Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels)

by Kurland, Michael

  All that we know who lie in gaol

  Is that the wall is strong;

  And that each day is like a year,

  A year whose days are long.

  —OSCAR WILDE

  IT WAS FAST APPROACHING MIDNIGHT AND, the governor of Newgate Prison being a thrifty man, the gaslights in the stone corridors of the Old Block had been turned down to a faint orange glow, the barest hint of which penetrated the slots in the more favorably positioned cell doors. In the silence one could hear the dripping of distant water and the scurrying of small, quick animals.

  Professor James Clovis Moriarty, MS, ScD, PhD, FRAS, quondam holder of the Thales Chair of Mathematics at Midlothian University, author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, Some Thoughts on an Absolute Value for π, and A Few Hesitant Steps into the Fourth Dimension, as well as a score of other well-regarded papers on mathematics and astronomy, paced slowly back and forth the six steps his cell would allow.

  Stone walls did not, for the moment, a prison make; Moriarty had turned his mind in another direction. Scarcely aware of the roughness of his gray prison garb, the damp chill of his cell, or the shackles on his hands, he mentally roamed the vast space between the stars, considering what the spectra of certain nebulosities indicated about their composition and structure—a problem that he had been wrestling with for some years. Still it must be admitted that he would have preferred the convenience of his observatory on the Moor, with the new 14-inch refracting telescope, specially crafted for him by Bascombe & Brandt Ltd. and just installed the week he was arrested. Or the comfort of his home on Russell Square, where he could peruse the books and journals in his library at leisure.

  The sound of footsteps echoing the length of the narrow corridor outside his door pulled Moriarty from his contemplation of the infinite, and he turned to sit on the edge of his cot and await his visitor.

  With little else to listen to for the past weeks, Moriarty had accustomed himself to interpreting the staccato footsteps of any who traversed the corridor, the mutterings of conversations he could overhear, and even the muted breathing of those who passed by. He listened. Two men approached, the one in the lead short and heavy, wearing thick-soled boots that squeaked slightly under his ponderous tread, his breath coming in sharp puffs. That would be the warder, Jacobs, a jowly, pig-eyed, mean-spirited, rapacious great toad of a man. He would not do a favor for any man, but Moriarty had decided that, if the need arose, he could be bought.

  The other footsteps Moriarty did not recognize. His ear told him that they were those of a tall, slender, elderly man, with a slight roll to his walk and just the trace of a limp. By the occasional sharp tapping sounds, the man carried a walking stick but, from his casual use of it, was not dependent on its aid.

  When they reached the cell door the warder snapped open the latch on the tiny observation window and, pulling it open, peered inside and went through a great show of sliding bolts, turning locks, releasing catches, and pounding on metal before the plate metal door swung open. He then stepped aside with a subservient bow. “This is ’im, your worship. I’ll wait outside like what you said, your worship. Be careful of this’ere professor, your worship. ’E’s a killer, is what ’e is.”

  The visitor edged around the chubby warder and entered the cell. “I’ll be watchful, Jacobs. Just close the door, there’s a fellow, and leave the lantern. I’ll call when I want you.”

  “Yessir, your worship.” Jacobs hung the bull’s-eye lantern on a peg by the door, touched a knuckle to his forehead, and backed out of the cell, shutting the door with a forceful snap behind him.

  Moriarty’s visitor was tall and notably thin except for a hint of the rotundity of age around his middle. The cut of his pearl gray sack suit could only have been accomplished in one of the hidden corners of Savile Row, where the tailor would not take your custom unless his grandfather served yours.

  Moriarty rose. “Please sit down,” he said, indicating the only chair in the room, a spindly, backless wooden stool of great but undistinguished age. “I apologize for greeting you in my shirtsleeves, but these irons on my wrists make it impossible to put my jacket on properly. The warder seems to consider you a person of note, but I welcome the highborn as well as the low to my humble domicile.”

