by John Gardner
Much to Sal Hodges’ disgust, the Italian girl, Carlotta, was now installed at Albert Square and, while Sal was more often than not the Professor’s companion in the bed chamber, she was also required to instruct the ‘Latin Tigress’ – as Moriarty called her – in matters of etiquette, deportment and fashion.
As for other business, nothing of any value had been uncovered regarding the policeman, Crow, whose life, it seemed, had been one of conscientious blamelessness with no hint of bribery or corruption in his career with the Police Force.
Polly Pearson still pined for Harry Allen, Bridget Spear daily grew in size as her child swelled within her. Spear saw to the daily running of the rejuvenated empire of crime, reporting regularly to the Professor, who, with immense flair, was able to direct his Chief of Staff – for that is what Spear had now become – with unerring judgement. Schleifstein and his band were kept, in reasonable comfort, incommunicado at Bermondsey. In his spare late evening hours, Moriarty rehearsed the sleights and tricks culled from Professor Hoffman’s Modern Magic; and for an hour each night, before retiring, he sat at his dressing-table with his disguise materials perfecting a new image which he would use before many months were out.
In the second week of December, Harry Allen came back to Albert Square.
Harry Allen had never been a natural nor willing schoolmaster. The pampered son of a minor rural squire, his own schooling had been, like so many others, brutal; while the short time he had spent at Oxford University was notable only for excessive debauchery and wasted time.
He was, in effect, a somewhat charming wastrel, and when his father had died leaving little but his own and his son’s debts, Harry had found himself, for the first time, thrown back upon his own meagre resources. A powerfully-built young man with a penchant for the ladies, drink and gambling, in that order, he had quickly found a place for himself as usher at a small private school in Buckinghamshire. There, in spite of his better nature, he had practised the same brutality on his charges which he had himself suffered only a few years previously.
His downfall had come when he discovered that his small stipend could not keep pace with the cost of his natural pleasures. Like many before him, Harry Allen took to petty thieving from his pupils, and when this did not net him as much as he required, he resorted to simple extortion – a relatively easy abuse of his position.
The headmaster and owner of the school was an aging and kindly cleric, interested in his charges, but squeamish over matters of discipline. For a long time he turned a blind eye to his usher’s way of life, but, as with all things, the day of reckoning had to be faced eventually. Retribution for Harry Allen came with the sudden and unexpected arrival of three sets of parents, concerned about the amounts of money for which their offspring were constantly pleading. The truth would out, and at least two of the parents were inclined to place the errant usher before the local magistrates without delay.
Allen fled to a life of petty villainy, far below his natural talents, in the capital, and he had been at the fake, gonophing and on the demand for almost three years – including the year spent in the Model – when Spear found him and brought him to the Professor.
Now, Harry Allen had returned from Paris, looking smart and spry, carrying a large valise and with his demeanour showing clearly that he had done Moriarty’s bidding – and done it well.
Martha Pearson took the news down to the kitchen, and on hearing it, her sister, Polly, was thrown into such a flustration that Bridget Spear had to threaten her with dire punishments if she did not keep her mind on her work.
‘If I could only go up and see him for a moment,’ wailed the infatuated Polly. ‘I’d get on with the vegetables then like nobody’s business.’
‘He’ll be down presently,’ she was told. ‘It is the master’s orders that he is to be kept apart in the study. He has been busy in Paris and has much to recount.’
There was, indeed, much that Harry Allen had to recount to Moriarty, but when the two met, behind the locked study door with William Jacobs standing guard outside, the Professor had but one thought on his mind.
‘You have it?’ he asked as soon as the door was closed behind him.
‘Naturally, sir, and I do not think you will be disappointed.’
So saying, Allen opened up the valise, and rummaging to the bottom through a pile of soiled linen, drew out the poplar wood panel, some thirty inches long by twenty wide. He turned the piece of wood to face Moriarty.
