The Return of Moriarty (33 page)

“He has been out today. To Horton.”

Almost indiscernibly Moriarty's face twitched. He was too tired to think the business out fully tonight; also he had need of the charms and seductive thighs of Mary McNiel—even though she was suspected of treachery. He would sleep on thoughts of Crow, and tomorrow look at the tactics and strategy that would best be employed to meet this new adversary.

It was some time before Angus McCready Crow slipped into the sweet arms of Morpheus. He was first embraced by the sweet arms and honeyed fingers of the eager and voluptuous Mrs. Sylvia Cowles, under whose ministrations his fatigue soon departed to be replaced by that virility which is the motive force of all mankind.

Mrs. Cowles was asleep first, leaving Angus Crow to bask in the gentle glow and aftermath of their congress. His thoughts slowly began to revolve around Moriarty, who was stealthily becoming his unseen, unmet and unknown adversary. All the tiny pieces of intelligence, gleaned from the files, started to take on a new shape and significance. Holmes' own obsession with the man as leader of organized crime, the oblique references to him as a sinister mastermind appeared, in the dark watches of the night, to assume greater proportions and a new three-dimensional quality.

He slept fitfully through the night, waking fully at around seven in the morning, urged into complete consciousness by the ever-ready Mrs. Cowles whispering,

“Angus, my love. Again, Angus dearest, oh, please, again.”

With a responding grunt the craggy Scot plowed another long sweating-sweet furrow, much to their mutual satisfaction, but with the result that on this morning of Wednesday, April 11, the inspector was a good fifteen minutes late in getting to his office.

It was not until after ten o'clock that Crow's sergeant, Tanner, winkled out the whereabouts of former Inspector John Meiklejohn. By that time Crow had taken more than a cursory look at the interrogation reports that had followed Monday's black night of violence. Moriarty's name appeared more than once, as did the names of Michael Green and Peter Butler. As was suspected, another pattern was emerging, that of two rival criminal factions clashing over disputed territory and powers. Though there was little concrete evidence, Crow knew that if Green or Butler could be found—and the Yard knew that pair well enough—the chances were that they might eventually lead to the dark and brooding specter of Professor James Moriarty.

By half-past ten Crow and Tanner were both seated in the back of a fast-horsed cab, starting the journey to meet the erstwhile Inspector Meiklejohn in the City Road.

Moriarty and Paget were up and out by eleven, riding over to see Solly Abrahams. It was a bright morning but Paget found his master far removed, uncommunicative, deep in thought. The Professor had wrapped himself in numerous matters, in particular the address he would give to the emissaries from the European capitals—a speech of some import, for on the results of Friday's meeting rested the whole future of Moriarty's dream to be overlord of the criminal denizens of the Continent.

Beneath these thoughts lay the obscure fears, those weird fantasies of mind, which came, Moriarty knew well enough, from the still-present threat of Green and Butler and the undeniable fact that there was a chosen agent of death well entrenched within the Limehouse lair.

Crow was also hiding away in Moriarty's secret consciousness—a figure of law and justice who appeared to be girding his loins for an assault against all the Professor stood for and had worked for.

The business with old Abrahams did not take more than an hour and a couple of glasses of port wine. (The Jew kept a fine cellar, and it was rumored that he had once personally employed a team of cracksmen whose sole duty was to rape the cellars of the nobility.) The Harrow matter settled, they drove back to Limehouse and Moriarty instructed Paget to present himself at his chambers after they had eaten. This afternoon he would talk with Roach and Fray to inform them of their choice for the future—death or life with a term of very legal imprisonment.

There was another matter that had been troubling Moriarty, and at last his mind was rightly made up. Before his food was served by Mrs. Wright—now accompanied by an omnipresent punisher—he sent for Lee Chow and gave him quick and ruthless orders.

“The man, Zebedee Smith,” he said with no trace of emotion.

“You wishee I…?”

“Yes. We have no further use for him; he has lived out his purpose. He also knows too much. Tonight, Lee Chow, see that his throat is slit and the body well stowed.”

