The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

by Maxim Jakubowski

  Yours in trepidation,

  Dr Trevelyan Blake

  15 June 1886

  What an evening this has been – though I am of scientific mind, it is an evening that proves beyond all doubt that the earth revolves with divine purpose.

  It began as so many others have done since I returned from France: in an impoverishment not just of the pocket, but of the soul. I was sitting in this damnable, airless boarding room in Woolwich, counting coins enough for the train to town so that I could attend the Royal Society lecture, but not enough additionally to treat myself to a meal.

  I decided against the lecture. What could Ernst Hechter say on the subject of neurology that I had not already learned from the lips of Jean-Martin Charcot, the most enlightened neurologist in Europe? What could Hechter divest on the topic of the ailing mind that I had not dissected, reconstituted and dissected again with my good friend Sigmund as we spent those months under Charcot’s tutelage? And yet, even as my stomach made its displeasure known through a rumble, I carried those coins with me not to the Swan Inn for one of Mrs Webster’s infamous pies, but to the railway station.

  The lecture proved to be as dull as I had feared. Hechter may understand something of the malady of the mind, and he may realise that mental trauma can have a physical incarnation, but it was clear from his opening remarks that he has no understanding that such trauma may be eased by a cure of the mind, and not of the body.

  As Hechter bored on in his heavily accented English, I divined that the only malady that this man was ever likely to cure was insomnia. I apologized to my stomach for my error of judgement, regretted the absence of the dubious pie, and let my mind wander. How I remember parting with Sigmund in Paris and our last words: a mutual vow to study and practise psychopathology. Although neither of us was yet to reach thirty, we agreed to stride forth separately and change all perception of the illnesses of the mind and their cure.

  Even as I stood upon the railway concourse, shaking Sigmund’s hand, I had to push away the fear that I would never be in a financial position to set up a private practice. Those months with Charcot in Paris had all but exhausted the last of my longdeceased father’s bequest.

  On returning to London, I threw myself upon the mercy of my guardian, Lord Kennington. I had promised never to return to his house or see his daughter again so I waited outside his club, White’s, and, as he was a man of regular habits, his carriage turned up at the expected hour. It had been more than a year since my aberration, but my guardian’s hatred for me remained as intense as ever. He had not forgiven me. He was clearly ill and weak, but his eyes were full of fierce hatred and he refused to speak one word to me. It was the last time I would ever see him. He would be dead within the week.

  As Hechter droned on to his stupefied audience, I admit that I was overwhelmed by despair. A miserable room in Woolwich. A rumbling stomach. No prospect of setting up my practice. No possibility of redemption with the departed Lord Kennington. And no Eleanor. No, no chance of Eleanor.

  I admit that it was underhand of me, but after the lecture, I followed some of the crowd into the reception held in Dr Hechter’s honour, even though the price of my ticket only covered admission to the lecture. I desperately hoped there would be some form of victuals, but there was only a rather aggressive red wine that turned my stomach to acid and soon made me light-headed.

  A kind gentleman named Dr John Watson fell into conversation with me. Although a retired army man, he seemed to be a keen student of the mind and, to my surprise, was a little familiar with Brentano’s work and even von Hartmann’s The Psychology of the Unconscious. He claimed, though, that he had come across no greater practitioner of a form of psychological deduction than the esteemed detective, Sherlock Holmes.

  I was so relieved to find a fellow traveller, and somewhat heady from the wine, that I unleashed some of my tale of woe upon the good doctor. He knew of Lord Kennington’s great wealth and had heard of his art collection, so he commiserated with me on being cut adrift by such a gentleman. I did not elucidate on the reasons for my fall from grace. He applauded my wish to begin my own private practice specializing in resolving illnesses, not least insomnia, that are a physical incarnation of a mental perturbation.

