The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

A Certain Notoriety David Stuart Davies

The lights in the theatre dimmed and the curtain rose. The set was the drawing room of a London town house. The butler entered. As he did so, Colonel Sebastian Moran, sitting in the first row of the stalls, touched his companion’s arm. ‘That’s the fellow,’ he whispered. He paused for a moment, allowing a gentle smile to touch his lips. ‘What do you think?’

At first his companion did not respond but stared with fascination at the man attired in the butler’s livery, while the stage gradually filled with other members of the cast and the drama commenced for real. The actor was very tall, thin with a balding high-domed head and moved with remarkable ease.

The butler’s role was small but his manner and bearing were impressive. After a few perfunctory lines, he made his way off stage. On his exit, Moran’s companion chuckled, the eyes gleaming with pleasure. ‘I think he will do very nicely. Very nicely indeed.’

Alfred Coombs was enjoying a glass of stout in the communal dressing room at the end of the show. He had sloughed off his butler’s outfit, swilled away the greasepaint and was dressed in his own rather shabby civilian clothes ready to return to his lodgings. He was deliberately slow in effecting the metamorphosis from Gerald the butler to Alfred Coombs the lowly actor, so that by the time the transformation was complete, the rest of the cast had gone, leaving him with the luxury of a peaceful dressing room and his bottle of stout. He loved this quiet time at the end of a performance. He felt he had the theatre all to himself. It allowed him to daydream of that time, not too distant he hoped, when he would have a dressing room of his own as befitting a principal player. There would be a dresser hanging up his costume, before bringing out his evening suit, which he would wear for a late supper at the Café de Paris or maybe the Ritz.

He took another swig of the rich dark ale, easing his mind into the fantasy. He had been long in the profession, never rising in the ranks, always below stairs as it were, but with Alfred Coombs hope sprang eternal. He really believed that one day he would take the starring role, be thrust centre stage into the limelight and accumulate all the glossy trimmings that went with being a star.

As he was contemplating this eventuality, almost a nightly ritual, there came a knock at the dressing room door. With a sigh of annoyance at having his rêverie disturbed, Alfred dragged his feet down from the make-up table and wandered to the door. On the threshold were two figures: a man and a woman. The man was a bluff-looking fellow with wiry blond hair, a heavy moustache and bright blue eyes, which shone out of a ruddy face. But it was the woman, standing behind him, who captured Coombs’s attention. She was a striking figure, tall, dark-haired and palefaced; beautiful in a cold and clinical fashion. Her dark eyes gazed upon him in a hypnotic manner that seemed to penetrate Alfred’s tired brain as though gaining access to his very thoughts.

‘Good evening, Mr Coombs,’ said the man. ‘We did enjoy your performance tonight.’

Alfred did not know how to react to this compliment. He had never received one for his acting abilities before and it crossed his mind that the comment was tinged with sarcasm and that he was being ridiculed.

‘Indeed, you show great promise,’ continued the man with enthusiasm. ‘We were so impressed that we have a proposition, which we feel will enable you to demonstrate fully and indeed develop your thespian talents.’

‘You are theatrical agents? Producers perhaps?’ enquired Coombs, his heart skipping a beat.

The man smiled and cast an amused glance at his companion whose face remained immobile.

‘Not exactly,’ said the man.

‘Then … then what is this all about?’

The woman moved forward, the rustle of her costume filling his ears.

‘We are offering you a unique role, one that will bring you a certain notoriety and significant remuneration.’ Her voice was low and mellifluous and Coombs, who was something of an expert on accents, thought he could trace a faint Irish lilt. The words ‘significant remuneration’ excited him.

‘What is the role?’

The woman gave a hint of a smile for the first time. ‘It is that of a certain mathematical professor. A creation of my own.’

Sherlock Holmes flopped down in a chair in Inspector Patterson’s office in Scotland Yard. He sighed heavily.

‘I reckon you could do with a brandy,’ observed the inspector with a wink, withdrawing a bottle and two glasses from the bottom drawer of his desk.

‘I’ll take a nip, thank you, Patterson,’ said Holmes wearily, ‘but I don’t think brandy will solve our problems.’

‘You got nothing more out of Barney Southwell then?’ said the policeman gloomily, passing over a glass of brandy.

Holmes shook his head. ‘I reckon Southwell told me as much as he knew or was allowed to know.’ He banged his fist down hard on the desk in frustration. ‘This is happening now on a regular basis: a number of robberies in the city carried out by small-time professionals who individually would have neither the wit nor the foresight to organise these projects. They are mere puppets dangling on strings controlled by someone else. But they are part of a growing organisation, which in time I am convinced will, like rats in the sewers, overrun the city.’

‘That’s quite a dramatic claim.’

‘I am not given to exaggeration, Inspector. My theory is based on fact and evidence. Someone is organising the itinerant malefactors of the city into some kind of criminal association, no doubt utilising the safety-in-numbers principle. It is a masterstroke. The work of a genius and it is my task to track him down.’

Violet Carmichael laughed. It was a full-blown demonstration of her amusement and not a ladylike tinkle or a repressed chuckle. ‘It is all going brilliantly, Moran. The coffers are overflowing thanks to the success of our little mercenary exploits. This enterprise grows in importance. So much so that we have attracted the attention of no less a personage than Sherlock Holmes.’

‘As you thought you would,’ agreed Moran, lighting up a cigar.

‘As I knew I would.’ The eyes flashed arrogantly. ‘Now we need to take things further. I believe it is time to set out the birdlime to catch our fine-feathered friend. Is Coombs here?’

Moran strode to the door, opened it and, leaning forward, made a beckoning gesture. Alfred Coombs entered. His appearance was much altered and he seemed somewhat nervous and apprehensive as he approached the large desk behind which sat his new mistress, his new employer, Violet Carmichael.

She gazed at him and gave a nod of approval to her companion. ‘You have done an excellent job, Moran. The fellow looks every decrepit inch a mathematics professor. The shoulders slope nicely, features are pale and ascetic-looking. What about the voice? Come, sir. Give me a little dialogue.’

Coombs took a step forward and nodded gently, his head beginning to sway from side to side in a strange reptilian fashion. ‘Mr Sherlock Holmes,’ he said, in a voice that resembled a creaking door, ‘you hope to beat me. I tell you, you will never beat me. I am your nemesis. I am your doom.’

Violet Carmichael clapped her hands together with pleasure. ‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Your transformation from Alfred Coombs into this … this creature is magnificent. I particularly like the movement of your head as though you were some venomous lizard seeking a fly.’

Coombs grinned. ‘Just a little touch of my own,’ he said. ‘I thought it gave the fellow a certain kind of danger.’

‘So it does. So it does. Well, Moran, I am more than ever convinced we are ready. Do you feel ready, Mr Coombs?’

‘I do, ma’am.’

‘Good. There is just one thing. You will no longer respond to the name Coombs. From this moment on you are Professor James Moriarty.’

‘Of course I am.’ The deep-set eyes glimmered brightly and the head shifted unnervingly from side to side.

Sherlock Holmes also had a great facility for disguise, although his friend Watson always secretly believed that he tended to overdo the theatrical touches. The characters that emerged from the detective’s bedroom ready to go out on to the streets of the city were always to Watson’s mind a little larger than life. He certainly thought so when Holmes presented himself as a rough labourer in readiness for his latest excursion. There was perhaps too much rouge around the cheeks and on the nose and was that amount of stomach padding really necessary? Certainly the straw-coloured wig could have been abandoned, but Holmes seemed particularly pleased with his transformation and even the good doctor had to admit that the creature before him looked nothing like Sherlock Holmes.

The detective’s destination that evening was the Rat and Raven, a shabby public house in the east end of the city which was the bolthole of a certain Percy Snaggles, a nasty little nark who had been of great service to Holmes in the past.

It was about ten at night when the detective entered this squalid establishment. The heat and the smoke were the first thing that assailed him, followed by the frenzied, raucous rattle of conversation. There were deep-throated oaths mixed with high-pitched female laughter from gaudy tarts, who were either having a respite from their labours or attempting to pick up new trade. Holmes made his way to the bar and in a rough cockney voice, typical of the other inmates of this alehouse, ordered a glass of porter. While he waited for his drink, he cast his keen gaze around the room. It did not take him long to spot Snaggles. He was slumped in a corner with a one-eyed man, apparently playing a game of cards. Holmes paid for his drink and, squeezing himself through the boozy throng of clients, approached the nark. On seeing this strange-looking cove bearing down on him, Snaggles pulled himself upright in his chair, his eyes wide in apprehension.

‘Need to talk,’ said Holmes, maintaining his cockney accent, while he made the secret sign with his hand that told Snaggles who he really was. The nark’s features quivered and he glanced over at his companion. ‘Half a mo, Wally, while I conduct a bit o’ business with this geezer here.’

