The Return of Moriarty

by John Gardner

  Spear seemed preoccupied, but he answered smartly. “Yes, Professor. Reverend Harbuckle round St. Saviours. He’ll not chatter.”

  Terremant appeared in the kitchen doorway. “What do we want with a God botherer?”

  “You haven’t told him?” The Professor stared at Spear.

  “No sir. No, I haven’t.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Albert?”

  “I was fond of young Billy, to tell the truth, Professor. Really quite fond of him.”

  “Tell the others, then,” Moriarty cracked directly at Spear. “Tell them, then get on with your work. Watch yourselves.”

  He went slowly up the stairs, thinking with each step that he might have to put Danny Carbonardo to work on Albert Spear before the night was out, after he had done the biggest job. He could not recall a time when he felt so out of joint and dejected.

  THE HOUSE THAT WAS known as Sal Hodges’s House had plenty of protection all around: a lurker regular on each corner, four punishers downstairs and another two up, plus the two tough dikey women—Minnie and Rosie—who looked after the girls and watched out for rough customers. At one time, Sal’s house had been in St. James’s, but building and new planning had eased her out and she had moved the few yards to the Haymarket.

  Sal had taken the Professor’s advice and brought big Harry Judge along with her for protection. When they got there she told him that he could take any girl in the place and have her on the house, but he smiled shyly and, to her surprise, said no. “I have a young woman I expect to marry, Miss Sal. And I don’t go romping elsewhere. ’Tis not in my nature.” She found this refreshing, as it was most unusual among members of Moriarty’s family.

  Everyone was glad to see Sally back, because there had been some awful stories floating around.

  “Sal’s back,” one of the punishers at the door called up, and the cry went all around the house, even from the girls entertaining in their rooms. “Five in and paid for,” Minnie told her.

  “I shall be in my office, Minnie. Tell Polly I’d like a word with her.”

  “I’ll have her come up straight off,” the plump and happy Minnie replied.

  Polly was not one of the whores, but a young girl, no more than twelve or thirteen, whom Sal employed to do the mending and similar jobs concerned with the girls. She was slim and lithe, a little over five foot six, pretty in a striking way with dark curls that came bustling down her neck, romping onto her shoulders.

  She tapped at Sally’s door some three minutes after Minnie told her to go on up, and she came into the room with a smile that almost enveloped Sal Hodges.

  “Mama!” She flung her arms around Sal’s neck. “Mama, thank heaven, there have been terrible rumours that you had been injured. Even killed.”

  “Don’t ever call me Mama when people are near, my darling girl.” Sal held her close and kissed the top of her head. “Dreadful things are happening. We must take even greater care, you and I.”

  12

  Benefit Night at the Alhambra

  LONDON: JANUARY 19, 1900

  THEY HAD FOUND an old table in one of the rooms off the kitchen passage that ran right to the back door, and some quite good chairs in what was probably at one time the servants’ hall. They set them up in the kitchen and Moriarty spread thick cartridge paper across the table, pinned it down at each corner, then drew, in ink, a neat plan of Leicester Square, showing the Alhambra on the east side* and all the exits and entrances to the Square; Coventry and Cranbourne streets coming in from west and east; and the area of grass known as Leicester Square Gardens in the centre, with its marble statue of Shakespeare, the corners decorated by dolphins and the inscribed tablet that read There is no darkness but ignorance. He had also picked out the four statues, one at each corner of the fields, depicting Reynolds, Hunter, Hogarth, and Newton, the great men who had all, at one time or another, lived in the area.

  Though he knew that members of his Praetorian Guard would, with their common sense, divine what was going on, Moriarty did not want to give them any details, so he banished them from the house. They had plenty to get on with, continuing to reorganize his family, bringing the lost lambs back into the fold, slaughtering some on the way. Spear still searched for a new warehouse that they could turn into a secret headquarters. “I want you to come back with the news that things are under way in that department, the warehouse,” he told the big ramper, who nodded and smiled his shark’s smile. Then, as Spear reached the door, the Professor called him back. “And there’s the question of Paget,” he said, in a dark, near threatening voice. “Don’t forget Pip Paget, Bert. Paget and his lady love who was Fanny Jones.” He drew his right thumb down his cheek, almost scoring the skin, from under the eye to his jawline.

