Moriarty (15 page)

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

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

“To London. After that …” The gaunt man raised his hands in a
gesture of despair. “I had even considered 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 has been providential. I can help you. First let me take you to London; there will be work for you to do there, to be sure. Courage, brother; have faith in me, for I have the power to unlock doors for you.”

So, later that evening, the professor's luggage was loaded into a cab and the brothers set out together for the railway station and London.

Within a month there was talk that the famous professor's star had fallen. It was said that he now ran a small establishment tutoring would-be army officers, mathematics now playing a greater part in the art of modern warfare.

For some six months following his resignation, people knew that the former professor of mathematics seemed to go faithfully about this somewhat dull and demanding work. He conducted his business from a small house in Pole Street, near its junction with Weymouth Street, on the south side of Regent's Park—a pleasant enough place to live, handy for skating in the winter, friendly cricket in the summer, and the interest of the zoological and botanical societies all year round. Then, with no warning, the professor closed his small establishment and moved, to live in some style in a large house off the Strand.

These were the known facts about the professor's movements directly following the disaster that overtook him when he was driven
from the high echelons of academic life. The truth was a very different matter, as it marked the most important, ruthless moves in the career of the Professor Moriarty we now know as the uncrowned king of Victorian and Edwardian crime.

After he had lived in Pole Street for some six months, on one chilly autumn evening, the professor, having dined early on boiled mutton with barley and carrots, was preparing for bed when a sudden loud and agitated knocking took him to his front door. He opened it, revealing his youngest brother, Jim, dressed in a long, black old-fashioned surtout and with a wide-brimmed felt hat square on his head, the brim tilted 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 …” the professor began.

“There's no time to waste, brother. Jamie's back in England with his regiment, and there's trouble. Family trouble. 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 on the professor, who trembled 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 water 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, and the distant noise of laughter and
singing from some tavern on the far river bank, together with the occasional barking of a dog.

Professor Moriarty peered about him in the black murk as his brother helped him down from the cab, his topcoat flapping open where, in his haste, he had not buttoned it.

“Is Jamie here?” His 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 guttural 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 contorted with pain. For a second the eyes stared uncomprehendingly up 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.

Young Moriarty shook the clutching hand free, stepped back, and peered down at the body of the brother whose identity he was so cunningly about to assume. It was as though all the kudos of the dead man's brilliance had 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 had stowed chains and padlocks nearby against this moment, so first he 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 and secured the heavy chains around the corpse, then gently tipped his departed brother off the buttress and into the water below.

For a few silent moments Moriarty stood looking out across the dark river, savouring his moment. Then, with a quick upward movement of his arm, he flung the knife out in the direction of the far shore, straining his ears for the plash 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 house off the Strand.

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

Young Moriarty had murdered his brother, disposed of his body, and ever since had posed as him in the world. He felt no remorse, rarely thought of his older sibling, and certainly never spoke of him. This was the first time in years that the manner of his brother's death had even come into his head. He was able to immediately banish the memory once more, so that it was as if the older Moriarty had never been.

He sighed deeply, got up, and crossed the room to pour himself a small glass of brandy, for Ada Belcher's rabbit pie had caused him to think that his stomach lay upon his chest. Settled again in his chair, glancing up at Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, his mind slipped onto one of the more pressing matters of the moment: the loyalty of individual members of his so-called Praetorian Guard. Now, without delay, he allowed his thoughts to roam over the four men closest to him.

The traitor had to be one of them. After an absence of almost three years, he had known it from the moment he stepped back onto English soil from the packet at Dover and boarded the train for London's Victoria Railway Station. The four men had been the only people in the world who knew when he was to return—even Sal Hodges, who had come back ten days earlier than he, did not know.
Yet the moment he arrived at the bottom of the gangway he knew that he was watched by shadowy figures, lurkers almost as good as his own.

Men and women, some half recognized, flitted around him, many like spectres, floating along the platform or passing among the passengers in the boat train's corridor.
Surely
, Moriarty thought,
I am not paranoid
, this new term for those who almost fear fear itself; those who live in dread of being discovered in even the mildest of actions. God knew, he, James Moriarty, had huge sins to hide, considering his final actions against his brother alone; surely he was not imagining these silent watchers because his conscience hung heavy, and filthy, with guilt?

But he
was
being watched and he knew it. One of his four lieutenants must have passed the news of his return to others.
Quod erat demonstrandum
. But which one?

Could it be Lee Chow? Unlikely, he considered, though the Chinese was not easy to read; like all his race, the smiling sallow little man was inscrutable. He showed a streak of ruthlessness that was always geared to the Professor's needs and requirements. Moriarty doubted that Lee Chow had the necessary motivational guile to betray him.

Likewise the foxy, ferrety Ember. Ember did not appear to have any desire for betterment; he did not dream, like some, of a future starred with great success. Ember, the Professor reckoned, was mainly satisfied with his lot, and asked only to remain in Moriarty's service with modest rewards. In plain words, Ember knew his place.

Which left Terremant and Albert Spear. On reaching Dover, Terremant had also noticed the watchers lurking nearby, and he quickly detected those on the train. He had also spotted the shadows close by since they had settled in the house on the fringes of Westminster.
Anyone inclined to be deceitful or scheming would have chosen not to perceive the men and women who seemed to be permanently charged with keeping their eyes on the Professor and his household. Any new signs of a watcher, or some strange face coming within their purlieu, and Terremant would report it—he was quick to tell Moriarty of any changes. To the Professor, these did not appear to be the actions of a guilty man.

There are three of them and Spear
, he had told Daniel Carbonardo.

So what of Spear?

Albert Spear was the first man ever to work under the Professor. Together with Pip Paget, Spear had been his most trusted man for years, and he knew, literally, where most of the bodies were buried or, in some cases, exactly where they had gone into the water.

Moriarty considered Spear to be the most intelligent of his immediate lieutenants. Therefore, following this private reasoning, he was possibly the most likely of his close associates to betray him, though he found it increasingly difficult to face up to the fact. If it were eventually demonstrated to be true he would, naturally, be white with anger, yet he also knew it could be years before he would find the ability in himself to take care of the matter—look how it had been, indeed how it was, with Pip Paget.

As was often the case when he thought of the probable duplicity of Albert Spear, James Moriarty turned away from the subject in the hope that it might go away.

He ran his right thumbnail down his cheek, from below the eye to the jawline, pressing hard so that the nail made a distinct impression on the skin, taking his mind away from the question of Spear.

He drained the remaining brandy—“looked at the maker's name,” as the saying had it—then rose to his feet and walked to his desk, unlocking the longest drawer and removing a small, leather-bound book:
the book that contained notes concerning the amounts of money he had harvested during the past three years. Sadly, he could see at a glance that the takings of his family in London had dropped by thirty, maybe even forty percent over the time he had been away. True, he had earned large sums in the Americas; there had been banks in New York and Boston that they had robbed blind using forged bonds and stocks drawn on nonexistent banks in London, like the Royal English Bank and the British Bank of Manchester. Spear had handled himself wonderfully during that time posing as a bank representative, and they had laughed much at how they had passed themselves off as wealthy businessmen in some of New York's and Boston's best hotels, living off the fat of the land.

Those had been good years, keeping their distance from the detective force at New Scotland Yard yet turning many a trick to guarantee a fine income. Alas, what they made on those roundabouts did not quite make up for the losses on the swings of the daily criminal earnings of what he thought of as his family in London.

J
AMES
M
ORIARTY'S LAWYER
, the solicitor Perry Gwyther, looked after the money and kept the books and there was plenty of cash to keep, even taking into account the dramatically falling returns during the years Moriarty had been away from London.

The Professor took a healthy percentage from every robbery, every blagging, every smash-and-grab or knock-off, every break-in, whizzing, and dip that took place in the London area; he also took a slice from the money raked in by the whores and fancy girls, plus a good sum from any man or woman in his area who was on any street dodge, from the three card to thimblerigging, find the lady, or hoopla for that matter. It was why men and women from the larger criminal
fraternity swore personal allegiance to him, using a carefully proscribed form of words:

Some had broken the oath and absconded to work with Idle Jack Idell, and those who broke the oath would pay. They would certainly pay more than those who gave their normal tribute.

Every day of the week, two smartly dressed hard young men, one carrying a Gladstone bag, would pass along various London streets, stopping at stalls and shops, pausing to speak to people on one dodge or another, in eating places and public houses, thieves' kitchens and bordellos, and with the good manners insisted on by the Professor they would say, smiles on their faces, “We've come for the Professor's contribution.” In this way hundreds, nay thousands, of pounds would come eventually to Perry Gwyther to be salted away in special accounts kept by him for James Moriarty. The Professor.

The lawyer would often rib the Professor and tell him that really he could manage very well without all the money that came in from the various nefarious activities of his family. Indeed, the Professor had a good income already from his honest work. He owned a trading company called The Academic Vending and Service Company Limited, which dealt with the income he received as managing director of six purpose-built music halls and several relatively novel dining rooms and eating places throughout London. The three main well-run good dining rooms, which ran to serving four- and five-course meals for
luncheon and dinner, were named The Press off Fleet Street, The Royal Borough in Chelsea, and The Stocks in the City. These places were rivals to the restaurants of the great hotels and to rooms like The Café Royal.