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

“I implied that these chemicals were simply to delay the speed at which this letter will begin to combust. That was only partially true. Some of the chemicals I used were employed for this purpose. Others – well, there is no polite way of putting this and I’m afraid you may think me rather ill-mannered, – some of the other chemicals were employed solely for the purpose of poisoning you. This letter was thoroughly soaked in a mixture of some of the finest toxins that can be bought (or indeed, stolen). One I even isolated myself, from the bile ducts of the little known rodent Rattus Gigantus Sumatranus . But I digress, and, under the circumstances, that is rather rude and I hope you will forgive me for my lapse in manners.

“I have conducted rigorous tests of the poisons that have by now been thoroughly absorbed through your skin and are even at this moment coursing through your veins. I would estimate that at present you have probably already lost most motorneural functions, that you cannot stand and are effectively suffering a numbing paralysis in all your limbs— No, don’t try to get up, you will only fall and, besides which, it is quite pointless. Very soon this paralysis will spread to your heart and your lungs. Your pulse will slow and your breathing will become laboured. The toxins will not as yet have clouded your mind, which, being your greatest attribute, I have generously allowed you to retain as a functioning faculty for as long as possible, as I am sure such an enquiring soul as yourself will be interested to observe all the details of this experience.

“I feel that there is little more to write and, as you have such a short time left, I would not wish to waste it further.

“I bid you a fond farewell and hope that, in whatever moments remain to you, you will be assured that I remain your humble and obedient servant,

“Prof. Moriarty”

It was hard for Edwin to make out the name through the wisps of smoke spiralling up from the paper, which gently dropped from his now nerveless hands, falling on to the pile of letters arranged upon the table and swiftly setting them ablaze.

The place is London, the time is October 1892, and the theme is self-banishment.

Professor Moriarty is in his study, near an unlit fireplace, captiv ated by the narcotic-like effects of the settling dusk.

In days past, before his accident, nightfall would have inspired a subtle, appreciative smile in Moriarty, distilled from the recollection of his many years of nocturnal outings.

But that chapter of his life has ended. Ever since his accident a year and a half ago, Moriarty has become a shadow of his former self, a delicate organism stricken with an extreme sensibility to the vicissitudes of life. As a result, he has elected to sever all ties with his former associates – most of whom, in any case, believe him deceased – and to live a housebound existence, isolated from the world save for his wife’s ministrations. Moriarty once adored unpredictability and improvisation, the thrill of rising to the occasion and surpassing it. His new cocoon is habit. The slightest irregularity in his daily schedule disturbs him greatly. He craves the dull routine of existence. He abhors mental exaltation. His mind, or what remains of it, appears to thrive on what others might term stagnation.

And so tonight’s dusk should leave him indifferent, as happened yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. But it does not. The darkness he currently beholds appears … alive in some way, directed towards him. Shadows swim over the walls of a deserted Albermarle Street, dimming the already diffuse light of the street lamps, sliding across door jambs, and finally reaching, tendril-like, into the professor’s cavernous study.

Moriarty raises his arms, a gesture empty of effect. He is assailed by a wrenching sensation of vertigo deep within his breast. The Universe is spinning madly about him. The name of his wife forms on his thin lips, but before it can be born, he clamps his mouth shut, even as he keels over and falls to the floor. For if there is one thing of which he is certain, it is that he must face this – whatever this is – alone.

He twists on the carpet, feeling as though the ground is buckling beneath him.

Recourse to your ratiocination! he tells himself. This must be a sensory trick, an illusion, nothing more.

And so Moriarty stills his body, rubs his eyes and, with great effort, dispels the pitch black that seems to envelop his study, at first in swaths, then in receding flecks, until at last he has reclaimed the meager but sufficient illumination provided by his table lamp.

But the episode is not yet over.

Still splayed on the ground, as though an insect in wait of pins, Moriarty is assailed by a piercing cold and the sound of rushing water. Somehow, he thinks, the chill night air has transported itself into his body, cutting fine frozen rivulets in his lungs. His flesh is soaked in cold; he imagines himself cast into a vast, furious river, submerged in its icy currents.

Again, he summons the powers of his cognition. Again he defeats his foe.

By the time he rises and shuffles to the study’s door, he is trembling, and cannot escape an accursed residue of bonechilling damp. Fictive or not, it permeates his soul.

Moriarty coughs. Moments later, his wife appears beside him. She pauses to study the ghost of her husband, or rather the ghost of the ghost that her husband has of late become.

“Dear?” She need say nothing more; indeed, the monosyllabic question, cast against the severe repression of emotion evident in the professor’s pallid features, proves superfluous. For Moriarty has sealed himself off from his wife, and his hermetic encasement cannot be breached, by her or any other living soul.

“I must take my leave of this place,” Moriarty declaims. He studies his surroundings, as though aware of them for the first time in years.

His wife waits, eyes sullen but patient, for him to continue.

“Positively do not expect me by the return coach tomorrow,” he says. “Do not even be alarmed if I tarry three or four days. But, at all events, look for me at supper on Friday evening.”

She does not enquire as to the object of his impromptu journey.

That is a good thing, Moriarty muses, for even if she did, he would be unable to reply, ignorant as he is of this fact himself.

She fetches his drab greatcoat, a hat covered with an oilcloth, his top boots, and an umbrella. In the meantime, he prepares a small portmanteau.

Minutes later, upon reconvening outside Moriarty’s study, the atmosphere between husband and wife is one neither of warm appreciation nor frigid alienation, merely the acceptance by both of a mysterious, unappealable fate.

Without another word, Moriarty leaves. In such an inauspicious manner commences his great journey.

His travails do not take the professor far. A scant seventeen minutes after his departure, on a street not far removed from his own, he sees a residence that is accepting tenants and, after a not inconsiderable withdrawal of cash from his portmanteau, he is welcomed at these new lodgings.

His body is at his journey’s end, his mind merely at its beginning.

Moriarty does not understand the scope or implications of the project upon which he has launched himself. He can recognize, in a detached way, that his rash behavior starkly contradicts everything he has assessed to be true about his character since his accident; he has behaved impulsively, deviating from his most beloved schedule, utterly failing to plan ahead. He should feel anxiety and dread. He should be beset by the convulsions of the unknown.