The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

Moriarty’s Luck L. C. Tyler

The old Queen had been dead for over a year, but the weather was much the same. In Baker Street, the gas lamps were obscured in equal measure by the yellow mist that had rolled in off the Thames and the large white snowflakes that had been falling since teatime. A dozen cabs had rattled past, all fully occupied, at first to our resigned amusement but increasingly to our profound annoyance. We had a table waiting for us at Simpson’s in the Strand at seven o’clock, but we were still no more than a few yards from our rooms.

Holmes took out his gold half-hunter and frowned. ‘I think, Watson, that we should abandon any hope of transport in this weather and resign ourselves to walking to our destination. If we put our best foot forward, we shall still be at Simpson’s on time.’

‘Walk from Baker Street to the Strand in twenty-five minutes?’ I exclaimed. ‘It will take thirty-five at least.’

Holmes smiled for the first time since we had set out. ‘Twenty-five and not a minute more. If we are not at our table by seven, Watson, then I shall be happy to pay the bill for both of us at the end of the evening.’

I shook my head doubtfully. ‘If we are there by seven, which I do not think possible, then I shall of course pay.’

‘It is in the nature of wagers, Watson, that there is some reciprocity of risk, though the “mug” bears most of it. I hope you have some cash with you.’

‘Mug?’ I enquired.

‘A technical term,’ said Holmes.

I patted the pockets of my ulster and felt my wallet’s reassuring shape. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘And I give you my word, Holmes, as a former officer and as a gentleman, that I shall not deliberately lag behind.’

Holmes smiled again. ‘As for the guarantee that you offer for your conduct, I think that arch-villain Colonel Moran could have claimed the same distinction. In this new century, His Majesty’s commission is no assurance of gentlemanly behaviour.’

I was about to protest that the morals of the late Professor Moriarty’s henchman could not be allowed to blacken the character of the entire British Army, or even of his own rather unfashionable regiment, but Holmes, giving no such assurances of his own, had already set off at a brisk pace. For some time we proceeded in silence. I was struggling a little to keep up and Holmes’s eyes were fixed on some distant point. He seemed to be recalculating our arrival time as we passed each landmark. Though we walked no faster than I had feared we might, I had not counted on Holmes’s detailed knowledge of the geography of London. Twice we took short cuts that had me baffled for a moment, until we emerged again into some familiar street. The race, it appeared, would be won by brainpower rather than leg muscle alone. But, no sooner had I become convinced that my friend had the better of me and that I would be paying for dinner, than Holmes came to a sudden and unannounced halt at the corner of Bentinck Street and Welbeck Street. He took out his watch again and studied it before replacing it in his waistcoat pocket.

‘Excellent. We have four and a half minutes in hand, Watson. Time I think to have my shoes polished by this gentleman here.’

Holmes indicated an old man, crouched beside his paraphernalia of blacking tins and brushes, wrapped in an old brown overcoat and with a scarf wound round the lower part of his face. There was something about the decrepitude of the figure that invoked disgust but, in a mind as noble as Holmes’s, pity too. He removed an overly generous half-crown from his pocket and held it between two fingers.

‘This is for you, my man, if you can clean these boots to perfection in precisely four minutes,’ he said.

The old bootblack looked up. Perhaps he had been dozing, in spite of the cold, because Holmes’s voice had clearly startled him. But he set to work without a word, dabbing his cloth nimbly and expertly. When he had applied the blacking to one boot however he paused and observed: ‘I see, Mr Holmes, that these boots formerly pinched, but that you have now worn them in satisfactorily.’

Holmes in his turn suddenly looked startled. The great detective was of course used to making deductions of this sort himself, but rarely had anyone returned the favour and analysed either his character or his footwear in this way. His reply was clipped and somewhat ungracious. ‘I should like to know how you have come to that conclusion.’

The bootblack looked up, taking in both Holmes and myself with a long, slow stare. I noticed for the first time his bulbous forehead and piercing eyes.

‘As a bootblack,’ he said, ‘I have acquired an extensive knowledge of shoes and boots of all sorts – ladies’ and gents’ alike. These are clearly expensive and well made but they are of a pattern that was fashionable three or four years ago. They are, however, like new. The heels, always the first part of a shoe to suffer, are still perfect. Why would you buy an expensive pair of boots and then not wear them? The answer is simple: that they were initially very uncomfortable. But you are wearing them now and you and your friend approached at some speed, proving that you now feel no discomfort at all – hence I must conclude that you have finally worn them in.’

I laughed and applauded this strange reversal of roles. I turned to Holmes expecting him also to congratulate the old man but he was scowling at him.

‘You finally recognise me then?’ sneered the bootblack.

‘How could I not?’

‘Who is this person, Holmes?’ I asked.

‘Someone you know well, but have never seen, except for a moment as his train sped past us at Canterbury,’ said Holmes. ‘Somebody neither of us ever expected to see again.’

‘Professor Moriarty?’ I said, in disbelief. ‘But …’

The old man unwound his scarf and, for the first time, I found myself face to face with my friend’s most implacable enemy. There was an old scar that ran from his temple to his jawline. ‘You thought I was dead?’ he asked.

‘If you don’t think it impolite of me, I had rather hoped so,’ said Holmes. ‘We struggled. I overcame you. I saw you fall …’

Moriarty shook his head. ‘It is true that I slipped from that ledge above the Reichenbach Falls.’

‘That was no slip,’ I interjected. ‘Holmes defeated you by using the ancient art of baritsu. Had he not, he would have perished at your hands.’

‘Baritsu?’ Moriarty sneered. ‘Was that what he called that strange posturing and flailing of his arms? Was that why he uttered those shrill noises that he possibly imagined to be Japanese? The path was wet. I had been waiting there for some time. It is hardly surprising that I could not keep my footing. I simply stumbled and fell. But the pool below the waterfall is deep. Very deep. Quite improbably deep. I was temporarily stunned as I struck the water, but its coldness revived me. I rose to the surface, but swimming in that torrent was impossible. I was swept along by the current and dragged under again, this time striking my head against a rock. I do not know what happened next, but some minutes or hours or chapters later I found myself being pulled ashore by a Swiss peasant. He and his wife carried me home, more dead than alive – I mean figuratively rather than mathematically obviously because otherwise I would on balance have been dead.’

‘That all sounds very unlikely,’ I said.

‘Not as unlikely as some of the explanations I have heard for Mr Holmes’s survival,’ said Moriarty.

‘Fair comment,’ said Holmes.

‘Go on,’ I said. I’d never been quite sure that baritsu really existed. I hoped that the rest of Holmes’s account of his survival could be trusted.

‘They nursed me,’ Moriarty continued, ‘for two months, until I had recovered – at least physically. In return they asked for nothing. Nothing at all. Their simple everyday kindness humbled me. When I left I tried to give them all I had with me – my money, my watch – but they refused to take anything. I went on my way determined to lead a better and nobler life. I returned to England to resume my academic career.’

‘Then how do you find yourself here?’

Moriarty gave a bitter laugh. ‘Publications,’ he said. ‘As a university head of department you have a great deal of administrative work that the university expects you to carry out. Then you have students to teach, however asinine and unteachable they may be. Finally, you must undertake research and publish in the leading journals. Most academics find that it is difficult to do all three, and very few of them also run a criminal empire spanning much of western Europe. Of course, it was the research that suffered – it always does. Each time I went to an interview I was faced with the question: “Professor Moriarty, I see that you haven’t published since 1889. Why is that?”’

‘Eighteen eighty-nine? Your famous paper on mathematics?’ asked Holmes. ‘What was it called again?’

‘Towards a post-modernist re-evaluation of the binomial theorem,’ said Moriarty with a sigh.

‘Of course,’ said Holmes. ‘A masterpiece.’

‘Your criminal activities counted against you,’ I said. ‘You could not have hoped for employment, even at one of the newer institutions.’

Moriarty laughed again. ‘How little you know of our universities,’ he said. ‘All vice chancellors are obliged to maximise revenue from any legitimate source. There was one selection panel which, when I told them how I had extorted ten million marks from the government of Saxony, were completely lost in thought for five whole minutes. In the rejection letter that followed, they said that, if they had imagined for a moment that the trick would have worked twice, they would have had no hesitation in offering me a Chair.’ His voice tailed off wistfully.

Holmes stood there, one boot covered in blacking, the half-crown still held between his fingers. ‘But, you have now come to this …’

‘Indeed. While you are able to buy the very best boots and leave them in your wardrobe, I am obliged to wear a coat that scarcely keeps out the snow on a night such as this. The hovel in which I live has neither food nor coal in it. We have been obliged to burn the doors to keep warm. The landlord long ago sold the roof to some venture capitalists. Even the bare walls now form part of a toxic property bond. I share the bed with three others, none of whom are in any way to my liking. But I am trying to live honestly, as you can see.’