The Professor gasped. It was far better than he had ever, even in the wildest moments of optimism, dreamed. Facing him was the Gioconda, the Mona Lisa, enigmatically smiling from the panel, faded, cracked, badly varnished, yet still haunting: the lady with her soft amused brown eyes, looking out from a background of rocky crags and lakes which seemed to accentuate the human beauty. A calm serenity in opposition to the rugged landscape.
For a moment, Moriarty dared not even touch the painting. Labrosse had not boasted in vain. Not only had he taken on the genius of Leonardo in its creation, but also, as if by some miracle, the work had aged almost four hundred years in a matter of weeks.
‘An amazing piece of deception,’ whispered Moriarty, still in awe.
‘Quite incredible,’ answered Allen. ‘See, even the craquelure is reproduced exactly.’
Moriarty nodded, close to the painting, examining the network tracery of cracks which gave credence to its age.
‘Everything else is in order?’
‘Under the work in the right hand bottom corner,’ Harry Allen pointed. ‘Scrape the paint from there and it will be clearly revealed.’
‘And Labrosse?’
‘Will bother you no more.’
‘Tell me about that, Harry. You used nobody else?’
‘Just as you commanded. I did it all myself. He was very difficult towards the end of the work; slowed down and wanted to spend more and more time drinking and with the girls. I had to be quite firm with him.’ He smiled as though reflecting on amusing memories. ‘Anyhow, it was finished last week and he said it would have to be left for one week before you could see it. I fell in with that, and three days ago suggested that we should make a real night of it. He expressed a desire to go down to the Moulin Rouge. The swells like to go there for the dancing and to rub shoulders with family people – there is an element of danger about it which seems to draw them in: that and the cancan. Merciful heavens, Professor, that dance, and the girls. It is to be seen to be believed. I thought that I would …’
‘Tell me of the lechery later, Allen. I have seen it all. I presume my old friend, La Goulou, is well? But it is Labrosse I am really interested in.’
Allen was visibly perspiring. ‘Well, we went to the good old Moulin Rouge and had a right evening. Everyone was there, even the little stunted painter Lautrec. I watched my drinking, but Labrosse was well away. It was like giving him a farewell party. I half carried him back to the studio where I shot him – neatly enough, through the back of the head as he slept. Then I bundled him up in the bedclothes, popped him in the trunk and travelled back with him.’ He laid a luggage ticket onto the desk. ‘He awaits collection at Victoria Station now. It would be best to have him picked up as soon as possible – before he becomes too ripe.’
‘I will see to it at once. William Jacobs will go down with another of the men. You have more details for me though?’
Allen drew another paper out of his pocket.
‘The painting, as you already know, hangs in the Salon Carré at the Louvre. I have stood and looked at it for long periods during the last weeks, and here are the intimate matters regarding its hanging. Each occasion I visited the Louvre I found there were always times when the Salon was empty – for once as long as half an hour. I was able to examine it at leisure. The clasps used in the framing are simple and I judge that it could be taken from the frame and replaced with this one,’ a nod towards the replica Mona Lisa, ‘in a matter of five or six minutes.’
Moriarty studied the drawing wh
ich showed how the painting was held in place at the rear of the frame by small clasps – some fourteen of them. He glanced up at Allen, thinking that this was the kind of man he had much use for – highly intelligent, yet as cold and ruthless as some predatory animal, for he had shown not the slightest regret, or emotion, in dispatching Pierre Labrosse. He would be a good partner to Lee Chow.
Moriarty unlocked the top drawer of his desk and drew out a small wallet of cash, some two hundred pounds, which he passed across the desk.
‘A bonus for a task well completed,’ he said, lips curved in what passed for a friendly smile. ‘Now, Harry, you had best get below stairs. I understand that one of the hugsome wenches down there is of a mind to have you at the grindstone ‘ere long.’
Allen had the decency to blush.
Moriarty growled a half-approving note. ‘Take care, young Harry, I do not mind her having a hot pudding for supper, as long as no marrow is left in her belly.’
