by George Mann
CONTENTS
Cover
Also available from George Mann and Titan Books
Title Page
Copyright
THE LAST VISITOR
Stephen Henry
THE DOCKLANDS MURDER
Dan Watters
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE BEAST OF BODMIN
Jonathan Green
THE CASE OF THE BLIND MAN’S SPECTACLES
Marcia Wilson
THE UNFORTUNATE GUEST
Iain McLaughlin
THE UNEXPECTED DEATH OF THE MARTIAN AMBASSADOR
Andrew Lane
NO GOOD DEED
David Marcum
THE CURIOUS CASE OF VANISHED YOUTH
Mark A. Latham
THE CURSE OF THE BLUE DIAMOND
Sam Stone
THE PILOT FISH
Stuart Douglas
THE CASE OF THE SCENTED LADY
Nik Vincent
HARLINGDON’S HEIR
Michelle Ruda
THE NOBLE BURGLAR
James Lovegrove
THE SECOND MASK
Philip Purser-Hallard
About the Editor
About the Authors
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
Further Associates of
Sherlock Holmes
Also available from George Mann and Titan Books
Associates of Sherlock Holmes
Encounters of Sherlock Holmes
Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead
Sherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box
Further
Associates of
Sherlock Holmes
Edited by
George Mann
TITANBOOKS
Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes
Print edition ISBN: 9781783299324
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299331
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: August 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved by the authors. The rights of each contributor to be identified as Author of their Work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Pilot Fish © 2017 Stuart Douglas
Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of Bodmin © 2017 Jonathan Green
The Last Visitor © 2017 Stephen Henry
The Unexpected Death of the Martian Ambassador © 2017 Andrew Lane
The Curious Case of Vanished Youth © 2017 Mark A. Latham
The Noble Burglar © 2017 James Lovegrove
No Good Deed © 2017 David Marcum
The Unfortunate Guest © 2017 Iain McLaughlin
The Second Mask © 2017 Philip Purser-Hallard
Harlingdon’s Heir © 2017 Michelle Ruda
The Curse of the Blue Diamond © 2017 Sam Stone
The Case of the Scented Lady © 2017 Nik Vincent
The Docklands Murder © 2017 Dan Watters
The Case of the Blind Man’s Spectacles © 2017 Marcia Wilson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
THE LAST VISITOR
Stephen Henry
Moriarty only makes a single personal appearance in the cases of Sherlock Holmes, that brief appearance being before he tumbles down the Reichenbach Falls. Despite this single appearance he is a character that rivals all but Watson and Holmes in his presence in the collective consciousness. He is the criminal mastermind of literature, father of all nefarious geniuses. But he is never there; he is talked about, his hand is felt but never seen in the stories. To me that is what gives him his power. He is placed out of sight, manipulating and bringing devilish schemes into being by using other people. This absence makes you wonder at the limits of his abilities and power. He could be behind any mystery, pulling the strings even as our consulting detective unravels them. So, when it came to writing a story from Moriarty’s point of view I wanted to show how he worked, always at a remove, always manipulating, always looking for weaknesses to exploit. I also wanted to show how his genius was different from that of Holmes. Moriarty is about action, about making things happen. Holmes is about interpreting people and what they do. They fit together, two halves of a whole at war with each other in an endless game. This is a story about one set of moves in that game, where Moriarty cannot see the human dimension in events, and Holmes does not realise how there is always a flaw that can be exploited by Moriarty.
—Stephen Henry
There is no need to look surprised, or to huddle in the corner of the cell. I am merely here as a visitor.
Do the condemned not receive visitors? The hour is late in every sense, but please be seated, and let me reassure you that I merely wish to talk. I have no doubt that this must seem strange, not least because your allotted time has almost passed, and we are strangers, but I would ask your indulgence.
My name? I am James Moriarty. And your name I know. I am familiar with your case. You are forty days condemned for the murder of the art broker Angelo Lorenzoni, and his sister Lucrecia, both killed in the early hours of Friday 28th September of this year. For that crime you will hang in a little under seven hours.
A lawyer? No, I am no lawyer. A professor, but not of the law. I am a keen student of it though. My interest is in you, and how you came to be here.
Your story? No, I do not want that. Anything I might want of that tale I know already. No, I wish to tell you something of what I know of your crime. I understand that this might seem strange to you, but I have gone to some difficulty to be here, and I would appreciate your attention. After all, what else have you to do?
