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

The fellow had heard me tell Dr Watson of my desire to set up a practice and of my shameful pecuniary problems. He said he knew of a suitable property available for a limited time at a vastly reduced rent. Thus it was that at ten-thirty this evening, I was standing alone at the gateway to a goods yard in Mayfair, awaiting a property agent.

The agent turned out to be a cheeky young chap in a tightfitting suit with the peculiar adornment of a pale grey bowler hat that appeared to be too small for his head. It was strange business to conduct at that time of night, but the young man seemed eager to conclude the matter. The property itself was hardly salubrious – the office and occasional bedroom of the owner of a set of now defunct warehouses situated in the yard – but it had potential. I ignored all reservations I had about the agent’s attire and his chirpy manner, and, within two minutes, I found myself shaking his hand, thereby agreeing three months’ rental for what he assured me was less than a third of the market rate.

As the agent whistled down the street towards Berkeley Square, I remained standing in the yard, open-mouthed and giddy at the twist of fortune.

I now had premises comprising a furnished office and a bedroom. I had the means with which to begin my life’s work and fulfil my destiny. And I was less than fifty yards away from my former home, namely Kennington House, the current abode of Lady Eleanor Kennington.

Monday: The day that marks the beginning of the rest of my life.

Even though I say it myself, after all my efforts, the main room is clean and presentable. If it was not situated amongst the abandoned warehouse buildings, the new premises of Dr Trevelyan Blake might be something to behold. My advertisement, the sole one that I can presently afford, appeared in the evening newspaper on Friday:

Treatment for insomnia, hysteria and uneasiness of the mind.

Private and confidential consultations.

I hope the troubled ladies of Mayfair will take advantage of the situational convenience. And I pray that Eleanor, dear sweet Eleanor, saw the advertisement and flushed with pride that I was making my own way.

I sat down at the desk at precisely nine of the clock and waited. The dark cloud that had threatened my days since my return from France had lifted, Woolwich was no more, and I would never have to run the gauntlet of eating one of Mrs Webster’s gristle pies again. I was too excited to sit still. I found myself twiddling the pocket watch that my father had bequeathed me. Then I stood up and looked through the grime of the window. People passed along Bruton Street, but none of them bore the appearance of the young ladies whom I thought were most likely to become my patients. Not one person even threatened to turn into the yard to make an appointment with the new doctor.

I sat down and fell to despair once more. I was a fool to think that even one soul in London would seek reparation in this chamber. I resigned myself to sitting in the room, utterly alone and festering amongst my dwindling hopes, for each day of the three months of my tenure. Yet I could not help but jump to my feet and look through the window again, like a restaurateur standing desperately at the doorway to his failing concern.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. I jolted with surprise. I had seen no one turn into the yard. Perhaps my subconscious had conjured the noise. I, more than anyone, know what tricks it can play. But no – there was the knock again, impatient and insistent.

I collected myself, raising myself to my full height in the hope that I would impress the troubled young woman of my overactive imagination with the authority of my bearing. I opened the door and found myself looking up into the steady, deep-set eyes of my very first patient.

“Professor Moriarty.”

I wondered momentarily if I had met the man before. His tall, slim stature, his thin face and those sunken eyes seemed vaguely familiar to me, but his name was not, and surely I would have remembered his voice. He had a very precise, solemn but forceful manner of speech. He strode past me into the room and set out his terms before I even had the chance to speak.

“I will meet you here at precisely this time for one hour, once a week, but you must assure me of absolute confidentiality, you hear?”

I nodded. He was more fearsome than any of the esteemed professors I had encountered in my education.

He sat down on the armchair and I took my position behind the desk in an attempt to assert some level of authority. “What ails you, Professor?”

He looked at me steadily, his eyes piercing me. I felt like the little orphan boy I once was, mother dead in childbirth and father taken when I was ten, standing alone and knock-kneed in terror before the cruel vastness of the world. That was until Lord Kennington, God rest his soul, swept me up and fulfilled a promise to care for his close friend’s son. He had known enough hardship of his own – his own wife dead from a fever shortly after Eleanor’s birth. Eleanor was his only child, his favoured jewel, but he treated me as he would a son.

Professor Moriarty’s eyes seemed to soften slightly and he looked away, focusing on the bare wall. “I cannot sleep.”

“At all?”

“Not beyond two hours.”

I started to note the details of the case upon the foolscap. “For how long has the situation been endured?”

“Several years.”

I perceived the weariness behind those alert eyes. “And you have taken draughts?”

“Ha!” he exclaimed. “Do I look like a fool? Sleeping draughts are nothing but a veil that obfuscates the clarity of the mind. They dull the body to alleviate the symptom, but the cause is not of the body’s making. The cause lies in the dark folds of the mind. Do you agree with me, Doctor?”

“Yes, entirely.”

“Good. Then let us begin.” He clasped his hands together, leaned forward and pierced me with his stare once more. “Let us enter the darkness.”

A slight smile played upon his thin lips.

I stood outside Eleanor’s house again tonight, just to see if I could glimpse her through a window. Fortune did not favour me, but my imagination is so vivid that I could conjure her visage – every tiny feature from her elegant nose to the tiny mole that sits on her cheek immediately beneath her pupil, the shape of her ears, the curve of her eyelashes …

When did love come upon me so? For years I thought of her as I would a little sister. We shared stories and secrets, and giggled at the peculiarities of her father. I went out into the world to study at Oxford and Edinburgh, but I never found her ilk. I remember with unsullied clarity the day I returned home, having finished my training at the hospital in Edinburgh just in time to celebrate Eleanor’s twenty-first birthday. Lord Kennington was so pleased with my progress that he shook my hand and agreed to fund my prospective studies with Charcot so that I would not have to draw upon the last of my father’s money.

Amongst the commotion of the birthday celebrations, I found a moment to walk alone with Eleanor along the Upper Gallery of Kennington House. We stood in front of the painting of the windmill, just as we had stood together so many times whilst growing up. It is not as large, grand or famous as so many of Lord Kennington’s paintings – the van Eyck, the Memling, the Bosch or even the Greuze. It is a small, eighteenth-century work by an unknown Dutch artist, but the image of a farmhand and a maid standing with joyful expressions beneath the sails of the windmill had always entranced us so.

I do not know how it happened. I made an uncontrollable leap into impropriety and suddenly my lips were upon hers. She did not resist. I swore my love for her, took her into my arms and kissed her again.