Moriarty

11 Dinner in Camberwell

We took a much later train than we had intended, leaving Holborn Viaduct just as night fell and the crowds seemed to blend into the sudden darkness like ink spattered on a page. Jones was in a sombre mood. He had met Lestrade, Gregson and some of the other detective inspectors in the hours following the explosion but there were to be no decisions made until the next day. The conclusion that he had narrowly escaped an attempt on his life seemed inescapable. We had the words spoken by Edgar Mortlake as the proof of it and surely the timing of the attack could not have been coincidental. Lestrade was in favour of arresting both the brothers immediately but in the end it had been Jones himself who had urged caution. He had no evidence beyond a brief conversation that they might deny had ever taken place. He had, he said, already devised a better strategy—although he was not yet prepared to say what it was. I agreed. Clarence Devereux and his gang had run circles around Pinkerton’s for many years and would surely do the same with the British police. If we were going to reel them in, we would need to take the utmost care.

‘It is unlikely that Elspeth will have heard about the bomb,’ Jones said, as our train drew into an area of London known as Camberwell and we prepared to climb down, ‘and I will have to tell her for it is inconceivable that I should withhold such information from her. But the position of it! The possibility that I might have been the intended target…’

‘We will say nothing of that,’ I said.

‘She will somehow discern it. She has a way of homing in on the truth.’ He sighed. ‘And yet still I do not understand these adversaries of ours. What was it they hoped to achieve? Had I been killed, there are any number of inspectors who could have taken my place. You have met many of them yourself. And if they had really wanted me dead, there are many easier ways they could have achieved their aim. Here we are now, on a station platform. An assassin with a knife or a garrotte could do the job in the blink of an eye.’

‘It is possible that their intention was never to kill you,’ I said.

‘That is not what you said before.’

‘I said that you were the target and I still believe that to be the case. The truth is that it would not have mattered to Clarence Devereux if you lived or died. It was no more than a demonstration of his power, his immunity from prosecution. He laughs in the face of the British police and at the same time he warns them: do not come close, do not interfere with my business.’

‘Then he misunderstands us. After this, we will redouble our efforts.’ He said no more until we had left the station. ‘There is no logic, Chase, I tell you,’ he continued. ‘Who was the man in the brougham? What are we to make of the meeting between Moriarty and Devereux, the role of this boy Perry, the murder of Lavelle, even Horner’s of Chancery Lane? Separately, I have an understanding of them. But when I try to bring them together, they defy common sense. It is like reading a book in which the chapters have been published in the wrong order or where the writer has deliberately set out to confuse.’

‘We will only find out the meaning of it when we find Clarence Devereux,’ I said.

‘I begin to wonder if we ever will. Lestrade was right. He seems to be a phantom. He has no presence.’

‘Was not Moriarty the same?’

‘That is true. Moriarty was a name, a presence—an entity unknown to me until the very end. That was his power. It may well be that Devereux has learned from his example.’ Jones was beginning to limp, resting heavily on his stick. ‘I am tired. Forgive me if we talk no further. I must compose myself for whatever awaits me at home.’

‘Would you rather I did not come?’

‘No, no, my friend, to postpone would only make Elspeth fear that events have taken a worse turn than they have. We will dine together as planned.’

It had been but a short distance from Holborn to Camberwell and yet the journey seemed to have taken us ever further into the night. By the time we arrived, a thick fog was rolling through the streets, deadening the air and turning the last commuters into ghosts. A growler lumbered past. I heard the clatter of the horse’s hooves and the creak of the wheels but the carriage itself was little more than a dark shadow, vanishing around a corner.

Jones lived close to the station. I have to say that his property was very much as I had imagined it might be: a handsome terraced house with bay windows and white stucco pillars in front of a solid, black-painted door. The style was typically English, the effect one of calm and security. Three steps led up from the street and in climbing them I had a strange sense that I was leaving all the perils of the day behind. Perhaps it was the warm glow of light that I could discern, leaking through the edges of the curtained windows. Or maybe it was the smell of meat and vegetables that wafted up from the kitchen somewhere below. But I was already glad to be here. We entered a narrow hallway with a carpeted staircase opposite and Jones led me through a doorway and into the front room. In fact the room ran the full length of the house, with a folding screen pulled back to reveal a dining table set for three at the front, a library and a piano at the back. There was a fire burning in the hearth but it was hardly needed. With the abundant furniture, the embroidered boxes and baskets, the dark red wallpaper and the heavy curtains, the room was already cosy enough.