  Spear stopped dead in his tracks, then turned, giving Moriarty a curt nod. “I haven’t forgotten,” he told him before going off into the darkening, cold evening, a frosty mist in the air, to join the other members of the Guard. In truth, Albert Spear already knew exactly where Pip and Fanny Paget could be found. Or, to be more accurate, he was fairly certain where they could be discovered: almost under Moriarty’s very eyes if he used his considerable brain. Paget was working not a hand’s turn from where Moriarty had his country house, close by Steventon not far from Oxford, near the Hendreds and pretty villages with names such as Kingston Bagpuise and Hanney. Pip Paget was happy as Larry, acting as gamekeeper to Sir John Grant and his lady wife—Lady Pam, as she was known locally—who owned a huge estate bordering on the lands attached to Moriarty’s house, Steventon Hall.

  The Professor sat at the table now, nigh on six o’clock, with Ben Harkness next to him and places for the boys, Wally Taplin and Billy Walker, who would both have star roles to play in tonight’s deadly business. The one person missing was Daniel Carbonardo, who had, as Wally Taplin put it, “nipped over to Hoxton, over to his house to get the necessary.” This meant that he had gone to Hawthornes, letting himself in around the back and creeping through the rooms with a small lantern, aware there was a high probability that Idle Jack would have a lurker watching the place. He still couldn’t really understand why Jack Idell had let him go alive, unless, as Moriarty had suggested, Idle Jack himself wanted to employ the many-talented Carbonardo.

  Daniel found his way into the front parlour, where, using his keys, he opened the desk and activated the secret panel that gave him access to the deep hidden compartment where he had placed the Italian pistol he so liked. He knew that the Professor in all probability would offer him the Borchardt automatic or some other handgun, but he would be happier with his Italian iron, with which he had practised in many situations, on both moving targets and still, in all weathers and conditions. The weapon had a long barrel and high foresight, which made for greater accuracy: Danny reckoned he could score well with eight out of nine shots, and he had indulged in some training from an army man, a sergeant who had been a sharpshooter, trained in all weapons. Carbonardo had a high opinion of his own skill, and considered that he could outshoot most people with both rifle and handgun. He had outshot the sharpshooter with little difficulty, the sergeant greatly impressed.

  He checked the ammunition and slid the pistol into the specially reinforced pocket built into his trousers, just behind the right hip, dropping extra rounds of ammunition into his jacket pocket. He then left the house the way he had come, walking back to the church of St. John the Baptist, where he had told his cabbie to wait for him. Now he ordered the man to take him to Westminster, an address around the corner from the Professor’s house, his eyes skinned, watchful at all times lest he was being followed. From there he paid off the hansom and walked the few yards back to Moriarty’s house.

  In the kitchen, Moriarty waited quietly; he had plenty to occupy his mind, apart from tonight’s work, for he had written to George Huckett, the builder and decorator from Hackney, telling him he wished his firm to make a start on refurbishing and decorating the interior of his house as soon as it was convenient. Huckett would not kee
p him waiting long, as he knew that work for the Professor came before any other business, and it didn’t do to be in any way slapdash or tardy where Moriarty was concerned.

  Now he looked around the big old kitchen with its red glazed tiles and the large brick-red and white flagstones that made up the floor. Already, in his mind he had Fanny Jones working here with a couple of kitchen maids, a scullery maid, and a second cook. They would need the big old sink replaced and he was giving much thought to the cooking arrangements. He favoured putting in the Improved Leamington Kitchener, the one with the ventilated wrought-iron roaster that had moveable shelves, a draw-out stand, a double dripping pan, and a meat stand, the roaster easily converted into an oven by closing the valves. It also had an iron boiler with brass tap and steam pipe, with round and square gridirons for chops and steaks, an ash pan, an open fire for roasting, and a set of ornamental covings with an attached plate-warmer. It was fifty years since the Leamingon had won the first-class prize and medal (at the Great Exhibition in 1851), but with its improvements there was no other Kitchener to touch it. Expensive, yes, at around £24 from Messrs. Richard and John Slack, 336 Strand, but Moriarty was not inclined to spare the expense. He already had novel plans for the big walk-in pantry and the large scullery, as well as work that would double some of the other rooms here in the basement, eventually allowing ten or twelve of his people to sleep down here at any one time. Then there would be the decorating up in the main house, some new fireplaces, wallpaper, carpets, curtains, and the like, about which he would consult Sal Hodges, who had a good eye and taste in these matters.

