The Revenge of Moriarty (8 page)

The meeting was closed and Moriarty let it be known by his manner, that he required no questioning tonight. His instructions were clear and concise and the group left the study to prepare for dinner which Bridget would serve in half an hour or so.

Alone, Moriarty idly picked up the evening paper which Lee Chow had brought in for him. Gladstone had been speaking again. He chuckled for the old politician had been in Liverpool. Talking about the Armenian massacres and pleading for isolated action by Britain. The old fool, he thought.
*

The newspaper did not hold his attention for long, however. He turned his chair and looked, for a few moments, at his beloved painting, contented in the thought that within hours of returning to London he was already once more spinning his web. The sight of the Greuze prompted him to action. There was another painting in his mind's eye: world famous and priceless. Or was it? He jotted some figures onto a piece of paper. That painting was in Paris, as was Jean Grisombre. The latter's sense of avarice could be married to that priceless painting and so bring about the downfall of the Frenchman. Drawing a sheet of notepaper towards him, Moriarty began to compose a letter. On completion he read through the missive twice before sealing it within an envelope which he addressed to – M. Pierre Labrosse. The address was in the Rue Gabrielle, Montmartre, Paris. Another strand had been woven.

Sally Hodges was exhausted. James Moriarty had always been a passionate and skilful lover, but tonight, back in London, it was as though some new confidence had been released within him. Sated with coupling, the Professor lay beside her, his breathing deep, rhythmic, like a man steadily rowing towards some unseen goal. Sal Hodges was not a woman to be easily disturbed by men, nor frightened by violent quirks. Yet tonight she found sleep difficult. It was as if she had touched a madness within her lover: an obsession which shrieked one word. Revenge.

Though the house in Albert Square was silent, Sal Hodges was not the only one who could not sleep. Bridget Spear also lay, alone in her unfamiliar room, wishing that her husband would return from the errand upon which he had embarked soon after they had eaten their evening meal.

She was anxious and frustrated, for she had planned to break the news to him that night. Every word had been rehearsed, all courage summoned. Then, suddenly, the opportunity was not there. She had even tried to dissuade him from going out. Tomorrow, she had argued, would be soon enough. She should have known better, for Bert Spear had always put the Professor's business before all else.

‘You go on to bed, duck. I'll try not to waken you when I get back.'

He hugged her close before leaving, and she could feel the hard heavy bulk of the pistol in his pocket, pressing against her bosom. This doubled her concern. Her husband out in the city, prowling among the inhabitants of the darker citadels: and her own condition, as yet unrevealed to him. Twin frustrations making the night pass slowly.

In another part of the city, Sylvia Crow lay awake, snug in 63 King Street. Her thoughts, however, were happy and excited. Tomorrow she would be reunited with her husband, for at this very moment Angus McCready Crow was sailing into the Mersey. On his arrival in the morning, he would, in fact, catch a glimpse of the
SS Aurania
, oblivious that he had been hard on the heels of Moriarty. But Sylvia Crow's thoughts were far removed from her husband's official work or the villains which he so devotedly pursued. Tomorrow night, she dreamed, Angus would be back and she had many surprises in store for him.

The name of Faulkner was well-known in London. In some circles Faulkner's Baths had become a byword. In all, Faulkner ran three establishments. The one at the Great Eastern Railway Station was the most simple – straightforward hot and cold baths and showers. At 26 Villiers Street things were more elaborate: ‘Brill's' seawater baths were a speciality, as were the Sulphur vapour, Russian vapour and Sultan baths. The Faulkner's at 50 Newgate Street fell half-way between the simplicity of the Great Eastern and the opulence of Villiers Street. Here you could bathe for a shilling, take a plunge for ninepence, hot or cold shower for a shilling and the full Turkish bath for two and six.

Bert Spear paid for a Turkish bath but only got as far as the changing rooms, for there he saw the attendant who was his sole reason for the visit. The attendant was a huge bruiser of a man, with a damaged ear and hands the size of shovels.

‘What cheer,' said Spear with a delighted grin.

‘Bert Spear. Blind me, I never expected …'

‘Well, there you are. A surprise. You still with me for a fair slice?'

Terremant did not have to think. ‘Say the word.'

‘I want you and five good 'uns. Men we've used before. Handy and big.'

‘Done. Is it for …?'

Spear held up a hand in caution.

‘Can you remember an address?'

‘Me memory only goes duff for the Peelers.'

‘Tomorrow night. Ten o'clock. Twos and threes – not all in a lump. Number Five Albert Square, other side of Notting Hill.'

‘A job?'

‘You're hired. Permanent.'

Terremant's face broke into a broad beam and one huge fist smacked gently onto Spear's shoulder.

‘Like the old days.'

‘Exactly like the old days. You'll meet a lot of old friends. But I want you silent. If not, you are a mouth and will die a lip.'

‘I'm deaf and dumb, you know that.'

Spear looked at him hard. Terremant could have lifted and crushed him with one hand, but the big man knew that Spear was highly respected. In spite of his reputation as no mean punisher, Terremant would never go looking for trouble where one of Moriarty's Praetorian Guard was concerned.

‘Tomorrow night then.'

Spear smiled and nodded and left for other haunts that were not nearly so salubrious as Faulkner's Turkish Baths.

Since the 1850s the face of London had undergone a subtle change. Building developments had altered and removed many of the teeming rookeries, those cesspools of evil, but in spite of reform and replanning, there were still streets and maze-like back alleys into which the police only ventured in pairs and the stranger only entered by foolish chance.

These areas held no fear for Ember. On and off for over thirty years he had come and gone along the darker and more notorious of the city's streets with the particular immunity accorded to those who held a special and useful sinecure within the bastions of the criminal world.

No matter that Ember had been absent from old haunts for two years and more. In some way this fact only went to enhance his journey during that night as he slipped, a thin shadow, from street to street, to taproom, lodging house and obscure kitchen. Everywhere he went in the cold and dank thoroughfares there were men and women who hailed him, sometimes as an equal, but more often as a person of rank.

He moved quickly, not tarrying long in any one place, having short conversations with various ragged individuals. On occasion money changed hands, slid surreptitiously from palm to palm to the accompaniment of nods, leers and winks.

When dawn came up, heralding another bright day in that Indian summer of 1896, Ember emerged from the smoke, ripeness and clinging gin-sodden air of that nether world with the knowledge that he had relaid the foundations of the network which was once Professor James Moriarty's pride and joy: that invisible chain of intelligence which would provide the most recent and detailed knowledge regarding both champions and enemies of the underworld alike.

The sun began to climb higher and at ten o'clock on that same morning, a group of ragged urchins hammered on the door of 221
B
Baker Street and were eventually led into the presence of Sherlock Holmes himself. Fifteen minutes later the street arabs left, happy and clutching silver shillings, their reward for the whispers passed on to Holmes who, for the next hour, sat in his rooms playing the violin and pondering hard on the intelligence which had been brought to him.

As the morning wore on, several connected events took place. At a little after ten, Moriarty left Albert Square in the company of Bertram Jacobs and Albert Spear, bound for a series of meetings which would turn some of the contents of his big leather trunk into coin of the realm.

In all they visited three persons: the old Jew, Solly Abrahams, with whom the Professor had conducted business on many previous occasions, and the spacious back rooms of two dingy pawn shops. One in High Holborn and the other near Aldgate.

At eleven o'clock, Sal Hodges – who had gone out early – came back to Albert Square accompanied by two thin, almost waif-like, girls who could not be more than fourteen or fifteen years of age.

In spite of their wasted and scrawny appearance, both of these girls – a pair of orphans named Martha and Polly Pearson – were bubbling with suppressed excitement as Sal prodded them down the area steps and into the kitchen where Bridget Spear was cross and hot with trying to do a hundred jobs at once.

‘Well, you need fattening up and that's to be sure,' said Bridget after the girls had been made to remove their shawls and show themselves. But there was a hint of kindness in the housekeeper's voice, for she could still clearly recall the night on which she had been brought into the Professor's service: thin, filthy and browbeaten. ‘You been on the streets, have you?'

‘No 'm.' They both shook their heads.

‘Well, you've certainly never been in service and I shall have to teach you everything I suppose. Will you work?'

They nodded enthusiastically.

‘You'll know it if you don't. All right, get yourselves a bowl of broth and some bread. Over there. Sit down at the table and we'll see what we can do.'

Orchard Street lay between the busy thoroughfare of Oxford Street and the grave respectability of Portman Square: a quiet tributary leading from a babbling commercial river to a placid wealthy lake.

Half-way down on the right-hand side, coming from Oxford Street, was a small chemist's shop, all neat with white paintwork and a window containing large thin-necked apothecary jars bright with coloured liquids: red, yellow, blue and green.

There were few people about and nobody in the shop when the Chinaman entered, shutting the door firmly behind him and, with a quick movement, turning the key and pulling down the grey blind so that the word
CLOSED
showed towards the street.

The chemist was a small man in his early middle years, untidy in appearance with wispy hair and a pair of half-spectacles balanced precariously on his nose. He had been replacing a jar labelled Pumiline Essence on a shelf which was heavy with bottles and preparations.
Rooke's Elixir, King's Dandelion Pills, Johnson's Soothing Syrup
, and one which always amused Lee Chow,
Hayman's Balsam of Horehound
.

‘How do you do, Mr Bignall?' said Lee Chow, the smile permanent on his face, his pronunciation still meticulously dividing the chemist's name into two equal parts.

For a few seconds Bignall stood, mouth open, a puzzled expression on his face, like a man who has just received bad news.

‘You all right Mr Bignall?'

‘I don't think I want you in this shop.'

If the chemist intended it to be in any way threatening, it was not a convincing speech, for the man's complexion had taken on an ashen shade akin to the texture of a winding sheet.

‘I have not seen you a long time, Mr Bignall.'

‘You should leave. Go now. Before I call the police.'

Lee Chow laughed as though it was a very good joke. ‘You not call police. I think you rather listen to me.'

‘I run a respectable business.'

‘You still have customers I bring to you?'

‘I don't want any trouble.'

‘You already got trouble, Mr Bignall. You make a lot of money in last two year since I not been here.'

‘It is nothing to do with you.'

The Chinese appeared to think for a minute. Chemists were his stock in trade. They could provide many things that were hard to come by and some people were willing to pay well for a chemist's private services. At last he shrugged and began to turn back towards the door.

‘All right. I leave you alone, but you get visit from friends soon. Good day, Mr Bignall.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Just you get visit from friends. Pity. Nice shop. All clean now. Apple pie order. Soon apples go rotten and police come after that. You un'erstand?'

Bignall understood. He was a man of vivid imagination.

‘Wait,' he called out. ‘Wait one moment. I'll give you money.'

‘I have money, Mr Bignall. I have money to give you if you do favours like before. Favours to special friends I send.'

‘I …'

Lee Chow came slowly over to the counter and leaned towards the chemist.

‘You still supply white powder to Mr Holmes?'

Wearily Bignall nodded.

‘And you still keep truth hidden from his friend, the doctor Watson?'

A sigh, as though the chemist was in many ways relieved to share the intelligence with another person.

‘Yes.'

‘You still get opium my people send?'

Another nod.

‘You have all old customers?'

‘Yes.'

‘And some new, perhaps?'

‘One or two.'

‘And you still do the surgical operations? You still get rid of babies?'

‘Only when it is necessary.'

‘Good. Now we talk of how things must be.'

It was half an hour before Lee Chow left Orchard Street, returning to Albert Square with happy news for his master. Another move had been made in the great game of revenge and retribution.

That evening, both Lee Chow and Ember reported in full to the Professor. Many of the lurkers who had been in their employ in the past were now out again on Moriarty's business: ears pricked, eyes searching, scavenging for words, hints, signs, eager in the knowledge that there was a small yet steady wage for them in return for whatever scraps or titbits they could grasp.