The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

The Copenhagen Compound Thomas S. Roche

It was late night in Copenhagen, far from the centre of town. In the city’s disreputable district, I sought the parlour of “Madame Satine”.

I am not the type prone to seek out such a business in the Danish capital or any other city. It had not pleased me to voice such a transparent request to Jens, the concierge at the Hotel Aalborg. The man did show discretion. But what doubt could there be about somewhere called Madame Satine’s?

It was also not to my taste to walk the streets of a red-light district so long after dark. Such an hour had long since ceased to be part of my regular workday. One awful moment at Reichenbach Falls ten years earlier had seen to that. A decade’s abstinence from such adventures, and I found myself greeting every sound, every breeze, every footstep with concern.

Still more concerning was the mysterious manner in which Mycroft’s letter had been written. Delivered by government courier, it had said only that he required my services in Copenhagen, and the manner of my inquiry to Aalborg’s concierge. Oblique at the best of times, Mycroft had here been both direct and obtuse. My attempts to contact Mycroft’s associates in London proved fruitless; he was “on holiday”, I was told. The thought of the famously sedentary Mycroft Holmes taking a holiday in Copenhagen was perplexing enough. I saw no way to verify that the note was from him.

Could this be a trap? Were Moriarty’s survivors extant? Would they seek revenge on me? Was I walking into a trap?

I felt a deep pang of absence, not for the first time. Sherlock Holmes would have deduced whether it had come from Mycroft or the Devil himself. In a certain mood, he might conflate the two, certainly; brothers are brothers. But Sherlock Holmes would have found any clue I had missed – and that thought, frankly, terrified me, for reasons I thought unrelated to Copenhagen.

Holmes was well versed in the art of handwriting analysis. He had taught me that a man’s writing can prove sufficient to indict him for his crimes.

What of mine, then? What of this tale? Were Holmes alive, could he indict me for my crimes at Bethlehem Hospital? Would he detect what I had done, one year earlier, pressing the plunger into my wife’s arm?

I arrived. Madame Satine’s. There was no sign, but the door knocker could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was: the face of a gargoyle, with one claw-tipped human finger vertically across its lips. “Madame Satine will keep all your secrets,” it said. I was glad of that, at least; of those, I had few, but just one was enough to have broken me.

I knocked. Above the gargoyle was a Judas gate. The panel opened. Out glared a pair of suspicious sky-blue eyes, crow’s feet quite visible. It was a man.

“Ja? Hvad vil du have?”

The Danes can be said to be jarringly informal when at their best. Even so, this was hardly the kind of reception I expected from such a place.

“Taler du Engelsk?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, what is it?”

“Madame Satine’s?”

“Name!” the man said bluntly.

“Ormond Sacker,” I told him.

The Judas gate closed; the oak door opened. The man did not say “Come in,” but I did.

Inside was a sparsely furnished entryway. The man who admitted me seemed ancient; he wore a long blond beard like some caricature of a Nordic warrior of old. He did not look at me, nor did he speak. He merely motioned me into a corridor draped with tapestries and lit with a long row of flickering gas lamps. The floor was thick with rugs. The point of the furnishings was obvious; even the sound of my own footsteps was swallowed up by the cocoon of rich fabric. The silence seemed oppressive. I heard no music, no clink of glasses from beyond the heavy door at the end of the corridor.

I deduced that I had just stumbled into Europe’s grimmest brothel.

The bearded man did not bid me farewell. He merely opened the door, pointed me through sternly, and pushed past me to return to his post.

What lay beyond that door surprised me. It was not a house of ill repute, but a club as one might see in London. It was not empty of patrons, as the absolute silence might have suggested. In fact, it was quite packed with men, mostly blond-haired and blue-eyed – more than a score of them. They were seated in armchairs, mostly engrossed in books and periodicals. Some merely glared at their drinks, pale lips tight.

No word was spoken. No sound was made. In fact, the silence was so complete that my gasp of surprise drew considerable notice.

A dozen or more of the club’s patrons glared at me warningly. They seemed ready to come to blows should my faux pas be repeated.

But I could not be faulted for my outcry, for two things had struck me at once. First was the realization that this could be none other than some Copenhagen branch of the Diogenes Club.

Second was the fact that one of those armchairs was occupied by none other than Mycroft Holmes.

I felt a sense of relief. This was not a trap. And it was good to see a familiar face in a foreign capital.

I started towards Mycroft with hand outstretched. He had not yet looked up to see me. As I approached, I realized the man sitting next to him was a familiar figure, but I could not place him. My pace abated, I stared at the stranger in growing discomfort.

The stranger scrawled furiously in a journal, his hands awkwardly close together. Faint scratching could be heard from his pencil, but he drew no glares of reproach from the club’s other members, as I had. I moved close enough to read the man’s notebook and realized that his wrists were cuffed.

He was scrawling equations.

Anger flared. His name came to my lips unbidden.

I cried, “Moriarty!”

There was an audible rustling, as men shifted in their seats. Volley after volley of tight-lipped and wide-eyed glares were hurled in my direction. The members were furious. This was an outrage!

But no one could be more furious or outraged than I, for I know this was Professor James Moriarty. I had only glimpsed him once, from a distance, but I had witnessed that image many times more in my mind’s eye.

I reached into the pocket of my greatcoat, my hand closing on my revolver. But I did not draw it. Moriarty was handcuffed. Was he Mycroft’s prisoner?

Moriarty looked up at me with saturnine defiance. Mycroft looked up and seemed unsurprised to see me. He did not even look at Moriarty.

Mycroft raised one finger at me, insisting that I wait.

I did so, staring in frank disbelief.

Mycroft went on reading, completing the page he was on and continuing into the next. I could see he was near the end of a chapter.

Moriarty went back to his calculations, scrawling furiously.

While I stood waiting, a club attendant approached me and held out a small slip of paper. He frowned at me apologetically. I took the ticket. On it was scrawled: “Ormond Sacks: 1 demerit.” I crumpled it in my hand and threw it angrily on the floor. More glares followed.

Mycroft at last finished his chapter, replaced his bookmark with great care, and set the volume on the table. Its spine said: Principles of Bee-Keeping.

Mycroft stood and gestured first at me, then at Moriarty. He pointed insistently down a nearby corridor.

Mycroft was followed by Moriarty. I followed him. I did not relish the thought of that villain behind me … even in handcuffs.

The room to which Mycroft led me was Copenhagen’s version of the Strangers’ Room, known as the one place in the Diogenes Club where conversation is permitted – or, at least, not forbidden. The room was furnished with Spartan flavour – to discourage its use, I suspected. We sat in hard-backed chairs.

Moriarty said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr Watson.”

“Go to the Devil!” I sputtered.

Moriarty, apparently, knew better than to extend me his hand. He shrugged and sat down at the table.

“Good to see you, Watson.” Mycroft did extend his hand, but I would not shake it. Instead, I pointed at Moriarty.

“To the Devil!” I said.

“Yes, yes, in good time, Watson, of that I’ve no doubt. But for now, things are afoot that require us to engage the professor. Have a seat, Watson.”

“I won’t sit with that … that … explain yourself, Mycroft! That man should hang!”

“And he would have, already – or suffered an even less pleasant fate – if he had not alerted us to something that requires us to employ him.”

“Us? What is that supposed to mean, Mycroft … Bethlehem?”

“The Crown,” Mycroft said drily. “But it’s good of you to bring that up. Have a seat.”

“Your employer?” I sputtered. “What branch of Bedlam, exactly?”

“It is fortuitous that you bring up Bethlehem Hospital, Watson. We shall talk about that. But, first, take a seat. Professor Moriarty is unarmed, I assure you. He knows no arcane and invented martial arts, unlike my late brother.”

I reddened. “How dare you! I wrote that as a way to …” I realized I did not know the answer. “My readers refused to believe he was dead.” I gestured wildly at the professor. “I saw you fall, Moriarty! You, and Sherlock Holmes! Both of you. How did you escape?”

“Irrelevant!” Mycroft said. “There’s time for that later. If you would, Professor, please relate your crimes to Dr Watson.”

Moriarty’s eyes narrowed. He seemed haunted … almost human. Much to my chagrin, I realized that I had invented a man in my own mind, drawn from the few grandiose claims that Sherlock Holmes had made before his death. I knew nothing of the man himself.

