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

Only when I turned into Conduit Street, and spotted the familiar figure of Runty Reg — the beggar who kept lookout, and would signal on his penny whistle if anyone official or hostile approached our door — did I stop sweating. I flicked him a copper, which he made disappear.

I returned to our consulting room, calm as you like and pooh-poohing earlier imaginings. Professor Moriarty was addressing a small congregation of all-too-familiar villains. The Green Eye shone in plain sight on the sideboard. Had he summoned the most light-fingered bleeders in London on the assumption one would half-inch the thing and take the consequences?

‘Kind of you to join us, Moran,’ he said, coldly. ‘I have decided we shall assemble a collection of Crown jewels. This emerald is but the first item. You might call this gem matchless, but I believe I can match it.’

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out something the size of a rifle ball, which he held up between thumb and forefinger. It glistened, darkly. He laid it down beside the Green Eye.

The Black Pearl of the Borgias.

VI

Before Moriarty, the last person unwise enough to own the Black Pearl was Nicholas Savvides, an East End dealer in dubious valuables. Well known among collectors of such trinkets, he was as crooked as they come — even before the Hoxton Creeper twisted him about at the waist. When the police found Savvy Nick, his bellybutton and his arse crack made an exclamation mark. His eyes were popped too, but he was dead enough not to mind being blind and about-face.

The peculiar thing was that the Creeper didn’t want the pearl for himself. He was the rummest of customers, a criminal lunatic who suffered from a glandular gigantism. Its chief symptoms were gorilla shoulders and a face like a pulled toffee. He lumbered about in a vile porkpie hat and an old overcoat which strained at the seams, killing people who possessed the Borgia Pearl, only to bestow the hard-luck piece on a succession of ‘French’ actresses. These delights could be counted on to dispose of the thing to a mug pawnbroker, and set their disappointed beau to spine twisting again. He’d been through most of the cancan chorus at the Tivoli, but — as they say — who hasn’t?

The Creeper had been caught, tried and hanged by whatever neck he possessed, and walked away from the gallows whistling Offenbach. To my knowledge, he’d been shot by the police, several jewel thieves and a well-known fence. Bullets didn’t take. Once, he’d been blown up with gelignite. No joy there. Something to do with thick bones.

I had no idea Moriarty had the Black Pearl. Since his arse was still in its usual place, I supposed the Creeper hadn’t either. Until now. If the prize were openly displayed, the Creeper would find out. He lived rough, down by the docks. Eating rats and — worse — drinking Thames water. Some said he was psychically attuned to his favoured bauble. Even if that was rot, he had his sources. He would follow the trail to Conduit Street. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about with the vengeance of the little yellow god.

Moriarty’s audience consisted of an even dozen of the continent’s premier thieves. Not the ones you’ve heard of — the cricketing ponce or the frog popinjays. Not the gents who steal for a laugh and to thumb their noses at titled aunties, but the serious, unambitious drudges who get the job done. Low, cunning types we’d dealt with before, who would do their bit for a share of the purse and not peach if they got nobbled. When we wanted things stolen, these were the men — and two women — we called in.

‘I have made “a shopping list”,’ announced the Professor. ‘Four more choice items to add lustre to the collection. It is my intention that these valuables be secured within the next two days.’

A covered blackboard — relic of his pedagogical days — stood by his desk. Like a magician, Moriarty pulled away the cloth. He had written his list clearly, in chalk:

1. The Green Eye of the Yellow God

2. The Black Pearl of the Borgias

3. The Falcon of the Knights of St John

4. The Jewels of the Madonna of Naples

5. The Jewel of Seven Stars

6. The Eye of Balor

Simon Carne, a cracksman and swindler who insisted on wearing a fake humpback, put up his hand like a schoolboy.

‘You have permission to speak,’ the Professor said. It’s a wonder he didn’t fetch his mortar board, black gown and cane. They had been passed on to Mistress Strict, one of Mrs Halifax’s young ladies; she took in overage pupils with a yen for the discipline of their school days.

‘Item three, sir,’ Carne said. ‘The Falcon. Is that the Templar Falcon?’

‘Indeed. A jewelled gold statuette, fashioned in 1530 by Turkish slaves in the Castle of St Angelo on Malta. The Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem intended it to be bestowed on Carlos the Fifth of Spain. It was, as I’m sure you know, lost to pirates before it could be delivered.’

‘Well, I’ve never heard of it,’ Fat Kaspar said A promising youth: his appetite for puddings was as great as his appetite for crime, but he’d a smart mind and a beady eye for fast profit.

‘It’s been sought by a long line of adventurers,’ explained Carne. ‘And not been seen in fifty years.’

‘So some say.’

‘You want it here within two days?’

Moriarty was unruffled by the objection.

‘If there’s no fog on the Channel, the Templar Falcon should join the collection by tomorrow morning. I have cabled the Grand Vampire in Paris with details of the current location of this rara avis. It has been in hiding. A soulless brigand enamelled it like a common blackbird to conceal its value.’

‘The Grand Vampire is stealing this prize, and giving it to you?’ Carne said.

I didn’t believe that either.

‘Of course not. In point of fact, he won’t have to steal it. The Falcon lies neglected in Pére Duroc’s curiosity shop. The proprietor has little idea of the dusty treasure nestling in his unsaleable stock. We have a tight schedule, else I would send someone to purchase it for its asking price. If any of you could be trusted with fifteen francs.’

A smattering of nervous laughter.

‘I have offered the Grand Vampire fair exchange. I am giving him something he wants, as valuable to him as the Falcon is to us. I do not intend to tell you what that is.’

But — never fear — I’ll release the feline from the reticule. On our St Helena excursion, Moriarty took the trouble to validate a rumour. As you know, Napoleon’s imperial bones were exhumed in 1840 and returned to France and — after twenty years of lying in a cardboard box as the frogs argued and raised subscriptions — interred in a hideous porphyry sarcophagus under the dome at Les Invalides. You can buy a ticket and gawp at it. However, as you don’t know, Napoleon isn’t inside. For a joke, the British gave France the remains of an anonymous, pox-ridden, undersized sailor. The Duke of Wellington didn’t stop laughing for a month.

On the island, the Prof found the original unmarked grave, dug up what was left of the Corsican Crapper and stole Boney’s bonce. That relic was now on its way to Paris by special messenger, fated to become a drinking cup for the leader of Les Vampires, France’s premier criminal gang. A bit of a conversation piece, I expect. Les Vamps run to that line of the dramatic the Frenchies call Grand Guignol. Supposed to make their foes shiver in their beds, but hard to take seriously. Grand Vampires don’t last long. There’s a whole cupboard full of drinking cups made out of their skulls.