Moriarty (29 page)

Broad Darryl Wood was not given his soubriquet in any reference to his physique. He was broad of neither chest nor shoulders. The fact was that Wood had been an excellent, even legendary broadsman, a card sharp, leader of the famous broad mob that had operated in some of the more louche gambling dens around Bond Street. Now he
sat, dozing before the fire burning gaily in the withdrawing room of Jack Idell's house in Bedford Square.

Jack woke him, shaking him hard by the shoulder, bringing a hot toddy to warm him thoroughly before going to his bed.

“I have made a decision, Darryl,” he said, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “A momentous decision.”

“About what, Sir Jack?” Wood was always careful to address his leader by his title. Idle Jack could be touchy when it came to what he thought of as his place in society.

“About James Moriarty. About the so-called Professor. I have come to a decision about Moriarty.”

“Well?”

And as Idle Jack Idell told him what he planned, Darryl Wood's face became as grave as the tomb. “I will not do that,” he said at last.

“Not until the summer,” Idle Jack said with his sinister twisted smile. “Give things a chance to settle down first.”

“I could never risk doing that, even for you, Sir Jack.” Wood looked troubled.

“I don't expect you to do it, my friend. I've already decided. I am going to get Micah Rowledge to do it.”

Micah Rowledge had the emotions of a stone. His first position, some years ago now, had been working for a notorious baby farmer. His particular job had been strangling unwanted newborn babies.

It was said that Micah had loved his work, could not get enough of it.

LONDON: JANUARY 21, 1900

S
PEAR WAS NOT
on time for the meeting of Moriarty's so-called Praetorian Guard due to be held at eight o'clock on Sunday morning. He had to go to Pembroke Gardens, Kensington, to catch Perry Gwyther before the solicitor set out for church with his wife, Alice, and their daughter, Lena. Gwyther was still in his dressing gown, having breakfast—coffee, kedgeree, kidneys, and toast—in the dining room, and Spear felt out of place telling him that he was to buy the warehouse first thing Monday, and to inform the Professor as soon as it was done.

Gwyther was a kind of wall, a barricade, between Moriarty and officialdom in its many and varied forms. The Professor often felt that, if it came to it, Perry Gwyther could prove beyond all doubt that James Moriarty had never existed.

Spear shuffled his feet, looking down at his boots as they then talked, for some twenty minutes, about Gwyther's recommendation of an architect: a man by the name of Iain Hunter, a large, gentle fellow, but most skilful according to Gwyther.

“We want it just like it was last time—in Limehouse,” Spear said.

“Fellow who designed that hung up his boots some years back,” Gwyther told him between mouthfuls of kedgeree. “Tell Hunter exactly what you want and he will do you a good job—oversee the builders and everything.”

Spear was, therefore, not at the Professor's house when Pip and Fanny Paget arrived just after seven, let in through the back door by Jim Terremant, who had been warned and had instructions to take them straight up to the Professor.

Terremant thought Fanny Paget looked washed out and tired, as though she had been up all night. Which in fact she had.

Moriarty was having breakfast with Sal Hodges, during which he outlined to her his requirements for later in the week.

“In all probability it will be Wednesday,” he told her. “I will know later tomorrow, but, whatever day, my needs will be the same—six of your prettiest girls: young, big-eyed, and willing to have photographic likenesses taken of them
au naturel
, possibly with a male installed, if you follow me. Eyes the size of cow's eyes would be good—eyes that look like a fellow could drown in them.”

Sal smiled sweetly. “I think I shall have the right girls for you, my dear James. Who is the man?”

Moriarty shook his head. “Not in your interest to know, but we shall be using a studio I have hired in St. Giles's. You will want to be there, of course?”

“I shall have to look after my girls' interests, my dear; of course I will.”

“And
my
interests, Sal, my love? What of them?” He looked her straight in the eyes and laid one hand over hers, resting on the table.

For a moment, Sal Hodges was mystified; she did not know how to reply. “Your interests are mine, of course, James my dear,” she said eventually.

“Then I believe we should take a bold step.” His eyes never leaving hers.

