The Revenge of Moriarty (19 page)

She was, not unnaturally, taken aback at the sight of the ragged Blind Fred and the little scrawny boy standing at the foot of the area steps. Taking them to be beggars, she was about to slam the door on them when Fred stuck his white stick into the jamb.

‘Bert Jacobs, and be quick about it, girl, or I can promise you that you'll not hear the end of it from your master.'

An unpleasant smell emanated from the blind beggar's body. The reek of unwashed flesh; of grime and rancid fat in the hair and stale spirits on the breath. A smell which brought back stark memories to Martha Pearson, recalling the nights immediately prior to her salvation by Sal Hodges, when, with her sister, she spent nightmare hours in the lowest of common lodging houses.

Blind Fred struck a chord, however, and Bertram Jacobs was brought, dishevelled with sleep, to the kitchen. When the tale had been heard out, in the privacy of what had once been the butler's pantry, Jacobs ordered the lurker and Saxby to wait while he talked with the Professor.

At a quarter before seven, Moriarty met with both the Jacobs brothers, Lee Chow, Blind Fred and Saxby, in his study – the latter pair ill at ease amidst the somewhat paradoxical austere luxury of that room.

Moriarty spoke little, as though some white-hot burning anger consumed his most private thoughts. He questioned both Saxby and Blind Fred in some detail before dispatching the lad back to Cornhill to scout the lie of the land, and perhaps pick up rumour and fact on the ground.

At twenty-past seven Spear arrived, flushed and grimly disturbed. The robbery had taken place – fully, with his cooperation regarding the local beat policeman. Word was that the team had got clean away, though there had been unpleasant moments and a pursuit of some sort. Betteridge was missing. Apart from that all they could do was await events.

‘I'll have none of it,' Moriarty was steady now, a hint of stubborn determination in his manner. ‘If we await events, then we have lost this opportunity of laying Schleifstein and he'll be away to his midden in Berlin with the loot.'

His head oscillated slowly, that reptilian gesture of old which brought words of holy scripture unbidden into Spear's head –
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years:
a vivid picture recalled from some unwilling Sunday School past.

‘How long to get your punishers to Bermondsey?' Moriarty glowered at Spear.

‘Terremant was seeking them out after he stowed the uniforms.'

‘As quick as you can then. Get them together, dress them as you would have done for our original plot, then have them driven like Pegasus to Edmonton and beard that Prooshan poacher in his own lurk.'

‘It's dangerous …'

‘Of course it's dangerous, Spear. Do you think I pay you to sit at home and knit mittens? I part with chink for you to do my bidding. If there are any who don't like it they can fester at the Lump Hotel with my compliments.'

‘The helmets are City Police …'

‘So the City Police will be thought to be poaching also. There's your answer. You'll have to fight the Metropolitans as well as the German gonophs. Great heavens, Spear, I've not seen you as cautious before.' Moriarty laughed, deep, throaty and uncompromising, turning to the Jacobs brothers. ‘Spear will direct you,' the laugh was reflected by a smile which bore no hint of humour. ‘Take the fools quick, with the sable maria outside the door and you'll be able to whip ‘em over to Bermondsey with no questions asked.'

The Jacobs brothers both nodded assent.

‘Go to it then,' Moriarty's hand raised imperiously to indicate the interview was finished. ‘Tell Harkness I want my hansom here in one hour. I shall be coming over to see our friends when you've nibbed them. That's a pleasure I have been awaiting.'

Spear knew there was no arguing with him, for Moriarty had put too much into the trap to see it sprung on nothing now. With solemn nods they withdrew, leaving the Professor alone with Lee Chow.

‘You wish I come Bermondsey?' asked the Chinese.

‘It might be as well.' A smile creeping slyly across the Professor's mouth. ‘I will go as my more familiar self. Arm yourself, Lee Chow, and be ready for Harkness and the cab.'

He then went upstairs to his room in order to effect the disguise he had so often worn in the old days: donning the corset which helped make him rake-thin, the harness which held him in a permanent stoop, the boots with raised soles to give him extra height, and the incredibly natural bald pate wig which provided him with the domed forehead.

