The Importance of Porlock
Amy Myers
No chain is stronger than its weakest link … Hence the extreme importance of Porlock.
The Valley of Fear, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It was in the summer of 1887 that I first realised my own importance. My name, as I presented it to Mr Sherlock Holmes, was Fred Porlock, which pleased me as an invention. In that year I interfered with the plans of the most sinister villain ever known to the vast heaving London underworld, just as the gentleman from the village of Porlock once interrupted the flowing pen of the poet Samuel Coleridge. Adopting the name of Fred also pleased me. A name of no importance in itself, it smacks of greatness, of kings, emperors and heroes: Alfred, Frederick and Siegfried.
Later I knew this villain to have been Professor Moriarty, in whose evil empire I was a humble messenger, the fleeting shadow in the fog beyond London’s gaslights, the whisper before the knife. I took my orders from the link above me in his devilish web and relayed them on to the next. That web controlled all that was vile, spinning its malevolence far beyond London, far beyond the shores of England itself, eastwards towards the great powers of Europe, and even westwards towards the mighty States of America. At its centre sat the Spider, manipulating and sucking in its prey in pursuit of its own ends, regardless of the human life it destroyed in the process.
Until the summer of ’87, I performed my tasks without concern. I saw not their beginning, I cared not about their end. I knew nothing about the Spider, but now the very thought of Moriarty brings back the fears and terrors of that time.
My story begins with blood.
The blood of a flower girl spilt in the grey dawn of Covent Garden’s market. She lay in a corner of the new glass-covered flower market. I saw her black dress and shawl with the red blood still streaming over her, as red as the rose she had handed me yesterday as she cried her wares in the Strand.
‘Know her, mister?’ asked a uniformed beadle curiously.
‘No,’ I lied.
‘Elsie Bracken, her name is, God rest her soul. Her man sells matches outside St Bride’s. Soldier once, he was. Out there in India.’
Bracken! I knew that name. I felt myself shaking as I sank to my knees at Elsie’s side, despite the crowd around me. It was then I realised she still breathed, though near to death. Her eyelids fluttered, perhaps aware of my closeness to her, and her eyes opened. Did she recognise me? I doubt it, but she struggled to make one last desperate attempt to speak. Her dying breath was trying to form a word and I leaned over her as though this poor gesture might help.
‘Hurry,’ I heard her say, but then no more.
Flowers are too rare in this world for their passing to go unnoticed. Besides, the coincidence was too great. One of my few talents is an interest in codes and ciphers, as Mr Sherlock Holmes can testify, and the last message I had been ordered to deliver to my link, Bill Butcher, had indicated its next recipient: Jesse Bracken.
The name had meant nothing to me then, but now a terrible suspicion seized me. The message had indicated he was to present himself at the Tilbury docks and, caring little, I had deciphered no further, no time, no place. It was whispered in the taverns that the Spider tolerated no departure from his order of complete silence on those who worked for him. Any peaching or blabbing would result in death and, if circumstances warranted it, that sentence would include those near to him. If Jesse had dared to trespass beyond his orders, not only could he be doomed, but also Elsie, his innocent wife, the girl who’d handed me that red rose yesterday.
I’d heard her cry: ‘Roses, red roses. Red roses for your sweetheart.’ I had no sweetheart but I had bought one nevertheless, and, as she handed it to me, she had said: ‘You look as if you need a rose, mister.’
I had been of no importance, a mere shape drifting past, but she had looked at me and cared. I might have been the unwitting messenger of her death. In vain I told myself I was not guilty of her murder, but I felt I was.
You’ll not go unavenged, Elsie, I silently promised her. I would hunt down the Spider sitting so smugly in his web and make him pay by foiling his fiendish plans.
Brave words. How to find him, however? I knew only the identity of the person to whom I passed the message. Messages were delivered to me by the same anonymous man but in a different location on every occasion. It would mean my own death if I were discovered attempting to find the beating heart of the web, the Spider himself, but to descend it might be of no avail. I was at a crossroads: which way to travel? Climb the web or seek out Jesse Bracken? I felt a surge of power. I alone could choose. If I trod carefully, even this most elusive of spiders might not notice this insignificant fly. Yes, I would climb.