The one-eyed man looked up from scrutinising his hand of cards. ‘You take your time ’cause when you get back I’m gonna fleece you rotten.’ He laughed, revealing a row of crooked, blackened teeth.

Holmes and Snaggles made their way through the crowd to the door and into the comparative quiet of the street.

‘His name is Moriarty. Professor Moriarty,’ said Snaggles breathlessly, his voice emerging as a harsh whisper. ‘He’s the one who sets up the jobs for us, organises things. We’re like members of his army and woe betide us if we don’t obey orders.’ He made a throat-slitting gesture.

‘Have you seen this Moriarty?’

‘Just the once. A funny-looking cove: very tall, large head, bent shoulders and moves funny.’

‘Moves funny?’

‘He don’t seem to be able to keep his head still. It keeps wobbling about.’ He demonstrated the movement.

‘Where are his headquarters?’

Snaggles gave a brief grunting laugh. ‘You must be joking. No one knows. It’s being a tight-close secret that makes him so successful. But I tell you this: it ain’t just robberies that he’s into. He has his fingers in many pies: blackmail, counterfeit dosh, murder even. I can tell you that he’s in charge of most of the crime in London. He’s a dangerous fellow, Mr Holmes. If I were you I’d steer clear of him.’

Snaggles grinned nervously. ‘So then I says: “He’s a dangerous fellow, Mr Holmes. If I were you I’d steer clear of him.”’

The man who had become Professor Moriarty nodded his head in appreciation. ‘You have done well, Snaggles. You have no doubt whetted Mr Holmes’s appetite for the game considerably – which was my intention.’ He slid a small bag of coins across the desk towards Snaggles. ‘A little reward for your efforts.’

‘Thank you, Professor.’

‘You may go now.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ Snaggles retreated with haste from the room.

Moriarty cast a questioning glance at Moran who had been standing in the shadows.

‘Yes,’ Moran assured him.

Moriarty blew down the speaker tube on his desk. A voice responded.

‘Cartwright,’ said the professor, speaking into the tube. ‘Make sure that Mr Snaggles does not leave the building alive. Retrieve the bag of coins from his person and return them to my office as soon as possible, there’s a good fellow’.

‘I am getting there. Slowly. But it is hard work, Patterson. Far harder than I anticipated.’

Sherlock Holmes slumped down in the swivel chair opposite the Scotland Yard man. He was dressed as a common workman, complete with copious side-whiskers and an earring dangling from his left lobe. His features were ruddy and lined and a clay pipe peeped out of the top pocket of his disreputable jacket. When he had entered Patterson’s office, much to the distress of the young constable in the corridor, Patterson had not batted an eyelid. He was used to Holmes visiting him in a whole range of disguises. Indeed, since he had taken up the Moriarty case, Patterson had not seen the detective in his usual ‘civilian’ clothes.

‘I tell you, this professor is the Napoleon of crime,’ Holmes was saying. ‘He commands the minor criminals in London like the Pied Piper. They dance to his tune all right. However I try, I can only get so close to him, but no closer. It is very frustrating.’

‘That may be so,’ said Patterson, ‘but you have foiled many of his plans, upset his apple cart more than once in the last few months.’

‘Yes, but that does not seem to stop him. He rolls on like the sea and I am a feeble Canute. However, I am getting ever closer to him. My dossier on this master criminal is growing by the day. Soon I believe there will be enough evidence in there to incriminate him and all his minions.’

‘I will look forward to receiving it. I’ve never known you fail, Holmes. If anyone can bring this villain down, it is you.’

Sherlock Holmes pursed his lips. ‘We shall see. I have it on good authority that he has a most ambitious bank job in the planning. If I can scupper that …’

Violet Carmichael held the photograph of Sherlock Holmes in her hand and gently ran her long forefinger down the front of the picture, her sharp nails leaving a faint line across the features of the detective. She was barely containing her anger. ‘It is now time that he was stopped. Initially, I was amused by his arrogance, his brilliance. It entertained me to watch him grow in confidence and expertise and fall into our trap. But now he has become too dangerous. He is coming too close for comfort. My comfort. And the closer he comes, the more damaging intelligence he collects. The professor is the mask I have created to protect me. Holmes must never see beyond it. Fortunately, he has become obsessed by Moriarty as I hoped he would and so we must take advantage of this obsession and eliminate him.’ With a deft movement she crumpled up the photograph and threw it down on her desk. ‘It is time to have done with the man. Time for our little imposter to come into his own.’