Moriarty began: “What do you know about rocketry, Dr Watson?”

“Little,” I said. “Nothing. I saw a few in Afghanistan. That was quite some time ago.”

“You are aware that some believe man will one day use rockets to explore the heavens?”

“I think we have our hands quite full here,” I said, glaring at Mycroft, “if men like you are to go free.”

Moriarty ignored me. “For some time, rocketry was limited by its reliance on solid fuels. A Russian mathematician named Tsiolkovsky proposed a model by which a new high-density liquid fuel could be used, in combination with the de Laval nozzle used in steam engines, to propel a rocket faster than the speed of sound!”

“Impossible!” I said.

“Improbable, perhaps, on the face of it … but it pains me to tell you that not only is it possible, however unlikely – it has been done!”

“By you?”

Moriarty waved his hand dismissively. “My contribution, I’ll grant, was significant. The mathematical calculations required are complex, to say the least. After your friend destroyed my means of financial support—”

“Criminal!” I hissed. “An empire of thieves and killers!”

“—I was left with no choice but to seek out employment. I was approached by an agent of a foreign government—”

“Which government?” I demanded.

“One that does not yet exist,” Mycroft said. “Or no government at all, if you prefer.”

“Anarchists?”

“That is our deduction,” said Mycroft.

“He called himself Von Szabovich,” said Moriarty. “I believe that was a bit of an inside joke. He claimed, at various times, to be of German, Russian and Austrian origin, but his speech hinted at none of those. From our few meetings, I deduced the man’s accent to be fabricated, and his mother tongue to be English.”

“In fact,” said Mycroft, “his name is MacQuaid. He is known to us. He is an American chemist of Irish descent, educated at the finest schools there – or he was an American. He was expelled for his terrorist activities. That was after the Boston Fenians expelled him with extensive prejudice. The Irish want nothing to do with him, but he bears the Crown significant ill will.”

“That is putting it mildly,” said Moriarty. “This Von Szabovich shared with me designs for a liquid-fuelled rocket-ship intended to ferry up to twelve passengers at greater speed than even the fastest locomotive. He engaged me in performing necessary calculations for construction, fuel consumption, and navigation between Hamburg and London. I was sceptical, but, as I mentioned, I was in some dire financial straits. Once I saw his design, I realized it was possible to make his design work.”

I said: “Travel by air? Twelve passengers? Impossible.”

“As I said, improbable,” Moriarty replied. “And, yes, impossible. The original specifications called for twelve passengers. My calculations established that Von Szabovich’s design would carry only two.”

“Even that …”

“Once I deduced that the design was feasible, even for only two passengers, I became something close to a partner. In return,” Moriarty said, speaking now with some difficulty, “I sought Von Szabovich’s help as a chemical engineer to utilize the formula for a certain … compound … that had been designed by associates of mine in years past, but never manufactured … and most certainly never tested. They had no stomach for its proposed effects.”

I felt a great weight come upon me. My hand found its way into my coat. I gripped the butt of my pistol.

“What sort of compound, Professor?”

I shall never forget the look on his face. It was some amalgam, I believe, of self-satisfaction and guilt.

I stood up. “What compound, Moriarty? Tell me!” I had guessed an answer, but I doubted its probability. All else was impossible, however. Who else could do such a thing?

“What did you create, Moriarty?” My pistol was in my hand.

Mycroft was out of his chair before I could aim. I had never seen Mycroft move quickly before. Now, he was so swift his movements blurred.

Mycroft’s arm seized mine in an arcane embrace; I felt a great pain in my elbow. With a sweep of one enormous leg, he struck the backs of my knees. I collapsed into a kneeling position. The pistol discharged once, into the ceiling, before Mycroft seized it from me. I was deafened.

Moriarty stared, unperturbed.

Mycroft said: “He killed your wife, Watson, naturally.”

Now on all fours, I trembled.

Mycroft bent down and patted me soothingly. “Justice in due time,” Mycroft said. “For now, the Crown has business with both of you. There’s a boat waiting. Make haste!”

Staring at Moriarty in dismay, I said: “You are the Devil!”

Moriarty glanced at Mycroft. “Me or him?”

