“I’m glad to hear it.”
Moran isn’t in my employ merely because he’s the best shot in the Empire. He’s the kind of man accustomed to, and not fazed by, certain demands of our line of business. A man of good moral character would have been useless to me.
“While there had been some unfortunate incidences that began to cloud my academic career, I’ll admit I’d never lent my prodigious mental abilities to those exploits. They were merely …”
I wave away what I cannot explain in words. Sometimes I had taken things I did not need and hadn’t even desired simply because I could get away with taking them. Regret wasn’t a word that came to mind, but I was ashamed of my lack of discipline.
“I was what I’ve come to despise the most, a lazy criminal. In reading the details of that daring escapade, clarity struck me. It was fascinating, a treatise on how to commit a crime of exquisite detail and complication, not unlike the working of the celestial plane, or the working of a watch. A thing of beauty.”
Moran puffs on his cigar. “They got caught. There’s nothing beautiful about that.”
I smile. “Yes, they did. That was the most instructive part.”
“How so?”
“Do you know what gave them away? Greed. If Pierce had only paid Agar’s woman the amount he’d promised from the haul, she never would have gone to the authorities and talked. He would have lost half, but better that than lose it all.”
“What sort of stupid thief goes to a beak and cries about not getting her cut?” He tosses down his copy of The Strand and walks over it as if it offends him. He returns to the window and peers out of it.
“That’s why I insist on silence. The man who utters my name knows he’ll die for it.”
Now there seems to be no corner unturned in our conversation. We let it cool, then die.
My thoughts stay on Agar’s Judy as the quiet curtains over our shoulders. I hadn’t thought about her for years. What had she hoped to accomplish by complaining to the prison warden, of all people? Appealing to the law for her share of the take from a robbery gained her nothing. Yet, in more than one of Holmes’s cases, thieves have stolen from maharajas, but there was never any cry to return the proceeds to those victims. Rather, the heirs of the thieves have been shown time and again to be the rightful owners of the ill-gotten gains. So why shouldn’t she have expected the same treatment?
I suppose that the difference was that the victim was an English bank this time and not some foreigner. Steal a shilling, and your reputation is forever ruined. Steal a hundred thousand pounds, and even the Bank of England will roll over and show you its belly. Or perhaps the social rank of the heir was of the utmost importance when deciding these things. Holmes, it seemed, was a better judge of what exactly defined justice than was I. My aim was to avoid the law, not to dance about its niceties like a swain at a ball.
Thoughts left unchecked tend to wander. Mine plunge into the abyss I’ve avoided while reminiscing about the Great Gold Robbery. Tonight, a certain gentleman of no discernible talent but excellent connections is at the house of Countess R—, where he is enjoying a musical evening. Will be, that is, until a letter is placed in his hands. After he reads it, I envision him questioning the men who had given it to him. I’ve trained them to convey a sense of urgency and reinforce the need for secrecy. My guess is that he will assume he can handle the situation and will follow my men without another thought. Perhaps he’ll cast a glance at his intended before he slips out. I’ve heard that she plays beautifully. Her fingers, it is said, are perfect for the demands of Liszt’s melodies. She would make a fine pickpocket.
Moran consults his pocket watch. Similarly, I check the one on the mantel and found the hour far later than I expected. We should have heard by now.
Moran shares my nagging thought: “What if they decided not to share the information with us?”
That centipede has renewed his climb up my back, and the chill settling on my spine is not from the drafty window. This time when Moran strides to the door, I do not try to stop him. He takes his gun and scope.
It seems the very air around me vibrates. Strands have been plucked in pizzicato. My imagination creeps cautiously down them and hopes to be met by news traveling in the other direction. The mute chiming of the quarter-hour and echo of passing footsteps on the street grates on my nerves.
Normally, I am not a man of action, but the growing fury at the unknown will not allow me to meditate in stillness. What has gone wrong? Nothing could have. Scenarios rising in my mind are quickly rejected. Nothing could have gone wrong.
