The Revenge of Moriarty (15 page)

‘He believed it.'

‘So you lent him your tools. Simple as that.'

Bolton had omitted to mention the payment. It was a very large amount for the loan of a set of tools – even good ones like his. For a second, no more, it weighed on the old man's conscience.

‘I didn't want me head bashed in, nor me gizzard slit. I don't fancy going at all, but when I do I'd rather it was in me own bed.'

It had to be something very big. Crow could not get Moriarty out of his head, for Ember was wholly the Professor's man. There was a German in London with Moriarty when all the foreigners met together in '94. Crow wondered about that. There would be something written down at the Yard. Still, there were a lot of Germans in England.

‘I'll see if we can have a few words with Ember,' he said aloud.

‘You won't say nothing?'

‘About you, Tom? Rest easy, old lad, you'll not be mentioned. We want Ember for more than borrowing a set of implements. Thank you for your help, anyhow. Now, do you lack for anything?'

‘I manage. I always get through, even though it's a struggle some weeks.'

Crow laid four gold sovereigns on the red cloth.

‘Have a wee treat, Tom. And look after yourself.'

‘Lord bless you, Mr Crow. Take care of that Ember, he's a foxy one. Oh, and Mr Crow?'

At the door the detective turned. ‘Yes?'

‘Keep up wind of him. He reeks does Ember.'

‘I'll bear it in mind.'

There were few people about at Scotland Yard, and nobody at all in his part of the building. Crow turned the gas up and went through to Sergeant Tanner's room, opening the cabinet and looking through the folders. The one he wanted was not very thick. He carried it back to his desk and sat there in the silence turning the pages and trying to find inspiration in the neat entries.
FOREIGN ELEMENTS AMONG KNOWN ASSOCIATES OF JAMES MORIARTY,
the heading said.

It contained some twenty or thirty dossiers and among those of Germanic origin there was a fence by name of Muller who ran a pawnshop over Ludgate way; another called Israel Krebitz, a big fish named Solly Abrahams and a man known as Rutter. There were also Tanner's few notes on the Jacobs brothers.

By far the largest dossier was that of Wilhelm Schleifstein. Place of origin: Berlin. He was very well known there: robberies, banks, brothels, a finger in pies of every taste. He had certainly been identified as one of those with Moriarty in 1894. There was also a giant of a man who usually accompanied him – Franz Bucholtz, also well known and dangerous.

Tomorrow, he thought, I shall request permission of the Commissioner to telegraph Berlin and see if they know the whereabouts of Herr Schleifstein and his friend Bucholtz.

Sylvia was awake, sitting up in bed with a copy of Charlotte M. Yonge's
Lady Hester, and the Danvers Papers
, and a pound box of Cadbury's Special Vanilla Creams.

‘Angus,' she began, putting down the book. ‘Angus, I have a wonderful idea.'

‘Good, hen. Good.'

His thoughts were still on Ember and the possibility of a skilled German cracksman in their midst. He allowed Sylvia's prattling to go over his head, like water gurgling across rocks. He would like a word with Ember, so tomorrow he would have the little rat's face circulated to all divisions. Then he caught the Commissioner's name coming from his wife pudgy lips.

‘I'm sorry, hen. I did not catch that.'

‘Angus, you should listen when I'm speaking to you. I said that I hoped you would not have any plans for the evening of the 21st.

‘The 21st? What day is that, my dear?'

‘A Saturday.'

‘Not unless I'm on a case.' Not unless Ember turns over this German and I am on a hue and cry. Or the German uses Bolton's tool-kit to crack open the Bank of England and the City Police want my help. Not unless …‘Why the 21st, dearest?'

‘I have sent a note from us asking the Commissioner and his wife to dine here upon that night.'

Even Lottie, tucked away in her attic, heard the bellow of rage. ‘You've what? You've asked … the Commissioner? My Commissioner …?' Crow sank into a chair, his face a mask of stupefaction. ‘Sylvia, you foolish woman. My God. You hazy lazy Daisy. An inspector does not presume to invite the Commissioner to dine. Particularly if he is going to serve up Lottie's skilly. Great merciful heavens, woman, he'll imagine that I am on the crawl.'

