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

“You have?”

“I have had men killed,” he says, as though correcting himself. “This doesn’t surprise you, does it?”

“I had my suspicions that your activities were not entirely legal.”

He smiles at that. “You thought that I was a detective. That my enmity regarding Mister Sherlock Holmes was simple professional jealousy. I can read you, my dear Alienist. Perhaps better than you can read me.”

“You are a man who endeavours to be the best in his field.”

“In any field. And I am,” he says. “I am the greatest villain of this age. A criminal mind such as this world has never known. More than a killer, like Jack the Ripper, more than a thief. I control such men. I direct them. There is not a deviant act that occurs within this city that I do not have a hand in.”

“Does that include … ?”

“The Ripper is something else entirely, I admit. