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

That centipede has renewed his climb up my back, and the chill settling on my spine is not from the drafty window. This time when Moran strides to the door, I do not try to stop him. He takes his gun and scope.

It seems the very air around me vibrates. Strands have been plucked in pizzicato. My imagination creeps cautiously down them and hopes to be met by news traveling in the other direction. The mute chiming of the quarter-hour and echo of passing footsteps on the street grates on my nerves.

Normally, I am not a man of action, but the growing fury at the unknown will not allow me to meditate in stillness. What has gone wrong? Nothing could have. Scenarios rising in my mind are quickly rejected. Nothing could have gone wrong.

Finally, it is too much. After telling the landlord’s boy to hail a cab, I remove two firearms from my desk and prepare them for action. While not possessing nearly Moran’s skill, I am a fair shot.

As I reach for my cloak, I hear hurried footsteps on the stair and know Moran has returned. It is a great relief to me, as I know that he must bear good news and an explanation. He and I can laugh at our folly and shake hands, knowing the night’s work is done.

Yet, something in the rhythm of his step pricks at my brain.

He flings open my door. Our gazes meet, and I know even before he says, “They had him in the coach, then he decided to act the hero. There was a fight and he escaped. Two shots were fired—”

“You saw this?”

“Collier and Black told me.” Moran pulls off his gloves and slaps them against his open palm. “Thankfully, one of the shots wounded him. I followed the trail.”

“In the dark?”

“That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?” He makes a face. “While not fatal, the wound was enough to slow his steps.”

“Not fatal?”

He holds up a hand to stop my questions. Very well. He can tell it in his own time.

“I followed him to Baker Street.”

My knees weaken. I grip the back of my chair.

“One shot spun him around. I grabbed the key and the letter.” Moran shows me the envelope he has taken from our quarry. A corner has been ripped away. “He lurched back from me. I ducked into an alleyway when I heard people running toward us. By the time I realized it was our men, he’d already managed to draw Holmes and Watson’s attention. He collapsed at their door before he could speak and passed away at their feet. I made sure of it.” Moran grabs my cloak and shoves it at me. “But I have the key. There’s still time, if we hurry.”

Moran’s offer seems a balm for my bitter disappointment, yet I know it for what it is. At this moment, I know how Eve felt when the serpent offered her the apple. I shake my head and return to my seat before the fire.

Doctor Watson glanced up at Sherlock Holmes and shook his head before turning to the dead stranger at their feet. The gas lamps in the foyer cast Holmes’s shadow over the corpse and into the street, where it joined with the night.

“Did he say anything?” Holmes’s laconic tone indicated little interest in the answer. He hadn’t moved when they’d heard the urgent knocking, or when Mrs Hudson had screamed. He’d only come down the stairs when it seemed Mrs Hudson would remain in their rooms demanding he do something about the bleeding man at her front stoop, as she was certain her famous tenant was the cause of this latest outrage.

Watson shook his head again. “He groaned. A last death rattle and nothing more.”

Like a heron stalking the reeds at the edge of a pond, Holmes’s head suddenly tilted. In an instant, he was down on one knee with the dead man’s hand clasped in his. He forced the fist open. A scrap of paper fluttered to the step. Holmes held it up to the light and squinted at it then secured it in the pocket of his mousecolored dressing gown.

Holmes sniffed the man’s face and lapels. He rose and swiftly circled the body. After regarding the boots for a long moment, his nostrils narrowed as he inhaled sharply.

“There isn’t a moment to lose. We’ll send the boy to fetch the constable. Hail a cab. And bring your pistol.”

“Holmes!”

“I’ll spare you the obvious clues that tell me who this man is. We can talk about that in the cab. But I will explain our rush, because I know the abandonment of this still-warm corpse disturbs you.”

“At times, you’re as cold as an insect.”

“It does no good to hover over him now, Watson, but we can be of service elsewhere. A secret treaty between our government and that of the United States concerning the Caribbean and the southern Americas is currently being negotiated. Certain members of our government have been known to use their knowledge of similar negotiations to take advantageous positions in bonds and currencies before the news is made public. This young man’s uncle made his fortune with such information, and I’m sure we’ll find a copy of the uncle’s instructions to his bank in the deceased’s office. He was probably planning to emulate his uncle’s financial success. If we do not hurry, the person who did this—” he gestured to the body at his feet “—will find that letter and use it to his own gain. We must stop him.”

Holmes turned on his heel and bounded up the stairs.

Watson wearily came to his feet. Holmes was right. Nothing could be done for the young man lying at their doorstep. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, unfurled it, and drew the square of silk gently over the corpse’s face.

It was late night in Copenhagen, far from the centre of town. In the city’s disreputable district, I sought the parlour of “Madame Satine”.

I am not the type prone to seek out such a business in the Danish capital or any other city. It had not pleased me to voice such a transparent request to Jens, the concierge at the Hotel Aalborg. The man did show discretion. But what doubt could there be about somewhere called Madame Satine’s?

It was also not to my taste to walk the streets of a red-light district so long after dark. Such an hour had long since ceased to be part of my regular workday. One awful moment at Reichenbach Falls ten years earlier had seen to that. A decade’s abstinence from such adventures, and I found myself greeting every sound, every breeze, every footstep with concern.

Still more concerning was the mysterious manner in which Mycroft’s letter had been written. Delivered by government courier, it had said only that he required my services in Copenhagen, and the manner of my inquiry to Aalborg’s concierge. Oblique at the best of times, Mycroft had here been both direct and obtuse. My attempts to contact Mycroft’s associates in London proved fruitless; he was “on holiday”, I was told. The thought of the famously sedentary Mycroft Holmes taking a holiday in Copenhagen was perplexing enough. I saw no way to verify that the note was from him.

Could this be a trap? Were Moriarty’s survivors extant? Would they seek revenge on me? Was I walking into a trap?

I felt a deep pang of absence, not for the first time. Sherlock Holmes would have deduced whether it had come from Mycroft or the Devil himself. In a certain mood, he might conflate the two, certainly; brothers are brothers. But Sherlock Holmes would have found any clue I had missed – and that thought, frankly, terrified me, for reasons I thought unrelated to Copenhagen.

Holmes was well versed in the art of handwriting analysis. He had taught me that a man’s writing can prove sufficient to indict him for his crimes.

What of mine, then? What of this tale? Were Holmes alive, could he indict me for my crimes at Bethlehem Hospital? Would he detect what I had done, one year earlier, pressing the plunger into my wife’s arm?