The Return of Moriarty

by John Gardner

  “I hear you, Professor.”

  In the afternoon, Glittering George Gittins came to the house and was closeted with the Professor for over an hour. Moriarty started the conversation by telling him, “Everything I tell you in this room must stay in your ears, George. None of it must go to your tongue.” When he left, George Gittins reverentially kissed the signet ring on the Professor’s right hand.

  And the next morning, Samuel Brock had mysteriously vanished, and Moriarty’s fury knew no bounds. He was consumed by his anger, and those close to him felt they would be shattered and utterly destroyed by it.

  When he had exhausted his terrifyingly violent temper, the Professor returned to his quarters and sat looking at the painting of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, his mind full of joy and laughter, almost a sense of frivolity. Then, as he sat there in comfort, he played, in his mind, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 14 in C# Minor.

  Soon he would have his piano again and would be able to play such pieces.

  He thought of his mother, who had taught him to play, and, at peace, he thought of the last time he had seen moonlight on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

  16

  Little Boy Blue

  LONDON: JANUARY 22, 1900

  FIRST THING ON MONDAY morning, Albert Spear, with Harry Judge in attendance, met the architect, Iain Hunter, at the warehouse in Poplar, a huge building standing what amounted to a little over two stories high, almost two hundred yards in length, and at least forty, nearer fifty, yards wide, with large double doors at both gable ends, east and west. This great building was surrounded by a high brick wall topped with shards of sharp glass set in cement; entrance was limited through one set of high iron gates, fastened with huge locks and guarded by a solid block-built gatehouse.

  In his mind’s eye, Spear saw how this site in Poplar could be an even better headquarters than the old warehouse they’d had up the road in Limehouse, and he quickly set about rehearsing Hunter in exactly what would be required of him.

  First, the interior of the whole building would need to be lined, sealed with strong, seasoned oak, leaving any broken or slack timbers on the outside still looking damaged. A brick and plaster wall would then be built some six inches in front of the wooden cladding, the space between the two filled with sawdust and wood shavings to deaden sound. A similar, more complex arrangement would be put in place for the roof, so that the entire interior virtually became a new building, seated within the old, and near as damnit soundproof. Then the false walls would go in, behind which the secret passages and rooms could be constructed.

  Nothing would ever be as it seemed.

  A person straying into the warehouse would see only an empty, dilapidated, disused huge storehouse, the walls peeling and rotting. In fact, the final result would be a remarkable piece of trompe l’oeil. At the far end, the walls would hide secret passages and rooms that would be able to sleep between fifty and sixty men and women; they would include communal wash houses, kitchens, storerooms, and a mess hall where people both permanently living and working at the headquarters and those simply visiting could eat well.

  At the other end—the west side—Professor Moriarty’s quarters, comfortable and spacious, would run the width of the building, built above a room that would eventually be known as the waiting room, where those wanting an audience with the Professor could rest quietly, sip tea or something stronger, and even read the daily newspapers, while above them, in his rooms, the Professor would dispense his kind of justice, send out people to do his bidding, or plot the latest blagging, smash, grab, or careful theft to order.

  The builder, George Huckett, was present with his most senior foreman, while Hunter had a pair of assistants measuring and making notations. At one point, Huckett revealed that he still had the original plans they had used in Limehouse. The measurements would be undoubtedly larger, but the architect could get a clear perception from these old plans; and, after a lengthy talk with George Huckett, Hunter reported that he expected to have the place finished and ready for occupancy around Christmas—eleven months hence. Huckett agreed, looked happy, and promised that his men would be “brisk as body lice when they get down to it. Won’t let the grass grow.”

  Standing there in the bare shell of the warehouse, Spear thought he could smell the old odours of Limehouse headquarters: the lovely cooking smells, including the pleasant aromas of baking, sausages frying, and nourishing soups simmering on the big hobs in the kitchens, combined with the scent of fresh flowers the girls brought in every day. He could almost hear the old echoing sounds, the horses’ hooves on the interior stone flooring, the music as Ember played his Jew’s harp in the evening, or one of the other lads picked tunes out on a squeeze box.