Mrs Jones was sitting in a plush armchair with a strikingly pretty six-year-old girl leaning against her, the policeman puppet dangling over her arm. Her mother had been reading to her but as we came in she closed the book and the little girl turned, delighted to see us. She had none of her father’s looks. With her light brown hair, tumbling in ringlets, her bright green eyes and smile, she was much more her mother’s daughter, for Elspeth Jones clearly reflected her across the years.

‘Not in bed yet, Beatrice?’ Jones asked.

‘No, Papa. Mama said I could stay up.’

‘Well, this is the gentleman I imagine you wish to meet; my friend, Mr Frederick Chase.’

‘Good evening, sir,’ the girl said. She showed me the doll. ‘This came from Paris. My papa gave him to me.’

‘He seems a fine fellow,’ I said. I always felt uncomfortable around children and tried not to show it.

‘I have never met an American before.’

‘I hope you will not find me very different from yourself. It was not so many years ago that my ancestors left this country. My great-grandfather came from London. A place called Bow.’

‘Is New York very loud?’

‘Loud?’ I smiled. It was such an odd choice of word. ‘Well, it’s certainly very busy. And the buildings are very tall. Some of them are so tall that we call them skyscrapers.’

‘Because they scrape the sky?’

‘Because they seem to.’

‘That’s enough now, Beatrice. Nanny is waiting for you upstairs.’ Mrs Jones turned to me. ‘She is so inquisitive that one day I’m sure she’ll be a detective, just like her father.’

‘I fear it will be some time before the Metropolitan Police are prepared to admit women to their ranks,’ Jones remarked.

‘Then she can be a lady detective, like Mrs Gladden in those excellent books of Mr Forrester’s.’ She smiled at her daughter. ‘You may say good night to Mr Chase.’

‘Good night, Mr Chase.’ Obediently, the little girl hurried out of the room.

I turned my attention to Elspeth Jones. She was, as I had at once perceived, very similar in looks to her daughter although her hair had been cut short over her forehead and gathered up in the Grecian style. She struck me somehow as a very caring woman, one who would bring a quiet intelligence to everything she did. She was simply dressed in a shade of dusty pink with a belt and a high collar and no jewellery that I could see. Now that Beatrice had gone, she gave me her full attention.

‘Mr Chase,’ she said. ‘I am very pleased to meet you.’

‘And you, ma’am,’ I returned.

‘Will you have some grog?’ She gestured and I saw a jug and three glasses had been set out on a brass table beside the fire. ‘It seems these wintery nights will never end and I like to have something warm waiting when my husband returns home.’

She poured three glasses of the tincture and we sat together in that slightly awkward silence that comes when people meet each other for the first time and none of them is quite sure how to proceed. But then the maid appeared to say that dinner was ready and once we had taken our places at the table, the company became more at ease.

The maid brought a pretty decent stew, boiled neck of mutton with carrots and mashed turnips, certainly far superior to anything I had been offered at Hexam’s, and while Athelney Jones poured the wine, his wife carefully steered the conversation in the direction that she preferred. Indeed, her skill was that she seemed natural and uncalculating but I was aware that during the next hour we never once touched on anything to do with the police. She asked me many questions about America: the food, the culture, the nature of the people. She wanted to know if I had yet seen Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, a device that had been much discussed in the British press but which had yet to be exhibited. Sadly, I had not.

‘How do you find England?’ she asked.

‘I like London very much,’ I replied. ‘It reminds me more of Boston than New York, certainly in the number of art galleries and museums, the handsome architecture, the shops. Of course, you have so much history here. I envy you that. Would that I had more time for leisure. Every time I walk in the streets I find all manner of diversions.’

‘Perhaps you might be tempted to remain here longer.’

‘It is not such a wild supposition, Mrs Jones. It has long been my desire to travel in Europe… something that is true of many of my countrymen. Most of us came from here, after all. If I am successful in this current investigation with your husband, perhaps I might persuade my superiors to allow me a sabbatical.’

It was my first reference to the business that had brought Athelney Jones and myself together and, as a steaming bread and butter pudding was brought to the table by the little maid who seemed to pop up from nowhere and disappear just as abruptly, our conversation turned to darker things.