“You!” I said. “Both of you!”

Moriarty said mildly, “If it improves matters, Watson … I was trying to kill you.”

In 1805, the Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen and seized neutral Denmark’s shipping fleet to aid Britain against Napoleon. Now, in that same harbour, there waited for us a modest steam trawler called the Jannike.

It was some trouble getting there, given that Copenhagen’s version of the Diogenes Club was in quite an uproar – its first ever of such magnitude. In such an establishment, discharging a firearm was an act for which there was no precedent and no official rule. It took even Mycroft some effort to extract us from the resultant tumult. This was achieved only once I had been formally banned from re-entry for life.

When we finally made our escape, there came with us three younger men of the club, who turned out to be in Mycroft’s employ. Their names, as Mycroft informed me, were Adams, Baker and Cowell. We did not greet each other. We did not shake hands. The men remained true to the club’s tenets even outside its walls; so did the crew of the Jannike. This was to my own taste, given my bilious spirit.

The ease and discretion with which the Jannike handled its passengers told me that they were almost certainly smugglers of one form or another. This would not otherwise have concerned me, but the night’s events had shaken my faith in Mycroft’s reason. Until tonight, I had always trusted Mycroft to deal with trustworthy scoundrels.

Sherlock Holmes’s assertion that Mycroft was more than he appeared seemed far more credible now after tonight’s events. My old friend had claimed that, at times, Mycroft is the British government. If that was true, there was far more than just culpability for Mary’s death at stake.

Mycroft retained my pistol, despite my many requests for its return. Perhaps he was wise. I watched Moriarty’s every move with simmering fury.

The Jannike weighed anchor.

I sat in the hold, glaring, thinking of tragedies passed.

Mary had taken a year to die. It was not the last year that a husband would wish for.

By the end, the diagnosis would remain acute encephalitis of unknown but presumably infectious origin. The contagion in question had never been identified.

Onset had been rapid and catastrophic. My wife had become violent, assaulting me and harming herself. She rushed into the street and assaulted passers-by, screaming. Later, she attacked the staff at Bethlehem. She was restrained. The mouth I had kissed for a lifetime became that of a monster.

After three days, she recovered from her first period of violent agitation and came to her senses. She wept for a time, in remorse and fear. We spoke. For twenty-three hours, she remained rational.

Then change came again. Her condition worsened over the course of an hour. She grew still more agitated. Her second attack was more violent than the first. Sedation provided no relief. The most powerful opiates had no effect on the patient’s arousal. Only physical restraint kept my wife from destroying herself – and harming or killing her tenders at Bethlehem in the process.

That was the first week.

For a year, her oscillations varied. She passed through periods of bestial disposition, ranging from one hour to one week, only to return briefly to periods of lucidity. In the former, she would take no normal food, only meat, freshly killed but uncooked.

With the return to lucidity, she expressed revulsion at what she had become … and fear of her condition’s return.

And return it did, always.

My heart broke each time.

After my wife’s first few fluctuations between madness and sanity, some of her spells began to retain aspects of the latter while she was clearly possessed of the former. She screamed obscenities. Progression was unpredictable. She retained enough mental capacity to hurl vicious personal insults and abuse at me. She screamed secrets shared between husband and wife, in the unkindest terms. She abused my colleagues and her keepers.

Infectious diseases were never my specialty, but with such motivation, I sought out the best experts and learned very quickly. I could not deduce a possible agent. No form of encephalitis evinced variations of this style or magnitude. The pro dromal phase of rabies had been known, in very rare cases, to last more than one year before death, but had it been rabies, such acute variations between madness and lucidity were inexplicable. In any event, there had been no bite, no reasonable indication of rabies transmission.

Priests were called in. All fled in horror.

Her attacks persisted month after month. Her periods of lucidity grew rarer, but clearer. In some ways, this was far worse. During her returns to sanity, she began to accept what she could anticipate. She rejected it.

“James,” she had choked through the variegated mess of foam, spit and blood that her mouth had become. “Don’t hold out hope where none exists. Leave me to heaven, James. Do this for me. End it before I return again?”

Those were her last words. She lapsed into madness again.