Finally, it is too much. After telling the landlord’s boy to hail a cab, I remove two firearms from my desk and prepare them for action. While not possessing nearly Moran’s skill, I am a fair shot.
As I reach for my cloak, I hear hurried footsteps on the stair and know Moran has returned. It is a great relief to me, as I know that he must bear good news and an explanation. He and I can laugh at our folly and shake hands, knowing the night’s work is done.
Yet, something in the rhythm of his step pricks at my brain.
He flings open my door. Our gazes meet, and I know even before he says, “They had him in the coach, then he decided to act the hero. There was a fight and he escaped. Two shots were fired—”
“You saw this?”
“Collier and Black told me.” Moran pulls off his gloves and slaps them against his open palm. “Thankfully, one of the shots wounded him. I followed the trail.”
“In the dark?”
“That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?” He makes a face. “While not fatal, the wound was enough to slow his steps.”
“Not fatal?”
He holds up a hand to stop my questions. Very well. He can tell it in his own time.
“I followed him to Baker Street.”
My knees weaken. I grip the back of my chair.
“One shot spun him around. I grabbed the key and the letter.” Moran shows me the envelope he has taken from our quarry. A corner has been ripped away. “He lurched back from me. I ducked into an alleyway when I heard people running toward us. By the time I realized it was our men, he’d already managed to draw Holmes and Watson’s attention. He collapsed at their door before he could speak and passed away at their feet. I made sure of it.” Moran grabs my cloak and shoves it at me. “But I have the key. There’s still time, if we hurry.”
Moran’s offer seems a balm for my bitter disappointment, yet I know it for what it is. At this moment, I know how Eve felt when the serpent offered her the apple. I shake my head and return to my seat before the fire.
Doctor Watson glanced up at Sherlock Holmes and shook his head before turning to the dead stranger at their feet. The gas lamps in the foyer cast Holmes’s shadow over the corpse and into the street, where it joined with the night.
“Did he say anything?” Holmes’s laconic tone indicated little interest in the answer. He hadn’t moved when they’d heard the urgent knocking, or when Mrs Hudson had screamed. He’d only come down the stairs when it seemed Mrs Hudson would remain in their rooms demanding he do something about the bleeding man at her front stoop, as she was certain her famous tenant was the cause of this latest outrage.
Watson shook his head again. “He groaned. A last death rattle and nothing more.”
Like a heron stalking the reeds at the edge of a pond, Holmes’s head suddenly tilted. In an instant, he was down on one knee with the dead man’s hand clasped in his. He forced the fist open. A scrap of paper fluttered to the step. Holmes held it up to the light and squinted at it then secured it in the pocket of his mousecolored dressing gown.
Holmes sniffed the man’s face and lapels. He rose and swiftly circled the body. After regarding the boots for a long moment, his nostrils narrowed as he inhaled sharply.
“There isn’t a moment to lose. We’ll send the boy to fetch the constable. Hail a cab. And bring your pistol.”
“Holmes!”
“I’ll spare you
the obvious clues that tell me who this man is. We can talk about that in the cab. But I will explain our rush, because I know the abandonment of this still-warm corpse disturbs you.”
“At times, you’re as cold as an insect.”
“It does no good to hover over him now, Watson, but we can be of service elsewhere. A secret treaty between our government and that of the United States concerning the Caribbean and the southern Americas is currently being negotiated. Certain members of our government have been known to use their knowledge of similar negotiations to take advantageous positions in bonds and currencies before the news is made public. This young man’s uncle made his fortune with such information, and I’m sure we’ll find a copy of the uncle’s instructions to his bank in the deceased’s office. He was probably planning to emulate his uncle’s financial success. If we do not hurry, the person who did this—” he gestured to the body at his feet “—will find that letter and use it to his own gain. We must stop him.”
Holmes turned on his heel and bounded up the stairs.
