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

I watched Moriarty during the ceremony. His gaze never wavered from the meteorite – as it was revealed by the alumnus’s manservant, to general awed murmurs, as the Head addressed it and detailed its origin, and as it was placed reverently within the glass case that stood at the head of the ballroom.

While the head described in detail how the boys should apply themselves for the chance to win both their name inscribed on the plinth below this prized lump of rock and the opportunity to fly to Oxford, I saw Moriarty burn as pale and furious as a whaleoil lamp. His eyes flickered with hatred and his mouth, reader, was as a line drawn and underscored with the blackest charcoal.

‘Of course,’ said the head, and I believe I saw the sheen of triumph in his eyes, ‘any boy who has not a perfect attendance record for the lessons of Mister ***** [2] Editor, name redacted, again, to protect the parties concerned shall not be eligible to apply for the prize, or for the scholarship. Thus we shall be sure it will be awarded to a pupil both virtuous and steady in his diligent studentship.

‘Perhaps this will serve to teach a lesson greater than any other – that our highest purpose must be not to further our own interests but to serve the benefit of all. He who fails to learn this lesson should find himself awarded not a dunce’s cap, but a far worse fate. He shall be cast out, despised and undoubtedly, ultim ately, he shall fail both as a student and as a human being.’

The atmosphere in the room seemed to drop a couple of degrees. I knew Moriarty must be not only defeated, but humiliated.

As everyone filed out, his head turned away and I caught his eye. For once, I felt the chill of the bereft void of his heart. This was the look I was used to seeing on the faces of boys left abandoned, alone and scared. This was the expression that I had seen lacking on the day his father’s carriage had pulled away. Yet it was not his family he mourned for, but a life he could never have, that he’d seen paraded in front of him like a piece of glittering, unearthly mineral. I sensed again the unimaginable losses he’d suffered, and my heart ached.

I went to bed with a mixture of dread, sorrow and unspecified agitation that was only exacerbated by the lack of the company of Esther, the young chambermaid I’d recently averred not to see again. I tossed in my cold sheets that night, and yearned for her kinds words and soft touch.

That night, the security guard was posted outside the locked ballroom door. The dog was installed at the front office, certain to wake at the slightest twitch. We retired to bed, pretending that the foreboding hanging over the place was of our imagination only. Around dawn, I believe, I fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.

The next morning, the guard was sprawled on his back on the floor, apparently unconscious. He did not come round when slapped, or when shouted at, but only a half-hour later when cold water was thrown at his face. He remained groggy and could barely speak. The door, of course, was lying open, the treasure gone. The dog, while conscious, had not made a glimmer of noise and the front door remained locked and apparently untampered with.

The head immediately ordered the school to be locked and searched. While he did not say so explicitly, Moriarty’s room was bound to be subject to the most rigorous search of all. I was witness to it, for the head rounded up two of us younger tutors to do the dirty work under his supervision. On my knees, I hunted for loose boards, checked every possible cranny within that small room. We turned the mattress, pulled every book from the shelf, removed the panel to check behind the pipes. Throughout, Moriarty stood unmoving, a wry smile twisting his mouth, and at last the headmaster, shaking his head, ordered his case to be opened.

‘I doubt anyone would be so damn stupid as to put such a thing in their suitcase, but let us check to be sure we have done a thorough job.’

As the suitcase was pulled from under his bed, however, I saw in Moriarty’s hands the tiniest shake, as if he had stopped himself from moving forward. I watched with my breath held, both wanting and not wanting the irregular, curious brightly studded surface of the meteorite to appear.

Inside: folded clothes; a writing case; a bound Bible – and, lying atop all this, a large, wax-faced doll. The head lifted her with a mixed expression, part disgust, part suppressed hilarity. The doll had a wistful expression on her foxed, worn face, arched brows, a rosebud mouth and hair in ringlets. The forehead seemed curiously shaped, and I thought I saw in its protuberance an echo of Moriarty’s own strangely domed brow. The head, still apparently lost for words, lifted the doll’s skirts as if he im agined he might find the meteorite hidden beneath them.

‘Moriarty?’ the head barked, shaking the limp cloth body of the wretched doll at his pupil’s face. Moriarty, meanwhile, looked for once almost on the verge of tears. Was this the real boy, underneath all his scheming and plots? Were we seeing him at last, stripped of his shell and as vulnerable as any frightened child? Two high spots on his cheeks echoed the pink of the doll’s own cheeks, though his colour was, against that pallor of his, unworldly, like that of a fever victim. I thought I saw in his eyes genuine turmoil at that moment.

‘I … I cannot sleep without her,’ he whispered at last, and I believe I have never felt so utterly wrong and terrible in my whole career since. ‘Please do not take her from me. Please.’ The boy looked close to tears, his pale blue eyes shining wretchedly. ‘She was … my mother’s.’

The head, meanwhile, was shaking his head, and examining the doll with utter bemusement.

‘Sir,’ I interrupted, blurting out the words before I’d had a chance to think, ‘I beg you to consider the difficulty a child faces in a strange house with the lack of a mother to send him comforting letters or keepsakes. The loneliness would be intolerable. He may well find some small measure of emotional solace in the figure of such a toy.’

The head looked at me curiously.

‘Even were a child in need of stern guidance, even were he in danger of growing from a delinquent boy into a sinful adult, surely a doll could do no harm? Is the offer of childish solace not more likely to appease a troubled youth’s mind than provoke it?’

The head glared at me. Then at Moriarty, who was breathing heavily. At last, he shrugged. I fancy he may have discovered that usually dormant part of himself that genuinely cared for the well-being of children, and wished them to be if not happy, then at least quietly stoic.

‘God have mercy on you,’ he muttered at last, and flung the doll back in the case, before nodding to us that our hunt was finished in this room.

I nodded as I passed Moriarty, and he stood chin fixed ahead, showing not the slightest sign of gratitude. I fancied there may have been, though, deep in his murky eyes, a flicker that may have been the burning of a tiny coal of human warmth.

The hunt continued – oh, we turned the place upside down. In the chemistry laboratory, beakers and bottles were left strewn on the benches, and the chemistry tutor subsequently deduced that bleach and acetone and a puddle of melted ice had been mixed and made into chloroform – the method of knocking the poor guard unconscious. The head spat and fumed and came as near to cursing as his Calvinist upbringing would allow. A vein pulsed on his head and I saw in wonder that it seemed to bulge, as if his very brain were swelled with fury.

But, other than that, there was no trace of a break-in, or of the prized rock.

Could I help Moriarty overcome the terrible darkness that threatened to overwhelm his heart? Would he lash out at anyone who tried to offer him a way to heal the wounds of his brain’s sickness? Had he taken the meteorite, and where was it?