‘I must tell you something, my dear, that will concern you,’ Jones began. ‘But you will learn about it from the newspapers soon enough, rarely though you read them…’ With that, he described the events of the afternoon, the attack on Scotland Yard and my own part in what had happened. As agreed, he mentioned neither the position of the bomb nor the death of his secretary, Stevens.

Elspeth Jones listened in silence until he had finished. ‘Were many people killed?’ she asked.

‘Three, but there were a great many injured,’ Jones replied.

‘It seems incredible that such an attack on the Metropolitan Police could be considered, let alone carried out,’ she said. ‘And this so soon after the unspeakable events in Highgate!’ She turned to me, fixing me with her bright, inquisitive eyes. ‘You will forgive me, Mr Chase, if I say that some very dark forces have followed you from America.’

‘I must disagree with you on one major point, Mrs Jones. It was I who followed them.’

‘And yet you have arrived at the same time.’

‘Mr Chase is not to blame,’ Jones muttered, reproachfully.

‘I know that, Athelney. And if I suggested otherwise, I apologise. But I begin to wonder if this should even be a police matter. Perhaps it is time for higher authorities to become involved.’

‘It may well be that they already are.’

‘“It may well be” is not enough. Police officers have been killed!’ She paused. ‘Was the bomb very close to your office?’

Jones hesitated. ‘It was on the same floor.’

‘Were you the intended target?’

I saw him consider before he answered. ‘It is too early to say. Several inspectors have offices close to where the bomb was placed. It could have been intended for any one of us. I implore you, my dear, let us speak no more of it.’ Fortunately, the maid chose that moment to appear with the coffee. ‘Shall we remove to the other room?’

We left the table and returned to the back parlour where the fire was now burning low. At the last moment, the maid had handed Mrs Jones a parcel wrapped in brown paper and, as we sat down, she passed it to her husband. ‘I am sorry to trouble you, Athelney, but I wonder if you would mind walking up the road to Mrs Mills?’

‘Now?’

‘It is her laundry and some books for her to read.’ She turned to me and continued in the same breath, ‘Mrs Mills is a member of our congregation and recently widowed. To add to her misfortunes, she has not been very well and we do what we can to be good neighbours.’

‘Is it not rather late?’ Jones asked, still holding the parcel.

‘Not at all. She does not sleep very much and I told her you would be looking in. She was delighted to hear it. You know how fond she is of you. Anyway, a stroll will do you good before bed.’

‘Very well. Perhaps Chase will accompany me… ?’

‘Mr Chase has not finished his coffee. He will keep me company while you are gone.’

Her strategy was obvious. She wanted to speak to me on my own and had arranged things to that effect. Throughout the evening, I had been amused to watch my friend, Athelney Jones, in the privacy of his home. So forceful and single-minded when pursuing his investigation, he was altogether quieter and less demonstrative in the company of his wife. Their closeness was indisputable. They filled each other’s silences and anticipated the other’s demands. And yet I would have said that she was by far the stronger of the two. In her company, Jones lost much of his authority and it made me think that even Sherlock Holmes might have been a lesser detective had he chosen to marry.

Her husband stood up. He took the parcel, kissed her gently on the forehead, and left the room. She waited until she had heard the front door open and close. Then she looked at me in a quite different way, no longer the hostess, and I realised that she was assessing me, deciding whether to draw me into some inner circle of confidence.

‘My husband tells me that you have been a detective with Pinkerton’s for some time,’ she began.

‘For longer than I care to remember, Mrs Jones,’ I replied, ‘although strictly speaking, I am an investigator, not a detective. It is not quite the same thing.’

‘In what way?’

‘We are more straightforward in our methods. A crime is committed. We investigate it. But in most cases it is simply a matter of procedure, which is to say that, unlike the British, we do not go in so much for duplicity and deception.’

‘Do you enjoy the work?’

I thought for a moment. ‘Yes. There are people in this world who are very bad, who bring nothing but misery to others, and I think it is right to bring them down.’

‘You are not married?’

‘No.’

‘You have never been tempted?’

‘You are very forthright.’

‘I hope I do not offend you. I only wish to know you a little better. It is important to me.’