Watson wearily came to his feet. Holmes was right. Nothing could be done for the young man lying at their doorstep. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, unfurled it, and drew the square of silk gently over the corpse’s face.
The Copenhagen Compound
Thomas S. Roche
It was late night in Copenhagen, far from the centre of town. In the city’s disreputable district, I sought the parlour of “Madame Satine”.
I am not the type prone to seek out such a business in the Danish capital or any other city. It had not pleased me to voice such a transparent request to Jens, the concierge at the Hotel Aalborg. The man did show discretion. But what doubt could there be about somewhere called Madame Satine’s?
It was also not to my taste to walk the streets of a red-light district so long after dark. Such an hour had long since ceased to be part of my regular workday. One awful moment at Reichenbach Falls ten years earlier had seen to that. A decade’s abstinence from such adventures, and I found myself greeting every sound, every breeze, every footstep with concern.
Still more concerning was the mysterious manner in which Mycroft’s letter had been written. Delivered by government courier, it had said only that he required my services in Copenhagen, and the manner of my inquiry to Aalborg’s concierge. Oblique at the best of times, Mycroft had here been both direct and obtuse. My attempts to contact Mycroft’s associates in London proved fruitless; he was “on holiday”, I was told. The thought of the famously sedentary Mycroft Holmes taking a holiday in Copenhagen was perplexing enough. I saw no way to verify that the note was from him.
Could this be a trap? Were Moriarty’s survivors extant? Would they seek revenge on me? Was I walking into a trap?
I felt a deep pang of absence, not for the first time. Sherlock Holmes would have deduced whether it had come from Mycroft or the Devil himself. In a certain mood, he might conflate the two, certainly; brothers are brothers. But Sherlock Holmes would have found any clue I had missed – and that thought, frankly, terrified me, for reasons I thought unrelated to Copenhagen.
Holmes was well versed in the art of handwriting analysis. He had taught me that a man’s writing can prove sufficient to indict him for his crimes.
What of mine, then? What of this tale? Were Holmes alive, could he indict me for my crimes at Bethlehem Hospital? Would he detect what I had done, one year earlier, pressing the plunger into my wife’s arm?
I arrived. Madame Satine’s. There was no sign, but the door knocker could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was: the face of a gargoyle, with one claw-tipped human finger vertically across its lips. “Madame Satine will keep all your secrets,” it said. I was glad of that, at least; of those, I had few, but just one was enough to have broken me.
I knocked. Above the gargoyle was a Judas gate. The panel opened. Out glared a pair of suspicious sky-blue eyes, crow’s feet quite visible. It was a man.
“Ja? Hvad vil du have?”
The Danes can be said to be jarringly informal when at their best. Even so, this was hardly the kind of reception I expected from such a place.
“Taler du Engelsk?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, what is it?”
“Madame Satine’s?”
“Name!” the man said bluntly.
“Ormond Sacker,” I told him.
The Judas gate closed; the oak door opened. The man did not say “Come in,” but I did.
Inside was a sparsely furnished entryway. The man who admitted me seemed ancient; he wore a long blond beard like some caricature of a Nordic warrior of old. He did not look at me, nor did he speak. He merely motioned me into a corridor draped with tapestries and lit with a long row of flickering gas lamps. The floor was thick with rugs. The point of the furnishings was obvious; even the sound of my own footsteps was swallowed up by the cocoon of rich fabric. The silence seemed oppressive. I heard no music, no clink of glasses from beyond the heavy door at the end of the corridor.
I deduced that I had just stumbled into Europe’s grimmest brothel.
The bearded man did not bid me farewell. He merely opened the door, pointed me through sternly, and pushed past me to return to his post.
What lay beyond that door surprised me. It was not a house of ill repute, but a club as one might see in London. It was not empty of patrons, as the absolute silence might have suggested. In fact, it was quite packed with men, mostly blond-haired and blue-eyed – more than a score of them. They were seated in armchairs, mostly engrossed in books and periodicals. Some merely glared at their drinks, pale lips tight.