“Yes?” she said, still mystified.

“You have borne me a child, Sal. We live more or less as man and wife. I think we should regularize the situation.”

“You think…?”

“Yes.” He smiled the most wonderful smile, lighting up not just his eyes, but his whole face, crinkling the corners of his eyes and revealing the laughter lines at the edges of his mouth. The kind of smile that men and women dream of when thinking about those most private, intimate, and romantic thoughts. “I am suggesting that, when we have finally bought another warehouse, and it has been altered to my specifications, we should marry.”

Sal dropped her right hand to her breast, her mouth shaping a letter
O
, as she took in a swift, almost involuntary breath.

But at that moment, Terremant tapped on the door, ushering Pip and Fanny into the room.

“So, Pip, you have taken the wiser course?” the Professor said. “I greet you, and salute your common sense.” Then, turning to Fanny, he told her that she was to take immediate charge of the running of the house, particularly the cooking. “I have left a purse with several sovereigns on the kitchen table,” he told her. “Terremant will show you. And, Tom,” speaking to Terremant, whom he still refused to call by his proper name, Jim, “when Spear arrives with the boy Sam, you are to tell him and Wally Taplin here that they must obey Mrs. Paget
to the letter.” He turned to Taplin, who was serving the breakfast. “You understand that, Walter. You are to do as Mrs. Paget tells you. You will meet Sam shortly and he will tell you what happens to boys who do not do my bidding, eh, Tom?”

“I've already told him, but I don't think the little bug …boy believes me, Professor.”

“Disabuse him, then. And I shall want to see the boy, Sam, after we have held our meeting. Go now; you also, Fanny; and you, Wally. Go with Mr. Terremant.”

Terremant was somewhat bewildered, and had been from the moment he had found the Pagets on the doorstep. “Very well, Professor,” he burbled, betraying the fact that he could not understand how this could be—Paget being welcomed back into Moriarty's household. It made no sense to him. After all, it was less than a week ago that Moriarty had spoken disparagingly of Pip Paget, a speech that had been whispered among the gang, more or less verbatim:

Pip Paget saved my life. Shot a murderous skunk dead and saved my life, yet he'd already betrayed me. Me, who was a father to him, who had been present at his wedding, stood for him, provided his marital feast, blessed his union with another member of my organization … my family … It is meet and right for those who earn their stipend through me to know of my justice
.

“As soon as friend Spear decides to put in an appearance we'll start our meeting.” Moriarty's words were laced with sarcasm, and he gave a dismissive gesture of the hand, leaving no doubt that he wanted to be alone with Paget.

“I will help you take the breakfast things down, Mr. Terremant,” Sal Hodges said, brightly starting to assist in clearing the crockery away in a manner that made Taplin, Terremant, and Fanny Paget move to help.

Terremant felt sinful stirrings of lust as he brushed past Fanny Paget, catching a tiny trace of the clean, clear scent she wore. It reminded
him of the lemon aroma he had often caught when in the vicinity of well-bred ladies in Paris—different from the cologne worn by the Professor, and certainly more affecting than the cheap perfumes used by the girls he was often close to in the Professor's houses. Fanny Paget put about her a veritable scent of heat and Terremant appreciated it, as indeed did his loins; it was the most robust case of Irish toothache he had experienced for many a long day. Go on at this rate, he thought, and he would have to visit Delilah, the slim, little dark girl with the amazing thighs who worked in Sal Hodges's House. She would pull his tooth for him and no mistake.

Yet it set Terremant thinking as to how a gamekeeper—because that, he understood, had been Pip Paget's work lately—could supply his wife with a delicious French perfume. He could do with some of that himself; those perfumes were worth gold as gifts to some of the perfect ladies who worked Moriarty's houses. He would have to put down a lure, perhaps.

Then, within the hour, Bert Spear arrived downstairs with the boy Sam, whom Terremant had last seen when they had lifted him from the Glenmoragh Private Hotel the day he and Spear had given the lad the hiding of his life. He was pleased to see that young Sam was quiet and respectful, and that he moved forward to shake hands with Wally Taplin when they were introduced one to the other.

