Moran fidgets then slaps the page with the back of his hand like a knight brandishing his gauntlet. “Here he goes again. ‘The Adventure of the Gloria Scott’.”
“The Strand? You’ve only suffered from your own folly in purchasing it.” Rattling my own page, I turn a shoulder to him. If I’d watched his foot bounce in that uneven rhythm much longer, I would have fetched my walking stick and beaten it into stillness.
“You read the agony columns.”
There was simply no equating the two. He reads a popular periodical for entertainment. I read the agony columns because in our line of work it was important to understand the thinking process – if you can call it that! – of the ordinary Londoner. Long ago, I’d assumed I was raised by kindly, if slow-witted, aberrations and that I’d find my peers in the wider world. Sadly, I was mistaken. If Darwin had studied the population of this great city rather than finches, he never would have surmised that “fittest” described those who survived.
Moran leaps to his feet and paces past our chairs. The clutter that is so fashionable now in sitting rooms is esthetically displeasing to me. I detest flounces. My books share shelf space with specimens collected through the years and some oblique mementoes of my most stimulating capers, but there are no figur ines of shepherdesses and country lads on my mantel.
With decisive steps, Moran strides to the windows, pulls aside the curtains with two fingers, and watches the street. My lodgings are in the city. Mansions sit but a few minutes’ walk away, but so does a rookery. Hackneys, hansoms and country squires in town for the season alike stable their horses across the street at Hocking’s. The pageant of life passing on the street below presents every level of society. It is nothing remarkable to either of us. When you consult with criminals, you necessarily mix out of your own set. It’s helpful to live where the comings and goings of others arouse no curiosity from one’s neighbors.
After lowering the curtains, he takes a turn around the small room. My fingers tap against my knee. His walk ends at the mantel, which he lounges against. A semblance of calm is restored.
He laughs like a barking seal. It is an unexpected noise. My eyebrow rises but he chooses this moment to scrape the sole of his boot on the andiron. Before reluctantly closing the almanac in hand, I place a copy of the latest publication from Lloyd’s between the pages as one does to press a spring flower and hope that my train of thought will be similarly preserved. In truth, Moran doesn’t interrupt me. I’ve read the same chart of expected ship arrivals several times but cannot tell you what words were contained within it.
It is good that the sun has already set. Many people will not venture out again for the evening. In a city of two and a half million people, there’s always the random chance of someone seeing something, though. No. I can calculate the odds in my mind. It is a simple enough exercise. Most people don’t understand what they see. Tonight’s adventure will not attract attention. Even if one of those millions should happen to witness a wealthy young man in evening attire hurrying back to his chambers in a certain Ministry building, they won’t realize what they’re seeing. And even if doubt does niggle at their brain and keep them awake tonight, by morning they will either have forgotten, or it will be too late. No one will even be sure that a crime was committed. Nothing will be missing, and everything will be exactly where it should be – precisely where it was earlier in the day. The importance of that was made quite clear to our client. This affair, as precisely planned as watch works, will conclude without a trace of evidence. Of this, I am reasonably certain. Then why do I feel the need to take up the pacing that Moran has so recently abandoned?
With his hand on the mantel, Moran stares down at the fire. His shoulders hunch around his thoughts. “What would be the look on Holmes’s face if I ever wrote up your exploits?”
Moran authored two volumes recounting his hunting adventures that were a trifle too grandiose for my taste, but they excited an interest among the general public. He and Doctor Watson share that vice. It must be a malady army men suffer from. If the urge to write about me ever overtook him, I would be sorry to lose such a marksman.
“No doubt his bulldog Watson would bring it to his attention,” I say quietly.
Overwrought by his thoughts, he flings an arm out to point an accusing finger at his magazine. “That isn’t even a new case. He’s so desperate to keep Holmes in the public eye that he writes of a mystery many years past. Only old generals need to relive their glory days.”
“Hmm.”
It isn’t a remark designed to encourage further conversation. Moran isn’t the sort of man who talks, which is why we are comfortable in each other’s presence. Speaking, even more than pacing, gives away his state of mind. Mine also roils. Every detail is correct. The plan will succeed. We should be celebrating. Or, if he’s superstitious about such things, we should at least be quietly content.
Nothing will go wrong.
“Every detail,” he grumbles. “Are you sure?”
Tension worries my shoulders. “Meticulously checked.”
“There were many.”
He’s right. I hadn’t put together such a detailed lay in several years. I’d sat in my favorite chair at the Diogenes Club, where the silence – which I could not replicate in my own lodgings – and the general air of intellectual fortitude made it possible to break down the plan into its most basic components. Those, I’d assigned to various players. Chimney sweeps, a diplomat, maids, bankers – the sheer breadth of it had at first appalled me, but it excited me also, as few challenges could. Moran had asked me if I’d gone mad when I’d shared my vision with him.