But then Elsie’s cry echoed in my ears: ‘Red roses, red roses …’
Few hear the cry of those whom the metropolis’s uncaring ways trample underfoot. But I did hear it, and I knew I must answer it.
‘Hurry,’ had been Elsie’s last word, and so my first step must be to find Jesse Bracken before he too was killed. To have left the army, Bracken must be an invalid. If, as was likely, another order along a different chain had been issued for his and Elsie’s death, his killer might already have acted – or be about to act.
I had been early abroad as sleeping comes hard to me, and it was not yet six of the clock. No time to waste, however. I could see the police constable coming towards us now, but in the crowd around Elsie, it was easy to melt away with my usual anonymity and then run.
I ran from the market towards Wych Street and then down into the Strand, through the arch of Temple Bar and into Fleet Street where lies the great church of St Bride’s. London’s working world was already coming to life, and I hoped to find Jesse Bracken at his post.
There was no sign of any match-seller by or near the church, when I arrived, panting for breath. Where did Jesse live? No one could tell me. I must find Bill Butcher – who being the link above Jesse would surely know – but the taverns, whose company he sought more than that of toil, were not yet open. Then I saw a coffee stall by the cab stand and, to my relief, I could see Bill slumped against it.
He was a street entertainer, a one-man band, whose raucous music offended the ears of London. He jokes as passers-by drop halfpennies and farthings into his cap, but his eyes can turn into the coldest of weapons to those who cause him trouble. I had one advantage, however. Bill Butcher did not know who I was, just as I did not know the link above me. To him I was just another anonymous fly caught in this web.
Another of my talents is impersonations to dodge recognition; I can be an afflicted beggar, a chimney sweep, a fisherman, a jack tar, a night-soil man or even a toff as it takes my fancy, but there was no time today for such precautions. I could change my voice, but otherwise I was my own unimportant self with a fortunately unmemorable face.
I ordered tea and a muffin and stood next to Bill for a moment or two, then remarked gruffly: ‘Heard there’s a girl murdered in the Garden.’
‘What’s it to me?’ he growled.
‘Hard for her man. Invalided soldier, I’m told. Know him, do you? They’re looking for him now. Sells matches round here.’
I feared I had gone too far, but he showed no signs of recognition, as he sniggered, ‘He won’t fret. Pulled out of the river last night by them River Police. Down by the big ship docks. Knifed,’ he informed me, with much satisfaction.
My face changed not a whit, but inside I was very cold. ‘What was he doing down those parts?’
He turned away, without bothering to reply, but I’d heard enough. ‘Hurry,’ Elsie had said less than an hour ago. Jesse must already have been dead, but Elsie might not have known that. Perhaps, however, her ‘hurry’ referred to something else. Could that be the Spider’s planned crime in which Jesse and I had been links? My heart pounded within me. I must act – but how?
At that moment a police van passed, possibly carrying Elsie’s body away. I doffed my hat and, as I did so, glanced upwards. There I saw flags of
red, white and blue flying from every window. I live my own anonymous life, but how could I have not considered what was exciting most of the world, even though I had dismissed it as being of no relevance to me?
On the morrow, 21 June, Her Majesty Queen Victoria would be celebrating her Golden Jubilee. She would have been on the throne for fifty years and London was already crowded with vis itors. Its ports, especially those with water deep enough to take the new large passenger ships, were greeting princes and crowned heads from as far afield as Persia, Japan and Siam; from India came maharajahs bearing gifts of jewels and servants for the royal household, and bringing gifts from Hawaii was Queen Kala Kaua. Most talk, however, was of Her Majesty’s many German relatives, including the Crown Prince Friedrich, his wife, the Queen’s eldest daughter, and their son Prince Wilhelm, later to be Kaiser himself and who was a far from popular gentleman, so the rumours went. The pomp of their arrival on the destroyer Blitz and accompanying flotilla of torpedo boats had demanded one of the newer docks.
