‘Sherlock Holmes was there. He had broken down the door to get in which by rights he shouldn’t have because this was a police matter. It was the first time I had seen the great man at close quarters and in action too, for he had already begun his investigation. What can I tell you, Chase? He was taller than I remembered, with the leanness of an aesthete as if he had deliberately starved himself. This gave prominence to his chin, his cheekbones and above all to his eyes which never seemed to settle on anything without stripping them of all the information they might provide. There was an energy about him, a restlessness that I had never encountered in any other man. His movements were brief and economical. He gave you the sense that there was no time to be wasted. He was wearing a dark frock coat and no hat. When I first saw him, he was holding a tape measure which he folded away.’
‘And Dr Watson …?’
‘I took less notice of him. He stood in the shadows at the edge of the room, a shorter man, round-faced, genial.
‘I do not need to describe the details of the case. You can read them if they are of interest to you. The dead man was, as I said, Bartholomew Sholto. It transpired that he and his twin brother, Thaddeus, had been bequeathed a great treasure by their father. They’d had trouble finding it, mind, hence all the holes in the garden. But the facts of the case seemed quite straightforward to me. The two of them had argued as men often will when confronted by unexpected wealth. Thaddeus had killed his brother using a blowpipe and a poison dart – I should have explained that the house was full of Indian curiosities. I arrested him and also took in his servant, a man called McMurdo, as his accomplice.’
‘And were you right?’
‘No, sir, as it turned out, I was wrong. I had made a complete fool of myself and although I was not the first to do so – I had colleagues who had been in exactly the same position as I – at the time it was small consolation.’
He fell silent, staring out of the window at the French countryside although, from the look in his eyes, I was sure he saw none of it.
‘And the third time?’ I asked.
‘That was a few months later … the curious business of the Abernettys. I will not discuss it now, if you don’t mind. It still annoys me. It began with what seemed to be, on the face of it, a burglary – although a very unusual one. All I will say is that once again I missed everything of importance and stood idly by while Mr Holmes made the arrest. It will not happen again, Mr Chase. I promise you that.’
Jones barely spoke to me for the next few hours. We made our connection in Paris quite easily and it was the second time I had crossed the city without so much as glimpsing the Eiffel Tower. But what did it matter? London lay ahead of us and already I was uneasy. I felt that a shadow had fallen over us but to whom it belonged – be it Holmes, Devereux or even Moriarty – I dared not say.
And so to London.
It has been said that good Americans, when they die, go to Paris. Perhaps the less saintly variety would end up like me, dragging my steamer trunk from Charing Cross Station with the drivers shouting, the beggar boys circling, and the crowds streaming past. For this was where Inspector Jones and I parted company; he to return to his home in Camberwell, I to find a hotel that would suit a general operative travelling on a Pinkerton’s budget. I had been surprised to learn that he had a wife and child. He had struck me as a single, even a solitary, man. But he had mentioned them to me in Paris and as we disembarked from our steamship at Dover he was clutching an India rubber ball and a puppet of the French policeman Flagéolet, which he had picked up near the Gare du Nord. The revelation troubled me but I said nothing until we reached the very end of our trip.
‘You will forgive me, Inspector,’ I remarked, as we were preparing to go our separate ways. ‘I know it is not for me to say, but I wonder if you should not reconsider.’
‘Reconsider what?’
‘This entire adventure – by which I mean the pursuit of Clarence Devereux. I may not have made it clear to you quite how ruthless, how vicious this man is. Trust me when I say that you would not choose to have him as your enemy. He left a trail of bloodshed behind him in New York and if he is in London, as I believe, he will certainly do the same there. Look at what happened to poor Jonathan Pilgrim! It is my task to hunt him down and I have no dependants. The same is not true for you and I feel uncomfortable bringing you into imminent danger.’
‘It is not you who has brought me here. I am merely pursuing the enquiry that was given to me by my superiors at Scotland Yard.’
‘Devereux will have no respect for Scotland Yard or for you. Your rank and position will not protect you.’
‘That makes no difference.’ He stopped and looked up at the dull afternoon sky, for London had welcomed us with clouds and drizzle. ‘If this man has come to England and plans to continue his criminal activities as you have suggested, then he must be stopped and that is my duty.’
‘There are plenty of other detectives.’
‘But I was the one who was sent to Meiringen.’ He smiled. ‘I understand your sentiments, Chase, and I will say that they do you credit. It is true that I have a family. I would not do anything that would threaten their well-being and yet the choice is not mine. For better or for worse, you and I have been thrown together and that is how we shall remain. If it sets your mind at ease, I will add, in confidence, that I would not want Lestrade, Gregson or any of my other friends and colleagues stealing the credit for hunting this man down. But here is a cab approaching. I must be on my way!’
I can still see him hurrying away with the ball in one hand and the blue-uniformed doll hanging limply over his arm. And I wonder now as I wondered then how Dr Watson could have turned him into such a fool in his own account. I have read ‘The Sign of the Four’ since then and can say that the Athelney Jones in that adventure bears very little similarity to the man I knew and who was, I would have said, unequalled by any at Scotland Yard.