As soon as Harry Allen had left the room and Moriarty had taken a last look at the remarkable forgery, he summoned William Jacobs, gave him the luggage ticket and instructed him to go, with one of the other men, to collect the trunk from Victoria and from thence take it by closed van to Romney Marsh where they were to dispose of it in such a manner that Labrosse’s corpse would never see light of day again.
Later that evening, he sat in the drawing-room – Sal being with Carlotta teaching her the rudiments of polite manners – and toyed with a pack of cards, practising how to palm cards one at a time from the top of the pack. He was really becoming quite proficient in these arts and found that an hour or so with the cards helped greatly to concentrate his mind. His instincts now told him that the plot against Grisombre in Paris had all the makings of success. Only two things could go wrong. If, for instance, the authorities should happen to finally decide that the Mona Lisa should be cleaned, there would be an obvious danger. The other problem concerned Grisombre himself. Moriarty wondered if the little Frenchman could possibly find another artist with the ability to make such a splendidly accurate copy of the painting.
Sitting there, in the firelight, with the oil lamps turned down, the Professor flicked the queen of hearts into his palm, then shuffled the pack so that it showed on the bottom: then with a quick pass he changed it for the queen of spades. The small sleight amused him. Changing one lady for another was part of the plot, and to do it without ever being discovered – he chuckled at the thought, the shadows on the walls seeming to dance to the eldritch music of his laughter.
Tomorrow, thought Moriarty, I shall go out and purchase some photographic equipment. Possibly at the Stereoscopic Company in Regent Street, for they gave free lessons in photography and were also By Appointment to Her Majesty. That would complete stage two in the plan against Jean Grisombre.
It was not until 1 December that Crow heard from Holmes: a telegram at noon asking him to come to Baker Street at four.
‘I am sorry you have had to wait so long for my response to your note,’ Holmes apologized almost before Crow had settled himself by the blazing fire in the great detective’s rooms. ‘On the day your message arrived, I was not available. It is always the case – long periods of inactivity followed by bursts of interesting work. Watson and I were out of London on that Saturday. In Sussex, on the trail of a vampire,’ he laughed. ‘A nasty young vampire at that.’
Crow rehearsed the facts concerning the Cornhill robbery and the strange business at Edmonton, without giving Holmes the benefit of his own conclusions. Lastly he told of the Bolton murder.
‘You can be sure Moriarty is behind all this,’ Holmes got to his feet and began pacing the room in an agitated fashion. ‘I detect that wicked man’s hand in so many things of late. Is it not true that there has been a rise in criminal matters in the last weeks?’
Crow had to admit that things did seem to be turning out that way: thefts in the street, burglaries and shop-lifting were all on the increase, while there appeared to be more forgeries than ever passing through the hands of tradesmen and bankers alike.
‘He is back without doubt,’ Holmes continued to pace. ‘And I have little doubt that our old German friend, Wilhelm Schleifstein was involved. Have you any conclusions of your own?’
Crow ventured his theory that the Professor was engaged in a series of intrigues and vendettas.
‘I could not have put it better myself,’ Holmes nodded. ‘Mark my words, we shall hear of other strange happenings. Be on your guard, Crow, for you could also be a candidate for Moriarty’s malevolence.’
‘You also, Holmes, particularly if he has wind that we are working in harness.’
Holmes was immediately alert. ‘You have told no one?’
‘Not a living soul.’
‘Good. I have been most careful to keep our association in the shadows. Great heavens, even the good Watson still imagines Moriarty dead.’
‘Be that as it may. It does seem to me that the Professor has eyes in the very wallpaper of our chambers.’
Holmes thought for a moment. ‘His intelligence is good. But I also have my ways. And, Crow, I am determined to bring him to book, through your own good offices.’
As Christmas grew nearer, so the minions of Moriarty’s criminal family began to pay their respects, offering gifts as well as the normal tribute which they were paying once more for his protection and patronage.