‘And would be insulted by any suggestion of charity, no doubt,’ I said.

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Moriarty. ‘I definitely didn’t say that.’ Though still kneeling, he had grasped Holmes by his coat. ‘A guinea, sir? You’d never even miss it.’

‘Holmes!’ I exclaimed. ‘This is the wretch who tried to murder you – and would have done had you not known … er … baritsu. He is the man who was, for years, at the heart of every major crime that was committed in London, and at least one in Saxony. You cannot possibly offer him a penny.’

Holmes said nothing. He was staring out into the falling snow.

Moriarty swung round and now held on to my ulster. ‘Or you, Dr Watson? You must be making good money writing up Mr Holmes’s cases – surely I deserve a small share of that for instigating the crimes that are making you rich?’

I muttered something about advances being rather less than the newspapers reported, while at the same time trying to pull myself away from him. His grasp was, however, vice-like on my overcoat.

‘Watson! Do not strike the poor creature!’ Holmes exclaimed.

I realised that I had raised my arm as if to do just that. I lowered it slowly and Moriarty released me, shuffling back on his knees until he was crouching before us like some beaten cur. He now lifted his own arms, as if to fend off whatever blow might fall. It was melodrama, but it was good melodrama.

‘This,’ said Holmes, ‘is all that is left of what was once the Napoleon of crime. Look at him, Watson, and pity him. This is the man who wrote Towards a post-feminist re-evaluation of the binomial theorem.’

‘Post-modernist,’ said Moriarty.

‘Whatever,’ said Holmes. ‘He has, or had, one of the greatest minds I have ever encountered. And now he kneels before us. We are lucky, Watson. We have looked death in the face – you in Afghanistan, I in many places – and lived to tell the tale. We shall eat well tonight and each have a soft bed to retire to afterwards. And this poor fellow …’

‘We make our own luck,’ I said.

‘You think I deserve to be as I am, Dr Watson? Perhaps you are right. I could have been Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. All I had to do was publish regularly and not build up a vast criminal empire. I ask not for what I deserve, but for your charity.’

Holmes again toyed with the silver coin in his hand, but I was determined Moriarty should have nothing.

‘Holmes,’ I said. ‘The wager!’

My friend looked at me. It was as if some spell had been broken. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You are going to pay for dinner. We can still be at Simpson’s by seven.’

‘But only if we leave now,’ I said.

I had, however, no need for further words. Holmes had already set off. I paused only to smile in what I hoped was an ironic manner at Moriarty before I hurried in the great detective’s footsteps. We had gone some two hundred yards before I managed to catch up with him. He clearly thought there was still a chance of winning the bet.

‘Your nature is far too forgiving,’ I panted, as soon as I drew level with him.

‘I saw merely an old man down on his luck,’ said Holmes. ‘He will have to sit there all night even to make half a crown whereas very shortly we shall be at Simpson’s. Indeed, I calculate that we shall arrive at …’ Holmes felt in his right-hand waistcoat pocket, then in his left. Then he stopped abruptly. ‘I was sure that I had my watch with me …’

‘Your gold half hunter? Of course, I saw it.’

‘I was checking it just before we met Moriarty …’

We both turned and looked behind us. We could still just make out the junction of Bentinck Street and Welbeck Street, but there was no sign of any bootblack, no sign of his tins of blacking. All we could see was the swirling mist.

I laughed. ‘It would seem that the professor has taken advantage of your good nature in more ways than one,’ I said, ‘but never mind, I shall pay for dinner as some recompense.’ I felt in the right pocket of my ulster and then in my left. ‘Holmes,’ I said, ‘I was sure that I had my wallet earlier.’

But he was already searching for his own pocketbook, without success.

‘I think we will have to forgo our dinner at Simpson’s,’ I said. ‘That villain has left us without a penny.’

‘Not quite,’ said Holmes. ‘We have one piece of luck ourselves. I still have this half-crown. It will not provide the dinner I intended, but if we take a right turn just ahead, we shall in due course come to the Alpha Inn, where we may obtain two pints of ale and some goose pie. The landlord is what you might describe as a diamond geezer. That is a consoling thought, is it not?’

‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘And there is one more consoling thought: that while I shall most certainly continue to chronicle your remarkable cases, nobody will ever write another word about the exploits of Professor Moriarty.’