The Chinese bowed a solemn bob and retreated, smiling. This was no time for any sentiment, and probably the other two taken entering Nelson Street would go the same way on the morrow.

John Meiklejohn was now a man in his middle sixties, but of necessity he still worked for his living. His office was small and furnished in a simple manner, being on the second floor of a building near to where the City Road joined with Old Street. A brass plate on the door signified that this was the office of
JOHN MEIKLEJOHN. DETECTIVE
&
LEGAL INVESTIGATOR.

Crow tapped on the door and pushed it open. Old Meiklejohn sat behind a large desk strewn with papers. In the corner, near the one grimy window, a young man sat laboriously writing in a large ledger.

Crow introduced himself and watched the smile of welcome fade from Meiklejohn's tired and lined face.

“Is this a business matter or something personal?” the private detective asked, worry plain in his rheumy eyes.

“It is somewhat of a personal business, I'm afraid.” Crow's rich burr had a kindly touch to it.

“Ah, personal. Some trouble you wish me to settle for you, perhaps?”

“No.” Crow was firm. “Some past trouble of your own, which you can perhaps help us with.”

Old Meiklejohn nodded sadly and called to his young assistant.

“Bernard, the gentlemen have a little private business with me. I'd be grateful if you would step out for a few minutes.” He gave a short and not unpleasant laugh. “You can go across the road and ogle that young woman in the draper's, eh?”

When the lithe and blushing Bernard had departed, Meiklejohn waved his visitors into chairs.

“I suppose it's something from the de Goncourt affair. It usually is.”

“Usually?” Crow on the alert. “What do you mean, man, usually? You have many inquiries about that? I thought it was well forgotten by most people.”

“Oh, I suppose I exaggerate, but once in a while someone recalls it, usually when there's a similar swindle. It is then that I get a visit. Another lot of magsmen on the con?”

Crow smiled gently. “Mr. Meiklejohn, I have no wish to remind you of the past. It is dead and well buried as far as I am concerned. You were a fool, but like the other two, you paid your debt.” He glanced around the bare office. “And go on paying, too, I imagine.”

Meiklejohn sighed. “It hasn't been easy, but I've managed; good times and bad. There is quite a call for private investigation, you know, though I should have taken myself off to America, I hear that is where there are real pickings. A countryman of yours has done well with his agency there.”

“Aye, Allan Pinkerton.”

“Yes, that's where I should have gone. A fool should not stay near the spot where he has befouled himself.”

Crow gave a long, sage nod. “I suppose you're right, but you can leave it too long, you know. Had you heard that Palmer's gone to Australia?”

“No.” It was almost a shocked sound. “No, has he really, now. Well, he's left it late, and poor old Nat gone also—a different kind of emigration.”

“It was concerning Nat Druscovich that we called.”

Meiklejohn gave a bitter laugh. “Don't say that after all this time you've found he left a will and two thousand pound to me. That would be irony indeed.”

“He died a broken man; but you know that. There is something, though, that we did not know until recently. Or I should say that it was known but nobody heeded it. You can be of great help.”

“I'll do what I can, of course.”

“Then you'll add another name to those of Jonge, Kurr and Murray.”

Meiklejohn looked startled, puzzled and a shade gray.

“Another name? You have all the names. Everyone was caught.”

“Walters was not caught.”

“Well, he skipped it, didn't he? America, they said.”

“They said the same about Murray, but he turned up.”

“Well, I don't know what happened to Walters.”

Crow took a deep breath. “What about Moriarty?”

Meiklejohn blanched. “Who?” he asked, a tremble in his voice, eyes darting about the room as though looking for a way of escape.

“Moriarty?” said Crow pushing.

Meiklejohn shook his head. “I never heard that name. Not in connection with the turf racket, anyway.”

“About any other rackets?”

“Well …” He was hesitant. “Well, one does hear the odd whisper from time to time. In this business you can't—”

“Moriarty was behind the swindle in which you were involved, man. We know it and so do you. All we need is a sworn statement.” His Scottish burr was more marked.