After dressing in the black clothes of a professional man, James Moriarty seated himself before his mirror, armed with the brushes, colours and other artificial aids in the craft of disguise. Then, with deft strokes, he turned himself into the living likeness of his long dead brother: the Professor of Mathematics whom the world regarded as the true James Moriarty, Professor of Evil, Napoleon of Crime.

By half-past nine, there were six punishers, not counting Terremant, gathered at the Bermondsey store house. Spear saw to it that they were all dressed as smartly as could be managed in the uniforms which were to have been worn for nabbing the raiders in Cornhill. In the first plan, the Jacobs brothers were to have gone, with Terremant, masquerading as plain clothes jacks, to take Schleifstein. Now they would all be involved.

Spear was far from happy when he looked at the helmets of those in police uniform, bearing as they did the dragon crest of the City force – a symbol which would instantly bring them under suspicion if they were seen carrying out a duty on the preserves of the Metropolitan Police Force. Spear was a sensible villain, and the last thing he wanted was an act of violence against even one member of the official police.

Bertram Jacobs was to take charge of the assault, for Spear was too well known to Schleifstein to show his face near the Edmonton house, and so tip the wink that the ‘arrests' were not as they seemed.

‘Treat Ember a bit brutal,' Spear counselled. ‘Just for the effect. You'll not want a roughhouse in the back of the van on your way over. It might cause you to be more noticed than normal. You and William carrying barkers?'

Bertram nodded, lifting his jacket to reveal the long curved butt of the French Service double-action revolver which protruded from his belt.

‘Only use it if it's to silence somebody you cannot take.'

‘Don't worry. We know what we're about.'

‘And you have the way of the place in your head?'

‘Ember talked enough of it. They mostly live in the dining-room to the right of the hall. The guv'nor's room is first floor front. I'll take him myself.'

They were about to climb into the black maria, which stood in the yard behind the buildings, when Betteridge arrived, flushed and tired, having discarded his police uniform at a girl shop in Gill Street near the West India docks. Spear quickly decided that Betteridge had done enough deception for one day and decreed that he should stay at Bermondsey to await the prisoners.

Ember was all in, nervous and jumpy as a bag of fleas. All the way back to Edmonton he had expected an arm to fall on him: the canvas bag being so conspicuous and Franz so certainly suspicious. Schleifstein, however, was overjoyed after the first irritation and dismay of hearing that the whole thing had been cracked in one night.

The German took the bag up to his bedroom while Wellborn and the greasy-haired boy fed them with bacon, bread and dripping, washed down by tea the colour of brown ale. It did much to revive Ember's spirits, though Franz continued to treat him with wary looks.

Peter and Claus got back, on foot, shortly after eight, announcing that there had been no bother. Evans, plainly frightened after his ordeal with the cab, arrived some fifteen minutes after that.

Slowly the tension of the night gave way to an atmosphere of boastful jesting, in which Ember found it difficult to join, knowing as he did, that there was likely to be an affray before the day was out.

A little after nine, Schleifstein sent for the boy, and a few minutes later Ember heard the lad come down and go out by the street door. Five minutes after, the German leader came into the dining-room and asked Ember to join him upstairs.

The canvas bag was laid out on the floor and the gems were on the bed, put down with care and order. Schleifstein's face showed good humour.

‘You have kept your word, Mr Ember. It is as good a haul as I have ever seen. Once we get the stones out of the country no doubt word will go round that I put up for this night's work. I should imagine that will enhance my reputation among family people in London.'

‘Greatly.'

‘I do not wish for the stones to be here over long.' He could not take his eyes off the bed with its precious load. The most valuable counterpane in the history of crime. ‘I would have preferred it if they had not been brought here until tomorrow morning, but what is done is done. The boy has gone to fetch one of the captains who will be transporting these pretty things.'

Ember's heart sank. It was possible that the Professor would miss the catch after all.

‘They'll be safe enough here,' he said. ‘You trust this man?'

