Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

My brother, Mycroft, basked and prospered in this colonial splendour but, I confess, it was not to my taste. I had only been accepted within this élite sanctuary as guest of Mycroft, who was known as a confident of the Chief Secretary and therefore regarded as having the ear of the Viceroy himself. I had only been persuaded to go because Mycroft wished to celebrate my demyship and see me off to Oxford in fraternal fashion. I did not want to disappoint him.

The dining room of the club was truly luxuriant. The club had the reputation of providing the best table in Dublin.

A solemn-faced waiter, more like an undertaker, led us through the splendidly furnished dining room to a table in a bay window overlooking St Stephen's Green for the club stood on the corner of Kildare Street and the green itself.

"An apéritif, gentlemen?" intoned the waiter in a sepulchral voice.

Mycroft took the opportunity to inform me that the cellar was of excellent quality, particularly the stock of champagne. I replied that I believed that I would commence with a glass of sherry and chose a Palo Cortaldo while Mycroft, extravagantly, insisted on a half bottle of Diamant Bleu.

He also insisted on a dozen oysters, which I observed cost an entire shilling a dozen, and were apparently sent daily from the club's own oyster bed near Galway. I settled for pâté de foie gras and we both agreed to indulge in a steak with a bottle of Bordeaux, a rich red St Estèphe from the Château MacCarthy.

In truth, Mycroft was more of a gourmand than a gourmet. He was physically lazy and already there was a corpulent aspect to his large frame. But he also had the Holmes's brow, the alert, steel-grey, deep set eyes and firmness of lips. He had an astute mind and was a formidable chess player.

After we had made our choice, we settled down and I was able to observe our fellow diners.

Among those who caught my immediate eye was a dark haired man who, doubtless, had been handsome in his youth. He was

now in his mid thirties and his features were fleshy and gave

him an air of dissoluteness and degeneracy. He carried himself with the air of a military man, even as he slouched at his table

imbibing his wine, a little too freely I fear. His discerning brow

was offset by the sensual jaw. I was aware of cruel blue eyes, drooping, cynical lids and an aggressive manner even while

seated in repose. He was immaculately dressed in a smart dark coat and cravat with a diamond pin that announced expensive tastes.

His companion appeared less governed by the grape than he, preferring coffee to round off his luncheon. This second man

was tall and thin, his forehead domed out in a white curve and his two eyes deeply sunken in his head. I would have placed him about the same age as his associate. He was clean-shaven, pale and ascetic looking. A greater contrast between two men, I could not imagine.

The scholarly man was talking earnestly and his military companion nodded from time to time, as if displeased at being

disturbed in his contemplation of his wine glass. The other man, I saw, had rounded shoulders and his face protruded forward. I observed that his head oscillated from side to side in a curious reptilian fashion.

"Mycroft," I asked, after a while, "who is that curious pair?" Mycroft glanced in the direction I had indicated.

"Oh, I would have thought you knew one of them – you being interested in science and such like."

I hid my impatience from my brother.

"I do not know, otherwise I would not have put forward the question."

"The elder is Professor Moriarty."

At once I was interested.

"Moriarty of Queen's University, in Belfast?" I demanded. "The same Professor Moriarty," confirmed Mycroft smugly.

I had at least heard of Moriarty for he had the chair of mathematics at Queen's and written The Dynamics of an Asteroid which ascended to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that no man in the scientific press was capable of criticizing it.

"And the man who loves his alcohol so much?" I pressed. "Who is he?"

Mycroft was disapproving of my observation.

"Dash it, Sherlock, where else may a man make free with his vices but in the shelter of his club?"

"There is one vice that he cannot well hide," I replied slyly. "That is his colossal male vanity. That black hair of his is no natural colour. The man dyes his hair. But, Mycroft, you have not answered my question. His name?"

"Colonel Sebastian Moran."

"I've never heard of him."

"He is one of the Morans of Connacht."

"A Catholic family?" For Ó Mórain, to give the name its correct Irish form, which meant "great", were a well-known Jacobite clan in Connacht.

"Hardly so," rebuked Mycroft. "His branch converted to the Anglican faith after the Williamite conquest. Sebastian Moran's father was Sir Augustus Moran cb, once British Minister to Persia.Young Moran went through Eton and Oxford.The family estate was near Derrynacleigh but I believe, after the colonel inherited, he lost it in a card game. He was a rather impecunious young man. Still, he was able to buy a commission in the Indian Army and served in the 1st Bengalore Pioneers. He has spent most of his career in India. I understand that he has quite a reputation as a big game hunter. The Bengal tiger mounted in the hall, as we came in, was one of his kills. The story is that he crawled down a drain after it when he had wounded it. That takes an iron nerve."

I frowned.

"Nerve, vanity and a fondness for drink and cards is sometimes an unenviable combination. They make a curious pair."

"I don't follow you?"

"I mean, a professor of mathematics and a dissolute army officer lunching together. What can they have in common?"

I allowed my attention to occupy the problem but a moment more. Even at this young age I had come to the conclusion that until one has facts it is worthless wasting time trying to hazard guesses.

My eye turned to the others in the dining room. Some I knew by sight and, one or two I had previously been introduced to in Mycroft's company. Among these diners was Lord Rosse, who had erected the largest reflecting telescope in the world at his home in Birr Castle. There was also the hard-drinking Viscount Massereene and Ferrard and the equally indulgent Lord Clonmell. There was great hilarity from another table where four young men were seated, voices raised in good-natured argument. I had little difficulty recognizing the Beresford brothers of Curraghmore, the elder of them being the Marquess of Waterford.

My eye eventually came to rest on a corner table where an elderly man with silver hair and round chubby red features was seated. He was well dressed and the waiters constantly hovered at his elbow to attend to his bidding like moths to a fly. He was obviously someone of importance.

I asked Mycroft to identify him.

"The Duke of Cloncury and Straffan," he said, naming one of the premier peers of Ireland.

I turned back to examine His Grace, whose ancestors had once controlled Ireland, with some curiosity. It was said that a word from Cloncury's grandfather could sway the vote in any debate in the old Irish Parliament, that was before the Union with England. As I was unashamedly scrutinizing him, His Grace was helped from his chair. He was, I judged, about seventy-something years of age, a short, stocky man but one who was fastidious in his toilet for his moustache was well cut and his hair neatly brushed so that not a silver strand of it was out of place.

He retrieved a small polished leather case, the size of a despatch-box, not more than twelve inches by six by four. It bore a crest in silver on it, and I presumed it to be Cloncury's own crest.

His Grace, clutching his case, made towards the door. At the same time, I saw Professor Moriarty push back his chair. Some sharp words were being exchanged between the professor and his lunching companion, Colonel Moran. The professor swung