‘Then I will answer your question. Of course I have been tempted. But I have been of a solitary nature ever since I was a child and in recent years I have allowed my work to consume me. I like the idea of matrimony but I am not sure that for me it would be ideal.’ I was uncomfortable with the way the conversation was turning and tried to change the subject. ‘You have a beautiful home, Mrs Jones, and a charming family.’

‘My husband is very taken with you, Mr Chase.’

‘For that I am grateful.’

‘And what, I wonder, do you make of him?’

I put down my coffee cup. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Do you really want me to answer that?’

‘I would not have asked you if I did not.’

‘I like him very much. He has welcomed me as a stranger to this country and he has been singularly kind to me when others, I am sure, would have been obstructive. He is also, if I may say so, a brilliant man. In fact, I would go further and add that I have never met a detective quite like him. His methods are extraordinary.’

‘Does he remind you of anyone?’

I paused. ‘He reminds me of Sherlock Holmes.’

‘Yes.’ Suddenly her voice was cold. ‘Sherlock Holmes.’

‘Mrs Jones—that you have deliberately arranged for your husband to leave is obvious. But I don’t know why, and I feel it is discourteous to discuss him in his absence. So why don’t you tell me. What is it that is on your mind?’

She said nothing but examined me carefully and, sitting there with the firelight reflecting softly on her face, I suddenly thought her very beautiful. Eventually she spoke. ‘My husband keeps an office upstairs,’ she said. ‘He uses it sometimes as a retreat, when he is involved in a case. Would you care to see it?’

‘Very much.’

‘And I would very much like to show it to you. You need have no concern, by the way. I am permitted to enter when I wish and we will only be there for a minute or two.’

I followed her out of the room and up the stairs past watercolours—mainly birds and butterflies—hanging in plain wooden frames on the striped paper. We reached the first landing and entered a small, uncarpeted room that looked out onto the back garden. I knew at once that this was where Jones worked. And yet it was not he who dominated the room.

The first thing I saw, sitting on a table, was a neat pile of Strand Magazines, each one so well preserved as to appear brand new. I did not need to open them to know what I would find inside. They all carried accounts of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes as narrated by Dr John H. Watson and the great detective was present all over the room in photographs, daguerreotypes and newspaper headlines which had been tacked to the wall: BLUE CARBUNCLE RECOVERED, COBURG SQUARE BANK ROBBERY FOILED. On studying the books and monographs on the shelves, I saw that a great many of them had been written by Holmes. Among them was a sizeable volume on the scientific analysis of bloodstains, another (One Hundred and Sixty Ciphers Examined) on codes and a third, which reminded me of the train journey from Meiringen, on different types of tobacco ash. There were other books by Winwood Reade, Wendell Holmes, Emile Gaboriau and Edgar Allen Poe, several encyclopedias and gazetteers and a copy of the Anthropological Journal lying open at an article concerning the shape of the human ear. Though austere in its general appearance—apart from the bookshelves, the only furniture was a desk, a chair and two small tables—the room was cluttered, with every inch of every surface holding one strange object or another. I saw a magnifying glass, a Bunsen burner, glass phials filled with chemicals, a stuffed snake—a swamp adder, I think—a number of bones, a map of Upper Norwood, what might have been a mandrake root and a Turkish slipper.

I had been hovering in the doorway. Elspeth Jones had gone in ahead of me and now twisted round. ‘This is where my husband works,’ she said. ‘He spends more time here than any other room in the house. I am sure I do not need to tell you who has been his inspiration.’

‘It is very evident.’

‘We have already spoken his name.’ She drew herself up. ‘There are times when I wish I had never heard it!’ She was angry and her anger made her quite different from the mother who had read to her child and the wife who had sat with me at the dinner table. ‘This is what I want to tell you, Mr Chase. If you are to work with my husband, it is vital that you understand. My husband first met Sherlock Holmes following the murder of one Bartholomew Sholto, an investigation that concluded with the loss of the great treasure of Agra. As it happens, he came out of it with some credit, although he never saw it that way, and the account published by Dr Watson portrayed him in a particularly unflattering light.’

Jones had already alluded to it. But I said nothing.

‘The two of them met again on a rather less spectacular business, a break-in in North London and the strange theft of three porcelain figures.’

‘The Abernettys.’

‘He has told you?’

‘He has alluded to it. I know none of the details.’