This did not stop Terremant giving the pair a short homily on the way they would be expected to behave. “And you'll do everything and anything Mrs. Paget instructs you,” he ended. “And if you don't I've no doubt she'll inform me, or Mr. Paget, and the Professor will require me to dispense his particularly harsh punishment, same as they do it in them public schools. Understand me?”

“Yes, Mr. Terremant,” the boys chorused, like pupils conning a lesson by rote in one of the board schools.

“Old Terremant's bark is worse than his bite,” Wally told Sam when
they were left alone a moment later, after Fanny Paget had slipped off down the shops on her own. “Clip around the ear occasionally, but nothing worse to speak of.”

“I would not like to risk it.” Sam sounded most serious, and explained the circumstances of his error, and its aftermath, that night when the boys were becoming good friends, now sharing one of the smaller rooms down in the kitchen area.

“You mean Mr. Spear flogged you?” Wally could hardly credit it.

“Mr. Spear and Mr. Terremant both. I still bear the weals,” and Sam lifted his nightshirt and showed Wally Taplin the stripes and bruises remaining on the cheeks of his backside.

“Bloody hell, like railway lines!” Taplin was well impressed with the brutality.

“Mr. Spear's told me since that it is the Professor's way,” Sam said, starting to be a little proud of having come through such an ordeal. “I would never cross him again, Moriarty. That's learned me my lesson.”

But much had happened between Sam and the Professor since the morning, things he could not and would not share with Walter on pain of much worse than a flogging.

Yet the intelligence from Sam had set Wally Taplin to thinking, and he resolved to watch himself from now on.

Before the meeting began, Moriarty sent for Fanny once more, bidding her send the boys to The Duke of York to fetch jugs of porter. He also asked her to prepare a tray and put out one of his best bottles of brandy with a bottle of Champagne. If his men were to have porter, the Professor decided that he would have his share of Champagne cocktails, his choice being the Vauban Frères Champagne of which the family had a huge supply, squirreled away over the years from consignments diverted from their original destinations by bribery and the more barefaced forms of violent robbery.

By nine o'clock the Guard were finally gathered upstairs, an hour late for the meeting: Spear, Terremant, Ember, and Lee Chow were all shaking hands with, and welcoming back, Pip Paget.

“Never thought to see you again, Pip,” Ember told him.

“'Tis a sign of the Professor's mercy. He's a true gentleman,” Paget told them, looking mightily relieved and speaking loud enough to let Moriarty hear.

Daniel Carbonardo, who had also been summoned to the meeting, sat to one side, not at the round table, as if to signify that he would remain slightly apart from the Guard as such.

As he took his seat, Lee Chow grinned his evil grin. “Now 'ee ar sit at lound table. Rike the knights of King Althu'. Rong ago,” he carefully enunciated.

“That is good, my Chinese friend.” Moriarty nodded to him. Then he quoted some Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

The five men looked at one another, not knowing the words came from Tennyson's Arthurian poem
Idylls of the King
, so not following its significance. Daniel Carbonardo smiled to himself. The Professor could be a terrible romantic at times, and often saw his way of life, and those around him, as good and quite the reverse of their reality in the wicked world. Carbonardo knew that Moriarty was adept at deceiving even himself of the true facts of evil. In his master's mind, the words he had just spoken probably transposed themselves into “Live impure, speak lies, wrong rights, follow Professor Moriarty. That is what you are born to perform.”

The Professor brought the meeting to order, first welcoming Pip
Paget back to what he described as “his rightful place.” He then continued, “Terremant, you recall the man I met a number of times when you were guarding me in Vienna?”

“Indeed, sir. Yes I do.”

“And you would recognize him again?”

“Of course, Professor. Recognize him like shot.”

“Good. Then take four of Ember's best lurkers with you and get down to Dover in the morning. That gentleman will be arriving on the packet from Calais, due to dock at Dover, midday. He will then be making his onward journey to London by the boat train. You are to stay with him, at a distance. Protect him and give him help should he need it.” He looked around his men before his eyes alighted on little Ember, and he continued: