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

The fabulous gold, jewel-encrusted Templar Falcon looked like a dull black paperweight. A label attached by string to one claw indicated decreasingly ambitious prices. Generations of Parisian tat connoisseurs had not nibbled. On principle, the Grand Vampire had stolen the bird — murdering three people, and burning the curiosity shop to the ground — rather than meet the asking price (which, I’m sure, Pére Duroc would have lowered yet again, if pressed). I trusted our esteemed colleague was enjoying his afternoon anis from the skull of the Emperor Napoleon.

‘Are you sure there are jewels in that?’ asked Fat Kaspar, who was trusted with dusting the sideboard.

Moriarty nodded, holding the thing up like Yorick’s skull.

‘What was the point of it again?’ I enquired.

‘After the Knights of St John were driven off Rhodes by Suleiman the Magnificent, the Emperor Carlos let the order make stronghold on Malta and demanded a single falcon as annual rent. He expected a live bird, but the Knights decided to impress him by manufacturing this fantastically valuable statue… which was then stolen.’

Fat Kaspar prepared a spot for the bird, and Moriarty set it down.

‘What happened afterwards?’ the youth asked.

‘What usually happens when rent isn’t paid. Eviction. The Templars were booted out of Malta. In shame. Later, they were excommunicated or disavowed by the Pope. In Spain and Portugal, they practiced “unholy” rites — the usual orgiastic behaviour such as you’d find in any brothel when the fleet’s in, but with incense and chanting and vestments. Other orders made war on them, hunted them down. It is said the last of them were hung on cartwheels and left for the crows to peck out their eyes.

‘But the Knights of St John still exist, and I am sure they wish the return of their property. I doubt the present Grand Master feels any obligation to deliver it to the Spanish Crown.’

‘Who’s this Grand Master wallah?’ I asked.

‘Marshall Alaric Molina de Marnac.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘That would be why it’s called a secret society, Moran. The Knights of St John have many other names in the many territories where they operate. In England, they are a sect of Freemasons, and have conjoined with several occult groups. Their Grand Lodge, in the catacombs under Guildhall, is abuzz with preparations for a visit from the Grand Master. The call has gone out and the Holy Knights will answer. De Marnac heard that the falcon had surfaced in Paris…’

‘What little bird whispered that in his ear?’

Moriarty’s thin lips approximated a sly smile. ‘He set out by special train from the Templar fastness in Cadiz, but arrived too late… as the embers of the Duroc establishment were settling. A troop of men-at-arms, in full armour, clashed with Les Vampires in Montmartre. Lives were lost. I calculate they delayed the arrival of de Marnac on these shores by eighteen hours. The Grand Vampire will be less inclined to do us favours in the future. I had taken that into account — we shall have to do something about France when this present business is concluded.’

I did not think to remind him that our purpose was simply to save one rotten Englishman’s hide. Moriarty had not forgotten Mad Carew. He was playing a much larger game, but the original commission remained.

Fat Kaspar looked at the falcon. He brushed its jet wings with his feather duster, and the thing’s dead eye seemed to glint.

Something was going on between boy and blackbird.

Moriarty had already assigned the day’s errands. Simon Carne was off in Kensington ‘investigating a gas leak’. Alf Bassick was in Rotherhithe picking up items Moriarty had ordered from a cabinetmaker whose specialty was making new furniture look old enough to pass for Chippendale. Now, it was my turn for marching orders.

‘Moran, I have taken the liberty of filling in your appointment book. You have a busy day. You are expected at Scotland Yard for luncheon, the Royal Opera for the matinee and Trelawny House for late supper. I trust you can secure the items needed to complete our collection. Take whoever you need from our reserves. I shall be in my study until midnight — calculations must be made.’

‘Fair enough, Prof. You know what you’re doing.’

‘Yes, Moran. I do.’

IX

So, how does one steal a coin from a locked desk in Scotland Yard? A castle on the Victoria Embankment, full to bursting with policemen, detectives, gaolers and ruthless agents of the British State. An address — strictly, it’s New Scotland Yard — lawbreakers would be well advised to stay away from.

Simple answer.

You don’t. You can’t. And if you could, you wouldn’t.

For why?

If such a coup — a theft of evidence from the Headquarters of Her Majesty’s Police — could be achieved, word would quickly circulate. The name of the master cracksman would be toasted in every pub in the East End. Policemen drink in those pubs too. Even if you left no clue, thanks to the brilliance of your foreplanning and the cunning of the execution, your signature would be on the deed.

Rozzers don’t take kindly to having their noses tweaked. If they can’t have you up for a given crime, they take you in on a drunk and disorderly charge, then tell anyone foolish enough to ask that you ‘fell down the stairs’. Once inside the holding cells, any number of nasty fates can befall the unwary. When the Hoxton Creeper was in custody, the peelers got shot of seven or eight on their most-hated list by making felons share his lodgings.

No, you don’t just breeze into a den of police with larcenous intent and a set of lock picks. Unless you’ve a yen for martyrdom.

You walk up honestly and openly, without trace of an Irish accent. You ask for Inspector Harvey Lukens of the SIB and buy whatever you want. Not with money. That’s too easy. As with the Grand Vampire, you find something the other fellow wants more than the item they possess which you desire. Usually, you can cadge a favour by giving Lukens the current addresses of any one of a dozen Fenian troublemakers on the ‘wanted’ books. The Branch was constituted solely to deal with a rise in Fenian activity, specifically a bombing campaign in the eighties which got under their silly helmets — especially when the pissoir outside their office was dynamited on the same night some mad micks tried to topple Nelson’s column with gunpowder.

Here’s the thing about the Special Irish Branch: unlike their colleagues in the Criminal Investigation Department, they didn’t give a farthing’s fart about English crime. As far as Inspector Lukens was concerned, you could rob as many post offices as you like — abduct the postmistresses and sell ’em to oriental potentates if you could get threepence for the baggages — just so long as you didn’t use the stolen money in the cause of Home Rule.

When it came to Surrey stranglers, Glasgow gougers, Welsh wallet-lifters, Birmingham burglars or cockney coshers, the SIB were remarkably tolerant. However, any Irishman who struck a match on a public monument or sold a cough drop on Sunday was liable to be deemed ‘a person of interest’, and appear — if he survived that far — at his arraignment with blacked eyes and missing teeth.

Shortly after luncheon — a reasonable repast at Scotland Yard, with cold meats and beer and tinned peaches in syrup — I left the building, frowning, and made rendezvous with a band of fellows. Thieves, of course. Not of the finest water, but experienced. All persons of special interest:

Michaél Murphy Magooly O’Connor, jemmy-man.

Martin Aloysius McHugh, locksmith.

Seamus ‘Shiv’ Shaughnessy, knife thrower.