‘He doesn’t speak of that affair very often—and with good reason.’ She paused, composing herself. ‘Once again he failed. Once again Dr Watson will have turned him into a laughing stock although, fortunately, he has yet to publish this particular tale. After it was all over, my husband spent weeks torturing himself. Why had he not realised that the dead man had been in prison? There was oakum under his fingernails—a fairly obvious clue when you think about it. Why had he been so blind to the significance of the three identical figurines when it had been so immediately obvious to Mr Holmes? He had missed every single clue of any importance… the footprints, the sleeping neighbour, even the fold in the dead man’s sock. How could he even call himself a detective when he had been shown up as a bumbling amateur?’

‘You are too hard on him.’

‘He was too hard on himself! I must speak to you in confidence, Mr Chase, hoping with all my heart that you are indeed the friend that you profess to be. Following the Abernetty business, my husband became very ill. He complained of tiredness, toothache, a sense of weakness in his bones. His wrists and his ankles swelled up. At first, I thought he had overworked himself, that all he needed was rest and a little sunshine. However, the doctor soon diagnosed something much more serious. He was afflicted with the rickets, a disease that had actually touched him briefly when he was a child but which had returned in a much more serious and vengeful form.

‘He was forced to take a year off work and during that time, I nursed him day and night. To begin with, all I looked for was his recovery but as the months passed and he became a little stronger, I began to hope that he might put his police career behind him. His brother, Peter, is an inspector. His father had risen to become a superintendent. There was, I knew, a sense of family tradition. But even so, with a young child and a wife who feared for him almost daily and with the knowledge that he would never recover his former strength, I allowed myself to believe that he might choose to begin a new life elsewhere.

‘I was deceived. My husband dedicated the year of his hiatus to the betterment of his career as a detective. He had met Sherlock Holmes twice. He had been beaten by him twice. He was determined that, should they meet again, history would not repeat itself a third time. In short, Inspector Athelney Jones would make himself the equal of the world’s most famous consulting detective and to that end he threw himself into his work with a vigour that belied the disease that had crippled him. You see some of the evidence around you but believe me when I say that this is but a small part of it. He has read everything that Mr Holmes has ever written. He has studied his methods and replicated his experiments. He has consulted with every inspector who ever worked with him. He has, in short, made Sherlock Holmes the very paradigm of his own life.’

Everything she said made sense to me. From the moment I had met Athelney Jones I had been aware of his interest in the great detective. But I had not appreciated how much it went to the heart and soul of who he was.

‘My husband returned to his office a few months ago,’ Elspeth Jones concluded. ‘He thinks he has fully recovered from the worst of his illness—but what actually sustains him is his knowledge of Holmes’s work and his belief that he is now Holmes’s equal.’ There was a terrible pause and then, faltering, she continued. ‘I do not share that belief. God forgive me for saying it. I love my husband. I admire him. But more than anything, if he remains blinded by this cruel self-belief, I fear for him.’

‘You are wrong—’ I began.

‘Do not try to be kind to me. Look around you. Here is the evidence. Heaven knows where this obsession will take him.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Protect him. I do not know these people he is up against, but I am terribly afraid for him. They would seem to be ruthless. He, in his own way, is so lacking in guile. Is it wrong of me to speak to you in this way? I do not know how I would live without him and these dreadful murders, the attempt today…’

She broke off. The whole house was silent.

‘Mrs Jones,’ I said. ‘You have my word that I will do everything I can to guide us both through to safety. It is true that we find ourselves up against a formidable enemy but I do not share your misgivings. Your husband has already demonstrated to me, time and again, his extraordinary intelligence. I am perhaps a few years older than he, but even so I recognise the fact that I am the junior partner in this enterprise. That said, I promise you with all my heart that I will look out for him. I will stand by him. And should we find ourselves in danger, I will do everything in my power to protect him.’

‘You are very kind, Mr Chase. I can ask no more.’

‘He will be back very soon,’ I said. ‘We should go downstairs.’

She took my arm and we went back down together. Shortly afterwards, Jones returned and found us sitting before the fire, discussing the five boroughs of New York. He did not see that anything was amiss and I said nothing.

But as I returned to Camberwell station, I was deep in thought. The night was still black, the fog rolling across the pavement. Somewhere far away, a dog howled in the darkness, warning me of things I did not want to know.