The Return of Moriarty (27 page)

“Who's there?” he whispered. He knew some of the men had gone from the attic, though at least two of the lamps were still burning, and he doubted if either Green or Butler would have left him alone.

A hand fell softly across his mouth, and a woman's voice said quietly, “'Ts me, Bridget. He told me to come up and care for you.”

There was a rustle in the darkness, and Spear could make out the figure of the girl undressing. A moment later she was beside him on the mattress.

“Are they all gone?” He did not raise his voice.

“They're downstairs, except for Brody and Lee. They're asleep out there.”

Spear nodded. “And that's where you should be, Bridget.”

“Out there?” Her arm moved across his chest.

“Asleep, my girl. You look done up. They always work you that hard?”

“Is there any man who doesn't? But he'll lay into me if I don't give you your greens.” The hand moved down.

Spear caught her fingers, gently moving the arm away. “You rest, girl. Get the sleep you need, there's no need to peel my best end this night.”

“Do you not fancy me then?”

Spear sighed, with women you could never do right.

“You looked nice enough, but you'd be better for sleep. The day will come, Bridget.”

She did not argue more, but moved close to him so that they could share the warmth of each other's bodies.

Spear woke to someone shaking his shoulder. The girl had gone, and it was Green's hand on his shirt. Daylight filled the attic room and the curtain had been pulled back. One of Green's henchmen set a mug of tea and a plate of bread and dripping beside the mattress.

“You slept sound enough, Bert. Our little Bridget ride you into the land of Nod, eh?” His laugh grated. “Anyhow, me lad, it's past ten and you should be about.”

Spear thanked him, on guard again, and Green rose to his feet.

“We'll have some more talking later,” said the Peg and he made as though to move away, then, as if changing his mind, turned back. “Oh, we've set things going.” The smile cracked over his face, dark and cunning. “That actor you've got down in Limehouse imitating the Professor. With any luck he'll be bleedin' and dead within the day.”

In the Limehouse headquarters they were up betimes. One of the punishers was left to guard Roach and Pray, the rest were mustered, together with Ember and Lee Chow, and given their instructions to comb the haunts for more strength. As they prepared to go, Moriarty summoned Harkness, his driver, telling him to have the cab outside within the half hour. He then sent for Paget.

“Have you thought more about the Harrow lay?” he asked.

“If I have to go, then I will, but I'd still rather look at it from a distance.”

Moriarty smiled, a brief flash of grim lightning. “We'll see, then, we'll see. In the meantime the grass must not grow. Tonight is time enough for the Peg and the Butler. This morning I want you to come over to Solly Abrahams so that we may arrange the fencing of the Harrow loot. Tomorrow we'll talk cases with Fisher, Clark and Gay.”

Paget went down to the kitchen to tell Fanny he expected to be back within two hours. He was surprised to find Mary McNiel helping to roll out pastry on the big board, up to her elbows in flour—hardly an occupation for a prime whore.

While Paget was saying his brief farewells, Moriarty spent a moment with Parker.

“This Crow—can you get to our people at the Yard?”

“It may take a few hours, maybe a day.”

“By tomorrow night?”

“Certainly by then.”

“I wish to know about him: record; everything—particularly why he's been seeing Holmes.” He paused, eyes flicking up to Parker's race as the head moved to and fro. “Is he watched?”

“Not continually.”

“See to it, then. I do not care for any strange jack who circles like a vulture.”

Paget returned and Parker slipped away like the wraith he was. Moriarty looked at his watch; it was nearly midday and by now the others would be pulling in his army of mercenaries. He nodded, and together they went down into the “waiting room,” across the warehouse floor to the outer door.

There was room outside the warehouse for a cab or carriage, even a large four-horse van, but the exit road led only down to the docks, not a convenient route for most of the departures made from the headquarters. Normal practice was for the warehouse to be approached, or quitted, on foot. One took a short walk down a narrow lane between crushed and leaning houses, emerging through an archway into the wider, if still unsalubrious, streets.

Paget stood at the doorway and gave a long low whistle. From somewhere at the end of the lane came an answering series of short whistles—one of Parker's lurkers indicating that all was clear.

The two men set off across the court and into the lane. Through the archway they could see Harkness with the cab drawn up at the curb.

They came out through the arch into the main street, and as they emerged Paget was distracted for a fleeting second by the sound of hooves. A small single-horse van was approaching from the left. As it drew in line with Moriarty's cab sudden hell broke loose.

There were four or five shots in all, the volley coming from the back of the van, ripping the air, crashing into the cab, splintering woodwork, slamming into the bricks around the arch like a handful of pebbles projected with great force—the noise of the explosions echoing with the whine of ricochets.

Harkness cried out as Paget hurled himself in front of the Professor who seemed to do a half-turn, a small gasping grunt coming from him as he wheeled. There was the clatter of the horse, the fat rumble of wheels and two more shots from the back of the van—one of which whizzed, like an angry vicious insect, over Paget's head, the other sharding a cobble some eighteen inches to the left. Then the van was gone and footsteps echoed urgently as two of the lurkers came running up.

The Professor lay on his back, blood soaking the upper left arm of his frock coat.

“He's hit, my God, the guv'nor's hit,” Harkness cried, his voice rising to a screech.

The Professor pushed himself into a sitting position.

“Stop whining, you nickey bastard, and help me up.”

His face was gray, and Paget thought he could detect fear hiding in the corner of the eyes, which screwed up with pain as they got him to his feet.

Together they helped the Professor down the alley, back into the warehouse where Fanny, Mary and Mrs. Wright alerted by the noise, fluttered around getting Moriarty to his chamber and stripping off the sleeve.

It was only a flesh wound, but painful nevertheless. Moriarty kept up a steady flow of abuse as they cleaned and dressed it.

“If this is the work of Butler and Green, I'll see them with their marbles chopped.”

“We'll do for the bastards,” soothed Paget.

“Do for them?” the Professor snarled. “No canting flash cove uses an iron on me. By Jesus, I'll see them both do a leap: What do they take me for? A gulpy?”

They brought him brandy, and the color soon returned to his face. All thoughts of going to see Abrahams that day had gone. Moriarty could think only of the night and ruination of the Peg's organization.

Paget was in great unease, for while all indications were that Morarty still held the whip hand, Green and Butler must have great confidence to attempt the life of the Professor so deeply within his own domain. He saw also, in Moriarty's look, the sense of concern. It was something he had only viewed once before—when Holmes had had the Professor on the run, chasing across Europe, abandoning his plans and going into exile.

Crow's sergeant, a fairhaired, beefy lad of twenty-eight, was waiting for him at Horsemonger Lane with the police surgeon; Williams, the warder who had shown the girl in to see Moran; the turnkey who had found the body; the gatehouse warder; and the governor.

Crow talked to them each in turn, making constant references to Lestrade's report. Nothing new emerged except that the pompous little doctor could now say with authority that Moran had died of poisoning by
Strychnos
nux vomica, the poison having been inserted into both the pie and the wine delivered to the colonel.

Neither were there any new features added to the description of the girl, which, Crow reflected sadly, only proved how unobservant the turnkeys and warders of Her Majesty's Prisons could be. The girl was an identical copy of hundreds of others who lived in London. Again, he thought, it was a clear case for the building up of a complete crime index. Registration cards might have solved this one; as it was, they could only issue a description and hope that among the many young women who would doubtless be brought in for questioning they might find the girl who had so insidiously taken the poisoned food into the jail.

Eventually the inspector asked to see the cell, in Men's Block A, where Moran spent his last hours. Crow was also a great believer in a thorough examination of the scene of crime. But here there were no clues, except to previous occupants. Someone had scratched on the wall

21,000 times have I walked round this cell in a week

Another, his remand obviously over and sentence passed, had chipped out

Good-bye, Lucy dear,
I'm parted from you for seven long year

BILL JONES

Below, some cynic had added

If Lucy dear is like most girls,
She'll give few sighs and moans,
But soon will find among your pals
Another William Jones

Nothing. No scratched messages by Colonel Moran, no hints or traces. Only the stale smell of humanity thinly disguised by the pervading reek of disinfectant.

Crow returned with his heavy batch of papers to Scotland Yard, where, more from irritation than conscientiousness, he instructed his sergeant to see if there were any old reports or documents relating to the name Druscovich. The sergeant did not return to the office until nearly four o'clock, this time not only with papers referring to Druscovich but also to several other names—notably those of Palmer and Meiklejohn.

Crow cursed aloud and with some profanity. He had not been able to see the wood for the trees. Druscovich—he knew the name as well as his own, and it must have been a pretty dull copper who had put in his beat report without connecting the names, and an even duller sergeant. He could only presume that no senior officer had even looked at it.

Nat Druscovich: Chief Inspector Nat Druscovich. Chief Inspector Bill Palmer, and Inspector John Meiklejohn—the three members of the detective force who were sent down in 1877. All of them had got a two-stretch for complicity in the de Goncourt scandal, which had brought shame upon the whole force.

“Tanner,” he bellowed to his sergeant, “there has to be a comprehensive file under the name de Goncourt. I want it here within the half hour, then you're in charge until I've taken it home and read it.”

If Nat Druscovich had mentioned on his deathbed that someone called Moriarty was behind that swindle, then chances were it was true; and if that Moriarty were one and the same man as the Professor, then there could just be a small gleam among the darkness. Meiklejohn and Palmer were, presumably, still alive; and if one or both could confirm, then maybe some of the wild stories might possibly be true. Get Moriarty on an old score and who knew what walls might tumble down.

“You're a lying bastard!”

The blow that accompanied the spat statement caught Spear in the mouth. He went down, feeling the blood running from his lip on the scarred side.

Butler, who had come in behind Green, reached forward and pulled Spear to his feet. Two of the other men—Bovey and Gibbs, Spear thought they were called—climbed through the trap and ranged themselves behind Michael Green.

Green's face was flushed with anger. He had struck with his right fist, the left crumpling a piece of paper on which there was writing.

“Bleedin' liar, Spear.”

“I never claimed to be Saint Peter.”

“Your plan—your plotting to control Moriarty's mob: you and Paget and Ember and the Chink, Lee Chow. An actor hired to be the Professor.”

Sarcasm etched Green's words, like drawing a grater over nutmeg, all punctuated by short heavy blows to the side of Spear's head.

“Easy, Mike, we want the mandrake alive.”

Nobody ever called Spear a mandrake. His right arm came back, but Bovey and Gibbs were on him with restraining arms that were none too considerate.

“It was you who didn't believe the Professor was alive.”

Spear's mouth was swelling fast making it difficult to speak with conviction.

“Well, I think he's dead now.” Green's mile was tightlipped, thin and greasy as workhouse soup. “You saw him go down, Bovey?”

The man on Spear's right arm nodded with the whole of his body, making Spear wonder if he was, perhaps, a little uncertain.

“Like I said, Peg. We gave him six with the irons. I hit him at least twice, and he went down like a piece of dead meat. Paget as well, I think.”

“I wouldn't be as sure about Paget,” chimed Gibbs.

Spear could smell the powder on them, the gloom rising in his guts and head.

“They went after your actor.” Green held a fist under Spear's nose. “Well, they got him with barkers in Limehouse. Only when they came back, they said he was the spitting image of the Professor—and they're men as have seen Moriarty in both his guises. That worried me, but now I've had a letter delivered—one I've been waiting for. It's from someone that's seen him and been close to him. So tell me, brother Spear, when did Professor Moriarty rise from the dead? And what was the game? The one that's blown him says there's trouble.”

Spear spat the blood from his mouth.

“If you've killed him, you shoful-shit, you'd better look about you, because the demons of hell will be at your windows.”

“I'll give him the demons of hell.” Butler came forward, his pasty face close to Spear. “Get him in a chair and I'll tune him. He'll sing like a bagpipes before I've done.”