Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

All totaled, it took a small fortune to put it together, and it will take a larger fortune to profit in the exchanges from the information gleaned from this night’s work. Some crimes are purely the privilege of wealthy men.

Moran lunges for the umbrella stand near the door to grab his gun. I clutch my chair as I listen intently, expecting to hear a stealthy footstep on the landing.

“Maybe I should just go have a look. To make sure,” he says.

It takes a few moments for me to realize he wasn’t reacting to a threat but rather his own impatience. A few more ticks of the clock pass before I am able to relax. “I’ve told you, we must take pains to distance ourselves. A web strand was plucked several years ago over the Netherland-Sumatra Company affair. It has not stopped reverberating since. Holmes will insist on poking around it. He doesn’t see it, but he senses it’s there. We must be discreet and not attract his interest.”

A long intake of breath betrays some worry on his account. “Does Watson exaggerate his abilities?”

“From all accounts, no. The elder brother is his superior in every way, but the younger has an annoying habit of acting on what he sees rather than letting it float past him. London is a river of crime. Only a madman casts a net to pluck out the one that glints enough to catch his eye then calls himself a dam.”

He casts a dubious glance at me before regaining his chair. He perches on the edge, knees wide apart, hands clasped between them tightly. We both glance at the clock. The minutes drag their heels in passing.

“What was your first consultation?”

I know he doesn’t care to hear my reminiscences, but we both need the distraction, so I settle back and prepare to indulge him.

“In 1852, my Treatise Upon Binomial Theorem was published to some acclaim. On the strength of it, Durham University offered me a post, and, in 1854, at the age of twenty-three, I arrived there. It was a tedious position. Few true scholars graced my lectures. Instead, I suffered the presence of young men more interested in obtaining a university bearing than knowledge.”

“I met enough of that kind in India. No stomach for soldiering, but they liked their uniforms.”

I nod. “At the break, I found myself at loose ends. A fellow professor kindly lent me his copy of Laplace’s Traité de Mécanique Céleste. Mathematics had been my sole focus since I was in the nursery, but, in reading it, I became absorbed. Since then, a sudden urge to plumb the depths of a subject heretofore unknown to me has gripped quite often—” I gesture to my collection of bottled oddities “—but at the time it was a new and exciting prospect to be driven by a seemingly unquenchable thirst for knowledge I’d not cared about only the day before. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time. I read every book I could find. Most were utter balderdash written by men who had the funds to build an observatory but not the stamina to sit night after night in them, or the mental discipline such work requires.

“Finally, I resolved that I had to observe the phenomena described for myself so that I would know the real scientists from the gentleman hobbyists. The university observatory wasn’t available to satisfy idle curiosity, so I offered my services as a computer to Albert Marth, who had just been appointed to the position of lead observer.”

Moran’s brow furrows deeply. Those ridges are as familiar to me as my own countenance, although they usually only appear as he readies his aim. “Computer?”

“The language of astronomy is mathematics. Precision is key. Someone must check each formula and calculate each answer.”

“You were a clerk, like Uriah Heep.”

Moran has an unfortunate habit of trying my patience. No wonder so many men he served with tried to kill him. He should have known better than to poke and pry at me at such a time. I have need of him though, so I ignore his jests. “Unlike his predecessors, Ellis and Rümker, Marth focused on asteroids,” I continue. “After a year of transcribing his notes, I was allowed to make my own observations in the waning hour of darkness, which led eventually to my writing The Dynamics of an Asteroid .”

Moran lights a match. The flame bends to the end of his cigar until the tobacco glows like a coal. He shakes out the match and tosses it into the grate.

“It’s cold work, but you’d find searching the heavens for bodies similar to hunting game,” I say.

“I’ve slept on the ground and looked at the night sky many times. The stars are useful to navigate by, but I’ve never been inspired to stay awake just to watch them. There’s no life to them.” He exhales a harsh cloud of smoke. I swear the blend he prefers is part gunpowder. “So what crime did you commit? Did you turn the telescope on Marth’s window? Or did you teach the Earth to go around the sun?”

We exchange wry smiles.

A glance at the clock warns me that there are still several hours to while away. There’s no need to rush through my tale, so I play the host and refill our glasses, start my pipe and sink back into the depths of my chair before continuing.

“As I said, it was cold work through a long night. We talked the entire time in an effort to stay awake. There’s only so much talk of pure science one can indulge in before the secular world creeps into the conversation, however, so—”

“You gossiped.”

The man is addicted to danger. Or he believes he has a sense of humor. Neither one is congenial to my person. As usual, I ignore him and continue my memoir.

“A sensational crime had been committed that was much in the papers. As with the search for undiscovered celestial objects, it presented an interesting puzzle.”

He sighs and crosses his legs.

“A gold shipment bound for the Crimea disappeared from bound safes in a locked train car seemingly while the train was in motion. It was estimated to be worth over twelve thousand pounds.”

Although he sucks on his cigar contemplatively, the darting of his eyes betrays his interest. When tonight’s work is done, he can expect to see five thousand pounds for his efforts. He has no interest in numbers, but even he knows that twelve is a great deal more. The Great Gold Robbery was – to use the language of the criminal class – a ream flash pull.

“Did you have a hand in it?” he asks.

“No.”

“I thought you would tell me about the first time you consulted.”

“This is better. It’s why I saw the need for my services. May I continue with my story?”

He removes his cigar from his mouth and gestures for me to go on. The flippancy of it does not make me feel more kindly toward him.

“Every three months or so, the payroll for the troops in the Crimea was sent from London to France and from there was shipped to the Black Sea where those fools Cardigan and Raglan were playing at command.”

Moran makes a noise that might be commentary on military commanders in toto, or on those two in particular. While the particulars have never interested me, he had been obliged to leave the army several years before we met. Having seen what comprises perfectly acceptable behavior by officers, I can only deduce that he either seduced someone’s wife or a commander took offense at his being Irish.

“The safes were checked at the station, and reputable men swore they were filled with gold. They were closed and secured by locked iron bands. Each safe required two keys to open. This was before Alfred Nobel gave us dynamite. Nowadays, any brute with a stick or two may blow a safe into pieces, but back then, you had to have the keys, and keys, as you are well aware, are small things easily concealed.

“The car was then closed and secured – yet another key – and the train left the station. When the safes finally arrived in Boulogne, the boxes of gold were removed from them and weighed. There was a discrepancy. The boxes were opened and found to contain lead shot of nearly equal weight to the gold that had been taken. A switch had occurred, but where, and when? The French were our allies, but just barely. The scandal was an international incident, with both sides pointing fingers across the Channel and accusing the other of being in league with the thieves.