Bertram Jacobs, who during Ember’s absence was in control of the lurkers, brought the most valuable gift – intangible but of great importance to the Professor: news that Crow was still frustrated with his wife, restless and ill at ease in the house at King Street. Moriarty, concerned about ways in which he could deal with the Scottish policeman, knew that this, and this alone, might be the only weak spot in the man’s forbidding armour. He immediately sent for Sal Hodges, who found him in his study tinkering with the photographic equipment he had purchased.
Sal Hodges was out of sorts, though not because of the dark Carlotta. There were other matters on her mind which she was not yet ready to reveal to Moriarty.
‘Merciful heavens, James,’ she exclaimed on discovering him hunched behind the tripod camera stand, his head enveloped in a black cloth. ‘You are positively a man of hobbies these days. If it is not the card tricks, it’s the piano. Now this.’
‘Ah, my dear, but this is a means to an end. As far as photography is concerned, the click of the shutter is the springing of the trap. But I wish to discuss women, Sal, or rather a woman.’
‘The Tigress has scratched you?’ Sal’s eyebrow shot up, her elegant mouth twisted in a sarcastic smirk.
‘It has nothing to do with the Tigress, and I pray you to remember that she, like this camera, is but a means. Bait.’
‘Well, mind you are not snared too heavily by her honey trap. Did you keep her happy last night?’
‘And if I did?’
‘My womanly intuition tells me you keep her content each time I am absent.’
Moriarty laughed. ‘Well, let your womanly intuition work on another problem. The girl we have at Crow’s home.’
‘Lottie?’
‘If that is her name.’
‘It is. I saw to that one on Bertram Jacobs’ instructions before you returned to England.’
‘I want her removed and something of a different mettle put in to replace her.’
‘Carlotta would be good. Can I use her?’
‘Carlotta is a shade obvious.’ Moriarty had the grace to smile. ‘No, I want someone a little more subtle. A girl that will stir Crow’s blood.’
‘I see your way, James, but it might misfire. Big Sylvia is not a fool even though she is foolish.’
‘Big Sylvia, as you choose to call her, is, I am given to understand, much taken up with improving her station in life. Present her with a fait accompli – a well-mannered, subservient girl who will show Crow a pretty ankle. He is tired of his wife’s posturing. Just see to it, Sal. Choose the right one and have Lottie out and her in before Christ
mas. It is a risk, I know, but it has been managed before. I’d like as many pounds as pretty servants have brought their masters to bed and provided many a happy year’s comfort under the mistress’s nose.’
Sal laughed. ‘Indeed, James, it’s an old trick and can be happy intrigue. I fear poor Lottie’s mother will be taken suddenly ill, and her cousin sent for as a replacement. I believe I can find just the girl for the job. A butterfly who has mastered the art of innocence so that it would bring a saint on like an old ram.’
As a policeman, Angus McCready Crow prided himself on his sensitivity to atmosphere. This sixth sense worked most strongly four days before Christmas when he returned to King Street. He was in low spirits that evening, for Ember could not be found, and Lee Chow – whose description was at every police station in the metropolitan area – seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Neither was there scent nor sniff of Schleifstein and his companions, though Crow now had descriptive proof that it was indeed the German who had been living at the Edmonton house. More, known villains had now returned to that old stubborn silence whenever the name of James Moriarty was mentioned.
‘They have gone blind, deaf and dumb,’ said Tanner, after a foray amongst criminals who were normally wont to sell their own fathers for a bottle of spirits.
‘Like the three wise monkeys,’ Crow commented sadly, knowing all too well that it could mean but one thing. The Professor had reclaimed his hold on the lawless of London.
The moment he opened the door of 63 King Street the subtle atmosphere hit him like a pugilist’s fist in the belly. There was a new tranquillity, coupled with more tangible and delicate aromas filtering up from the kitchen.