“You'd never get him, Inspector. Nobody'll ever get Moriarty and you know that.”

“I don't know it, and I want your statement saying that he was heavily involved with Kurr and Jonge. The truth.”

The minutes ticked by, Meiklejohn shaking his head again.

“Who says he was involved anyhow?”

“Nat Druscovich for one.”

“I don't believe that. If Nat had talked, you'd have been racing about like whippets.”

“On his deathbed. He said it all right, but it got overlooked.”

“You've a signed statement?”

“We've got enough.”

“I doubt it.”

“Enough to collar you and make life unpleasant, and it could be very unpleasant for a man of your age. Good God, man, you must know that.”

Once more a protracted silence. Then—

“If I do some chanting, what then?”

“We'll leave you alone, Mr. Meiklejohn.”

“You might, but …” The sentence trailed off into an unspoken query.

“Is it your safety that concerns you?”

“What do you think, Mr. Crow? What do you really think?”

“I have no idea, Mr. Meiklejohn. All I know is that we have strong evidence that the name of one man was withheld in a case which is dormant. I have reason to believe that you know that name. It is your public duty to make a statement to me now, because it is important for me to have evidence that will stick.”

Meiklejohn let out a long sigh. “You are saying that you'll hound me to the grave if I don't tell you.”

“I would not use such strong terms.”

“Does it have to be a formal statement?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Well, I'll tell you all that I know, which is not great. Kurr and Jonge were, as far as I was concerned, the two ringleaders of that particular series of frauds. As you know, they paid me to tip them when the police were getting close. The details are all set down in the text of the trial. It was not until almost the end that I became aware they were not acting alone, that they were marionettes for another man. I heard his name on several occasions and saw him once—in Jonge's house at Shanklin. His name was Moriarty. James Moriarty.”

“Would you be able to identify him?”

“It's a long time ago—but, yes, I think I would.”

“Can you give us dates?”

“I kept no records—no diaries, and my memory is not what it was.”

“Which means that if we took you into court, your memory would fail you regarding the identification?”

A small and watery smile crossed Meiklejohn's face.

“Possibly.”

Crow concealed his frustration as Tanner penned the statement, handing it over to Meiklejohn to sign—an act he performed with some reluctance.

Crow noted, as they left, that Meiklejohn appeared to have aged in the half hour or so that they had spent with him. Crow would have preferred to ask more, to have probed and questioned at length, but that could come later. At least this document, small as it was, might be the battering ram to send the Professor on a downward slide. The rest of his day would now be spent examining the Monday night's reports and, possibly, talking to some of those involved.

Back at the Yard he instructed Tanner to get about the second line of his investigations: to make a detailed examination of the life, times, friends and relatives of the departed Colonel Moran.

Roach and Fray had been dreading the moment when the Professor would give final judgment upon them. They were both aware by now that some major battle had been fought and won against their former leaders, Green and Butler. It remained only for some kind of sentence to be passed, and Moriarty's cold ruthlessness was legendary among the brotherhood of crime.

Paget came with one of the punishers, leading them from their cramped quarters, down the spiral staircase, along one of the passageways, through the “waiting room”—in which a number of men and women sat intent on seeing the Professor—and up to the leader's chambers, where they were placed in front of the desk, much after the manner of prisoners in the dock awaiting the verdict of the court.

Moriarty, his arm still in the white sling, had the air and manner of a hanging judge. When he spoke, the words dripped from his lips with the same self-satisfied plumminess both men had heard in the court of law.

“In other circumstances I would have had you done away with, like anyone else who had abused my patronage,” he began. “But I have promised that you will hold your destiny in your own hands.” He paused, as though for dramatic effect. “The choice is simple: You can either die—tonight, quickly and with no fuss”—his good arm moved in a graphic mime across his throat—“or you can remain silent, do exactly as you are told, and serve a term of some three years—in the 'Steel.”