* * *
They were an hour dead when I saw them. The room was small. The floorboards were bare. Soot and the filth of birds spattered the windows. The bodies lay on the floor, limbs lying where they had dropped when life had finally lost its grip. Blood had poured from them, and then the material of their clothes had drunk from that pool. I could make out which one was Lucrecia by the blood-soaked dress. She was face down. I do not take account of clothing, but even through the blood you could tell that her attire was poor. Angelo lay with his mouth and eyes open, his hair a halo in the congealing crimson. The garish richness of his coat was still visible in places. Canvases on easels stood around the room. Some were almost finished, others bare, and many at a point between the two. Most of them were whole, but the three closest to completion had been slashed. Blood marked the cut edges and ran down the face of one, darkening red blending with the oil-painted flank of a ship on water.
“Who did this?” I asked.
By the door Moran gave a small shake of his head.
“None of ours,” he replied.
“You have checked?”
He glanced at me, our eyes met briefly.
“None of them would dare.”
Then he shook his head and went back to his watch of the stairs that led to the lower levels of the building. It was disused, we had made sure of that. Sat on a stool, Moran looked bored, his face and limbs relaxed. The revolver resting in his right hand seemed almost to be there by accident. Only his eyes moved, glittering as they glided over what lay before them. I have never seen a real tiger, but knowing Moran, I feel I know what one must look like when crouched beside a jungle pool.
I looked back at the corpses, and then at the canvases.
“They only touched the Maturins,” I said, and pressed a handkerchief over my nose and mouth. I confess that the smell was becoming too much. There is a smell to killing. It is the reek of open bowels and organs exposed to the air.
As a rule I do not interfere directly in endeavours. I leave action to those who carry my instructions. After all, if the heavens can be described perfectly by my pen using numbers and symbols, what need is there of me to leave my study for earthly concerns? But occasionally I choose to touch the work as it progresses. I had been coming to meet the Lorenzoni siblings that night. I was greeted by the ruin of one of my endeavours. I was angry. Seven months now lay slashed to pieces on the easels, and the only way of recovering the loss lay on the floor beside her brother. I was more angry than I had been in a great while.
Moran glanced at me for a second, and then back to the stairs.
“It could be someone beginning an offensive on your operations,” he said.
“No,” I said. “All those who might try are known to me, and they have no knowledge of what we were doing here.”
“You are sure?” asked Moran.
I lowered my gaze to him and after a second he looked away.
“My pardon,” he said.
I turned, my eyes running around the room again.
“This is something else,” I said, “something new.” I stared at the blood-dappled canvas.
“Someone inside?” he said.
Anger sparked in the flow of my thoughts. “Perhaps,” I replied.
I had decisions to make, but I could not see the paths clearly before me. I will admit to being perturbed. You understand this, of course. I am a creator – that is my nature, my craft and the triumph of my life. Some live in the world as it is given to them. I do not. I make the world as I want it. I do not muddy my thoughts with trying to grapple with its knots of instinct.
“Undo the preparations for the sale,” I said.
Moran nodded, and stood, gun still in hand. He could read me well enough to know that we were leaving.
“And this?” he asked, nodding at the corpses.
“Leave them,” I said. “Be certain to touch and disturb nothing. Once we are gone make sure word reaches the police anonymously.”
He nodded, the brief shadow of a frown on his features. Ever the good soldier.
“There are signs that we have been here,” he said.
“They remain.”
“The bills of sale?” he said, nodding at the pile of papers resting on a stool next to Angelo Lorenzoni’s corpse.
“Those as well.”
“If whoever looks at this is clever they will be able to tell a lot about the endeavour…”
“I hope so,” I said, walking to the door and starting down the dank staircase. “I hope so.”
* * *
The clocks were ticking towards the early hours in my study. I had the window open, and the draught as the door opened rippled the flames in the fire grate. In their bulbs the gaslights dimmed and then brightened as the door shut. The first chill of autumn was in the air; but I dislike excessive heat. Cold is the spur to the body, just as ambition is the goad to the mind.
“Professor,” said Moran, as he crossed from the door, and sat in one of the chairs facing my desk. It might be a strain of sentimentality, but I keep my study as it was when I taught applied mathematics. My desk sits opposite the hearth. A ring of chairs sit before it. On the walls are my books, on my desk instruments of calculation and geometry, pens, paper, both foolscap and letter. My servants keep it ready for me, night and day. It is the centre of the universe.
I looked up at Moran as I finished a line of work, and placed my pen down. He had stuffed and lit a pipe. Grey smoke wound around his sharp face. He was not young, but even haloed by lines, his eyes were flints. There has never been a man more able in the art of execution, nor more in need of another man to follow, than Sebastian Moran. He had been watching the garret in which Angelo and Lucrecia had been killed since the previous night. I am told that the landscape of London’s roofs is not so different from the crags of the lower Himalayas, and a first rate telescopic sight is as useful to an observer as it is to a hunter. Amongst his other skills Moran also has a facility for reading lips. Later, when the police and you had left, he came and told me what had happened.