  The Professor was delighted when Spear brought the plans back to him. The house on the fringes of Westminster would take another two months to complete—ready in time for his son, Arthur, to come home from school for the Easter holidays.

  That very morning Sal Hodges had gone off to choose fabrics and furnishings, carpets and additional accessories. “I am leaving all those choices to her, because she has a good eye for colour and decoration,” Moriarty told Fanny Paget. “But, Fanny, if she needs any assistance, I would be delighted if you could give her some hints and general advice. After all, you have had a better opportunity to see how aristocrats and people from the upper classes, people like Sir John and Lady Pam, decorate their properties.” He gave Fanny a warm and tender smile. “I was much taken by the way in which you managed that cottage on Sir John’s estate; it looked so smart. It will be good to have you here, and in Poplar, running the domestic side of things. Quite like the old days.”

  Fanny was not so certain she wanted a return to the old days, but clung to the fact that Pip had told her he had spoken with Sir John Grant, and the cottage would be waiting for them as soon as they were able to return from the business he had told Sir John that he had to attend to in London.

  In fact, at the moment Sally had no need for extra help. She had taken her protégée, Polly, with her, the young woman who assisted so well in Sal Hodges’s house in the Haymarket. Over the years she had seen to it that Polly was well educated; that she spoke excellent French, a little Italian, and some German. Also she wrote and read well, had studied Latin and Greek, was an exceptional needlewoman, and had that particular talent to manage staff with discretion and a strong sense of discipline. Sal Hodges had great hopes that Polly would one day be in a position to take over the running of the house.

  Even the working girls of the house liked Polly, for she could be an even-tempered, sweet-natured girl, blessed with common sense. She had also studied art and been exposed to the great classical cultures of Greece and Rome, so was undoubtedly a suitable person to advise Sally Hodges as she strove to choose the soft furnishings and ac-cessories that would be a background anchor to which Moriarty’s impeccable taste could be tethered, both in the house close by Westminster and at the new headquarters being prepared, close to the river in Poplar.

  They sought out the right colours and patterns, going as far afield as William Whiteley’s gigantic store in Westbourne Grove, Bayswater; then coming back into the West End to visit Arthur Liberty’s shop and that of Messrs. Swann and Edgar in Regent Street.

  People complained that the rise of these big department stores, with their range of goods all under one roof, had sounded the death knell for the personal service that had always been the hallmark of great London shops until the middle of the last century, but Sal and Polly found their shopping in no way hampered by the huge range of choice. On the contrary, in the space of some three and a half hours, which included a leisurely luncheon at the restaurant in Claridge’s Hotel, off Brook Street and Grosvenor Square, Sal had chosen several shades of velvet that would be made into curtains for the main rooms of the house, with the promise of a carpet fitter and two experienced men to visit the following day for measuring and putting in hand the making of the curtains—a sumptuous deep red for the draw
ing room, a light blue for the dining room, and a lilac and a lime green for two of the bedrooms. Polly had also persuaded Sal to order extravagant carpets for the drawing room and the Professor’s study, together with a conveniently unfussy patterned carpeting that would do well on the stairs.

  “I shall have to get the Professor’s final permission for these choices,” Sal told young Polly, who said how lucky Sally was to work so closely with James Moriarty. “I would like to be given that chance myself,” Polly said, to which Sal Hodges replied that it was not always a pleasure, that sometimes it could be difficult. “He can be frightening, you know, Polly. His reputation is not as savoury as that of more conventional men.” But Polly thought this could perhaps add some spice to life.

  Sally Hodges had never told her the truth concerning her relationship with the Professor, but the child had heard the rumours among the girls in the house. Young ladies would, naturally, grow up quickly and become wise in the ways of the world when they lived cheek by jowl with the girls in a house of pleasure.