  I think the wine may have helped me become surprisingly fluent on the subject. I noticed that nearby, in a poorly lit corner of the room, a gentleman with a large, drooping moustache and a tall, older fellow appeared to be listening intently. This made me giddier still as I perceived from the interest of this sample of the esteemed company that we were on the cusp of a new era of medicine and that I could become a torch bearer for the new age of reason. Foolish and arrogant, I know, but I felt so buoyant in that moment.

  An hour later, I made to leave the Royal Society’s premises – having suddenly become aware that I had been battering poor Dr Watson’s ears for too long and that I was teetering on the precipice of being shamefully inebriated. Immediately as I stepped outside, I was approached by the attentive man with the drooping moustache. For the life of me I could not make out his name even after I asked him to repeat it. He was somewhat unusual in his bearing, and somewhat startling in his proposition.

  The fellow had heard me tell Dr Watson of my desire to set up a practice and of my shameful pecuniary problems. He said he knew of a suitable property available for a limited time at a vastly reduced rent. Thus it was that at ten-thirty this evening, I was standing alone at the gateway to a goods yard in Mayfair, awaiting a property agent.

  The agent turned out to be a cheeky young chap in a tightfitting suit with the peculiar adornment of a pale grey bowler hat that appeared to be too small for his head. It was strange business to conduct at that time of night, but the young man seemed eager to conclude the matter. The property itself was hardly salubrious – the office and occasional bedroom of the owner of a set of now defunct warehouses situated in the yard – but it had potential. I ignored all reservations I had about the agent’s attire and his chirpy manner, and, within two minutes, I found myself shaking his hand, thereby agreeing three months’ rental for what he assured me was less than a third of the market rate.

  As the agent whistled down the street towards Berkeley Square, I remained standing in the yard, open-mouthed and giddy at the twist of fortune.

  I now had premises comprising a furnished office and a bedroom. I had the means with which to begin my life’s work and fulfil my destiny. And I was less than fifty yards away from my former home, namely Kennington House, the current abode of Lady Eleanor Kennington.

  21 June 1886

  Monday: The day that marks the beginning of the rest of my life.

  Even though I say it myself, after all my efforts, the main room is clean and presentable. If it was not situated amongst the abandoned warehouse buildings, the new premises of Dr Trevelyan Blake might be something to behold. My advertisement, the sole one that I can presently afford, appeared in the evening newspaper on Friday:

  Treatment for insomnia, hysteria and uneasiness of the mind.

  Private and confidential consultations.

  Dr Blake M.D., Barrel Yard, Bruton Place, Mayfair.

  I hope the troubled ladies of Mayfair will take advantage of the situational convenience. And I pray that Eleanor, dear sweet Eleanor, saw the advertisement and flushed with pride that I was making my own way.

  I sat down at the desk at precisely nine of the clock and waited. The dark cloud that had threatened my days since my return from France had lifted, Woolwich was no more, and I would never have to run the gauntlet of eating one of Mrs Webster’s gristle pies again. I was too excited to sit still. I found myself twiddling the pocket watch that my father had bequeathed me. Then I stood up and looked through the grime of the window. People passed along Bruton Street, but none of them bore the appearance of the young ladies whom I thought were most likely to become my patients. Not one person even threatened to turn into the yard to make an appointment with the new doctor.

  I sat down and fel
l to despair once more. I was a fool to think that even one soul in London would seek reparation in this chamber. I resigned myself to sitting in the room, utterly alone and festering amongst my dwindling hopes, for each day of the three months of my tenure. Yet I could not help but jump to my feet and look through the window again, like a restaurateur standing desperately at the doorway to his failing concern.

  Suddenly there was a knock on the door. I jolted with surprise. I had seen no one turn into the yard. Perhaps my subconscious had conjured the noise. I, more than anyone, know what tricks it can play. But no – there was the knock again, impatient and insistent.

  I collected myself, raising myself to my full height in the hope that I would impress the troubled young woman of my overactive imagination with the authority of my bearing. I opened the door and found myself looking up into the steady, deep-set eyes of my very first patient.

  “Professor Moriarty.”