There were several hotels close to the station in Northumberland Avenue but their very names – the Grand, the Victoria, the Metropole – warned me they would not fit the bill in any sense of those words and in the end I found somewhere on the Embankment, close by the bridge … so close, in fact, that the whole place rattled every time a train went past. Hexam’s Hotel was grimy and ramshackle. The carpets were threadbare and the chandeliers lopsided. But the sheets were clean, it only cost two shillings a night, and once I had wiped the soot off the window, I was rewarded with a glimpse of the river and a coal ship gliding slowly past. I had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, alone but for a scowling maid and a disgruntled Boots, then sat reading in my room until midnight when I eventually fell into a troubled sleep.
Inspector Jones and I had arranged to meet at twelve o’clock the following day outside the Café Royal on Regent Street, a full hour ahead of the assignation. After much consideration – we had, after all, spent thirty hours together on the train – we had devised a plan that seemed to cover every eventuality. I would wear the red tulip, posing as Moriarty, while Jones would sit at a table, close enough to overhear any conversation that ensued. We had both agreed that it was highly unlikely that Clarence Devereux would appear in person. Apart from the unnecessary risk of his exposing himself to danger, there was the question of his agoraphobia that would make his journey down Regent Street, even in a closed carriage, highly impractical. He would surely send a confederate and that person would expect to find Moriarty alone.
And then? There were three possibilities.
Hopefully, I would be met by someone who would escort me to the house or to the hotel where Devereux was staying. In that event, Jones would follow quietly behind, to ensure my safety and also, of course, to make note of the address. Alternatively, Devereux’s accomplice might know what Moriarty looked like. He would see immediately that I was a fake and walk out. In this event, Jones would slip out of the restaurant and follow him to wherever he had come from, which might at least give us a clue as to where Devereux might be found. And f
inally, there was a chance that nobody would show up at all. However, Moriarty’s survival at Reichenbach had been widely reported in the London newspapers and we had every reason to hope that Devereux would suppose him alive.
I had purchased a red tulip from a flower stall outside the station and was wearing it as I approached the Café Royal, located in the very epicentre of the city. Chicago might have its State Street and New York the luxury of Broadway, but neither of them, I venture to say, came close to the elegance and charm of Regent Street with its clean air and handsome classical façades. Carriages rolled past in both directions, sweeping round the curve of the road in an endless stream. The pavements were thronged with loungers and urchins, English gentlemen and foreign visitors but above all with ladies, immaculately dressed, accompanied by servants who struggled under the weight of their many purchases. And what had they been buying? I passed windows displaying perfumes, gloves and jewellery, vanille chocolates and ormolu clocks. It seemed that there was nothing you could find here that was not expensive and very little that was actually necessary.
Jones was waiting for me, dressed in a suit, as ever leaning on his walking stick. ‘You found a hotel?’ he asked. I gave him the name and the address. ‘And you had no trouble finding this address?’
‘It was only a short walk and they gave me excellent directions.’
‘Good.’
Jones glanced doubtfully in the direction of the Café Royal. ‘This is a pretty place for a rendezvous,’ he muttered. ‘How our man will even find you, I don’t know. And following him without being observed is going to be difficult, to say the least.’
He had a point. Even the entrance on Regent Street – three sets of doors set behind three pillars – suggested too many ways in and too many ways out and once we’d entered it was unclear where we were supposed to meet as the building was a warren of corridors and staircases, bars, restaurants and meeting rooms – some of them obstructed by mirrored screens, others partly concealed by great displays of flowers. Nor did it help that half of London seemed to have gathered here for lunch. I had never seen such an assembly of the well-to-do. Clarence Devereux and his entire gang could have already been there, planning their next murder or perhaps an armed assault on the Bank of England and we wouldn’t have been able to spot them. There was so much noise, we wouldn’t have been able to hear them either.
We chose the café on the ground floor, which, with its high ceilings and bright, public atmosphere, seemed to be the most natural place for a meeting between two strangers. It was a beautiful room with turquoise pillars and gold ornamentation, top hats and billycocks hanging everywhere and people packed together at marble tables while the waiters in their black tailcoats and long white aprons fought their way through like circus performers, their overladen trays almost seeming to float above their shoulders. Somehow we managed to find two tables side by side. Neither Jones nor I had spoken since we came in. To anyone watching, it would appear that we were unaware of each other’s existence. I ordered a small glass of wine. Meanwhile, Jones had taken out a French newspaper and called to the waiter for a cup of tea.
We sat side by side, ignoring each other, watching as the minute hand of the clock on the far wall climbed ever higher. I could sense the detective growing more and more tense as the hour approached. He had already persuaded himself that we were going to be disappointed and that our rush across the continent had been to no avail. But at exactly one o’clock, I saw a figure appear at the doorway and scrutinise the room, peering through the crowd. Beside me, Jones stiffened and his eyes – always serious – became suddenly alert.
The new arrival was a child of about fourteen, smartly dressed in the bright blue jacket and bowler hat of a telegraph boy. He looked ill at ease, as if he were unused to the clothes that he had been forced to wear and they certainly didn’t fit him very well for the uniform was tight and trim and he was the exact opposite. Indeed, with his plump stomach, short legs and round cheeks it struck me that he rather resembled the cupids that ornamented the very room in which we sat.
