The Ripper Legacy

by David Stuart Davies

  Twenty-Nine

  Dr Watson’s Journal

  Viewed from the outside, Reading Gaol was a grim-looking establishment, but it was considerably more so inside. Passing through the great oak doors, one immediately became conscious of the chill of the place and the bleak eerie silence that permeated the whole building. Despite the gaol being crammed with prisoners, none of them were allowed to talk except briefly during the exercise period once a day. They were effectively mute for most of their incarceration.

  Holmes and I were shown to the governor’s office by a surly uniformed guard whose attitude to us was as brusque and ill-mannered as it no doubt was to his charges. We were shown into a well-furnished panelled room with a log fire blazing in the hearth. It was the one warm spot in the whole building. The governor, Samuel McCafferty, a smart, well-made man in his late forties, rose from behind his desk to greet us.

  ‘Well, Mr Holmes,’ he said, shaking my friend’s hand heartily, ‘this is indeed an honour. Of course I know of your sterling work in the field of crime detection. And you must be Dr Watson, the fellow who writes up the cases.’

  I nodded, indicating that I was indeed “the fellow who writes up the cases”.

  ‘Now do sit down and tell me the purpose for your visit.’

  We did as we were bidden. ‘It is very good of you to see us at such short notice. As I intimated in my note, our errand is one of the utmost importance,’ said Holmes. ‘Indeed it is a matter of national security and I am afraid I cannot divulge any of the details.’

  ‘Good gracious,’ said McCafferty with some surprise. ‘You do make it sound very dramatic. But if you are not able to tell me the reason for your visit, how on earth am I able to help you?’

  ‘I want to interview one of your inmates.’

  ‘I see. And who might that be?’

  ‘Colonel Sebastian Moran.’

  The governor sat back in his chair with surprise. ‘Really. I thought you would have done with that fellow. Didn’t he try to kill you last year?’

  ‘Indeed he did. I was instrumental in his being apprehended by the law and gave evidence at his trial.’

  ‘So why on earth do you want to speak to him now?’

  ‘As I intimated, the matter must remain secret. I believe that Moran has knowledge that could be of the greatest importance to me in my current investigation. I might add that this has been sanctioned by the Prime Minister. You have my word on that. So, if you could arrange for me to have access to Moran.’

  The governor stared at Holmes for some moments, his face a bland mask so that it was difficult to know what he was thinking.

  ‘Of course I believe you, Mr Holmes, and I appreciate that you would not be here if the matter was not of grave import. I will try to help you, but first of all I must warn you that you may have great difficulty in eliciting any evidence from Moran.’

  ‘Oh, why is that?’

  ‘Since Moran has been here, his mental condition has deteriorated rapidly. It is a common development in those who have led a privileged existence before being incarcerated. The contrast between their old life of comfort and freedom and the harsh regime of prison is too much for them to bear and their mental faculties begin to crumble. It is a kind of escape from the grim reality of their new situation. Old lags who spend their lives in and out of gaol cope much better.’ He gave an ironic smile. ‘This place is like a second home to them. But for Moran and his ilk, it is a kind of hell.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Holmes soberly. ‘But I have to try.’

  The governor leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk and within seconds the gruff orderly who had accompanied us to the room entered.

  ‘Ah, Beaumont, will you arrange for Prisoner 142 to be taken to the safe room. These gentlemen are here to see him.’

  Beaumont gave a stern nod and departed.

  ‘It is a rule of the prison, Mr Holmes, that one of our guards must be present when prisoners receive visitors. This is for their own protection in case the prisoner in question becomes violent.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘However, with Moran I do not think you are in any danger. Any fire he had in his belly has dissipated long ago – but one cannot be too careful.’

  Within five minutes, Beaumont was leading us down a series of gloomy corridors. Holmes had explained to me in Baker Street that he believed that Professor Moriarty would have returned to his secret headquarters that he had used many years ago, before the Reichenbach incident. It was from here that he had controlled his powerful organisation. ‘His lair was never discovered at the time his gang was scuppered and of course the police lost interest in locating it after his death – or what they thought was his death. It would be an ideal base for his operations in this kidnapping scheme. Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s lieutenant, is the only man likely to know the location of the place. If we can squeeze that information out of him, we will be so much closer to bringing this case to a successful conclusion.’