  I wondered momentarily if I had met the man before. His tall, slim stature, his thin face and those sunken eyes seemed vaguely familiar to me, but his name was not, and surely I would have remembered his voice. He had a very precise, solemn but forceful manner of speech. He strode past me into the room and set out his terms before I even had the chance to speak.

  “I will meet you here at precisely this time for one hour, once a week, but you must assure me of absolute confidentiality, you hear?”

  I nodded. He was more fearsome than any of the esteemed professors I had encountered in my education.

  He sat down on the armchair and I took my position behind the desk in an attempt to assert some level of authority. “What ails you, Professor?”

  He looked at me steadily, his eyes piercing me. I felt like the little orphan boy I once was, mother dead in childbirth and father taken when I was ten, standing alone and knock-kneed in terror before the cruel vastness of the world. That was until Lord Kennington, God rest his soul, swept me up and fulfilled a promise to care for his close friend’s son. He had known enough hardship of his own – his own wife dead from a fever shortly after Eleanor’s birth. Eleanor was his only child, his favoured jewel, but he treated me as he would a son.

  Professor Moriarty’s eyes seemed to soften slightly and he looked away, focusing on the bare wall. “I cannot sleep.”

  “At all?”

  “Not beyond two hours.”

  I started to note the details of the case upon the foolscap. “For how long has the situation been endured?”

  “Several years.”

  I perceived the weariness behind those alert eyes. “And you have taken draughts?”

  “Ha!” he exclaimed. “Do I look like a fool? Sleeping draughts are nothing but a veil that obfuscates the clarity of the mind. They dull the body to alleviate the symptom, but the cause is not of the body’s making. The cause lies in the dark folds of the mind. Do you agree with me, Doctor?”

  “Yes, entirely.”

  “Good. Then let us begin.” He clasped his hands together, leaned forward and pierced me with his stare once more. “Let us enter the darkness.”

  A slight smile played upon his thin lips.

  25 June 1886

  I stood outside Eleanor’s house again tonight, just to see if I could glimpse her through a window. Fortune did not favour me, but my imagination is so vivid that I could conjure her visage – every tiny feature from her elegant nose to the tiny mole that sits on her cheek immediately beneath her pupil, the shape of her ears, the curve of her eyelashes …

  When did love come upon me so? For years I thought of her as I would a little sister. We shared stories and secrets, and giggled at the peculiarities of her father. I went out into the world to study at Oxford and Edinburgh, but I never found her ilk. I remember with unsullied clarity the day I returned home, having finished my training at the hospital in Edinburgh just in time to celebrate Eleanor’s twenty-first birthday. Lord Kennington was so pleased with my progress that he shook my hand and agreed to fund my prospective studies with Charcot so that I would not have to draw upon the last of my father’s money.

  Amongst the commotion of the birthday celebrations, I found a moment to walk alone with Eleanor along the Upper Gallery of Kennington House. We stood in front of the painting of the windmill, just as we had stood together so many times whilst growing up. It is not as large, grand or famous as so many of Lord Kennington’s paintings – the van Eyck, the Memling, the Bosch or even the Greuze. It is a small, eighteenth-century work by an unknown Dutch artist, but the image of a farmhand and a maid standing with joyful expressions beneath the sails of the windmill had always entranced us so.

  I do not know how it happened. I made an uncontrollable leap into impropriety and suddenly my lips were upon hers. She did not resist. I swore my love for her, took her into my arms and kissed her again.

  I felt the strike of Lord Kennington’s cane across my shoulders and turned to see the deep hatred in his eyes. I knew from that moment on that the world would never be the same. I was banished from the house.

  Soon a letter arrived from Eleanor’s only cousin, Richard, who had long been a familiar presence in Kennington House. For such a brusque man, he took care to deliver the blow with some kindness. Eleanor had instructed him to implore me to douse my desire and, to save her from shame, to promise never to meet her again. My heart was broken, but I made that promise and I have kept it ever since.