He saw me – or rather the tulip on my coat – and with a glint of recognition began to make his way through the crowd. He reached me and, without asking permission, sat down opposite me, crossing one foot over his knee. This in itself was a display of arrogance that would have been unbecoming to his station – but now that he was close, it was quite obvious that he had never worked for the telegraph office. He was too knowing. There was something very strange about his eyes, which were moist and empty as if they had never looked on anything that was not evil. At the same time, his eyelashes were fine, his teeth white, his lips full – and the overall effect was that he was both very pretty and very ugly at the same time.
‘You waiting for someone?’ he asked. His voice was husky, almost that of a man.
‘I might be,’ I replied.
‘Nice tulip. Not something you would see every day, mister, I would say.’
‘A red tulip,’ I agreed. ‘Does it signify something to you?’
‘It might do. It might not.’
He fell silent.
‘What is your name?’ I asked.
‘Do I need a name?’ He winked at me, mischievously. ‘I wouldn’t say I do, mister. What good is a name when one is ’ardly going to be hac-quainted. But I’ll tell you what. If you want to call me something, you can call me Perry.’
Inspector Jones was still pretending to read his newspaper but I knew that he was attending to every word that was spoken. He had lowered the page a little so that he could peek over the top but at the same time his face was blank, showing no interest at all.
‘Well, Perry,’ I said, ‘there was someone I was waiting to meet but I can say without doubt that it’s not you.’
‘Of course not, mister, my job is to bring you to ’im but first we ’ave to ascertain that you is who you say you is. You got the tulip, sure enough. But do you ’ave a certain letter that was sent to you by my master?’
I did indeed have the torn page with the coded message. It was Jones who had suggested that I might be asked to present it and so I had brought it with me. I drew it out and placed it on the table.
The boy barely glanced at it. ‘Are you the professor?’ he asked.
‘I am,’ I said, keeping my voice low.
‘Professor Moriarty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not drowned in the Reeking-back Falls?’
‘Why do you ask these foolish questions?’ This was surely how the real Moriarty would speak. ‘It was your master who arranged this meeting. If you persist in wasting my time, I can assure you, you will suffer the consequences.’
But the boy was not to be intimidated. ‘Then tell me how many ravens flew out of the Tower of London?’
‘What?’
‘The ravens. The tower. How many?’
It was the one eventuality we had most feared. Turning over the plan on our long train journey, Jones and I had discussed the likelihood of there being a recognition signal. Two criminals of the magnitude of Clarence Devereux and Professor James Moriarty would not deliver themselves into each other’s hands without the certainty that they were safe. And here was the final precaution – a riddle taking the form of an exchange of words which must have been agreed in a separate communication.
I waved the question aside. ‘Enough of these stupid games,’ I said. ‘I have travelled a long way to meet with Clarence Devereux. You know who I’m talking about. Don’t pretend! I see it in your eyes.’
‘You’re mistaken, mister. I’ve never heard that name.’
‘Then why are you here? You know me. You know of the letter. Don’t try to pretend otherwise.’
The boy was suddenly anxious to be on his way. I saw him glance at the door and a moment later he pulled away from the table, getting to his feet. But before he could move, I grabbed hold of his arm, pinning him down.
‘Tell me where I can find him,’ I said. I was keeping my voice low, aware of the other d
iners all around me, sipping their coffees and their wine, ordering their food, chatting animatedly as they began their lunch. Athelney Jones was still sitting at his table, close to me and yet completely separate. Nobody in the room had noticed us. At that moment, as we played out our little drama, we were quite alone.
‘There’s no need to get nasty, mister.’ Perry’s voice was also low but it was ugly, filled with threat.
‘I will not let you leave until you tell me what I want to know.’
‘You’re ’urting me!’ Tears sprang to his eyes as if to remind me that he was, after all, only a child. But then, even as I hesitated, he twisted in my grasp and suddenly I felt something pressing against my neck. How he had managed to produce it with just one hand is beyond me but I could feel it cutting through my skin even though he was barely exerting any pressure at all. Looking down, I saw the weapon that he had withdrawn from somewhere inside his jacket. It was a horrible thing – a black-handled surgeon’s knife with a blade that must have measured at least five inches. He was holding it very carefully so that only he and I could see it although surely the gentleman at the next table might have caught sight of it had he not, inexplicably, returned to his French newspaper.
‘Let me go,’ the boy hissed, ‘or by God, I’ll cut your throat clean through, ’ere and now, and put all these nice people off their dinners, no mistake. I’ve seen the blood shoot seven feet up when I done it before. Come gushing out, it does. Not the sort of thing you want to ’appen in a posh ’ouse like this.’ He pressed with his hand and I felt a trickle of blood run down the side of my neck.
‘You’re making a mistake,’ I whispered. ‘I am Moriarty …’
‘No more fun and games, mister. You been done by them ravens. I’m going to count to three …’
‘There’s no need for this!’
‘One—’
‘I’m telling you—’
‘Two …’
Moriarty Page 6