Schleifstein's leathery face broke into a thin smile, which did not get as far as his eyes.

‘His wife and children are in Berlin. He'll no more cross me than sail bows on into a reef.'

Downstairs the doorbell rang softly – a tinkling which seemed to echo in Ember's head like a dozen tiny musical boxes. The German's face showed only a passing interest.

‘He'll be taking the larger pieces,' he continued. ‘The tiaras and necklaces.'

Voices were raised below. Then a shout followed by the crash of a pistol shot.

Ben Tuffnell had watched the comings and goings at the Edmonton house, from his pitch across the road, and was wholly alert behind a mask of disinterest. The road was not overcrowded when the black maria drew up, just around the corner, and few people paid it any heed. Tuffnell saw the Jacobs brothers and Terremant climb from the rear, muffled in greatcoats, and begin walking calmly towards the German's house. The other punishers, clad as police constables, stayed back by the van around the corner, and did not move forward until Bertram Jacobs mounted the steps and tugged gently at the dirty brass bell pull. The uniformed men walked in file, unhurried, nor did the fellow at the reins of the black Maria urge his horses on until he had a sign that the door was being opened.

Bertram Jacobs stood at the top of the steps, one hand inside his coat, resting on the butt of the revolver. His brother and Terremant were on either side, a little below him, on the steps.

The towering Franz opened up.

‘We are police officers,' said Bert Jacobs, pushing forward.

Franz tried to slam the door in his face and dodge back into the hall, but both the Jacobs and Terremant had their weight forward and were in the hall as Franz staggered back, shouting in German that the police were there. The uniformed punishers were running now, doubling up the steps as Franz reached inside his jacket, heaved out a big revolver and fired once.

The bullet took one of the punishers – a stocky bruiser named Pug Parsons – in the chest, toppling him back down the steps, where he lay groaning, the blue uniform sodden with blood. There was screaming and shouts from the street behind them as Terremant leaped forward and brought his neddy – the small weighted cudgel he carried – hard down on Franz's wrist, and then, as the man turned, again to the side of his head.

Both the Jacobs boys were leaping up the stairs, while their uniformed colleagues smashed into the dining-room to collar those who were already trying to make an escape out of the front window.

Schleifstein was caught quite unawares, his face a mixture of shock and anger, eyes showing that he only dimly grasped at events as he half reached for the table drawer.

‘We'll take you alive,' snapped Bertram Jacobs, showing the revolver – arm outstretched – as his brother grabbed Ember, turning him around and snapping handcuffs on his wrists, before shoving him unceremoniously against the wall.

Bertram was following suit with the German, who was now cursing alternately in his own language and English. It took less than a minute to dump the loot from the bed back into the canvas sack, William throwing a glance out of the window seeing a crowd gathering in the street as the uniformed men bundled the others into the back of the van.

Another minute saw them forcing Schleifstein and Ember down the narrow staircase and out, down the stone steps. At the bottom, one of the punishers was lifting Pug Parsons' head to see what could be done.

‘He's dead,' the punisher grunted at Bertram as they negotiated their way past the body.

‘Then leave him,' hissed Jacobs prodding at Schleifstein's back with the revolver barrel.

It had taken less than six minutes from start to finish, and, as the black maria clattered off, Terremant peered from the barred rear window – their prisoners all shut away in the little lockups which ran down each side of the van's interior. Through the crowd, he saw a pair of police constables running towards the commotion.

‘Get a breeze on,' Terremant called softly. ‘The bobbies are on their way.'

Just before Lee Chow and the Professor left for Bermondsey, Saxby arrived back at Albert Square with the news that there was a mighty hue and cry going on around Bishopsgate and Cornhill. The beat policeman had been found, bound and gagged at the railing of St Peter's Church; and on good evidence it appeared that the gang of robbers had left their tools behind. As the tools of a good cracksman were regarded as a ‘signature', the police were confident that with these in their possession, they would not be long in apprehending the villains.

The Professor was silent on hearing the news. At last he turned to Lee Chow, as though about to say something of importance.