Professor Moriarty: The Hound Of The D’urbervilles

by Kim Newman

  6. Ruritania is a German-speaking country, though Rudolf II tried to make French the court language.

  7. Crusher: Police constable.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1. Joss: Luck.

  2. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday (1884–1916). A weekly comic newspaper built around the popular comic strip character of Ally Sloper, created by Charles Henry Ross and Marie DuVal.

  3. I could use this footnote to reveal the identity of the holder of this title – or at least the name he most commonly used – but Dame Philomela assures me that, even after a 120 years, this would not be advisable: ‘You’d be risking a lot more than getting your pussy’s ear clipped!’

  4. The Si-Fan: A Chinese criminal-political faction, active throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

  5. See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Speckled Band’, The Strand Magazine, 1892.

  6. See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Red-Headed League’, The Strand Magazine, 1891.

  7. The draper’s clerk was H.G. Wells, who evidently learned something about this business. See: The War of the Worlds, Pearson’s Magazine, 1897, and ‘The Crystal Egg’, The New Review, 1897.

  8. Less well remembered than rival cinema pioneers the Lumière Brothers, Georges Méliès or Thomas Edison, Paul Aloysius Robert (1870–1944) was a significant contributor to the early days of the motion picture. He directed What Happened to Maisie Under the West Pier (1895), the first British film to be seized and suppressed as pornographic, and A Fight with Sledgehammers in Rottingdean (1902), labelled the ‘original kinema “nasty”’. On the strength of Moran’s memoirs, it seems he could have laid claim to the invention of special effects techniques later associated with Méliès.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1. See Thomas Hardy, ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented’, The Graphic, 1891.

  2. The American jurist Roy Bean (c. 1825–1903) dismissed a case against Paddy O’Rourke because – after close examination of the Revised Statutes of Texas – he declared ‘homicide is the killing of a human being, however I can find no law against killing a Chinaman’. At the time, Bean’s saloon-cum-court in Vinegaroon, Texas, was surrounded by 200 Irish labourers who declared they would lynch the judge if O’Rourke were convicted. This might have influenced the decision. By the standards of his times, Bean was a lenient judge. Most of those he found guilty were fined the amount of money they had about them at the time of arrest and set free; he only sentenced two men to hang, and one of those escaped.

  3. Colonel Thomas Blood (1618–80) talked his way into the jewel house of the Tower of London, posing as a clergyman, and made off with the Crown jewels. He and his confederates were caught on Tower Wharf. Charles II, supposedly taken by Blood’s roguish daring, pardoned him. In preparation for the raid, Blood befriended Talbot Edwards, master of the jewel house, and cajoled a private viewing, whereupon – presumably with roguish daring – the elderly man was struck with a hammer, knocked down, bound and gagged and stabbed. Blood’s gang forgot to bring suitable swag-bags and had to improvise: Blood hammered flat St Edward’s crown, his brother-in-law sawed the sceptre into two parts and a man named Parrot stuffed the orb down his trousers.

  4. See Frederic Van Renssaelaer Dey, ‘3,000 Miles by Freight; or, The Mystery of a Piano Box’, The Nick Carter Library, 1891.

  5. Written between 1115 and 1142.

  6. Smith, Elder & Co., 1865.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1. For a more detailed account of the Vermissa Valley Scowrers and the attempted murder at Birlstone Manor, see John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Valley of Fear’, The Strand Magazine, 1914–15.

  2. ‘The Green Eye of the Yellow God’, J. Milton Hayes, 1911. Moran’s quotation of the once-popular monologue establishes this section of his memoirs was written at least twenty years after the event. Internal evidence suggests chapters one, two and six were written much earlier.

  3. See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Sign of the Four’, Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, 1890.

  4. See: James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest (attr.), ‘The String of Pearls: A Romance’, The People’s Periodical and Family Library, 1846–7. Sweeney Todd and Nellie Lovett (or Lovat) are remembered for gruesome crimes – throats cut in the barber’s chair, corpses recycled as meat pies – but they were, at bottom, mere thieves. The string of pearls, property of Mark Ingestre (or Ingestrie), was stolen from a sailor, Lieutenant Thornhill, who was supposed to convey it to Ingestre’s sweetheart, Johanna Oakley. Ingestre’s enquiries into Thornhill’s disappearance lead to the exposure of Todd and Lovett.