Years of discretion in matters of medical tragedy, I found melting away, as if they’d never happened. I was a boy again, weeping over a woman I knew and yet did not know. With her heart, Mary had loved me, yet her mind was no longer her own. I knew she was right.

I honoured her request. I broke my most sacred vow.

My many years adjunct to the practice of professional detection had given me practical skills in the matter of poisons that proved undetectable to all but the most aggressively deductive mind. That made it easy.

I knew the compound to use. Reader, do not expect me to relate it here; should it fall to you to perform such a crime, you will find it a great mercy that you do not know the way. My footsteps will not lead you.

How would Sherlock Holmes solve such a murder? Would he detect the compound, deduce my crime, unmask the villain? And would he indict me? Would he, then, also indict Hippocrates – for the madness that was medicine in such cases?

If Mary persists in the Beyond, cured and at last, again, well – if she has been left to Heaven – perhaps she and my friend Sherlock Holmes now share deductions incomprehensible to the living.

For that, I envy her.

In the Spartan hold of the Jannike, I had returned to my own form of lucidity. I retained a bestial disposition simmering under the surface.

“What’s our destination, Holmes?” I demanded, feeling a pang of regret upon calling him that.

“A tiny island,” said Mycroft. “It’s known as Æbelø.” His pronunciation was markedly exotic. “It is uninhabited except for a medical facility.”

“And why is our friend still alive?”

“Watson, do not be sarcastic. It does not suit you. I assure you, Professor Moriarty is not my friend. He is alive because he knows MacQuaid’s liquid rocket-ship design. He can disable it.”

“Possibly,” said Moriarty. “As I keep telling you, Holmes, mathematics is not engineering.”

“For the time being,” said Mycroft, “I shall take what is within my grasp. The professor also knows the compound in question. If my reports from Æbelø are accurate … we shall find ourselves in need of him.”

“How can we trust him with either, Mycroft? How do we know he won’t—”

“We trust him, Watson. Not you. We. The Crown trusts him, and only so far as we must. I ask you to trust me that Professor Moriarty is a changed man.”

“Why would I ever do that?” I asked.

“Because, my dear man, I am Mycroft Holmes,” he said with great pomp. “What I need you to do, Watson, is to examine Æbelø’s patients and tell me if their condition appears … familiar.” Mycroft’s face took on a dark aspect. “By the way, Watson, I am very sorry for your loss.”

Ignoring Mycroft’s belated condolences, I turned my attention to Moriarty.

“How did you do it?” I demanded. “Did she ingest it? What was the compound? Where did you get it?”

Moriarty was distracted, furiously scrawling equations in his notebook.

“These are very good questions, Watson, but you must forgive me if I am not wholly forthcoming. At this time, details are all that keeps me alive. I will say these things, Watson. The compound is at present unnamed. I obtained the formula from an Austrian chemist named Hoelscher. The substance is inhaled or ingested, but more effective if inhaled. Atomized in an envelope, it likely passes unnoticed. I sent it to you in a letter; your wife, as it seems, opens your mail – or did. It persists in water, but flame will destroy it. The syndrome it causes is incurable.”

I felt a dizzying sense of relief. Moriarty read my face too quickly.

His manner changed quickly. He said to me with surprising warmth: “I speak the truth, Watson. There is no cure. I am sorry for killing your wife, but it was an accident. What is very important is that you need not blame yourself for ending her suffering.”

“What are you suggesting?” I snapped. Then, I remembered to whom I was speaking: the Devil. I sighed. “How did you know?”

“Watson … you, of all people?” Moriarty shook his head. “It was quite elementary, my dear man. I deduced it.”

Inside, I boiled. Moriarty’s warmth was gone; he showed no sympathy. That brief flicker of human compassion was gone from his face. Mine was hot with anger.

I demanded: “What is the compound?”

“As I said, it has not, at present, been given a name. What you must know is that it affects the emotional cortex of the human brain. In the dose your wife received – unfortunately, and again, my apologies – it reduces emotional inhibition to the point where the victim’s cognitive faculties become quite irrelevant. In short, it increases emotion, decreases rational thought. At the weaponized dose, socially learned inhibitions are obliterated, until the—”

The professor’s throat seemed to close. He clutched his chest. He started trembling. He convulsed. He doubled over.