Months, it took us to piece together. At times, success at even the small things had hinged on uncaring fate and we’d held our breaths until it was done. While we’d kept as much secret as we could, necessity made us risk exposure on two occasions. Even though the danger was long past, the memory of those nights still gnawed at my stomach. Most of the talent we’d hired were happy to do their part and take their coin no matter how trivial the pull seemed to be. Then there where those who could not stop asking why, who sensed there must be more to it. Those unfortunates found themselves at the fatal end of Moran’s barkers.
All totaled, it took a small fortune to put it together, and it will take a larger fortune to profit in the exchanges from the information gleaned from this night’s work. Some crimes are purely the privilege of wealthy men.
Moran lunges for the umbrella stand near the door to grab his gun. I clutch my chair as I listen intently, expecting to hear a stealthy footstep on the landing.
“Maybe I should just go have a look. To make sure,” he says.
It takes a few moments for me to realize he wasn’t reacting to a threat but rather his own impatience. A few more ticks of the clock pass before I am able to relax. “I’ve told you, we must take pains to distance ourselves. A web strand was plucked several years ago over the Netherland-Sumatra Company affair. It has not stopped reverberating since. Holmes will insist on poking around it. He doesn’t see it, but he senses it’s there. We must be discreet and not attract his interest.”
A long intake of breath betrays some worry on his account. “Does Watson exaggerate his abilities?”
“From all accounts, no. The elder brother is his superior in every way, but the younger has an annoying habit of acting on what he sees rather than letting it float past him. London is a river of crime. Only a madman casts a net to pluck out the one that glints enough to catch his eye then calls himself a dam.”
He casts a dubious glance at me before regaining his chair. He perches on the edge, knees wide apart, hands clasped between them tightly. We both glance at the clock. The minutes drag their heels in passing.
“What was your first consultation?”
I know he doesn’t care to hear my reminiscences, but we both need the distraction, so I settle back and prepare to indulge him.
“In 1852, my Treatise Upon Binomial Theorem was published to some acclai
m. On the strength of it, Durham University offered me a post, and, in 1854, at the age of twenty-three, I arrived there. It was a tedious position. Few true scholars graced my lectures. Instead, I suffered the presence of young men more interested in obtaining a university bearing than knowledge.”
“I met enough of that kind in India. No stomach for soldiering, but they liked their uniforms.”
I nod. “At the break, I found myself at loose ends. A fellow professor kindly lent me his copy of Laplace’s Traité de Mécanique Céleste. Mathematics had been my sole focus since I was in the nursery, but, in reading it, I became absorbed. Since then, a sudden urge to plumb the depths of a subject heretofore unknown to me has gripped quite often—” I gesture to my collection of bottled oddities “—but at the time it was a new and exciting prospect to be driven by a seemingly unquenchable thirst for knowledge I’d not cared about only the day before. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time. I read every book I could find. Most were utter balderdash written by men who had the funds to build an observatory but not the stamina to sit night after night in them, or the mental discipline such work requires.
“Finally, I resolved that I had to observe the phenomena described for myself so that I would know the real scientists from the gentleman hobbyists. The university observatory wasn’t available to satisfy idle curiosity, so I offered my services as a computer to Albert Marth, who had just been appointed to the position of lead observer.”
Moran’s brow furrows deeply. Those ridges are as familiar to me as my own countenance, although they usually only appear as he readies his aim. “Computer?”
“The language of astronomy is mathematics. Precision is key. Someone must check each formula and calculate each answer.”
“You were a clerk, like Uriah Heep.”
Moran has an unfortunate habit of trying my patience. No wonder so many men he served with tried to kill him. He should have known better than to poke and pry at me at such a time. I have need of him though, so I ignore his jests. “Unlike his predecessors, Ellis and Rümker, Marth focused on asteroids,” I continue. “After a year of transcribing his notes, I was allowed to make my own observations in the waning hour of darkness, which led eventually to my writing The Dynamics of an Asteroid.”
Moran lights a match. The flame bends to the end of his cigar until the tobacco glows like a coal. He shakes out the match and tosses it into the grate.
“It’s cold work, but you’d find searching the heavens for bodies similar to hunting game,” I say.
“I’ve slept on the ground and looked at the night sky many times. The stars are useful to navigate by, but I’ve never been inspired to stay awake just to watch them. There’s no life to them.” He exhales a harsh cloud of smoke. I swear the blend he prefers is part gunpowder. “So what crime did you commit? Did you turn the telescope on Marth’s window? Or did you teach the Earth to go around the sun?”
We exchange wry smiles.
A glance at the clock warns me that there are still several hours to while away. There’s no need to rush through my tale, so I play the host and refill our glasses, start my pipe and sink back into the depths of my chair before continuing.
“As I said, it was cold work through a long night. We talked the entire time in an effort to stay awake. There’s only so much talk of pure science one can indulge in before the secular world creeps into the conversation, however, so—”
“You gossiped.”
The man is addicted to danger. Or he believes he has a sense of humor. Neither one is congenial to my person. As usual, I ignore him and continue my memoir.
“A sensational crime had been committed that was much in the papers. As with the search for undiscovered celestial objects, it presented an interesting puzzle.”