  5. See: Wilkie Collins (ed.), The Moonstone, Tinsley Brothers, 1868.

  6. When they first met, Moran was under the impression that Moriarty ‘kept no notes, no files, no address book or appointment diary’. It seems the Professor was vain enough to foster that impression, though Moran eventually learned this was not the case. This is more evidence that ‘The Six Maledictions’ was written as much as thirty years after ‘A Volume in Vermilion’.

  7. See: Malcolm Ross and Bram Stoker, The Jewel of Seven Stars, Heinemann, 1903.

  8. Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s I gioielli della Madonna (libretto by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani) is drawn from news reports of these events. The opera premiered in Berlin in 1911 under the title Der Schmuck der Madonna but did not play in Italy until 1953.

  9. In 1881, the Fenian Ram – a submarine designed by John Philip Holland – was constructed by the Delameter Iron Company of New York for use against the British. Rather than pay Holland, the Fenian Brotherhood stole the vessel from him, then realised none of them knew how to pilot it. Holland refused to give instructions in its use, and the IRB were stuck with something they could neither steer nor sell.

  10. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Purloined Letter’, The Gift for 1845, 1844. The secret hiding place of the stolen letter is in plain sight – in the letter rack of a hotel.

  11. See: Harold Manders and E.W. Hornung, ‘The Fate of Faustina’ and ‘The Last Laugh’, The Black Mask, Richards, 1901. Note that Manders, unlike Moran, accords A.J. Raffles credit for arranging the killing of Corbucci. It is not clear from the memoirs whether Moran disliked Raffles on principle or had a specific beef with the gentleman cracksman.

  12. See: Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1. See: William Hope Hodgson, ‘Carnacki the Ghost Finder’, The Idler, 1910.

  2. The Fal Vale swing bridge was the site of a later, famous railway disaster – which gave rise to another ghostly legend. See: Arnold Ridley, The Ghost Train, St Martin’s Theatre, 1923.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1. See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Final Problem’, The Strand Magazine, 1893; and ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’, Collier’s Weekly, 1903. It is evident that Moran wrote his memoir after both these reminiscences – which offer differing accounts of the incident at Reichenbach Falls – were published. In ‘The Final Problem’, the narrator writes that ‘the best and wisest man I have ever known’ died at the Falls; in ‘The Empty House’, it is alleged that Watson’s friend survived but, for reasons no else has ever found convincing, decided to let the world think him dead for a few years. Moran barely touches on the many other theories which have been advanced as to what actually happened... that Moriarty was merely an alternate personality of a mentally ill man who threw himself alone off the mountain... that Moriarty survived to take his dead opponent’s place in the world, and thereafter fought against crime as he had previously fought for it... that Moriarty evaded death by mentally projecting himself into a succession of other bodies and has lived on as a series of masterminds; the names of Carl Peterson, Gregory Arkadin, Alexander Luthor, Arnold Zeck, Professor Marcus, Peter Cornelius, Ernst Blofeld, Justin Sepheran, Derek Leech, Hannibal Lecter and ‘Count Jim Moriarty’ have been mentioned – and some of those aren’t even real people... that
Moriarty was never in Switzerland and faked his death so he could rebuild his just-shattered criminal empire. He also reveals nothing which will comfort the many theorists who have advanced the notions that Moriarty was a total innocent persecuted by a paranoid cocaine fiend, an alien invader (this might arise from dim rumours associated with The Red Planet League), a vampire, one of his brothers in disguise, a multiple personality (in this scenario, the Professor, the Colonel and the Stationmaster are aspects of the same person), a self-aware hologram, a giant rat (either from Sumatra or somewhere else), a woman, a clone from the future, gay, or (like every eminent Victorian from Alfred Tennyson to Vesta Tilley) Jack the Ripper. It’s unlikely that Moran was blithely unaware of this feverish speculation, which was well underway during his later life.

  2. As the author of Katie Reed: A Turbulent Life (Virago, 1988), I am satisfied that Moran here solves a significant mystery about the identity of the person with whom the feminist writer attempted collaboration in the summer of 1891. At some point, she – or another party – went through her journals and filleted the pages which cover this thorny business. We only know she was working as a ghost from the letters of her friend (and, later, lover) Charles Beauregard – to whom she complained extensively about her collaborator’s ‘uselessness, unreliability and octopus hands’. The assignment was thrust on Katharine Reed by Edward Tyas Cook, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, on the still-commonplace principle of ‘do one for me now and I’ll give you something you want to do later’. Since 1988, a great deal of material about Reed – one of the most interesting women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – has come to light. It’s my hope that an enlightened publisher will eventually enable me to issue a comprehensively revised edition of my biography. Paul Forrestier’s What Kate Reed Did (University of Brighton Press, 2003) and Kim Newman’s ‘The Gypsies in the Wood’ (The Fair Folk, SFBC, 2005) are, respectively, inadequate and fanciful.