No word was spoken. No sound was made. In fact, the silence was so complete that my gasp of surprise drew considerable notice.
A dozen or more of the club’s patrons glared at me warningly. They seemed ready to come to blows should my faux pas be repeated.
But I could not be faulted for my outcry, for two things had struck me at once. First was the realization that this could be none other than some Copenhagen branch of the Diogenes Club.
Second was the fact that one of those armchairs was occupied by none other than Mycroft Holmes.
I felt a sense of relief. This was not a trap. And it was good to see a familiar face in a foreign capital.
I started towards Mycroft with hand outstretched. He had not yet looked up to see me. As I approached, I realized the man sitting next to him was a familiar figure, but I could not place him. My pace abated, I stared at the stranger in growing discomfort.
The stranger scrawled furiously in a journal, his hands awkwardly close together. Faint scratching could be heard from his pencil, but he drew no glares of reproach from the club’s other members, as I had. I moved close enough to read the man’s notebook and realized that his wrists were cuffed.
He was scrawling equations.
Anger flared. His name came to my lips unbidden.
I cried, “Moriarty!”
There was an audible rustling, as men shifted in their seats. Volley after volley of tight-lipped and wide-eyed glares were hurled in my direction. The members were furious. This was an outrage!
But no one could be more furious or outraged than I, for I know this was Professor James Moriarty. I had only glimpsed him once, from a distance, but I had witnessed that image many times more in my mind’s eye.
I reached into the pocket of my greatcoat, my hand closing on my revolver. But I did not draw it. Moriarty was handcuffed. Was he Mycroft’s prisoner?
Moriarty looked up at me with saturnine defiance. Mycroft looked up and seemed unsurprised to see me. He did not even look at Moriarty.
Mycroft raised one finger at me, insisting that I wait.
I did so, staring in frank disbelief.
Mycroft went on reading, completing the page he was on and continuing into the next. I could see he was near the end of a chapter.
Moriarty went back to his calculations, scrawling furiously.
While I stood waiting, a club attendan
t approached me and held out a small slip of paper. He frowned at me apologetically. I took the ticket. On it was scrawled: “Ormond Sacks: 1 demerit.” I crumpled it in my hand and threw it angrily on the floor. More glares followed.
Mycroft at last finished his chapter, replaced his bookmark with great care, and set the volume on the table. Its spine said: Principles of Bee-Keeping.
Mycroft stood and gestured first at me, then at Moriarty. He pointed insistently down a nearby corridor.
Mycroft was followed by Moriarty. I followed him. I did not relish the thought of that villain behind me … even in handcuffs.
The room to which Mycroft led me was Copenhagen’s version of the Strangers’ Room, known as the one place in the Diogenes Club where conversation is permitted – or, at least, not forbidden. The room was furnished with Spartan flavour – to discourage its use, I suspected. We sat in hard-backed chairs.
Moriarty said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr Watson.”
“Go to the Devil!” I sputtered.
Moriarty, apparently, knew better than to extend me his hand. He shrugged and sat down at the table.
“Good to see you, Watson.” Mycroft did extend his hand, but I would not shake it. Instead, I pointed at Moriarty.
“To the Devil!” I said.
“Yes, yes, in good time, Watson, of that I’ve no doubt. But for now, things are afoot that require us to engage the professor. Have a seat, Watson.”
“I won’t sit with that … that … explain yourself, Mycroft! That man should hang!”
“And he would have, already – or suffered an even less pleasant fate – if he had not alerted us to something that requires us to employ him.”
“Us? What is that supposed to mean, Mycroft … Bethlehem?”
“The Crown,” Mycroft said drily. “But it’s good of you to bring that up. Have a seat.”
“Your employer?” I sputtered. “What branch of Bedlam, exactly?”
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 44