  After half an hour or so, Daniel Carbonardo returned and took his place at the table while the Professor went over the plan once again, tracing his finger along the map he had drawn, pointing out potential problems: for instance, the traffic in that area could still be heavy, causing blockages even relatively late at night.

  Then he asked Ben Harkness if he was happy about the part he would play.

  “I shall take you down to the theatre, Professor. Then I’ll put the cab and Archie in for the night. My arrangements are that a couple of our lads, Ned and Simon Day, will go to Bright’s yard off the Strand where the night watchman’ll look the other way, for a consideration, and they will take out a cab and a nice horse I already know, name of Apple. He’ll be as good as gold. Very obedient is Apple.”

  Most of the hansom cabbies hired their vehicles by the day from the large cab-owners who had considerable numbers of cabs and horses, the hire fee being somewhere between nine and twelve shillings a day.

  Ben Harkness was a jewel among cabmen, for, as a profession they had a terrible reputation, which came from the temptations that lay with the job. There were over four thousand cabs plying for trade in London, and many of them worked from ranks close to what were termed “watering places,” namely the public houses. A large number of the men drank, some of them drinking round the clock, with rarely a home or a bed to go to. It was not uncommon to find cabmen sleeping in the taprooms of inns, taverns, and public houses, or quietly in the back of their cabs. Thus they could be intemperate and quarrelsome, often untrustworthy and unreliable. Ben Harkness was different, an old macer, a gentlemanly swindler, good at many of the dodges used on the streets. Glib of tongue and not possessed of much conscience, he could tip the flash with the best of them. But early on, Harkness had looked to his future and learned to handle a hansom and horses with skilful ease, and had been with the Professor almost from the start of Moriarty’s rise to command his own family. “I’ll pick up Daniel around eleven,” Harkness nodded at the assassin who gave him a spot for the pickup.

  “Charing Cross Railway Station,” Carbonardo told him. “Stay apart from the rank and tell people you’re booked for a fare.”

  Harkness nodded his agreement. “About eleven, then. We’ll do a couple of circuits around the Square, then park ourselves somewhere at the top, where Cranbourne Street filters into the Square, so that when the time comes we can go straight down past the Alhambra.”

  The Professor asked Daniel Carbonardo what he thought of the plan.

  “What d’you mean, sir?”

  “Are you happy? Can you do it, Daniel?”

  “If I’m put within fifty paces of the target, I can remove it, sir. I can hit a postage stamp at fifty paces. Still or moving.”

  “At fifty paces?” Moriarty gave him a glaring stare.

  “I have a natural aptitude, Professor.”

  “A natural aptitude? Good.”

  Moriarty nodded again, turning to William Walker. “Now, Billy, you’ve arranged your part?”

  “I’m all Sir Garnet, Professor. I’ve set things so’s I take another boy’s pitch selling papers directly outside the Alhambra from about half eleven onwards.”

  “And you can recognize Idle Jack?”

  “Seen him twice. Once pointed out to me going into The Café Royal, then again the other night outside the place where they took Mr. Carbonardo. Know him anywhere.”

  “Good boy. And you, Wally?”

  “I’ll be opposite the Alhambra, by where they have to park their cabs. Soon as Billy gives the signal, I’ll put me arm up and signal Mr. Harkness.”

  “Then all hell will break out,” Danny said with a dark chuckle.

  “And we will say good-bye to the ambitious Idle Jack.” Moriarty smiled his thin, grim smile.