“Mycroft!” I cried. “What is going on?”

Mycroft said, “Let the man speak, Watson.”

Moriarty remained doubled over, shaking and weeping. Medical instinct told me to intervene, or at least to examine the patient. Instead, I held tight to the crate on which I sat. I watched.

When Professor Moriarty finally straightened, he stared at me with glassy eyes and wet cheeks.

His voice trembled as he said: “Sorry, I’m sorry, Watson. I’m so sorry. It seems I was … in the … compound’s manufacture, I … mine was a low dose, but … I can’t control myself …” He started shaking his head violently, tears scattering. “I won’t do violence, Watson. You needn’t worry about me any more. I’ve tried; believe me, I’ve tried. Sometimes I can’t even think. I try, but I grow overwhelmed. I received only the smallest exposure, but … Watson, I’m sorry!”

“Go to hell,” I told him.

Moriarty doubled over again and began to weep.

Mycroft clapped me on the back. “As I said, Watson, let the man speak. Tell me, is that not a pleasure to see?”

At Æbelø, the Jannike moored alongside a rickety old pier. We disembarked. A Gideon lorry waited for us. We piled in the back and it whisked us through the night at terrifying speed and bonerattling intensity. In my younger days, I would have found such a ride distasteful at best. Now, it was excruciating. How poor Mycroft survived it, I’ll never know. He had surprised me several times tonight, but by then he looked quite worse for wear.

The facility we approached bore a wrenchingly familiar aspect: one that hovered between prison and hospital.

It was both.

Mycroft introduced me to one Dr Østergaard, who spoke excellent English. Østergaard explained that he was in charge of the “Sektion til Særlige Patienter” – “Section for Special Patients” – in Ward 6.

It was a madhouse, in every connotation.

Beds were crammed as close together as possible. Each patient was cuffed at four points – wrists and ankles. They strained against their cuffs, rabid. Teeth snapped and bit. Some had been forced to wear muzzles. Even those made an unholy noise, through structures insufficient to cope with their bestial howling. Now and then, peals of human laughter would echo through the torrent of animal noises. From the depths of Ward 6, I heard screamed obscenities. Some metal frames had been reinforced with extra struts; Østergaard explained that this was because patients exhibited exceptional strength, as had Mary.

“Disease progression is rapid,” said Østergaard. “From a patient’s first presentation with dizziness to the condition you see here takes only a few days. After that, further progression can take months. Periods of lucidity are followed by severe instances of disorientation. Our best diagnosis is encephalitis of unknown infectious origin. Until last month, we had seen only five cases in the entire country. We could not implicate an infectious agent, or any connection between the patients. Then, this month – well, here they are. All from Vigelsø Island, yet we can find no vector of transmission—”

While I observed, one man seemed to experience a lucid period, recovering just enough mental facility to beg for—

I could not hear it again. I plugged my ears. I fled.

Grimly, I confirmed to Mycroft that the patients in Ward 6 were the victims of Moriarty’s nameless compound.

The professor was again doubled over, weeping. He trembled uncontrollably, bleating apologies. He’d been sick several times. So had I, in the washroom just outside Ward 6. I did not share that fact with either of them.

“Vigelsø,” Mycroft said. “It isn’t far from here. Bloodhound is already en route. A gunboat,” he added, seeing my quizzical look. “But it falls to me to get Moriarty there. He can reset or disable the navigation system. Sorry, Watson, but you’re coming along.”

I nodded at Moriarty, who was still weeping. “Can he do it if he’s in that state?”

“How should I know, old man? You’re the physician. You’re the world expert, Watson. Even Østergaard’s still playing catchup. What’s the prognosis?”

I said, “Professor?”

“They were just numbers!” he howled. “Facts, figures … It was a high dose, Watson! You understand that, yes? I only wished to kill you! How you escaped exposure, I don’t …”

He descended again into paroxysms of grief.

Tears flowed: Moriarty’s and mine.

I had not escaped exposure at all, I deduced. Months of attending to Mary’s care …

I squelched my emotions. I turned to Mycroft and said: “We must hope our dear professor has one of his spells of lucidity soon.”