  Of course these words were uttered before we knew of Moran’s mental deterioration. A mood of gloom settled down upon me once more as we entered the safe room. It was a bare windowless chamber with just one chair. This was occupied by a man in prison uniform, including a cloth cap that had a flap that fell down over the face obscuring the features. All prisoners wore these so that they could not see the faces of the other inmates. It was another measure to reduce their humanity. This procedure seemed to me an unnecessary and cruel indignity to men who, despite their crimes, were suffering greatly in the harsh conditions that were served up by the prison system.

  Beaumont slammed the door shut, the sound reverberating noisily around the room, but the prisoner did not move, did not react at all. Holmes and I stood before his cowed figure.

  ‘Can he remove his cap?’ asked Holmes.

  Beaumont nodded stiffly. ‘Prisoner 142. Remove your cap.’

  Slowly, in a jerky mechanical fashion, the man obeyed the instruction. The face that was now revealed to us hardly resembled the man I remembered from the trial. Gone was the air of bruised arrogance and smouldering spark of defiance in those piercing blue eyes. They were now hooded and milky, the pupils moving sluggishly. The whole stance of his body was one of submission and defeat.

  ‘Colonel Moran…’ said Holmes quietly and paused. There was no response, not even the flicker of an eyelid.

  ‘He will not have been addressed in that manner since he came here. Isn’t that so, Prisoner 142?’ observed Beaumont.

  The head now turned slowly towards the speaker.

  ‘See,’ said Beaumont, with an arrogant grin.

  Holmes persisted. ‘Colonel Sebastian Moran. That is you,’ he said, placing a hand on the prisoner’s shoulder.

  The face registered no interest or recognition.

  ‘Colonel Sebastian Moran, late of the Indian Army, and Chief of Staff to Professor Moriarty. Professor James Moriarty.’

  Moran’s eyes flickered at the repetition of Moriarty’s name and his tongue moistened his lips.

  ‘You remember Professor Moriarty, don’t you, Moran? The professor.’ Holmes leaned close, his eyes on a level with the prisoner. ‘And you remember me too, Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes, the man you tried to shoot from the empty house. You remember, don’t you?’

  Slowly Moran’s face showed some movement: the muscles round the eyes twitched slightly and his lips quivered. Then slowly he framed the words ‘Sherlock Holmes’, although he made no sound.

  ‘Yes,’ said Holmes eagerly. ‘And you remember the professor too. Your master.’

  Like an eerie whisper, the word ‘Moriarty’ escaped from Moran’s mouth.

  ‘Yes, yes: Moriarty. We need to find him. We need to help him. Professor Moriarty needs our help.’

  Moran’s brow creased. ‘Help?’ he said, his voice stronger now.

  ‘Yes, yes, the professor needs our help.’

  Moran shook his head in bewilderment.

  ‘We need to re
ach him. To warn him of danger.’

  Suddenly, Moran’s eyes opened wide and his whole frame stiffened. ‘Dead. The professor is dead,’ he said, his voice full of anguish.

  ‘No, no. He is not dead. He survived. He did not drown at Reichenbach. He escaped. He is alive.’

  Moran listened to Holmes’s words with a puckered brow and after a pause, he grabbed hold of my friend’s sleeve. ‘Alive? The professor…?’

  ‘Yes. He is alive and we need to reach him. He is in danger. We need to warn him.’

  ‘Alive…’ His jaw dropped and saliva collected at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Yes,’ affirmed Holmes again, nodding vigorously and gently shaking Moran’s arms. ‘We must reach him to protect him. You want to protect your master, don’t you? The professor?’

  ‘He is alive? The professor?’ The shoulders slumped once more and the eyes misted with tears.

  ‘Yes, Colonel Moran.’

  ‘Colonel Moran?’ His features quivered, the forehead creasing and uncreasing with consternation. ‘Yes… I am Colonel Sebastian Moran,’ he said at length, the old tortured face suddenly regaining some of its life and a smile slowly materialising.

