confident strokes so that he assumed the gaunt, hollow-cheeked look so easily identified with Dr. Watson's famous description of the arch-criminal. Even with only the skullcap covering his hair the effect was remarkable, the pallor striking and the eyes sunken unnaturally into their sockets.

Then came the final and crowning part of his disguise—a domed head covering of some pliable and thin material mounted on a solid cast. Externally the color and texture were those of a normal scalp, and, when fitted in place over the skullcap, the effect was extraordinarily realistic, giving the natural impression of the high bald forehead sweeping back and leaving only a sprinkling of hair behind the ears and at the nape of the neck. Moriarty would then make a few slight adjustments, using a small pot of flesh-colored cream, which he worked around the join between the wig and flesh. Once satisfied, he would finish dressing and, standing in front of the mirror, peer at himself from all possible angles. Moriarty looked back from the glass at Moriarty.

After wholly mastering this act of physical change, Moriarty's next step was to destroy his brother's career, a relatively easy matter for one who had so carefully observed the failings of others. He had long known that the professor was not as other men regarding the natural inclinations of the flesh. Indeed his preference lay in the company and intimacy of young men, a fact that made him particularly vulnerable as a senior don in charge of the academic progress of reasonably wealthy scions from the upper classes and county nobility.

Early in life, while still in Liverpool, Jim had foreseen the way in which that peculiar sexual hypocrisy, so rife in Victorian cities, could be exploited and used to best advantage.

Although homosexuality, in all its forms, flourished openly in all strata of life and was readily available on the streets and in bordellos, as well as being practiced in private, the mature homosexual in high office or a responsible post risked ostracism and loss of status if that deviation from the norm created any public scandal. Young Moriarty knew well how easily he could turn his elder brother's failings to advantage. He began with a whispering campaign, not simply in the university, but near to the homes of those young men in whom the professor appeared to have most interest. The results surpassed even his wildest dreams.

There were two, both students of the professor, in whom the younger Moriarty showed especial curiosity. One was the elder son of a country gentleman with large estates in Gloucestershire; the other's father was a notable London rake who had already squandered two fortunes and seemed intent on parting with a third.

The young men—Arthur Bowers and the Honorable Norman De Frayse—were in their late teens, both already bearing the marks of early degeneracy: the languid good looks, limp hands, weak mouths, bloodshot eyes following days of overindulgence, and a style of conversation that affected a quick, if cheap, wit.

Moriarty had them both marked. They spent many evenings in the company of the professor—sometimes staying until early morning—and, in spite of their mentor's genius, appeared to have little aptitude for the kind of studies that consumed the professor of mathematics.

Through carefully cultivated friends, young Moriarty spread the word that both Bowers and De Frayse were being corrupted by the older man, the whispers quickly reaching both Squire Bowers in rural Gloucestershire and Sir Richard De Frayse in the whorehouses and gaming rooms of London.

As often happens in such cases, it was the rakehell father who reacted first—obviously stung by a sudden concern that his beloved son should not be dragged into the web of destructive pleasure and libidinous ways that were remorselessly pulling the father himself into eternal damnation. Sir Richard descended on the university, spent an hour or so with his son, and then arrived, wrathful and spleen-choked, at the vice-chancellor's lodgings.

The situation could not have been better if young Moriarty had himself maneuvered matters. First, the vice-chancellor was an elderly cleric, a man full of the paradoxical saintly hypocrisy that so often besets clerics of a Christian persuasion when they are cut off from the mainstream of life in the world. Secondly, the professor had been more of a fool than anyone would have credited.

Brilliant of mind and with incredible perception as far as mathematics and its attendant sciences were concerned, Professor Moriarty had a blind spot that even his youngest brother had not foreseen: He did not understand money. During the previous year he had worked hard and been lionized, spending his spare moments of relaxation with the two young men, all three of them indulging their particular passions and whims. Yet on many occasions he had found himself low in funds, so what was more natural than to borrow from his young friends?

In all, the great Professor Moriarty was in debt to the tune of three thousand pounds to De Frayse, and, as it was later discovered, a further fifteen hundred to young Bowers. All this on top of the fact that he was an older man undoubtedly leading his students into an abnormal way of life.

The vice-chancellor, whose sanctity did not include either forbearance or understanding, was shocked and scandalized. He was also concerned for the good name of the university. Squire Bowers was summoned and rumor spread through the colleges like a raging pestilence: The professor of mathematics had stolen money; he had been caught, in flagrante delicto with a college housemaid; he had abused the vice-chancellor; he had used his academic skills to cheat at cards; he was a dope fiend; a satanist; he was involved with a gang of criminals. Inevitably Professor Moriarty resigned.

Moriarty the younger chose his time carefully, turning up, innocent and unexpected, at the professor's rooms late one afternoon, feigning surprise at the boxes and trunks open and packing in progress.

His brother was a beaten man, broken, the stoop more pronounced, the eyes sunken deep into his head. Slowly, and not without emotion, Professor James Moriarty unfolded the sad story to his brother Jim.

“I feel that you might have understanding at my plight, Jim,” he said, once the terrible truth was out. “I doubt if Jamie ever will.”