  His visitor sat down carefully and brushed some perhaps not entirely imaginary dust off his knees. “Amusing, isn’t it? The chap hasn’t the slightest idea who I am. Governor Makepiece ordered him to escort me to your, ah, accommodation but, at my request, he failed to mention my name.”

  “Jacobs’s assumption is understandable,” Moriarty said, resuming his seat on the edge of the cot. “You do have a certain air about you.”

  His visitor took a silver cigarette case from his jacket and removed two brown-paper-wrapped tubes. “So do you, Professor,” he commented, tapping the cigarettes thoughtfully on the case before handing one to Moriarty and lighting the two with a small silver lighter. “Despite the rather dingy gray garment and the manacles, you still achieve, if I may say so, a commanding presence.”

  Moriarty smiled. “The opportunities for command are limited in these surroundings,” he observed.

  “That would seem to be so,” his guest agreed. “Why the manacles, by the way? They seem rather redundant in here.”

  “Ah!” said Moriarty. “To quote Reverend Dodgson’s dormouse, ‘Mine is a long and sad tale.’ But truly I doubt whether it’s of interest to anyone other than myself.”

  “Nevertheless, it is curious.”

  “True.”

  “Then, if you will, assuage my curiosity.”

  “Very well. There is a gentleman who calls himself a ‘consulting detective,’ whatever that may be. A certain Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I know his brother, Mycroft,” the visitor interrupted.

  “A gentleman,” Moriarty said. “Brother Sherlock is, ah, of a different stamp: lean where Mycroft is stout; quick where Mycroft is stolid; a terrier where his brother is a bulldog. They are both possessed of a high order of intelligence, but where Mycroft is steady and methodical, Sherlock is prone on occasion to bypass his rather considerable powers of deduction and jump to what I may call an escapable conclusion.”

  “What has this to do with your, ah—” The man gestured at the manacles.

  “Mr. Holmes—Mr. Sherlock Holmes—came to the conclusion some years ago, based upon some interaction between us, that I am a blackguard. ‘The wickedest man unhung,’ I believe is what he has called me. ‘The Napoleon of crime.’ He would have it that I am responsible for all of the crimes committed to the west of the English Channel. Over the years he has managed to convince some of the gentlemen of Scotland Yard and a few others in authority in one capacity or another. As a result I have been put on trial for a capital offense based on evidence that wouldn’t convince a thrush, were I regarded by the authorities as an honorable man, and your friend the governor of the prison has been told that I am some sort of miracle man, capable of escaping from ordinary confines. So he has put me here, in an underground dungeon in the oldest part of this ancient structure, with thick stone walls, and kept these on”—Moriarty raised his hands and shook the iron cuffs back and forth—“for added emphasis.”

  His visitor nodded thoughtfully. “Could you?” he asked. “Escape, that is.”

  “Possibly,” Moriarty admitted. “Given sufficient incentive.”

  His visitor pursed his lips. “The present circumstances are not incentive enough for you?”

  Moriarty considered. “Not while there’s a chance, however slight, of leaving by more accepted means,” he said. “Escaping would mean fleeing the country, giving up most of my former life. It would make it difficult to continue my various researches.”

  “I see,” his visitor said. “Logical. You seem awfully open with me as to your, ah, potential plans.”

  “You don’t impress me as a ‘copper’s nark,’” Moriarty told him, “and I imagine you have more important things to do than to run to the governor wi
th the possibility that I might flee.”

  His visitor smiled. “Even so,” he agreed. “Still, the time must hang heavy for a man of your intellect in here, with nothing to occupy your mind.”

  “Quite the contrary,” Moriarty said. “Except for a few inconveniences such as the execrable food and the dampness and chill permeating these ancient walls, this is a splendid place for ratiocination and the exercise of the higher faculties.”