  MEANWHILE, AT THE NOON hour, Terremant and his lurker assistants had taken their places close to the gangway following the steam packet’s arrival at Dover from the French port of Calais. Quickly he spotted the man whom the Professor had met so many times when they were in Vienna, and whom he referred to as Karl Franz von Hertzendorf—the man they now knew as Little Boy Blue. Once more, as he looked at this stranger, Terremant had the strong feeling that he knew the man, not simply from observing his meetings with Moriarty in Austria, but from some wider knowledge outside the circle of people within Moriarty’s family. He wondered if it was true, what some people said, that you lived from life to life; and that he had perhaps known him in an earlier existence, from a divergent world.

  Surrounding Little Boy Blue, the lurkers kept tabs on him as he went through the revenue hall, showing his papers to a waiting officer, a porter carrying his two bags. With a pair of lurkers ahead and a pair behind him, the man climbed the sloping ramp that led up to the railway platform, Terremant staying well to the rear, keeping back, never getting close, simply seeing that Little Boy Blue got himself settled on the train with one of the lurkers in the same compartment.

  So they travelled on to London, Victoria Station, where Ember’s men took over the watching.

  “This the bloke you reckon to have seen before?” Ember asked, without moving his lips, after the manner of an experienced old lag. Foxy little Ember had, if the truth be told, spent time in a pair of jails—at Her Majesty’s pleasure, as it was said.

  “That’s the fellow,” Terremant grunted. “He’s familiar as Mrs. Palmer the five-fingered widow. But I do not know from where.”

  “Can’t you see why, Jim? It’s plain as Salisbury.”

  “What is?”

  “Your man here. He is what the racing people would call a dead ringer for the late lamented Prince Albert, the Prince Consort.”

  “Bloody hell, you’re right!” exploded Terremant. “Blow me, I never saw that in him before.” Sure enough, if you looked at him so he was the living image of the late Prince Albert—not the young prince who had come, years before, full of life and hope, not to mention the dread of seasickness in crossing the Channel—but Prince Albert in his last days, exhausted, his face thickened by worry about the young Prince of Wales and the mountains of work that had bowed him down, that work of the king that he never was. A man buckling under the weight of being the uncrowned king. Undoubtedly the man who had arrived this day could be taken as the dead prince.

  “That is passing strange,” Terremant said as they made their way in a hansom, following a growler and a second hansom, heading through the teeming streets toward Captain Ratford’s Rooms, where they made Little Boy Blue comfortable, gave him victuals and a good glass of Hock, and told him to rest after his journey.

  Later in the afternoon, after the darkness of dusk arrived and the lights had come on in the streets and shop windows, Moriarty himself visited the Captain’s rooms, with Daniel Carbonardo very close, protecting him and certainly coming between the Professor and other members of the old Praetorian Guard—something that particularly worried and concerned Terremant. Moriarty talked for a good three-quarters of an hour with Little Boy Blue and left looking pleased as a dog with two choppers, muttering something about Wednesday being the day.

  WHEN MORIARTY GOT back to Westminster, he found Lee Chow waiting to see him, also Bertram Jacobs lingering around the kitchen area while George Huckett’s men worked their nuts off, diligent and giving their particular best because it was for the Professor.

  Lee Chow left about an hour later, following a long talk with Moriarty. He headed for Paddington Railway Station to pick up one of his special boys, a tall Chinese, name of Ho Choy: a most serious man, taciturn, a man who spoke only when it was absolutely necessary.

  At Paddington Station they boarded a train to Bristol, travelling third class and assuming positions of great humility, helping men and women with their luggage and generally showing that they knew their place.

  BACK IN HIS HOUSE on the fringes of Westminster, Professor James Moriarty looked at the letters that had come in the afternoon post, around four o’clock. There was a packet sent on that very morning by Perry Gwyther—papers requiring his signature, and concerning the purchase of the warehouse. Also there was an envelope addressed in pencil, shakily written and bearing a small cross in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope.

