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

The man must have caught the edge of menace in his voice because the panel closed abruptly and the Professor was gratified to hear a shout and the crack of a whip from the box. The coach lurched forward and he had reason to be grateful for the new springs he had had installed as it rattled around him. The driver made good speed, urging the horse to a teeth-rattling trot where he could and the Professor lost himself in thoughts mathematical, pondering a theorem that had recently occurred to him.

He allowed himself an instant of icy rage, one not given voice aloud, at how much the late Holmes had inconvenienced him. His theories would make him the toast of mathematics scholars the world over once they understood his brilliance, and would have done so by now if he had not been distracted by minor obstacles.

Crime was useful in its way, sparing him a life of scholarly privation as it did, but it could not replace the beauty of mathematics. Still, his lips twisted a bit at the picture of himself in a garret. Crime was also more of a challenge than the labyrinth of academic pursuits at present. He permitted himself to speculate on whether or not the singer would succeed in liberating the King’s signet, before dismissing his concern. If she failed, he had other tools in place. Less amusing ones to be sure, and possibly less effective, but available if he chose to use them.

The carriage lurched to a halt, nearly throwing him across to the opposite bench. He glared up at the roof before throwing open the window. “What is it now?” His tone froze the air around the coach, but that wasn’t enough to stop the fleeing boys who had halted their progress with a cart they had rolled across the narrow street. One wore a jacket and cap that looked somewhat familiar. The Professor’s eyes narrowed; he had left a man to watch Mrs Norton as a matter of course, but he could not dismiss the notion that she might have given him the slip. Or the equal possibility that he might be mistaken about the running boy in the fog.

He dismissed this as a distraction. Regardless of who planned it, this delay must be deliberate. Someone had an interest in delaying his progress or perhaps ensuring that he missed his afternoon appointment. As to who that might be, he could think of a dozen enemies, the list coming to him as easily as breathing.

The realization that he had so many foes to choose from brought the understanding that he was vulnerable. His men were fewer and scattered and his present position was unshielded. Someone knew this coach, possibly had blocked his way with the overturned dray as well. He swung the door open and gestured to his man perched on the box. “Come with me. We will find another conveyance. This one has become too … noticeable.” He gestured to the driver with his right hand, two fingers against the brim of his hat that might have been a dismissal or might have meant nothing at all.

He turned and walked away without waiting for an acknowledgement, his man at his heels. The square was not a familiar one and, for the first time in decades, he had a sense of being exposed, hunted. This was unacceptable. “I need a bolt-hole. Fetch the Colonel once you have escorted me to … ?” He ended with a question, his tone expectant. His companion murmured a response, too low for any passers-by to hear.

The Professor grimaced and gave a cold chuckle. “If that is the closest haven, then it must needs suffice. Lead on.” He gestured and the man led him through a warren of twisting streets to a nondescript warehouse. The cobbles milled with drivers loading and unloading their wagons from each establishment on the street.

The Professor eyed the few scattered gentlemen in the crowd, attired as much as he was himself, and caught himself before he could nod approvingly. He would not stand out here, not for anyone who was not looking specifically for him. His man had chosen well.

Still, he reflected, as they entered the building, his companion in the lead, it might be as wise to take a page from the book of his foes and don a disguise before he left this place. But there would be time to consider that once he dispatched messages for his lieutenants. Such a list of petty details accompanied vulnerability! He promised himself that he would not know this feeling again, not once he had regained all that he had lost.

His mood was not improved when he found himself overseeing the kind of foolish, yet necessary tasks that he once might have delegated to his underlings. Only the lack of more competent tools to hand left some of his men alive, however temporarily.

After several incidents calculated to undermine his faith in his new organization, he determined that he must himself attend the reception for the King of Bohemia. It could not be entrusted to anyone else, not if he wanted to ensure that all would go as he planned. He scowled ferociously at one of his new lieutenants. “I will attend tomorrow’s reception myself. I shall also need evening clothes; send my valet to me tomorrow.”

He gestured dismissively and his men scattered to do his bidding. Professor Moriarty scowled at the barren room around him, wishing he’d returned to his comfortable apartments instead of going to the nearest safe hole. A bed had been found and assembled for him, at least, so he would not have to sleep rough in the bargain, but this was not the luxury he had grown accustomed to.

He closed his eyes and pictured the night to come, calculating the outcome of all the possible interactions between Irene Norton and the King. This was the kind of planning that had guaranteed his success in the past and, as he ran through the probable outcomes, he was certain that it would do so this time as well. That assurance was enough to ensure that he fell into an untroubled sleep before midnight.

When his men greeted him in the morning, they were in the company of his valet. The latter had brought both a portmanteau of his evening wear and breakfast, both of which contrived to make him composed and coldly confident once more. His men felt the shift in his mood, too, and responded to commands he had merely begun to formulate, almost predicting his every wish and request, until it was time to leave.

The Professor was soon dressed and as ready for the reception as if he had planned to attend it all along. He dispatched two of his men with instructions for Irene Adler, the name she would be performing under tonight. Let the King think her husband dead, the marriage dissolved, her still in love with him, whatever was necessary in order for her to get close to him again.

It would be enough. He pressed a napkin to his lips, wiping away the grease from the last of the cold meat and the pie that made up his supper. Colonel Moran was outside, dressed as a coachman and ready to drive him to the reception. His lieutenant could back up his plans in the event of a miscalculation, another piece falling into place. The signet would soon be his, and the forgeries that followed would set all his other plans in motion.

Once this step succeeded, he had only to defeat his foes, wipe them from the chessboard, and he would have his empire again. Visions of that success filled his head as he climbed into the coach, warming him against the slight chill of the night air. Yet even these jolly thoughts were not enough to completely distract a predator like him and he contemplated the details of all that he would need to do to solidify his success.

The mathematical precision of even his most shifting plans spread out before him until he felt the coach slow, then stop. A glance out the window told him that they had arrived at their destination and he straightened his cravat and adjusted his hat. Tonight, he had discarded the idea of a disguise, opting to attend as a version of himself. He was Professor James Moriarty, a mathematics professor from some local college or other, no one could ever remember which, a scholar with a passing interest in Bohemia and his fellow scholars there, not the “Napoleon of crime,” as Holmes had dubbed him, not tonight. No one would suspect otherwise, with the exception of Mrs Norton and he had sealed her lips effectively.