  “But with no one to talk to, nothing to see…”

  Moriarty reached over to the small shelf by the side of his cot on which he kept the few things he was allowed: a Bible supplied by the governor of the prison, a bar of brown soap smelling strongly of lye, and a small envelope of tooth powder supplied, at the prisoner’s expense, by the Newgate Hygienic Office; a bit of toweling that, whatever color it had been originally, was now a dull gray; and his pince-nez glasses, along with the small bit of flannel he used to polish the lenses. He removed the pince-nez and the flannel. “You are the second visitor I’ve had today,” he told his guest. “The first was a journalist, and he told me it took him several days to get the required permit. Even then we could only speak in a small windowless room in the presence of two guards. Yet here you are, and alone. Another indication of the special esteem in which you must be held.”

  “Is two visitors a day sufficient mental stimulation for a man of your intellect?” his visitor inquired.

  “The chatter of others is merely a distraction,” Moriarty said. “I occupy myself in the contemplation of some of the great unsolved problems in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and physics. I do not flatter myself that I will solve them, you understand; mathematics is a pursuit that rapidly cleanses one of hubris. But one can become lost in their contemplation.”

  His visitor raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he asked. “What sorts of things have you contemplated when you were pacing these stone floors in the wee hours of the morning?”

  Moriarty raised an eyebrow. “First, I admit, the practical. How to depart from this place should it become necessary, for example.”

  His visitor pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “You hinted that you had devised a way to accomplish that.”

  “Five different ways, actually,” Moriarty told him.

  “Ah!” his visitor said. “A pragmatic way to occupy your time, I admit.”

  Moriarty nodded. “That took up most of the first day,” he asserted. “After which I fell to contemplation of the significance of certain nebulosities visible in the constellation of Orion.”

  “Surely that falls under the rubric of astronomy and not mathematics,” the visitor protested.

  “All the universe can be described as a series of mathematical equations, could we but discover them,” Moriarty said. “Except perhaps for human activity. But whether Homo sapiens is of a higher order of complexity or merely closer to the chaotic has yet to be determined.”

  “So this contemplation of the infinite is how you occupy your time?”

  “Occasionally, to refresh myself, I employ a system of my own devising to mentally calculate the value of pi past a hundred decimal places.” Moriarty chuckled. “I had intended to stop at a hundred, but the temptation to continue was too great. Although I am often led astray into considering why the value of pi should be what we observe it to be.”

  There was a long pause while the visitor determined what to say. Finally he settled on “I see. Interesting. Very interesting.”

  “What can I do for you, milord?” Moriarty enquired. “Thank you for the cigarette and the light—my jailers don’t seem to think I should be allowed to handle matches. I’m sorry I can’t offer you any refreshments, but the amenities are few in this cell, and scant provision has been made for entertaining guests.”

  His guest raised an eyebrow. “‘Milord?’ Have you caught the disease from that chubby warder?”

  “Not at all,” Moriarty said. “Aside from the fact that you are a retired naval officer, wounded in the service, now connected with the government, possessed of an independent fortune, and of noble birth, I confess I know little about you. But I assume nothing.”

  His visitor sat back and his eyes widened. Then he chuckled. “You will have your little joke,” he said. “Surely you have recognized me.”

  “I have no idea of your identity,” Moriarty assured him.

  “Then how—”

  “Your walk proclaims you to have been a naval man, and possesses still a hint of the swagger of the quarterdeck. Your dress marks you as wealthy—and old wealth, as your tailor certainly hasn’t been taking new clients for the last half century.”

  “And wounded in the service?”

  Moriarty smiled. “There’s the slightest indication of a weakness in one leg, and there I confess I took the chance that it was acquired for queen and country.”

  “So the ‘noble birth’ was also an assumption?”

  Moriarty shook his head. “If you would disguise your identity—or at least your rank—you should carry another cigarette case. I don’t recognize the coat of arms embossed on the cover, but the device was not without interest. I have made some small study of heraldry. My attention was particularly drawn to the crest. The helm was surely that of the scion of a noble house. An earldom, if I am not mistaken.”

  “Perhaps I borrowed the case to impress you,” suggested his visitor.

  “Perhaps,” Moriarty said.

  “And that I am connected with the government?”