Angus Crow buried his face in his hands and thought that he might well be otherwise occupied on the night of the 21st. In a police cell awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, Sylvia.

‘You'll stay here until it's time for you to go to the Edmonton house again. There's room for you in the attic – in Harry Allen's room. He'll not be needing it until the middle of December,' the Professor told Ember.

The lurkers were becoming more precise in their arrangements. Blind Fred had got a whisper, from an eye called Patchy Dean, that the coppers were putting about queries concerning Ember. He had sent a runner to find Ember and bring him the word: a young lad who sometimes did a spot of starving along Regent Street, up by the Quadrant. The lad, Saxby, caught up with the foxy lieutenant over in Bermondsey where he was looking at properties with the Jacobs brothers. Ember had queasy guts all the way back to Albert Square. Spear later confirmed that there were questions being asked and the esclops had orders to detain him.

‘You haven't been chaunting where you shouldn't?' Moriarty asked of him.

‘You know me, Professor. Not a word. Only to the Prooshan and his team, and then only what's good for ‘em. Mind you, if they've let Wellborn out, there's no telling.'

‘Wilhelm will keep Wellborn close. If he's properly hooked, he'll not cut off his nose to spite his face. What of Bolton where you borrowed the gear?'

‘He knew nothing.'

‘Except that you'd come on the touch for his instruments. He knew it was you.'

‘Bolton wouldn't …'

‘I trust not. Best have lamps on his drum all the same. By heaven, Lee Chow'll rip his wind if he's blown on you.' Moriarty paused, but Ember shook his head, refusing to believe that old Tom Bolton would whisper to the coppers. ‘All is arranged, isn't it? Nothing forgotten?'

‘I'll have to use one of the runners to tip the buck cabbie if I'm not allowed to go up there myself. I told the Prooshan that the cab'll be ready from three in the morning onwards.'

‘That can be done. You've got a lurker listening to the workmen in the place?'

‘The best. Spear's got the place watched from the shop across the road, and Bob the Nob is listening to the workmen we got the word from originally.'

‘You arranged any signs? If it's not clear?'

‘Ben Tuffnell's still at Edmonton. If there's danger before we leave, he's to be singing drunk across from the house.
The Mower
he'll be singing.'

Moriarty nodded a dismissal, but as Ember reached the door, he issued one further command. ‘Bathe yourself, Ember, if you are to stay here. I'll not have this house stinking of fartleberries and last summer's fish.'

Indeed, the Professor must have issued further orders, for Ember had hardly reached the room lately occupied by Harry Allen when Martha Pearson was up to tell him that his bath was drawn and Mrs Spear had laid out fresh towels, a bar of Sunlight soap and a scrubbing brush for him.

On the following morning a letter arrived from Paris for Professor Carl Nicol – the learned American gentleman living at Five Albert Square.

Dear Sir –
the letter read
,

We are settled in here very snug. While Pierre is still drinking like a funnel, he is doing at least four hours work each day. He tries to excuse himself constantly, and is often complaining about the light and it not being good enough, but I see to it that he gets on. It is a fair treat to watch him paint and I am certain that you will be more than satisfied with the result. The wood was marked as per your instructions.

I have also seen to it that he has not gone abroad unaccompanied. I have gone with him on all his visits to see the real thing and you can rest assured that everything else will be done exactly as you ordered.

I remain sir,

Your obedient servant,

H. Allen

LONDON:

Monday, 16 November – Monday, 23 November 1896

(The cracking of the Cornhill crib)

The Jacobs brothers had found just the place over in Bermondsey. A building that had been used as part storehouse, part offices for a small chain of grocery shops that had gone bankrupt a year before.

It had been on the market for some time, but nobody had snapped it up as the site was damp and unfit for expansion. It had never been much of a place for storing groceries either, for it backed onto a rubbish tip. However, it stood apart, some way from the nearest row of cottages; the locks and bars were all secure and there was a small yard and a stable at the back.

After some haggling, Bertram Jacobs paid over £200 of the Professor's money and the deeds were drawn up in double quick time. Lee Chow rounded up some of his yellow brethren and, in a matter of a few days, the place was scrubbed clean as a whistle; a few licks of paint were added here and there, while Harkness, the Professor's driver, took a couple of loads of cheap furniture over in the back of a hired cart.