He sighs and crosses his legs.
“A gold shipment bound for the Crimea disappeared from bound safes in a locked train car seemingly while the train was in motion. It was estimated to be worth over twelve thousand pounds.”
Although he sucks on his cigar contemplatively, the darting of his eyes betrays his interest. When tonight’s work is done, he can expect to see five thousand pounds for his efforts. He has no interest in numbers, but even he knows that twelve is a great deal more. The Great Gold Robbery was – to use the language of the criminal class – a ream flash pull.
“Did you have a hand in it?” he asks.
“No.”
“I thought you would tell me about the first time you consulted.”
“This is better. It’s why I saw the need for my services. May I continue with my story?”
He removes his cigar from his mouth and gestures for me to go on. The flippancy of it does not make me feel more kindly toward him.
“Every three months or so, the payroll for the troops in the Crimea was sent from London to France and from there was shipped to the Black Sea where those fools Cardigan and Raglan were playing at command.”
Moran makes a noise that might be commentary on military commanders in toto, or on those two in particular. While the particulars have never interested me, he had been obliged to leave the army several years before we met. Having seen what comprises perfectly acceptable behavior by officers, I can only deduce that he either seduced someone’s wife or a commander took offense at his being Irish.
“The safes were checked at the station, and reputable men swore they were filled with gold. They were closed and secured by locked iron bands. Each safe required two keys to open. This was before Alfred Nobel gave us dynamite. Nowadays, any brute with a stick or two may blow a safe into pieces, but back then, you had to have the keys, and keys, as you are well aware, are small things easily concealed.
“The car was then closed and secured – yet another key – and the train left the station. When the safes finally arrived in Boulogne, the boxes of gold were removed from them and weighed. There was a discrepancy. The boxes were opened and found to contain lead shot of nearly equal weight to the gold that had been taken. A switch had occurred, but where, and when? The French were our allies, but just barely. The scandal was an international incident, with both sides pointing fingers across the Channel and accusing the other of being in league with the thieves.
“As you can imagine, the pressure to find the gold was intense. The police both in France and here in England arrested everyone but could pin it on none. The professional police forces then were fairly new and employed few men capable of a real investigation, but they managed to eliminate the boat that brought the shipment across the Channel and Folkestone Station as the sites where the crime was committed. Likewise, because of the matching weights, the trip from the boat to Paris to Boulogne was assumed secure. As I said, there was no question that the gold was on the train when it left London. The only remaining explanation then, no matter how extraordinary, was that the burglary must have occurred whilst the train was in motion between London and Folkestone.
“These were no ordinary criminals.”
He leans across the small table between our chairs. I’ve seen that shine to his eyes before when he’s keen on a scent. “Did you solve the case after spying reddish dirt on the conductor’s sleeve?”
“I never left Durham. All this running about town and poking about the scene of the crime is very energetic and looks good on the pages of The Strand, but it’s unnecessary. Everything I needed to know was in the papers, or easily deduced. I said as much to my colleagues. They scoffed, so I challenged them to place wagers. However, as the months passed and the right people still had not been arrested, well, I went to the police—”
“You!”
“Here is where I find myself in agreement with Mr Holmes. The detectives of Scotland Yard are at best an unimaginative lot. How he works with that buffoon, Lestrade … Bah! I gave them the solution, but they ignored it.”
He smiles around his cigar. “Until.”
It gives me great satisfaction to remember it.
“Men like you and I understand the value of
silence, Moran.”
“Many a man has gone in the stir for the crime of talking.”
“There have been crimes more spectacular—”
“Vamberry,” he muttered.
The compliment was acknowledged with a slight nod. “And many have been more lucrative than Pierce and Agar’s caper. What set this crime apart was that Agar bragged about it in court. He laid out the entire scheme from start to finish in amazing detail. They matched, in essence, what I’d predicted two years before.”
I’d read the papers avidly. Each edition had carried new revelations to the readers, but they’d only confirmed what I’d already deduced. It was so obvious that to this day I am amazed that anyone could be mystified. But it also informed me that, as a whole, people are easy duped into thinking something is difficult when it is, in fact, quite simple. From their narrow brows and sloping foreheads, one must surmise that most people in London are descendants of some other strain of humanoids than myself and the Holmes brothers.
“You said the rozzers ignored you.” Moran taps his cigar against the table. An inch of downy ash drops into the Persian rug at our feet. “You were finally able to collect on your wagers though.”
Naturally, that is the part that interests him most. His evenings are spent at the card tables. The idea of refusing to honor a gambling debt offends his deepest-held sensibilities. Cheating at cards, however, does not. Several men have died for saying as much aloud, so I turn back to my story.
“Some of my colleagues had conveniently forgotten their bets. I lost my temper. It caused a small scandal and my post was no longer secure. I collected what I could, which was still considerable, and moved to London. Eventually, I extracted my due from each of those scoundrels at Durham. Not only in coin, but in reputation. I cast my web and waited for an opportunity to pluck at their strands. One after the next has been ruined by their own folly.”
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 43