  3. This would seem to refer to William Houlston (1882–1973). It took seven months of enquiries to find out which government departments presently fulfil the functions of the nineteenth-century Department of Supplies and the Diogenes Club. A D-notice prevents me from revealing even their current acronyms, though I have been given special leave to say that the Diogenes Club traded as Universal Exports in the 1950s which – at this stage of paranoia – inclines me to question whether this is true. Needless to say, attempts to ascertain whether either hold a bundle of red-taped documents marked ‘Sealed until 2073’ – let alone requests for premature access on academic grounds – have been unrewarding. A minor puzzle arises: if the exchanges were secret, how did Moran know they were ‘cryptic, terse, bitter’? Had he read them?

  4. See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Greek Interpreter’, The Strand Magazine, 1893.

  5. Both Kemp’s employers subsequently came to bad ends. See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton’, Colliers Magazine, 1904; and Harold Manders and E.W. Hornung, Mr Justice Raffles, Smith, Elder & Co, 1909. From the records of Box Brothers, where Charles Milverton and Daniel Levy both banked, it is evident that the master blackmailer and the rapacious moneylender tithed significant portions of their incomes to the Professor. He allowed them to conduct their businesses, and his influence granted them a measure of protection. While Moriarty was alive, no one murdered Milverton or Levy; when he was off the scene, ruined former victims queued up to take their shots. Neither case was solved and the murderers went free. Milverton, Levy and other criminal or semi-criminal figures ran their particular rackets only because Professor Moriarty didn’t find such enterprises stimulating or useful, unless for a specific purpose connected to larger schemes. Indeed, it is quite likely Moriarty used his pet blackmailer and usurer to ensnare or pressure officials or members of society he wished to make use of.

  6. Quap is a form of pitchblende (uranium-rich sludge) found in some quarters of Africa. Around the turn of the century it was reportedly used in patent medicines. Since there are no recorded cases of patients succumbing to radiation poisoning, it’s unlikely that tonics which claimed to derive from quap contained any. What Baron Maupertuis – who was reputed to have ‘colossal schemes’ – intended is unknown, but he met Henri Becquerel, the discoverer of radioactivity, in Paris in 1885 and is mentioned obliquely in Madame Curie’s journals. Little is known about Maupertuis beyond his involvement in the Netherland-Sumatra Company, which failed in 1887.

  7. The incident of the white tiger is not recounted in either of Moran’s published books about his big-game hunting experiences. Curiously, of all the animals (and men) he shot, he seems to have held this kill sacred... and touches on it only in these unguarded pages. Uncertain about the passage, he experimented with a false name (Jammyfoot) to conceal the identity of his hunting companion before setting down the real one. Matthew Jellinek (1842–1975) is not mentioned at any other point in the papers, though Three Weeks in the Jungle is perhaps significantly dedicated to ‘the tethered kid’. Jellinek was in Farrer House with Moran at Eton, then served with him in the Bangalore Pioneers. The archives of the Pioneers contain a report by Colonel Henry Patience, commanding officer during the regiment’s secondment to Abyssinia for the 1868 punitive expedition. Addressing a sentiment that then-Major Sebastian Moran should be ‘mentioned in despatches’, Patience explains that Moran effected a single-handed rescue of then-Lieutenant Jellinek from an irregular force loyal to Emperor Tewodros II (they would now be called a ‘Death Squad’) known for torturing Englishmen to death. Patience notes this ‘jape’ proved popular in the officers’ mess and made the young Major ‘cut a dash as a hero to the men’, but was executed against direct orders and constituted ‘a serious breach of discipline for which a court martial would not be an inappropriate response, though no plans for a prosecution are held at this time’. This affair is not elucidated in any of Moran’s memoirs – a mystery in itself since he is happy to go on at length about matters which do him far less credit. Upon Moran’s arrest for attempted murder in 1894, John Watson said of him, ‘This is astonishing, the man’s career is that of an honourable soldier.’

  8. According to an 1894 advertisement for ‘Cigares de Joy’ issued by the manufacturers Wilcox & Co., ‘JOY’S CIGARETTES afford immediate relief in case of ASTHMA, WHEEZING, WINTER COUGH and HAY FEVER, and, with a little perseverance, effect a permanent cure. Universally recommended by the most eminent Physicians and Medical Authors. Agreeable to use, certain in their effects, and harmless in their action, they may be safely smoked by ladies and children. Box of 35, 2s 6d.’