  This is Gorgie Porgie writing, the short letter began. I have done as instrocted and hav some gud things to say. Here they are getting in tuch with some one called Shleyfstine; also another called Grisomb and a third man who is named Sansionare. There is a forth man called Seegobey. Some of this I have seen rit down. Others I have eared. These fulks are all from foren parts and Idel Jak seems to think it is important for him to plot sum thing with them. I will keep workin and wachin.

  Moriarty knew immediately who these men were in Sam Brock’s report. He had already had dealings with all of them: Jean Grisombre, the short, slim Parisian, leader of one of the largest gangs of thieves in the world, based in Paris and ruthless in their quest for the acquisition of rare and valuable jewels; the one Sam called Shleyfstine was the tall and correct Wilhelm Schleifstein, who looked more like a banker than a criminal yet held sway over the criminal classes of Berlin, particularly the trade in human flesh. Then there was the fat, suave Luigi Sanzionare, son of a baker who had risen to become one of the most sought-after criminals in Rome. Lastly, there was the man spoken of as the Shadow of Spain, Estoban Bernado Segorbe, a quiet, dignified, neat, and unassuming man with a controlling interest in crime and vice, based in Madrid.

  Moriarty had been involved in close dealings with all these men in the past and had no doubt that Idle Jack was now attempting to forge a partnership with them. If this was so, there were things he could, and must, do now to circumvent any activity Idle Jack planned with the continental mobsters. But first, he considered, he had to take care of matters concerning Karl Franz von Hertzendorf: Little Boy Blue.

  Fifteen minutes later he was ringing for Wally Taplin, whom he charged with taking a letter by hand to Joey Coax. “And do not forget,” he reminded Wally, “do not go into the man’s studio.”

  “Don’t worry, Professor, sir. Mr. Terremant calls him a—”

  “Yes, Walter, I know what Mr. Terremant calls him.”

  AT FOUR O’CLOCK in the morning, down by Bristol Docks there was a violent explosion as a ship burst into flames and burned and burned, sinking low in the water, then finally disappearing, leaving only an oily slick on the surface where it had been moored, and three of the twenty men aboard did not make it to shore again.

  People who flocked down to help with the fire almost tripped over a body lying on the dockside, about a quarter of a mile away from where the ship had been moored. The body—that of a man—had been badly beaten about the head, and also had a strange injury to the face, where the soft flesh of the man’s cheeks had been cu
t out and removed.

  Later the body was identified as Ebeneezer Jephcote, captain of Midnight Kiss, the ship that had burned beside the docks.

  ON THE MORNING of Wednesday, January 24th, Sal Hodges travelled with the six girls she had chosen to go to the studio in St. Giles’s. They were quiet and sitting patiently waiting for things to start, and to be told what they were to do: Red Annie, Gypsy Smith, Connie Best, Sukie Williams, Dark Delilah Amphet, and Goldie Goode. Excellent choices, Moriarty thought, as he viewed them from the balcony. All were attractive, voluptuous, and had that special quality in their eyes, the one that appeared to invite men into their arms and, indeed, further.

  The balcony was one of the reasons he had chosen this nice room, which was once a public ballroom for the good people of St. Giles’s. From the balcony he could observe without being himself observed, for he had no desire to become personally involved with Joey Coax and his photography.

  Coax presently appeared, with three assistants lugging in cameras, tripods, and other jigamarees connected with the business of taking likenesses, and, as soon as work began, Moriarty was pleasantly amazed at the excellent and professional way in which Coax approached the job in hand. He seemed to know exactly what he required of all concerned, and issued his instructions without any of what the Professor thought of as “effeminate faffing on.”

  Only once was there a problem. He had positioned Dark Delilah Amphet on a couch, hard by Little Boy Blue. “Now,” the photographer instructed, “look as if you’re whipping the harpoon into her.” The Austrian did not understand the instruction and, in the end, Moriarty himself had to call out an impolite expression in German, which made von Hertzendorf give a somewhat injured sigh.