As Alfred Coombs – the man who had become Professor Moriarty – climbed up the seventeen steps to Sherlock Holmes’s sitting room at 221B Baker Street, he knew that he was about to give the performance of his life. His knees trembled as he reached the landing and his throat felt very dry. ‘Come on, old boy,’ he whispered in his normal voice, one that he had almost forgotten how to use.

He tapped on the door and entered the room. Sherlock Holmes rose from his chair, his hand rammed into his dressing gown pocket where, Moriarty deduced, he was clutching a revolver. So, the great detective was that scared. The thought amused and relaxed Moriarty.

‘Certainly, Sherlock Holmes was rattled. He spoke with bravado, but an actor knows when another is acting,’ observed Coombs, before lighting the Havana cigar he had just been given.

‘Excellent.’ Violet Carmichael smiled. ‘I have arranged for a number of assassination attempts to be made on his life: sniper bullets, falling masonry – that sort of thing. None will be successful, of course. Such a death would only arouse suspicions with Scotland Yard. He will be dealt with later.’

‘What then is the purpose of these attacks?’

‘I need to prompt Mr Holmes to hand over his files to Patterson – who in turn will hand them over to me.’

‘He is your spy at the Yard.’

‘One of several.’

‘In the meantime, what about me?’

Violet Carmichael gave Coombs a feline smile. ‘You must prepare yourself for a journey.’

Watson gazed at his friend in the half-light of evening which filtered into his sitting room through the net curtains. The detective looked tired and ill but Watson observed that there was still that bright spark emanating from those fierce grey eyes.

‘My case against Moriarty is complete, old fellow, and the villain knows it. The proof being that I have been attacked several times today and only narrowly missed losing my life.’

‘Great heavens,’ Watson cried, shocked and alarmed at this statement, which was uttered so casually.

‘It is a very good omen. It shows that the master criminal is beginning to panic.’

‘And that your life is in danger.’

‘Always quick to making the obvious point, eh, Watson. Yes, indeed, London is too hot for me now. I have passed over the relevant papers to Inspector Patterson of the Yard and, within a few days, Moriarty and his gang will be rounded up. In the meantime, it would be judicious, I think, to absent myself from England for a while. A trip to Europe beckons and I was hoping that you would be my travelling companion. Would you come to the Continent with me? We could wander up the Valley of the Rhone, through the Gemmi Pass into Switzerland and on, via Interlaken, to Meiringen. And thence to Rosenlaui, not forgetting to make a stop at the magnificent Reichenbach Falls.

‘Of course. Anything you say, Holmes.’

Holmes was now alone on the narrow path overlooking the Reichenbach Falls. Watson had departed in haste to attend to a sick English lady who was staying at the hotel in Meiringen. The detective knew that the summons was a ruse to draw his only companion away, leaving the field free for the appearance of his arch-enemy, Professor James Moriarty. And, indeed, through the mist of spray, there appeared a dark silhouette, which shimmered indistinctly at first then clearly materialised into the figure of his arch-enemy.

The two men faced each other, the roar of the falls drumming in their ears.

‘At last, Mr Holmes.’

‘At last, Professor Moriarty.’

Holmes prepared himself for what he believed would be a hand-to-hand struggle to the death. Moriarty smiled, his head slowly vacillating as he withdrew a revolver from the folds of his coat.

‘No one said we had to play fair.’ The professor smiled, pointing the gun at Holmes.

This scene was being observed from a distance, higher up the steep incline overlooking the falls. Colonel Sebastian Moran adjusted the sights on his rifle and steadied his aim. As he saw Moriarty raise the pistol and aim it at Holmes, in quick succession he fired twice. Two bullets whizzed through the damp air towards their targets. Both figures below remained frozen like dark statues for a moment as the bullets tore into them. Death took them swiftly and silently. In an instant they both toppled over into the deep chasm of the creaming, boiling waters of the Reichenbach Falls.

‘Any attempts at recovering the bodies were absolutely hopeless and there, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of his generation.’ Violet Carmichael put down the copy of The Strand Magazine and chuckled. ‘Brilliant,’ she exclaimed. ‘Quite brilliant.’

Watson smiled. ‘I thought you’d like it.’

‘Indeed, I do.’ Still smiling, she poured out two glasses of champagne. ‘John, your help has been invaluable in this matter. I look forward to you being more involved in my affairs now that the field is clear of all obstructions. I shall always need a good man close to me whom I can trust implicitly.’

The good doctor smiled enigmatically and raised his glass of champagne.