  I knew that Moran was a black-hearted villain who, amongst many of his dark deeds, had plotted the assassination of my friend Sherlock Holmes, but I could not help feeling sorry for him now, a shattered wreck of a man who barely remembered who he was. With careful prompting, Holmes was erasing some of the fog that had befuddled his memory, but I think we both knew that any awareness of reality he was able to achieve would be tenuous and short-lived. In the end, this would be for the best. He would spend the rest of his days in this terrible place in a featureless cell unable to communicate with anyone on an intelligent level. Ironically, it would be best that he was left in a state of ignorance.

  ‘Colonel Moran, we have to get news to the professor and we need your help – your help to save him from harm.’

  ‘Help for the professor? Of course.’

  ‘Where is the professor’s headquarters? Where is he hiding out?’

  Moran’s head sank on to his chest once more and he closed his eyes in an attempt to think, a process that was now alien to him.

  ‘Where was his secret place? Where in London?’ prompted Holmes gently.

  Moran uttered a strange groan and shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t… I can’t remember.’

  ‘You must,’ snapped Holmes. ‘Think. Where did you go to see the professor? Where did you meet him? Picture the place. Imagine it.’

  Moran squirmed in his chair and screwed his eyes shut in an attempt to obey Holmes’s instructions. The three of us stood and watched as this sad creature, uttering various inarticulate whimpers, tried desperately to summon up images from his past. After a few minutes, he slumped back in the chair, his eyes opening slowly, staring blankly ahead.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Beaumont smugly. ‘He’s too far gone. He’s not able to help you.’ He seemed almost pleased that this was the case.

  Holmes ignored him and patted Moran gently on the shoulder. ‘Well you tried, didn’t you, Moran.’

  At the mention of his name, the tired eyes flickered erratically. ‘It was by the river,’ he said softly. ‘Near the big bridge.’

  ‘Tower Bridge,’ I said.

  Moran mouthed the words and gave a slight nod. ‘Two lions. Golden lions.’

  ‘Where are they? Where are the lions?’ asked Holmes gently.

  ‘Above. The lions are above. Before you go below… below to the professor. You go deep.’

  ‘Where exactly is this?’ I asked, leaning forward.

  ‘By the river. Near the big bridge,’ Moran repeated, now in a sing-song voice. He smiled and added, ‘Beneath the golden lions and under to see the professor… the professor. I am Colonel Sebastian Moran.’ He giggled and turned his head away.

  ‘What is the address?’ asked Holmes urgently, but there was no response. The light that had flickered uncertainly within Moran’s eyes had gone and the dazed automaton had returned.

  My friend pursed his lips and cast me a glance. ‘I believe that we have squeezed the orange dry.’

  ‘I told you you’d get nothing,’ sneered Beaumont, placing Moran’s cap back on his head, the flap hiding his features once more.

  ‘On the contrary,’ asserted Holmes, ‘we got more than I’d hoped.’

  Beaumont laughed. ‘Well, if you’re able to make anything out of that rubbishy rigmarole that 142 came out with, you’re a better man than I am.’

  Holmes did not reply, but merely gave Beaumont a brief smile along with a raise of his eyebrows.

  * * *

  ‘Do you really think you can make use of the mumblings that Moran made?’ I asked earnestly as our cab rattled away from Reading Gaol towards the station.

  ‘You seem to have as little faith in my abilities at that brutish guard,’ replied Holmes. ‘It is like looking at life through a distorting mirror: perspectives are blurred and out of shape, while nothing seems to fit, but if you tilt your head or arrange your thinking in a certain way, things become recognisable. We have a general location, down by the river, near Tower Bridge and some identifiable landmark of sorts: two golden lions. Not very much to go on, I grant you, but it is something.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if anyone can make something out of those disparate elements…’

  Holmes snorted. ‘Watson, my blushes.’

  Thirty

  ‘I think he has a fever,’ she said with some trepidation.

  ‘Think?’ snapped the professor. ‘I understood that you were a nurse. Shouldn’t you know?’