Tilbury, I thought, where Jesse Bracken must have lost his life. The death of a flower girl seemed far removed from such grand matters of stage, and yet …
‘Hurry,’ Elsie had said.
Surely not even the Spider’s plans would reach as far as Her Majesty’s Jubilee Day, even to the Queen herself? It had to be considered, however, for in the past there had been failed attempts by madmen to assassinate Her Majesty, and the next might succeed. There were some foreign powers who might welcome the Queen gone from the throne of England and its empire. This very day Her Majesty was arriving by train from Windsor Castle to make her way to Buckingham Palace for the celebrations on the morrow. What could I do even if such an outrage were being planned by the Spider? For all my spurt of confidence, I was a person of no importance. I could not spill out my fears to Scotland Yard without appearing a madman myself and such a move would undoubtedly sign my own death warrant from the Spider. But I could try to climb the web even at this late stage. My very unimportance might enable me to move unseen.
And so my climb began. I went first to the dark and smoky tavern in the Strand near the Lowther Arcade; it was here that the message about Jesse had been handed to me by my anonymous link. I had little hope of finding him, not least because this was only one of the taverns where I had met him. Good fortune favoured me, however. My link had grown careless, for he was drinking here now. He failed to recognise me in the gloom, especially since my assumed accent and my cap identified me as a costermonger from the east of our city. It was surprisingly easy over the next hour or two for me to supply him with enough liquor to acquire a clue to where he had met the link above him.
‘Must be a toff,’ I then joked, as he had referred to a public house near to Eaton Square.
He spluttered with mirth. ‘Him? His servant more like.’
Whose servant? I wondered, but could take it no further, for my link belatedly realised that loose tongues led to voices silenced for ever.
The information both heartened and depressed me. Eaton Square was a neighbourhood where the Spider might himself dwell and his servants might indeed spend time in the local taverns. What depressed me, however, was that by the time I had clad myself appropriately and found what I thought to be the right tavern, the day was advancing fast and tomorrow was 21 June. The chances of finding Spider, learning his plans, and foiling them were very remote, even if his servant were here.
The barmaid was eyeing me curiously. ‘New round here?’ she asked.
‘Work for tomorrow evening. Up at one of them big houses in the Square.’
The Queen would be holding a splendid luncheon and dinner at Buckingham Palace after the procession and service at Westminster Abbey. She was related to so many of the crowned heads of Europe that they alone would dine at the Palace, which meant that the British aristocracy were planning to hold similar splendid gatherings in their own grand homes. My story passed muster with those around me.
‘Sooner it’s over the better,’ said my neighbour, a morose-looking man, albeit smartly dressed, in his thirties. ‘Dress uniform his nibs wants laid out tonight. And he’s only off to his club.’
Uniform? That sounded interesting. ‘Must be meeting Jubilee visitors,’ I said wisely.
He snorted. ‘Only a dinner with one other chap. Important, he says. Everything has to be important for him.’
‘I’m thinking of joining a club myself,’ I joked, knowing my workman’s gear hardly put me in that class.
‘You wouldn’t get past the Albion door,’ he said, grinning.
One of the famous clubs in Pall Mall. There was a slim chance that his employer might be the Spider, but I hesitated to arouse suspicion by asking more. I was in luck again, as my neighbour decided to continue the joke. ‘Give it a try,’ he urged me. ‘Turn up there, ask for Colonel Sebastian Moran and say you’re dining with him.’
‘I’ll do that,’ I assured him.
He roared with laughter, the barmaid joined in and I followed suit. When he’d wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes, he clapped me on the back. ‘I likes a man who likes a good joke.’
Anticipation filled the air that evening, crowds already gathering on the streets, talking of the great event on the morrow and of those dignitaries who were known to have arrived. The glorious weather was holding and much beer was drunk that night in the Queen’s honour; many the working men who staggered home even more bung-eyed than usual.