  “You are here,” Moriarty said, with a wave of his hand. “I doubt you could have obtained entry without official credentials.”

  His visitor sighed. “It would seem that I am not a master of subterfuge,” he admitted.

  “Few of us are,” observed Professor Moriarty.

  “My name is Clarence Anton Montgrief,” the visitor said. “I am the fifth Earl of Scully.”

  “Ah!” said Moriarty.

  “It is difficult to make small talk in the present, er, circumstances,” said His Lordship. “So, at the risk of seeming rude, I’ll get right to the point. There is a matter I would like to discuss with you.”

  “I see,” Moriarty said wryly, “and here I had hypothesized that it was Your Lordship’s custom to visit the condemned and bring them sweetmeats and Bible tracts.”

  “You are not condemned yet.”

  “I cannot hope for such good fortune from a second jury,” Moriarty said. “Particularly as I shall be before the same judge.”

  “Hedge is a good man.”

  “He believes me to be guilty,” Moriarty said, “and he doesn’t hesitate to mention the fact to the jury at every opportunity.”

  “You’re not?” His Lordship asked. “Guilty, I mean.”

  “Curiously, I am not.”

  His Lordship nodded. “Good to know,” he said, “but not necessarily relevant to the present situation. I have a suggestion to make that you might find of interest.”

  Moriarty raised his manacled hands chest high. “I am not in a position to refuse any reasonable offer,” he said. “Then again, neither am I in a position to carry out whatever actions might be required of me if they involve anything other than thought and memory.”

  “I will ameliorate the one if you will undertake the other,” said the earl.

  “Ameliorate?”

  “Yes. It means—”

  “I know what it means.”

  “Yes. Of course you do. Sorry.”

  “What sort of amelioration do you offer, and what must I do in return?”

  “I can arrange for the crown to accept a plea to a lesser offense, say”—he waved an arm vaguely in the air—“accessory of one sort or another. A sentence of no more than three to five years, I would imagine.”

  “In return for this?”

  His Lordship sat down again. “Ah! That is more complex. A … ah … person has disappeared. He must be found.”

  “You wish me to search for someone.” Moriarty raised his manacled hands
. “How do you propose I accomplish this?”

  His Lordship shook his head. “I can certainly arrange to have the shackles removed,” he said. “We wish you to use your connections in the … I believe it is referred to as ‘the underworld’ … to locate the person in question.”

  “From a prison cell?”

  “If possible.”

  “Dubious,” Moriarty said.

  “You could arrange for various of your minions to visit you, could you not, and give them the necessary instructions? Effectively direct the search from here?”

  Moriarty smiled grimly. “Despite what you may have heard, I have no minions, no mob, no gang, no nefarious members of some secret society ready to my bidding. I have a few associates, and I admit my range of acquaintances within the criminal classes is wide. Even so, few felons would recognize me on sight, and even fewer, I fear, would venture to visit me here—and of those, none who would be useful for your purpose.”

  “A pity,” His Lordship said. “We had supposed—”

  “Surely you must have some better way to achieve your purpose,” Moriarty said. “Is this some devious malefactor you want me to unearth? What has he done to warrant such attention?” Moriarty closed his eyes for a second and considered. “No—it wouldn’t be that. Scotland Yard, for all of its deficiencies, should be able to accomplish that. Or, at least, you would have no reason so quickly to doubt its reach. For some reason you can’t involve the Yard; you need utmost secrecy.” He opened his eyes. “Why not call upon my friend Sherlock Holmes? He’s dependable and can be trusted, and I can testify to his tenacity and bullheadedness, if you consider that a virtue. Some do. Certainly if you’re prepared to trust me—”

  “He is unavailable,” His Lordship said. “Performing some service for the king of Sweden, I’ve been told.”

  “Ah!”

  “It was his brother, Mycroft, who suggested that we come to you. He says, oddly enough considering the circumstances, that you also are dependable and can be trusted.”

  “Good of him, considering,” Moriarty said. “Still, there’s little I can do for you from the confines of this fetid dungeon.”