Kim Newman - Professor Moriarty The Hound of the D'Urbervilles

‘All indications are that you must die, Carew. The raider of the sacred gem is doomed, irrevocably. Yet, why must that be? Are we not greater than any fate or superstition? I, Moriarty, refuse to accept any so-called inevitability. We shall take your case, Major Carew. Give Colonel Moran a hundred pounds as a retainer.’

Surprised and suspicious, Carew blurted out ‘Gladly!’ and produced a cheque book.

‘Cash, old fellow,’ I said.

‘Of course.’ He nodded glumly, and undid a money belt. He had the sum about him in gold sovereigns.

I piled them up and clinked them a bit. Sound. Coin, I can appreciate!

‘You are to take lodgings in our basement. There is a serviceable room, which has been used for the purpose before. Meals are provided at eight shillings daily. Breakfast, dinner, supper. Should you wish high tea or other luxuries, make private arrangements with Mrs Halifax. I need not tell you only to eat and drink what comes to you from our kitchen. We must preserve your health. I prescribe Scotch broth.’

Now, he was talking like a doctor. The Moriarty Cure, suitable for maiden ladies and gentlemen of a certain age.

‘One other thing…’ he added.

‘What? Anything?’ Carew said.

‘The Green Eye. Sell it to me for a penny down and a penny to pay at the end of the week, with the stone returned to you and the first penny forfeit if I fail to make the second payment. I shall have a legal bill of sale drawn up.’

‘You know what that would mean?’

‘I know what everything would mean. It is my business.’

‘I’ve sold it before. It comes back, and the buyers… well, the buyers are in no position to come back. Ever.’

The Professor showed his teeth and wrote out a legible receipt.

‘Moran, give me a penny,’ he said.

Without thinking, I fished a copper from my watch pocket and handed it over. Seconds later, it struck me! I’d roped myself in along with Moriarty on the receiving end of the curse. Don’t think the Prof hadn’t thought of that, because — as he said — he thought of bloody everything.

Moriarty exchanged the coin for the emerald.

It lay on his desk like a malign paperweight.

So, we were all for the high jump now.

V

Our client was snug in the concealed apartment beneath the storerooms — a cupboard with a cot, where we stashed tenants best advised not to show their faces at street level. Mrs Halifax, alert to the clink of a money belt, supplied tender distractions and gin at champagne prices. When Swedish Suzette (who was Polish) went downstairs, Mrs H. called it a ‘house call’ and charged extra. If Mad Carew wasn’t dead by the end of the week, he’d be dead broke.

Professor Moriarty disappeared into the windowless room where he kept his records. We were up to date on the Newgate Calendar, the Police Gazette and Famous Murder Trials. The Professor knew more about every pickpocket and high-rip mobster than their mothers or the arresting officers. The more arcane material was in code or foreign languages, or translated into mathematics and written down as page after page of numbers. [37] When they first met, Moran was under the impression that Moriarty ‘kept no notes, no files, no address book or appointment diary’. It seems the Professor was vain enough to foster that impression, though Moran eventually learned this was not the case. This is more evidence that ‘The Six Maledictions’ was written as much as thirty years after ‘A Volume in Vermilion’. He said he needed to look into precedents and parallels before deciding on a plan. I had an intimation that would be bad news for some — probably including me.

While the Prof was blowing the dust off press cuttings and jotting down cipher notes, I had the afternoon to myself. Best to get out of the flat and beetle about.

I decided to scratch an itch. On constitutionals through Soho, I had twice had my trouser cuffs assaulted by a pup in Berwick Street Market. The tiny creature’s excessively loud yapping was well known. It was past time to skewer the beast. You could consider it a public service, but the truth is — and I don’t mind if it shocks more delicate readers — killing an animal always perks me up. I’d prefer to stalk big game in the bush, but there’s none of that in London except at the zoological gardens. Even I think it unsporting to aim between the bars and ventilate Rajah the Lion or Jumbo the Elephant, though old, frustrated guns have tried to swell their bags this way when gout or angry colonial officials prevent them from returning to the veldt.

A small annoying dog should take the edge off this hunter’s bloodlust. The prey would be all the sweeter because it was the pet of a small annoying boy. I’ve a trick cane which slips out six inches of honed Sheffield steel at a twist of the knob. The perfect tool for the task. The trick was to stroll by casually and perform a coup de grâce in the busy street market without anyone noticing. In Spain, where they appreciate such artistry, I’d be awarded both ears and the tail. In London, there’d be less outrage if I killed the boy.

I swanned into the market and made a play of considering cauliflowers and cabbages — though drat me if I know the difference — while idly twirling the old cane, using it to point at plump veggies at the back of the stalls, then waving it airily to indicate said items didn’t come up to snuff under closer scrutiny. The pup was there, nipping at passing skirts and swallowing titbits fed it by patrons with a high tolerance for noisome canines. The boy, who kept a tomato stall, was doting and vigilant, his practiced eye out for pilferers. A challenge! Much more than the fat, complacent PC on duty.

For twenty minutes, I stalked the pup. I became as sensible of the cries and bustle of the market as of the jungle.

Which is how I knew they were there.

Little brown men. Not tanned hop pickers from Kent. Natives of far shores.

I didn’t exactly see them. But you don’t. Oh, maybe you glimpse a stretch of brown wrist between cuff and glove, then turn to see only white faces. You think you catch a few words in Himalayan dialect amid costermongers’ cries.

At some point in any tiger hunt, you wonder if the tiger is hunting you — and you’re usually right.

I approached the doggie, en fin. I raised the stick to the level where its tip would brush over the pup’s skull. My grip shifted to allow the one-handed twist which would send steel through canine brain.

From a heap of tomatoes, red eyes glared. I looked again, blinking, and they were gone. But there were altogether too many tomatoes. Too ripe, with a redness approaching that of blood.

The moment had passed. The pup was alive.

I rued that penny. Though not strictly the present possessor of the Green Eye of the Yellow God, I had financed the transfer from Carew to Moriarty. I was implicated in its purchase.

The curse extended to me.

I hurried towards Oxford Street.

The pup knew not how narrow its escape had been. I only left the market — where it would have been easy for someone to get close and slip his own blade through my waistcoat — because I was allowed to. The bill wasn’t yet due.

Eyes were on me.

I used the cane, but only to skewer an apple from a stall and walk off without paying. Not one of my more impressive crimes.

Hastening back to our rooms by a roundabout route, I forced myself not to break into a run. I didn’t see a yeti in every shadow, but that’s not how it works. They let you know there is a yeti in a shadow, and you have to waste worry on every shadow. Invariably, you can’t keep up the vigilance. Then, the first shadow you don’t treat as if it had a yeti in it is the one the yeti comes out of. Damn strain on the nerves, even mine — which, as many will attest, are constituted of steel cable suitable for suspension bridges.