  ‘I was a nursemaid. I have no medical training, but it is obvious that he has a temperature and is in some discomfort.’

  Moriarty moved his wheelchair nearer the bed and gazed down at the young boy, his reddened visage sheened with a fine mist of perspiration. He observed that the child’s breathing was even but very shallow. No doubt his condition was a reaction to the upset he had endured in the last few days. If only the brat could have held out a little longer. It looked very much now as though he would need specialised medical treatment. This complicated matters. He couldn’t have the boy dying on him before he got his hands on the ransom – just in case he was needed. It was so very annoying. Despite all his meticulous planning, the boy’s health was the one thing he could not control.

  ‘See if you can waken the boy and give him some sustenance – soup maybe. That may rally him. In the meantime I will arrange for a doctor to see to him.’

  Without another word, Moriarty swung the wheelchair around and glided towards the door. He travelled along a narrow corridor into a large open room, his office-cum-sitting room, the heart of his underground headquarters. A fire burned brightly in the hearth and the gas lamps graced the chamber with a pleasant amber light. Dominic Gaunt was seated in an armchair by the fireside, a glass of brandy in one hand and a notebook in the other.

  ‘I am sorry to interrupt your period of relaxation and refreshment,’ said Moriarty with gentle sarcasm, as he manoeuvred his way towards Gaunt, ‘but I have an errand for you.’

  Gaunt winced slightly at the use of the word ‘errand’ as though Moriarty were indirectly placing him firmly in the role of junior dogsbody rather than a senior partner in this venture. In fact now that Jasper Coates was gone, he was the only senior partner and as such he felt that he should be regarded with more respect.

  ‘We have a little problem,’ Moriarty was saying. ‘Our young charge has taken it upon himself to fall ill at this crucial juncture.’

  ‘How ill?’

  Moriarty shrugged. ‘That is beyond my realms of expertise and therefore we require the services of a doctor to diagnose the trouble and treat it.’

  ‘A doctor?’

  ‘Indeed, a qualified member of the medical profession,’ noted Moriarty with ironic brittleness. Whenever his plans were disarranged in any way, his patience with other mortals was at
its weakest and his natural traits of sarcasm and cruelty easily rose to the surface.

  ‘Do you have anyone in mind?’

  ‘There is no one still alive who has provided services for me before. We shall have to choose someone new, snatch a medic at random. Of course, once on these premises, I will not allow them to leave. I will leave it up to you. Just be sure to get someone who has experience with children and have them here within the hour. Make sure that you arrive unseen.’

  Gaunt smiled as a thought struck him. ‘It would be a delicious irony to scoop up Dr Watson to do our bidding.’

  Moriarty did not return the smile. ‘Eradicate that notion from your mind immediately, Mr Gaunt. Matters are delicate and critical enough as they are without attempting to complicate them by involving Watson.’

  Gaunt shrugged. ‘It was just an idea.’

  ‘And a bad one. Dragging Watson here would inevitably bring Sherlock Holmes closer to our table. Do not underestimate that man, Mr Gaunt. Holmes is a genius and is best kept at arm’s length. I above all others should know.’ He tapped the side of his wheelchair with irritation. ‘Holmes is already breathing down our necks and I do not want to provide him with more evidence and impetus by capturing Watson again. Look what happened last time.’

  Gaunt’s smile disappeared. ‘I take your point.’

  ‘Good. Now there is no time to lose. You know what you have to do.’

  ‘Yes, Professor.’ Gaunt, aware that he was being dismissed, finished his drink and left the room.

  Moriarty smiled to himself. He liked Gaunt, but the young man wasn’t yet fully acquainted with the professor’s ways or cognisant of the real role he played in Moriarty’s scheme of things. Gaunt thought highly of himself and overestimated his own importance. But he would learn. Oh, yes, he would learn. Failure to do so would bring misfortune upon his head.

  The smile still wreathing his shattered features, Moriarty moved over to his desk and poured himself a brandy. He drank it slowly, allowing the liquid to roll gently on his tongue and then burn the back of his throat. That’s how he liked life: warm pleasure, mixed with a little pain.