  “Please God.” Danny crossed himself, and Moriarty took out the shining gold half-hunter attached to a chain in his waistcoat pocket. He flicked it open and read off the time. It was now four minutes past seven, meaning they had a little under two hours before the curtain went up at the Alhambra. He closed the watch, feeling nothing as he glimpsed the engraving on the lid, which read, To My Dear and Beloved Son, Professor James Moriarty, with Pride From His Mother Lucy Moriarty. The watch was, of course, the one Moriarty had removed from his brother’s corpse on the evil night when he had killed him close to the Thames all those years ago. Moriarty smiled at the men and boys ranged around the table and, feeling not the slightest remorse, wished them all good luck, then left the kitchen, returning to his quarters to disguise himself as yet another of his characters.

  Tonight he would be going to the Daily Mail War Benefit Night at the Alhambra as an elderly country cousin: a man he liked to call Rupert Digby-Smyth from one of the Cotswold villages, one of the Chippings, he thought, a man for whom a trip to London was a huge change in his routine, an exciting business.

  In his sixties, Rupert was already set in his ways, nervous yet still with an eye to the good things of life. He was slim, with a full head of greying hair; a somewhat bulbous nose, blue of hue; tired eyes; and the beginnings of a stoop to his shoulders. He dressed well, though in a slightly old-fashioned way: dark trousers and a black swallowtail evening coat that showed signs of mildew, a dull silk cravat that had originally been costly, and a shirt front that could have been stiffer, while on his feet were boots outdated many years, the soles a patchwork of mended leather. His cloak looked fine from a distance, with its silver lion’s-head clasps, but on close inspection was frayed and dirty.

  When Moriarty came down the steps to the cab, Harkness marvelled at his master’s skill. Not in a thousand years would anyone take this old mutton as the evil, fit, and cunning Professor. This fellow looked as if he would require help to get across the road, and even more help to get across a woman—and there would be plenty of willing girls promenading at the Alhambra tonight; there always were.

  The two boys, William and Walter, stood by the coach, ordered there so that they could identify the Professor later, when he came out of the theatre. Like Ben Harkness, they could hardly believe their eyes.

  “I’ll do my best to pick you up, Professor,” Harkness said as they set off for the theatre. “But it’ll be a shade warm around Leicester Square by the time you’re ready to leave.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Ben. I’ll find my way back. Those two good boys have orders to shadow me. They learn quick
ly. It’ll do ’em good.”

  THERE WAS A HUGE and excited seethe around the front of the Alhambra, people crowding in for this special night. A good thing, Moriarty thought, that he had sent young Taplin over to pick up tickets to his box that afternoon. He sat well back; even though disguised, he would never take for granted that no clever shins might see through his disguise. “Err always on the side of caution,” he would tell his people. Even though, in the deep confines of his mind, he knew his disguises to be impenetrable, Moriarty seldom left anything to chance—his lack of readiness concerning the sexually intermediate photographer, Joey Coax, being the kind of exception that proved the rule.

  He usually knew far more than he let on to those around him. For instance, before Sir Jack Idell arrived, all done up in his finery, the Professor was aware, through a man he had in the Alhambra’s front-of-house staff, that Idle Jack had five seats booked in his favourite part of the theatre, the fauteuils, close to the promenade where the night ladies would usually parade unless the management had been got at by the many public decency organizations who held the old music halls were an abomination in the sight of the Lord: places of drunkenness, debauchery, and coarseness. The Alhambra was a theatre, not a hall, remember; people did not sit at tables drinking during a performance as in the old, true music halls, which were often rough, dangerous, and rowdy places, far from the incorrect collective memory of gilded and glittering theatres of fun. The real old music halls gave access to alcohol throughout performances, which were often enjoyed because of the drink, not in spite of it.

  Here, tonight, the Alhambra was sucking in its large audience, particularly the seats in the stalls, and dress-circle stalls were filling up with the better-class clientele and the wealthy young bucks who frequented the palaces of variety: men and women in full evening dress, white tie and tails, some in dress uniform, a cut above the rough, coarse audiences of the ordinary halls. But there was that same hum of expectancy that Moriarty had always found exciting in places of entertainment. He smiled to himself, remembering the last time he had been in this theatre, when he had been concentrating on the act presented by the illusionist Dr. Night, whom he had manipulated and used in his dreadful attempt upon the life of the Prince of Wales back in 1894.*