  9. Though he may never have realised the fact, Moran encountered this ‘ghost’ again in later life. In chapter six, he mentions he was in the Paris Opera House on the night in 1881 that a chandelier fell on the audience. This was the most famous crime committed by Erik de Boscherville, popularly known as the Phantom of the Opera. At the time Sir Augustus Moran was British Minister to Persia, Erik was employed by the family of the shah as an architect. For the khanum, the mother of Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar, Erik designed a torture labyrinth at Mazendaran which to some extent prefigured the famous maze he created under the cellars of the Paris Opera. Accounts differ, but contemporary historians believe Erik congenitally disfigured rather than a victim of abuse or accident. See: Gaston Leroux, Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, Le Gaulois, 1909–10; Susan Kay, Phantom, Doubleday, 1990.

  10. Snide: forged currency.

  11. Darbies: handcuffs.

  12. Scholars have long noted that Watson and Doyle set out contradictory versions of Watson’s introduction to Moriarty in ‘The Final Problem’ and The Valley of Fear. Since these accounts can’t both be true, the veracity of one or the other must be challenged. A similar, ‘no, what really happened’ discrepancy exists between ‘The Final Problem’ and ‘The Empty House’. It should be noted that, though made aware of Moriarty, Watson never met him.

  13. History says Prince Rudolf of Elphberg was crowned King of Ruritan
ia in 1891. Shortly after the coronation, it was rumoured that Rudolf’s cousin, the Englishman Rassendyll, occupied the throne in his place. Any argument was ended when Prince Michael was murdered by the Count of Hentzau at Zenda Castle, reputedly in an argument over a woman.

  NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My parents, Julia and Bryan Newman, named me after a character in a Victorian popular novel. My mother’s second favourite book was Gone With the Wind, so I narrowly escaped Rhett. I imagine this has shaped the course of my life.

  The Hound of the d’Urbervilles has been percolating a long time, so I must own up to many debts. First off, to state the obvious, this book would not exist without Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Every time I went back to the source, I found minor characters he made up and dropped who could sustain an entire series (if you want more Sophy Kratides, so do I). Primary secondary influences (as it were) are Zane Grey, Anthony Hope, H.G. Wells, Thomas Hardy, J. Milton Hayes and Arnold Ridley. Other elements crept in, so shout-outs are due to Guy Boothby (creator of Dr Nikola and Simon Carne), Frederic Van Rensselaer Dey, H.H. Ewers, Louis Feuillade, John Gardner, William Gillette, Dashiell Hammett, Hergé, William Hope Hodgson, E.W Hornung, Norbert Jacques (and Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou), Michael Kurland, Maurice Leblanc, William LeQueux, Gaston Leroux, Peter Lovesey, L.T. Meade, Nicholas Meyer, Bertram Millhauser (and Roy William Neill and Rondo Hatton), Spike Milligan, Jamyang Norbu, Sax Rohmer, Bram Stoker (and Christopher Wicking and Valerie Leon), Mark Tansey, Dudley D. Watkins, Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani (and Ermano Wolf-Ferrari), and others.

  My grandmother Miranda Wood – who introduced me to Marvel Comics and MAD Magazine, without realising how important things she picked at random would become to me – gave me a hardback of The Complete Sherlock Holmes Short Stories for my twelfth birthday. I still have it. Later, the first thing I bought when I got a cheque guarantee card (remember them?) was W.S. Baring-Gould’s two-volume Annotated Sherlock Holmes. The first Holmes novel I read was, oddly, Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper by Ellery Queen (actually, Paul W. Fairman), a canny novelisation (and expansion) of Donald and Derek Ford’s screenplay A Study in Terror. I was aware of Peter Cushing in the 1968 BBC-TV series, but the first media Holmes I remember is Carleton Hobbs in a BBC wireless production of The Hound of the Baskervilles. I should acknowledge the screen’s great Moriartys (some in not-great Holmes films and shows), all of whom have filtered into my version of the Napoleon of Crime: Gustav von Seyffertitz, Ernest Torrence, Lyn Harding, George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Henry Daniell, John Huston, Laurence Olivier, Viktor Yevgrafov, Eric Porter, Paul Freeman, Anthony Higgins and Vincent d’Onofrio. There are fewer Morans to choose from, but Patrick Allen is fine opposite Jeremy Brett in The Return of Sherlock Holmes and Alan Mowbray is suitably duplicitous opposite Basil Rathbone in Terror By Night.