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

So much for the social aspect of the gathering.

‘We are the greatest criminal minds of the nineteenth century,’ began Moriarty. Knowing we were in for a lecture, I settled my behind on a stack of Thoroughgood coffins. ‘And yet, like the century, our days are numbered…’

No one voiced outrage. Closed-mouth crowd, of course. Deep thinkers, on the whole, disinclined to bluster until they’d heard the whole story. Still, I’d have expected an indignant yelp or two of ‘I didn’t come all this way from Kensington… or Pago Pago… or Berlin… to be insulted’.

‘Really, we draw to the end of a golden age in our field of endeavour. Who has there been to oppose us, but ourselves? No police force constituted thus far has been more than a momentary inconvenience to our businesses, easy to thwart and easier to suborn. Not since Jonathan Wild has anyone at our level been brought to a court of law, let alone convicted and hanged. We have had an easy time of it — but it will not last. Already, some dilettantes have set about making war on us. Men — and a few women — of intellect, wealth, resource and character who have set themselves against us, not because they are supposed to, but because they must. We all know the species of law breaker who steals or murders or violates because he has not the strength of mind to resist the urge…’

The barest flicker of a glance at the Hoxton Creeper made his point.

‘Such impulses exist also in those who will be our enemies. They have a perverse instinct, a compulsion if you will, to bring us down. Plainly put, they do not like what we do and are not prepared to let us continue without hindrance. At present, it’s an easy matter to be rid of a stray honest prosecutor or police inspector. There are more than a sufficiency of our sort of public officials to thwart the efforts of such freaks. But, make no mistake, we see the dawn of a new era. Crime fighting is about to change. What will happen when civilised countries opt to devote as much to their police forces as to their armed forces? The sort of cool hand who once sought glory and fame fighting the foreign foe or discovering the source of the Nile will set out to become not a soldier or an explorer but a detective. Modern science will be turned against us. The detective of the future will be a thinking machine, as cold and effective as any of us. They will have capabilities to match, or better, our own. Let me give you an example…’

The Professor held up his hand, fingers splayed.

‘The lines and whorls on your fingertips are unique to you. Touch any surface with your naked hand and you leave traces more distinctive than a signature. All of us, wherever we go, leave these calling cards. As yet, this fact is unknown to all but a few. Within twenty years, it will put an end to your kind of crime, Raffles. In terms you understand, rain will stop play. Could you open a safe while wearing gloves, or trouble to wipe clean every object touched in the process of breaking and entering a house? Even if you could, could Mr Manders? Fingerprints on windows, strongboxes, weapons… even human skin… will send to gaol or the gallows three-quarters of the professional criminals currently active — and all of the amateurs.’

That put the cricketer in his place. He wouldn’t have looked half so startled if bowled out for a duck by a schoolboy.

‘I have heard of zese fingerprints,’ the Grand Vampire said. He had a high-pitched voice, and hissed through those teeth. ‘A Frenchman ’as pestered ze Surété about using zem to identify ze criminalss. Also, ze beumps on a man’s ’ead. Even ze shapess of earss.’

‘I’m not prone to sticking my ears against anything in the course of a crack,’ said Raffles.

‘Except safes, old boy,’ put in his friend. ‘Sometimes you do, to listen to the tumblers. Leave a perfect impression of the lugholes, I’ll be bound, eh what? If jolly old Mackenzie of the Yard had a cast of your ear, he’d nab you in no time, don’t you think?’

‘Shut up, Bunny,’ Raffles said, irritated. I’ve known clever crooks undone by devotion to imbecile girlfriends. Raffles and Manders showed it was the same story among bumboys.

‘Phrenology — the bumps on a man’s head, as you say — has its place, too,’ Moriarty said. ‘Dr Mabuse, you can change many things about your appearance, but the shape of your skull, even under crepe and wax, will be apparent. The squama occipitalis is distinctive and unmistakable. I would know you…’

The two stared at each other a moment.

‘And I would know you,’ responded the German, exaggeratedly bobbing his head. I’ve seen fighting cocks look at each other like that, just before the squawking, pecking, clawing and killing flurry. I was put in mind of the Moriarty family reunion I’d attended.

Good Lord, could Mabuse be some long-lost Moriarty bastard! If not the Professor’s, then the Colonel’s? No, such twists only happen in three-volume novels. Besides, well, really…!

‘I have considered fingerprints too,’ Dr Nikola said, breaking the moment. ‘Such things will first take hold in Europe and America, but will reach my quarter of the world in time. I agree we must pay attention to developments in detection, must not underestimate the scientific method. Moreover, we must not ignore the quality I think you do not fully appreciate, Moriarty. Idealism. Altruism. To label such things a mere compulsion is to simplify dangerously. Heroism is not susceptible to mathematics. It is not a condition to be cured, like a fever. Like all faiths, it is mysterious and strong. I daresay we shall have to get used to it. If we do not understand, appreciate and admire idealism, we shall lose.’

Hentzau got his cynical snort in before I did. Like me, he could show off a chestful of medals, mentions in dispatches and fancy write-ups in the press. We’ve both been called heroes by our nations and adoring multitudes, but we couldn’t scrape up a jot of idealism between us. What we had wasn’t heroism, but daring. Not the same thing, though it’s an easy mistake. In the army and the bush, I’d sneered at heroes — mostly at their wakes — but I’d moderated my opinion at about the time Jim Lassiter put a gun to the back of my head. That gun-fighter had something. Diggory Venn, too, dash his red skin and stout heart. Even the real Carnacki was a different breed. Men like that were out there, and would always be tough nuts for men like Bloody Basher and gallant Rupert.

Moriarty just looked blank at Nikola’s speech. Quartz was bored and impatient. The Lord of Strange Deaths was inscrutable, as if that were a novelty. Countess Cagliostro was counting her pearls. If you’ve heard anything about the later careers of all these individuals, you’ll know they should have paid more attention to the little dark chap who warned against heroes. All of our masterminds had a Jim Lassiter — or nearest offer — in their future. Not everyone in the circle got tossed off a waterfall, but we all got bloody noses. Some of us went to prison.

‘Heroism is an attractive quality,’ Irene said, mischievously.

‘Everyone can be bought, sister,’ Quartz snarled. ‘Or intimidated. Or dropped in the East River in a sack. Cut into an idealist and you find they bleed and die like all undermen.’

‘I disagree, Mr Quartz,’ Nikola said, warmed to the subject and pointedly not recognising the Yank’s academic qualification. ‘Idealism exists, as surely as terror, greed and lust. We deny it at our peril.’

‘Are you a tiny bit of an idealist yourself, Doc?’ Irene asked.

The minx was flirting with Nikola, who was — under the manners, clothes and intellect — still at bottom just a native. I squeezed my umbrella handle involuntarily, filling the ferrule with poison.