We returned to the Jannike and set out for the island of Vigelsø.

Some time after we left Æbelø, Moriarty recovered his composure. He stared ahead blankly. He approached catatonia.

But when I addressed him directly, he responded.

He grew stone-faced.

“I withdraw my apology,” said Moriarty. “The last several hours are foggy to me. Whatever I said, disregard it. I was not in my right mind.”

Mycroft and I shared a look of surprise.

Moriarty began weeping again.

Dawn broke the horizon just as we came within sight of the small island’s barren coast. The lightening sky showed the outline of a lighthouse. Offshore, Bloodhound could be seen, her great teninch gun still pouring smoke.

My eyes were red. My head throbbed. I felt a great weight in my chest.

Moriarty sprawled on the deck of the Jannike, catatonic again.

Mycroft held out my revolver. “Can I trust you with this, Watson?”

I took the pistol and held it as we approached shore.

On the shore, there was fighting. Bloodhound had landed troops, who advanced on what appeared to be a lighthouse. In the dim light, I saw flashes. Riflemen atop the lighthouse were firing back at the advancing troops.

Atop the lighthouse, glass shattered. Shards of it glittered in the dawn’s building rays. Fragments of stone and long strips of metal peeled away from the top of the tower.

Mycroft stepped over the sprawled professor and ran for the pilot-house, waving and gesturing. The Jannike picked up speed – near, now, to running aground.

Rifle shots ricocheted as the Jannike reached the pier near the lighthouse. It was too close for self-preservation, but even so, we were too late. Smoke and flame poured from the base of the lighthouse.

Our troops fell back, repelled by the blast. Bloodhound fired. The boom of its great gun was lost in the snarl from the rocket-ship. The shell went wide, detonating on the beach.

The roar of the firing rocket engines drowned out all speech and all sound, also. Beneath the ruins of what had been the light room atop the tower, the silver tip of the rocket-ship could be seen. It was a conical spearhead, polished and featureless but for a single hatch near the top. The rocket-ship trembled with the force of its firing engines.

It was, I admit, quite a wondrous sight. It might have been a vision of the future. Ten years hence, twenty, with passenger service from Hamburg to London in one hour. One hour hence: London as Bedlam.

Twin futures held me enthralled, and would not let go – even when Moriarty came up behind me.

He felled me with a spanner, while I gaped at impending doom or salvation – or both at once. His blow laid me out on the deck and, when Mycroft hauled me to my knees at the railing, my vision swam.

I no longer saw futures: just two Moriartys, swimming before me, scaling two ladders outside of two lighthouses. He neared the top as they resolved into one. Mycroft had field glasses. The professor was blackened, parts of his clothing alight. The spanner he’d hit me with – I presume – was tucked into the rear of his belt.

He reached the railing and leapt atop the great silver rocket. He withdrew the spanner and fitted it into what looked like a hatch. The flames at the base grew more intense.

The hatch came open. Moriarty dove inside the nose of the vessel just as the rocket-ship started to rise. The walls of the lighthouse gave way. Silver fins became visible at the base as the great silver body rose into the air.

Its speed increased. Day had come. Bloodhound fired again, but the rocket-ship had ascended to the point where the teninch gun could not reach it.

The vessel rose into the air at an increasing pace. The silver ship became lost in the flames of its engines … and then, all heaven was engulfed in sun-fire.

I covered my eyes. Mycroft pushed me down. Shrapnel rained down around the Jannike, striking the water with great force. The remains of one great silver fin ripped through the trawler’s front railing and hit the water so close to us that I felt the spray and the steam hissing around it.

Under its skin, the rocket-ship possessed a metal skeleton. It fell on the shattered remains of the lighthouse. More shrapnel followed.

Numbly, I said: “Moriarty said flame would destroy the compound. Was he telling the truth?”

Mycroft shrugged. He reached into his coat and took out a handkerchief.

“Trust, Watson, is the luxury of the mad and the desperate. For the time being, you and I are neither. Let’s get out of here.” Nodding at the ball of smoke overhead, Mycroft added: “Rest in peace, Moriarty.”

“Rest in peace,” I repeated grimly. “To both our dead.”

Jannike reversed her engines and rounded the spit.

We made for open water.