“Yes?” I said.
“The police came. Local, poor quality. They were going to wrap the whole thing up as a killing in the course of an argument. Family disagreement.” He inhaled slowly. Moran never does anything quickly. That is, to say, apart from killing. Slowness is a discipline to him, a chain he shackles his temper with. He exhaled a deep cloud of blue smoke. “Then one of the younger ones noticed the bills of sale. From that they looked at the canvases. They were confused.”
“They sent for Scotland Yard,” I stated.
He nodded.
“Lestrade?”
He nodded.
“And Lestrade read the bills,” I said. “He looks at the canvases, and after looking at the bodies confirms what was obvious to the first policeman who could hold his breakfast down, that there is no way Angelo could have cut his sister’s throat, stabbed himself several times in the torso, and then made the weapon vanish.”
“Exactly so.”
“How long was it until he sent for the consultant?”
“An hour.”
“And he came?”
Another nod. “And the doctor.”
“What did he do?”
“Holmes walked in and stopped. Lestrade kept talking. The doctor looked at the bodies. He is capable, even though you do not think him of worth. He deduced the time that they had been killed to within half an hour, and the weapon to be a short blade, wide and sharp, but without a point.”
“What did the consultant think to that?”
“He didn’t, or he didn’t say. You know his manner. He just gave a little smile.” Moran shook his head once. “Insufferable.”
“Dislike him all you wish,” I said, “but never let yourself have contempt for him. He is a rare creature. Limited though he is by morality, he is still very dangerous. Forget that and you are a fool, and I have no need of a fool.”
Moran did not answer, but looked away, and breathed slowly through his pipe for a second.
I waited. To use such creatures as Moran requires sharpness and subtly. He is a killer, full of skill, and the arrogance that comes with skill. Welded to that ability is a rage-filled void. He is not fully in control, he is a horse harnessed to his emotion. He needs someone to tell him what to do, because that is what happened to him through those years in the corridors of Eton, and then in the army. He wants orders, but he hates those who give them. The only thing that keeps him loyal to me is that I make sure he fears me more than he loathes me. People are simple beasts, are they not?
“The doctor thought that Lucrecia had been killed first, and then her brother. Holmes agreed, but said that the killer had been in the room with them both, and that he had slashed one of the canvases first. She had stepped close to stop him, and the killer turned on her, cut her throat with the same knife that he had used on the canvas. Antonio started forwards, and the killer let go of Lucrecia, and then stabbed Antonio in the gut. He held him and stabbed him several more times. Letting him go, he then slashed the other Maturin canvases and left.”
“Remarkable,” I said. “How did he know that this was the course of events?”
“The canva
s nearest Lucrecia had no blood on it, and the cut was ragged, as though someone had wrestled with the hand that caused the damage. She fell back and her throat was slit. Antonio tried to grab his sister.”
“You say ‘he’ when talking of the killer,” I said, absorbing the details of Moran’s report. “I presume that your choice of words is not accidental.”
Moran shook his head. “Holmes said that the killer was a man.”
“Did he give a reason?”
“None, though the doctor asked.”
“And our presence?”
“He knew we had been there,” said Moran.
“Us specifically?”
“Two men, both of mature years, one dressed in heavier clothes suitable for adverse weather; the other well dressed, but in a restrained manner, such as you would expect of a banker, doctor, or a practitioner of the bar. The first was fit, and armed; the other slight and with a cane, though he does not use it for walking. They knew the brother and sister, though were not friendly with them. They were here after the fact and stayed for ten minutes, fifteen at most.”
“You are certain that you are quoting verbatim?”
Moran did not reply, which was reply enough. He has an excellent memory. It is one of the skills that makes him more than just a ruthless man with a gun.
“So he all but saw us there,” I continued. “And the rest? What did the consultant make of the rest?”
“He saw the bills of sale but did not touch them. He looked at the canvases though. All of them, and for some time. He sniffed the paint palettes, even scraped some off with a knife and tasted it. He looked at one bill of sale, told Lestrade to gather the rest carefully, and said that he was going to Soho the next morning.”
I listened to this, and let it slot into my mind. So far the vector of events was as I had calculated.
“He is on to us, then,” I said. “Good.”
* * *
At this point, I feel I should outline the endeavour that brought me to the workshop of Lucrecia Lorenzoni on the night she was killed. The operation had been in progress for some time: two years, one month and five days to be precise. It was a thing of wondrous simplicity.