During the week before Ember was due back at the Edmonton house, Spear saw to it that the black maria they had been constructing in a nearby stables, was taken over and put in the yard, and on the Saturday, the Professor himself paid the Bermondsey place a visit, to pronounce it good enough, providing those who had to stay there could put up with the stench from the nearby tanneries and leatherworkers' shops.

By this time Terremant had recruited more punishers, there were facilities for cooking at Bermondsey, and provisions were laid in for a fair period.

The watch was still going on across the Cornhill from the jeweller's, and Spear had managed to get the police uniforms into the shop.

On the night of Monday, 16th, Ember, carrying the brief bag containing Bolton's well-swaddled tools, went to the
Angel
by hansom and walked the short distance to Schleifstein's house. He got a glimpse of Hoppy at the
Angel;
Sim the Scarecrow was still trading on his sores; Blind Fred and Ben Tuffnell were on the lurk. Apart from them, Ember was now on his own. As he hauled at the dirty brass bell-pull, he briefly thought of Bob the Nob over in the City, and of the invisible network of lurkers through which any danger signal had to come. He also thought of Moriarty's last words to him before he left Albert Square.

‘If you get Schleifstein for me, Ember, you'll never want for hard cash again. If you fail, you will not be needing any.'

Franz opened the door. ‘So, it is this week then?'

‘Friday night,' said Ember as the door closed behind him.

It rained all day on Friday, 20 November. Not the foggy drizzle normal for London at that time of year, but a lashing torrent which hurled walls of water up the wider main streets, and flooded the narrow and more secret alleys of the metropolis. The runnels became small rushing streams and waterfalls sluiced off the rooftops, filling the gutters and creating a havoc of pools and local flooding where streets were uncobbled or badly made up.

Traffic slowed down and jammed in all the worst bottlenecks, while pedestrians fought their way through the streets, as though grappling with the bayonets of water.

By late afternoon the downpour eased a little, but by then most of those who had to be out and about in London were soaked through. Not so Bob the Nob.

Bob the Nob was better known by one of his many aliases, Robert Lamb, Robert Betterton and Robert Richards being but three, and Bob the Nob being the name under which he was known by family people. A slim, grey-haired, not quite distinguished-looking fellow of forty years or so, he was a frequenter of public houses and hostelries in all parts of the capital, yet never known as a ‘local' in any of them. If he drank in Brixton, for instance, he would talk much of his business in Bethnal Green; or an evening spent in some Camden Town boozer would find him often referring to the little place he had in Woolwich.

His memory was accurate and he had a nose for a well-stocked crib. When drinking in City of London pubs he was usually known as a cheerful fellow who had a nice little grocery trade somewhere over Clapham way. In fact, the Nob lived in two rooms above a butcher's shop in Clare Market, from whence he would sally forth each day to pick up prime titbits of intelligence. He was smart, a dandy almost, and placid in temperament. On Friday, the 20th, he stayed in bed most of the day, listening to the rain washing the streets, drumming against his window and on the false front of the butcher's shop below.

He was the lurker who had first nosed the possibilities concerning Freeland & Son. Tonight his job was simple: to drink a few glasses in Dirty Dick's, the pub built over the old wine and spirit vaults in Bishopsgate. That was where the skilled workmen from Freeland's went after work on a Friday, and he had, in effect, promised to meet with a couple of them around eight. If anything was wrong, young Saxby would be waiting at a flash house in Whitechapel. What he did with any message passed on was no concern of Bob the Nob.

The saloon bar was busy when he arrived, mostly with office people lingering after the day's work was over. A large number did not have to come in on the Saturday, and some would make a night of it before returning to their wives with what was left of their wages.

By half-past eight none of the jeweller's craftsmen had appeared and the Nob began to sense the first twinges of concern. Nine o'clock and still no sign. It was nearly half-past the hour before they came trouping in, all four of them, tired and looking glum.

He greeted his particular cronies cheerfully and with some comment on the lateness of the hour. Old Freeland had kept them, they said, and they were none too happy about it. Work which had to be finished by Monday, for collection, was not yet done. They were not due to go in on the Saturday, but now that had been changed. Tomorrow would have to be a full working day.