The Return of Moriarty (23 page)

He stepped out briskly down Park Lane and into Piccadilly, eventually turning through the Quadrant, into the maze of byways that would bring him into Berwick Street.

The traffic was not too heavy, so Spear did not take much heed of the “growler” coming up slowly behind him. It went past, the cabbie pulling his horse into the curb.

As Spear came level with the vehicle, he experienced a brief second of reaction—the flash of knowledge that all was not as it should be, so that he began to shy away from the stationary “growler.” Light exploded in his head, a burst of pain at the back of his skull, then darkness, through which he was vaguely aware of hands lifting him.

When consciousness returned, Spear's head was aching and his eyes would not focus properly. The world seemed to be clouded and fuzzy. He blinked twice and tried to move but his hands and feet were bound with thick rope that cut into the flesh of his wrists and ankles. Slowly his vision cleared; smoke and gin fumes burning his nostrils.

There were several people wherever he was—it appeared to be a long bare room, as he could glimpse rafters above him.

“So, Mr. Spear is awake.” The voice grated, and came from somewhere near his feet. Spear raised his eyes.

“Good evening, Mr. Spear. I wonder what the Professor will say when he knows we have you snug and trussed?”

Spear knew the voice, and its owner. He was looking up at Moriarty's rival, Michael Green, otherwise Michael the Peg.

Moriarty gazed into the fire. Paget and Lee Chow had returned and given their reports. Mary McNiel was safe in the Limehouse headquarters, having arrived half an hour before in the care of one of the cash carriers from Sal Hodges' house. Once Ember and Spear were in, the Professor would have to talk in earnest about the way in which they would deal with Green and Butler.

He peered into the hot, blazing coals as though trying to see the faces of his adversaries. The pattern of his assault was already taking shape. Green and Butler, he now knew, often held court in The Nun's Head, though their main living place was a flash-house in Nelson Street near the Commercial Road—too close for Moriarty's comfort. Green also had half a dozen doss-houses near and around Liverpool Street railway station.

As for the whores, Moriarty was now aware of the names of those who controlled and carried for the street women (all soldiers' and sailors' girls), about two dozen men in all, whose known haunts boiled down to three drinking dens on the fringe of Lambeth—between the Palace and Waterloo Bridge. There were also the two brothels in Lupus Street, catering to the middle-class trade, and the one big cash earner in Jermyn Street.

The Professor also knew that John Togger and Israel Krebitz were the only fences with whom Green and Butler had been doing steady business; that the large Collins family, buried in their den in the crammed streets behind High Holborn, worked exclusively on forgeries (silver and paper) for his rivals.

There was also a mob of some twenty rips—magsmen, dips and macers—who were totally in Green's and Butler's employ and worked the fringes of the West End and the area around the South Eastern District Station at Charing Cross.

Other names were filed in the Professor's able brain—those of cracksmen, gonophs, and heavy mobsmen—some of whom had once worked for him. Their haunts and ways were well known to Moriarty, and none of them, he reflected with bitter pleasure, would escape the particular justice he was about to unleash. The lesson would be sharp and swift. More punishers were needed, but that was a mere detail. The important matter was timing, and when Moriarty struck, it would be with brimstone, thunder, lightning and death.

Inspector Angus McCready Crow had spent much of the day cloistered in his chambers at 63 King Street examining every scrap of paper, each note, item, report and document that contained even a whisper concerning Professor James Moriarty.

He was surprised that so much paperwork had been gathered together and mustered into a dossier, for, it must be remembered, fewer than twenty years had elapsed since Mr. Howard Vincent (former director of Criminal Investigation) had instituted such things as photographs of wanted men, lists of stolen property, and the system of classified descriptions and methods of known criminals (a system that has now blossomed into the MO lists).

In 1894 the paperwork of crime was only just starting its sophisticated rise, and in many ways the inspector was impressed. Like Mr. Vincent, he was a strong admirer of the methods of the
Sûreté
in Paris. He had a tidy mind, firmly believing that one of the answers to successful detective work was the correlation of evidence into a filing system.

Colleagues tended to view Crow's theories with distaste, mainly because of their feelings regarding the inherent rights of the Englishman. Some of the methods now being used in Europe were, they said, repugnant to the British way of life. Crow would often try to explain that the scientific approach to a crime index must not be confused with the
Meldewesen,
or registration system, by which many of the Continental countries kept track of their residents—exercising a closer supervision over individuals than was deemed either desirable or necessary in England.

In private, however, Crow was of the opinion that crime would only be truly contained when an efficient crime index was linked with some form of individual registration—and to hell with the privacy of the individual.

He was, naturally, a strong champion of anthropometry, as taught and practiced, by M. Alphonse Bertillon;
^*
also of the growing science of dactyloscopy,
^†
which, he was convinced, would eventually prove itself to be the miracle weapon of detection. But at that moment neither M. Bertillon nor the art of fingerprinting were part of his armory, and he could only wade through the tedious pile of paper.

The facts Crow had before him now seemed to add little to those of which he was already aware. Professor Moriarty, at the apogee of academic success, had resigned under a cloud, come to London, set himself up as an army tutor and then suddenly changed his way of life. Certainly his name appeared on many reports dating from the seventies.

There was, of course, the long and somewhat complicated Patterson Report of April-May 1891, in which Moriarty's name figured prominently.

Inspector Patterson had, from the summer of 1890, been alerted to and was working on the plot which undoubtedly existed both to steal the crown jewels and discredit the royal family. As the world knows, the latter part of this outrageous action all but succeeded with the so-called Tranby Croft affair concerning the Prince of Wales. The question of Moriarty and the crown jewels was, as we shall later see, a matter of some moment.

Throughout the report there were messages and cables passing between Patterson and Holmes, and it became clear that Holmes was convinced that Moriarty was the brains behind both plots. Patterson, it would seem, tended not to believe the Baker Street detective, yet appeared to humor him, as. much evidence regarding the men eventually arrested came directly from Holmes.

The appendix to the case documents was of special interest, containing as it did a message, relayed to Patterson by Holmes' friend Dr. Watson, drawing attention to absolute proof of Moriarty's involvement. The proof, so the message claimed, was contained in a blue envelope inscribed “Moriarty” to be found in pigeonhole M.

Patterson noted that the pigeonhole referred to was that of the poste restante at the General Post Office, St. Martin-le-Grand, which he and Holmes often used. But no such envelope was discovered and Patterson, who was unhappily killed in a riding accident in the following year, was of the opinion that Holmes, despite all his brilliance, had made a terrible mistake—though there was still a lingering suspicion regarding the theft of the “Moriarty” letter from St. Martin-le-Grand.

During the interrogation of the six plotters, no link could be established with the Professor, and Patterson had put the final “case closed” seal on the file.

Crow read the Patterson documents twice, remembering the blank look on Holmes' face when he had talked with him earlier. Something, he concluded, had gone very wrong with that case. In 1891 Holmes had appeared almost obsessional about Moriarty's complicity. Now he refused even to discuss the man.

Inspector Lestrade himself had written a large number of the reports, mainly, it seemed, after talking with Sherlock Holmes. His private view was undoubtedly that Moriarty had for long been engaged in criminal activities of the highest order. Yet none of the reports included any firm evidence: not a shred of proof appeared to exist.

True, the late unlamented Colonel Moran was a proven rogue and cheat who had spent much time with the Professor, as did a number of other dubious characters. Though, once more, there was scant proof—nothing that could ever be taken into court.

As now, the detective force of the 1890's relied heavily on intelligence, culled from the world of thieves and villains, so the thick dossier included references to Moriarty made by dozens of informers—criminals of few principles who blew their colleagues for small sums of cash. Crow had his own blowers and, although he had little time for them, was determined to seek them out, to inquire if they could add anything to the pages of handwritten records that now littered his table. Yet on that score he was pessimistic, for the villain is a strangely gullible person. The inspector knew many who, against all logic, believed extraordinary things about the law and the police force—for instance, that the senior police officers and the judges were in league; and he shook his head sadly as he read the umpteenth notation from some young detective or uniformed man.

The rogues to whom they had all talked certainly mentioned Moriarty—or the Professor, as they called him. (You could almost hear their tones hushed with awe.) According to these men and women, the petty criminals, small-time footpads, dips and failed cracksmen, Moriarty was up to his neck in villainy, running from murder to fraud, yet not one of them would volunteer to stand evidence. As soon as any officer mentioned a written statement or an appearance in court, they would shy away like nervous mares. The more he read, the more Angus McCready Crow became dubious about Moriarty, not simply because of the reluctance of the informers, but rather in spite of it. Many of them had even invested the Professor with supernatural powers, claiming that the man had ways of changing—not just his face, using the arts of disguise, but his whole body and personality.

To Crow it seemed as though a large proportion of London's criminals found the idea of Moriarty more useful than the reality: a mythical figure with magical powers. Maybe even a convenient scapegoat. In any case, thought Crow, it was absurd to think that one man could wield so much power and confusion among the shifty, treacherous criminal masses.

There was a knock at his door, and the inspector gladly pushed the papers away as the plump, sweet Mrs. Sylvia Cowles came into the room.

“I have a little cold roast beef left over, Inspector.” She smiled brightly, the dark eyes inviting. “If you'd care to take a few slices with me downstairs, there's good hot mustard to go with it.”

It was their private jest.

“Aye, Sylvia. I've had enough paperwork for one day; and tomorrow will be all bustle, I've to be at Horsemonger Lane by eight.”

“We'll perhaps …” She verged on a blush. “Perhaps spend …”

“Make up for lost time ye mean, lassie. Aye, perhaps we'll do that.” Crow waggled a provocative index finger. “It'll depend on your cold beef.”

She came to him, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Oh, Angus, my dear, you do not know what a boon it is to have a man like you to lean upon. I do not have to feel … well … ashamed of my appetites. Mr. Cowles was a good man, but too good, I fear.” She leaned back and kissed him on the mouth. “He would have prayed for me night and morning if I had shown desire for him. You are so different.”

“Not so different. Perhaps more understanding.”

Crow smiled at her, experiencing the small worry, which he had found getting larger of late. He knew well enough what it was—the unease of a bachelor who could feel himself being drawn into the web of marriage. Crow had been a successful bachelor for long, knowing of old that young widows were more able to let their hair down than most respectable women. Indeed, he had been pleasantly surprised on the first occasion of bedding Mrs. Cowles, for she had moved, panted, and even screeched her enjoyment of their coupling: something she had obviously longed to do for many years. Angus Crow was her first outlet, and they both knew that she meant business—the kind of business that led to the altar.

“How long before supper?” he asked, pulling away slightly.

“Give me fifteen minutes, Angus dear, and all will be ready.”

She stressed the
all
with a voluptuousness difficult to describe in words.

Crow watched her move toward the door, roused at her kiss and the undulation of her body, the swell of her breasts and the hidden grace of those two fine thighs hidden under the long checked skirt. Beneath that, he knew, she would be wearing colored short silk drawers, which respectable people held to be most unladylike, worn only by women of the night; for if drawers were to be worn at all in polite circles, they should be only of a plain white color, and usually made of cotton. Those Mrs. Cowles had recently taken to wearing were the work of the devil.

Crow felt his blood rise. He nodded. Work of the devil maybe, but the removing of them was damned hot work. He sighed, not bemoaning the fact he had faced for some weeks now—that Angus McCready Crow was a lecherous man who might well have met his match in Sylvia Cowles.

Idly he picked up the next document in the pile and allowed his eyes to stray across the precise script. It was a report written by a police constable who had been called late one night to a dying man in a house near the Embankment. It appeared that the man, whose name was Druscovich, had recently been released from prison. He knew that he was dying and desperately wanted to supply the police with some new evidence connected with his crime.