  Tonight, when I stood on that pavement in Berkeley Square, I wondered if she was looking at that windmill, thinking of me.

  28 June 1886

  Professor Moriarty is a conundrum. He decreed that we should delve into the darkness of the mind, but it has become clear that for him the mind is an intellectual and not an emotional property. To cure his insomnia I must seek out the root of the disturbance, to unearth some event from the past that first triggered the imbalance. Yet he resists memory. I attempt to make him reveal episodes of darkness and guilt, but in return he elucidates a theory that guilt can only come from regret and he has none. He talks of Malthus, the English scholar, and says that darkness must necessarily exist. For fear that the Earth cannot cope with the load of mankind, the population is naturally repressed, being kept equal to the means of subsistence by misery and vice. Therefore, he said in his cold, sober voice, how can one feel guilty about committing a crime?

  I despair. I see only one way forward to recover the dark, troubled memories that sit at the heart of his condition: hypnosis. Only then will I uncover the truth of the man.

  Richard Kennington has responded to my letter informing him of my new practice. My dear cousin, as I call him even though we are not related by blood, has continued to be my one strand of communication since Lord Kennington and Eleanor turned their backs on me. It was he who informed me of the death of Lord Kennington, and that no provision for either of us had been made in the will: the entire fortune was left to Eleanor. I had expected as much, but Richard, as the only other living Kennington, felt due some level of fortune. In truth, the good Lord had long been appalled by his sometimes foolhardy gambling.

  The words in Richard’s latest letter conveyed a new unhappiness to my own troubled soul. Eleanor is to marry a marquess of whom I know nothing at all. A cold wave swept through me and I had to steady myself as I read the missive. Her extraordinary wealth had made inevitable marriage to some esteemed yet impoverished aristocrat, but before I read those words there was just a sliver of a chance that one day … What a miserable fool I am!

  29 June 1886

  I am ashamed to say that I have been standing in the dark on Berkeley Square again, staring up at the lit windows like a desperate voyeur.

  When I returned home, a plump fellow was standing in the yard. It was clear that he was in a state of high agitation, tapping his cane upon the ground, fiddling with the brim of his hat and checking his pocket watch, all within the few seconds it took to notice me walking towards him.

  “Are you the good doctor?” he said in a peculiar, high-pitched voice.


  “Dr Trevelyan Blake. Is there some sort of emergency?”

  “Yes. No. Well, yes there is.”

  “Where is the emergency?”

  “It’s here, Doctor, standing before you.”

  Within a minute, he was sitting wedged into the armchair of my room, his long, ginger mutton chops quivering with agitation, his belly testing the buttons of his colourful striped waistcoat and his top hat squashed down on his collar-length, virulent orange hair.

  “May I take your hat, Mr … ?”

  “Goodness me, no.” He touched the brim again. “One never knows what might fall from above.” He laughed nervously throughout the sentence. “Smithington Smythe.” He proffered his card.

  “How can I help you, Mr Smythe?”

  “Ah yes, yes.” He started searching the pockets of his waistcoat and jacket in a flurry of commotion and finally produced a small cutting from a newspaper. “It says here that you offer treatment for uneasiness of the mind. Private and confidential. Yes, yes?”

  I offered affirmation. He then stuttered and sweated his way through an explanation of his ailment, intermittingly singing snippets of what appeared to be that irrepressible ditty “The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring” as he did so. I abhor The Mikado but a man should not be condemned solely upon his taste in music.

  “‘Uneasiness of the mind.’ That’s exactly what my wife says I have. I have a young grandchild, a beautiful little girl, and there’s so much danger, Doctor – rogues and vagabonds, carriages in the street, runaway horses, sharp knives at the dining table, rivers to drown in, uneven paving stones to trip over, masonry falling from the sky. The world is full of danger, Doctor. My wife says I am imagining it all and upsetting everybody, not least my little grandchild, who has picked up my agitation and screams every time she sees me. Please, Doctor, I beg you to help me to stop imagining all this evil.”