I was not among them. I was sitting on a stool at the roadside near the foot of the Albion Club steps in Pall Mall and practising my newly acquired trade of shoeblacker. My companion, the regular shoeblacker, had been easy enough to square, once he had been informed that I was a detective from Scotland Yard, one of the many guarding the Queen’s peace that evening; there was, I told him, an expectation of trouble with so many important people in the city. My shoeblacker friend was especially pleased to help on receipt of a whole shilling.
‘Between you and me,’ I told him in confidential tones, ‘I’m looking out for a Colonel Sebastian Moran. Know him?’
‘Not ’arf,’ he told me eagerly. ‘That’s one geezer everyone steers clear of. You don’t cross him. Yessir, nossir, that’s what he wants and if he don’t get it you’re in trouble.’
‘Tip me the wink when he comes,’ I said.
‘Right-ho, sir.’
I waited about an hour, filling in my time learning to buff an evening boot and, I admit, enjoying the task. Nevertheless, I was conscious that the hours were ebbing away like sand through an egg timer and I might be pinning my hopes on the wrong man.
‘That’s him now, sir,’ my companion whispered. I looked up from my improvement of an evening pump shoe to see the most chilling face I had ever had the misfortune to encounter. Huge white drooping moustache, glaring eyes and a sharp jaw that would quell the fiercest of warriors all combined to convince me that this was my man. The Spider, resplendent in his army uniform, was before me.
‘Indian Army,’ my confidant said in awe. ‘That’s what he said once. The First Bangalore Pioneers.’
I rejoiced: Jesse Bracken too had been in the Indian Army – perhaps a coincidence or perhaps he had been chosen for his role at Tilbury for that reason.
Then I sobered. What came next? Even though I knew who the Spider was, how could I tell his plans? And, if I did not, how could I avenge poor Elsie’s death by scotching them? With whom, I wondered, was he dining? Would that give me some clue?
‘Does his companion for this evening dine regularly with him?’ I asked.
‘Once a week,’ he replied. ‘Some geezer he knows, a professor or something. He’s a good ’un, that one. Give me a tanner over what he owed for his boots once.’
My hopes fell. A regular guest was less likely to be here for final details of a master plan. And yet the Colonel had told his valet that it was an important occasion. My hopes rose again.
‘Here’s that chap now,’ my informant told me ten minutes later.
; The evening seemed suddenly chilly, as a figure descended from the hansom, paid the driver, then paid him the unusual courtesy of lifting his top hat to him.
‘Thank you, cabbie,’ he said.
I heard the voice quite clearly. It was like none other I could remember, with its peculiar mix of softness and steel. He paid no attention to us, as he climbed the steps, and I heard the doorman greet him: ‘Good evening, Mr Moriarty.’
‘Professor Moriarty,’ he gently reminded him. Then he turned round before entering the building. I could not tell what made him do so. All I know is that I felt the presence of evil so powerfully that I had to look away. Imagination, I told myself, but I knew it was not. He must be the Spider’s chief of staff, as tainted as the Spider himself.
I sat at my post in despair. What had I learned? Nothing for sure, save evidence that I was surely right about the Spider’s diabolical plans for the morrow.
Two hours later, the Professor returned alone. He stood at the top of the steps looking out towards the roadway – or perhaps he looked at me. Certainly a shiver ran through me. Then Colonel Moran joined him and they walked down the steps together, pausing not far from me for a whispered conversation. The Colonel was laughing, a sound so alien that I trembled. There was no mirth in it, just a maniacal triumph.
‘Every crowned head of Europe will be with the Queen,’ I heard him say. ‘They and those who guard her.’
‘Certainly,’ the Professor agreed. ‘Her Majesty will be served well by her Indian guards.’ The politeness of his voice made his words more sinister than the Colonel’s.
They were bidding each other farewell and I hastily concentrated on my current employment, a pair of button boots for which the owner waited expectantly. Yet I sensed the Professor was looking at me. I felt his eyes boring into me, as though they seared through to my very soul. If the Devil had sent his messenger then this was he.
With a great effort of will, I did not glance up at him, as my fellow shoeblacker took my customer’s payment.
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 10