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

He had made his cubbyhole into a miniature office. Spartan, but furnished, I noticed, with a decanter, two glasses, and a shelf of books whose spines looked to have been well worn. Wearing a smoking jacket and a slightly shabby pair of shoes, he stood at the makeshift desk and met me with an expression I will not forget. As ever, he seemed to count and calculate as he briefly looked me up and down. Those eyes! At twelve years old, they retained a child’s clarity, but twisted with the brooding and bitterness you might see in an old man’s. How bizarre, to see such an expression on such a young face.

‘I appreciate your coming, sir,’ he said, his voice thin and high as a reed. ‘I had feared I would be left alone again—’ he nodded at the corner of his room, where I noticed a boxed-in section of wall ‘—to listen to the music of the pipes.’ I frowned. Was he truly turned lunatic? ‘They call all night,’ he continued, ‘bringing me noises I could swear were human.’

‘I regret you are not making sense,’ I said, shortly, for my patience was wearing thin. There was a high-pitched, insistent buzz weaving around my head. Before I could pinpoint the source, Moriarty stepped forward, snapped his fingers, and held them in front of me, with a flourish. I looked down, somewhat taken aback to see the lifeless body of a housefly pinched between his thumb and fingers.

‘My apologies. I am not making myself clear?’ he said, and quirked a thin, snakish brow. ‘Would it be more understandable if I were to specify that the sounds I hear on a Thursday night were not so much speech as the calls produced most usually when a young woman is—’ he frowned, pursed his lips ‘—how should I put it? Entertaining a friend?’ He dropped the body of the fly upon the floor and casually ground it into the boards with the tip of his shoe.

Now he locked his eyes on mine, and I felt the poison of his intent shoot through my veins. For, as this is a full confession, reader, I am bound to admit that I had recently made the close acquaintance of one of the chambermaids, finding myself quite smitten with her, and we occasionally enjoyed each other’s company in the confines of her attic room. Most often on a Thursday night.

Moriarty reached out and removed a small section of timber from a panel in the wall, behind which were revealed around half a dozen pipes. He tapped one with a fingernail and I heard it ring and echo. ‘These pipes—’ he smiled ‘—with the aid of a small listening glass, are my great entertainment.

‘Oh!’ cried Moriarty, rolling his eyes. I swear he mimicked the exact pitch of Esther’s voice. It was repulsive to me, to hear her voice in his mouth. He closed his eyes and took on a pained expression. Now his voice was deeper and more guttural.

‘Oh, sweet love of God,’ and I heard my own silly, feverish words echoed back at me, spilling from this precocious, vindictive ventriloquist.

I felt myself blush, to my fury, and despite my peaceable nature could have easily wrung the wretch’s scrawny neck. But, of course, I restrained myself, and stood in his room and allowed him to lay out his terms.

I was to find out every possible detail of the prize, including, crucially, its dimensions. I was to note security arrangements and timings. I was to report back to him with everything I could find, on pain of his revealing my sorry dalliance with Esther and ruining both my own career and her reputation.

While he laid out his instructions – quietly, fluently and without hesitation – I fixed my eyes on his desk and read the titles of the leather-bound books stacked there. I was surprised to see some science books, including Notes on the inhalation of sulphuric ether and The Jubilee of Anaesthetic Midwifery . A curious choice, for a young man, I thought. Clearly he read my mind, for he paused in his monologue to say: ‘My sainted mother, sir, left the world as I entered it. I have since kept a fascination for the reason of these things.’ I was surprised again, for I’d thought him incapable of any sort of filial feeling. Perhaps this was the root of his problems?

‘Do not pity me,’ he said sharply. ‘Rather, listen closely to my request. And do not think to hold back anything,’ came his child’s fluting voice. ‘Remember, sir, the walls bring me news of your every word and action.’ With that, he produced a laugh so twisted and strange it thoroughly turned my stomach, and if I never heard it again it would be too soon. Still, it echoes in my ears and makes me shudder.

I was wracked with guilt and fear of being uncovered. Nevertheless, I set to acting as his spy. I revealed, through gradual and careful interrogation of the head’s assistant, liberally bribed with a bottle of good French brandy, that a tournament would be held, and the prize was no less than a pallasite meteorite – a chunk from the 1783 Great Meteor! These stony-iron lumps were so rare that their worth was several hundreds of pounds – a fine prize indeed. A beautiful heart-shaped rock, the size of a small hen’s egg, studded with olivine crystals, by all accounts.

‘Best of all, though, the meteorite is accompanied by a bursary for Oxford University!’ said the head’s new assistant, in a stammering stage-whisper.

‘And all can enter?’ I asked, refilling the man’s glass. We sat in the staff common room, hunched over our drinks and our furtive conversation.

‘Any boy with a perfect attendance record in Mathematics is eligible,’ he recited. I watched the bob of his Adam’s apple as the secretary swallowed, and I turned the news over in my head.

It was clear that Moriarty had heard rumours to this effect, hence his sudden intense curiosity. His family, while of reputable standing, were hardly equipped to pay for a top-class degree from the best university. To realise a chance like this would surely be his greatest, most wildly ambitious dream. Yet, I realised, with a jolt, he was disqualified. Since the mathematics tutor had blankly refused to tutor him – privately, the other tutors murmured that the boy had outshone him already and he was humiliated – claiming that the boy disrupted his class and refused to show proper respect for his betters, he could not have any hope of entering the maths tournament or of winning this un imaginably generous prize.

With a sensation like cold water slowly spiralling into my gut, I realised that this situation was unlikely to have a happy outcome. I went on to quiz the secretary, as casually as I could, as to the story about Moriarty’s mother. He confirmed that yes, she had died in childbirth. Now, my dread swirled with the most intense pity. For no matter how sinful, he was undeniably also half an orphan, who had lacked the tender ministrations of a woman’s soft heart. No doubt this loss had torn through his developing emotional brain, leaving an insatiable hunger for power and gain in its wake. I imagined, picturing my own sweet mother’s face, the lack of her, and ached for the piteous child.

I resolved to give Moriarty solace and comfort, and perhaps provide guidance in how he might make reparation with the head to allow his entry into the competition. But, on visiting him, he betrayed no hint of emotion, and I was dismissed with a curt nod.

‘This must be sorely disappointing news,’ I said, hanging back at the door.

He eyed me curiously. ‘Disappointing?’ He smiled that eerie grin. ‘I am hardly surprised to hear the Head create such a condition. It merely confirms how he is disposed to me.’

‘To you?’

‘Clearly he wishes to crush me. It makes things interesting, at least.’

I left with a cold sense of dread puddling in my guts.

On the day, Moriarty was far prompter than usual. The crowd of boys that filled the body of the ballroom parted mutely for him, and he strode to the front as if he were one of the visiting luminaries, rather than a slightly shabby, unprepossessing pubescent with greasy hair and a stooped posture. Behind him scuttled a small, runny-nosed child who had attached himself to Moriarty and acted as his tiny butler, carrying out errands and attending to his schoolmate’s minor requirements.