“No, but Jamie's in India so there's no great or immediate trouble there.”

“But what will be said, Jim? Though nothing will be revealed publicly, there are already stories—many far from the mark. The world will know that I leave here under some great cloud. It is my ruin and the destruction of my work. My mind is in such a whirl I do not know where to turn.”

Moriarty faced the window lest any sign of pleasure could be read on his countenance.

“Where had you planned to go?” he asked.

“To London. After that …” The gaunt man raised his hands in a motion of despair. “I had even thought of coming to you down at your railway station.”
^*

The younger man smiled. “I have long given up my job with the railways.”

“Then what—”

“I do many things, James. I think my visit here this afternoon was providential. I shall take you to London, there will be work for you to do there.”

Later that night the professor's luggage was loaded into a cab and the brothers set out for the railway station and London.

Within the month there was talk that the famous professor's star had fallen. He was running a small establishment tutoring would-be army officers, for mathematics was a science that was more and more playing an important part in the arts of modern warfare.

For some six months following his resignation, the former professor of mathematics appeared to go about this dull and demanding work as an army tutor. He conducted this business from a small house in Pole Street, near its junction with Weymouth Street, on the south side of Regent's Park—a pleasant place to live, handy for skating in the winter, friendly cricket in summer, and the interest of the Zoological and Botanical Societies all year round.

Then, without any warning, the professor closed his establishment and moved, to live in some style in the house off the Strand—the place where he was still living during the Ripper murders of 1888.

Until now those were the known facts about the professor's movements after he had been driven from the high echelons of academic life. The truth was a different matter, marking the most important and ruthless move in the career of the Professor Moriarty we know as the uncrowned king of Victorian crime.

It happened some time after ten o'clock on a night in late June—an unseasonably cold night with a threat of rain and no moon.

The professor, having dined early and alone on boiled mutton with barley and carrots, was preparing for bed when there was a sudden agitated knocking at his front door. He opened up to reveal his younger brother, Jim, dressed in a long, black, old-fashioned surtout, a wide-brimmed felt hat pulled down over his eyes. In the background the professor saw a hansom drawn up at the curb, the horse nodding placidly and no cabbie in sight.

“My dear fellow, come in,” began the professor.

“There's no time to waste, brother. Jamie's back in England with his regiment. There's trouble, family trouble, and we have to meet him immediately.”

“But where…? How?”

“Get your topcoat. I've borrowed the hansom from an acquaintance, there's no time to lose.”

The urgency in young Moriarty's voice spurred the professor, who was trembling with nervousness as he climbed into the cab. His brother set the horse off at a steady trot, going by unaccustomed side streets toward the river, which they crossed at Blackfriars Bridge.

Continuing along side alleys and byways, the hansom proceeded down through Lambeth, eventually turning from the streets to a piece of waste ground, bordered by a long buttress falling away into the muddy, swirling waters of the Thames, much swollen at this time of the year. The cab was drawn up some ten paces from the buttress edge, close enough to hear the river, the distant noise of laughter and singing from some tavern, and the occasional bark of a dog.

Professor Moriarty peered about him in the black murk as his brother helped him down from the hansom.

“Is Jamie here?” The tone was anxious.

“Not yet, James. Not yet.”

The professor turned toward him, suddenly concerned by the soft and sinister timbre of his brother's voice. In the darkness something long and silver quivered in the younger man's hand.

“Jim. What—” he cried out, the word turning from its vocal shape and form into a long gutteral rasp of pain as young brother James sealed the past and the future, the knife blade pistoning smoothly between the professor's ribs three times.

The tall thin body arched backward, a clawing hand grasping at Moriarty's surtout, the face hideously contorted with pain. For a second the eyes stared uncomprehendingly down at young James. Then, as though suddenly perceiving the truth, there was a flicker of calm acquiescence before they glazed over, passing into eternal blindness.

Moriarty shook the clutching hand free, stepped back and looked down on the body of the brother whose identity he was so cunningly to assume. It was as though all the kudos of the dead man's brilliance now passed up the blade of the knife into his own body. In the professor's death the new legend of the Professor was born.

Moriarty brought chains and padlocks from the cab, emptied the cadaver's pockets, placing the few sovereigns, the gold pocket watch and chain, and the handkerchief into a small bag made of yellow American cloth. He wound the chains around the corpse, locked them securely and then gently tipped his departed brother off the buttress into the water below.

For a few silent moments Moriarty stood looking out across the river into the blackness, savoring his moment. Then with a quick upward movement he flung the knife out in the direction of the far shore, straining his ears for the splash as it hit the water. Then, as though without a second thought, he turned on his heel, climbed into the hansom and drove away, back to the new house off the Strand.

On the following afternoon, Spear, accompanied by two men, went to the small house in Pole Street and removed all traces of its fomer occupant.

Now, sitting in the back of the hansom taking him from his meeting at the Café Royal, Moriarty dragged his mind back from the past and the look in his dying brother's eyes. They were almost at the warehouse. It had been a long day and, while he wanted most to refresh himself and rest, Moriarty knew there would still be work to do before Mary McNiel arrived to tend to his more personal needs.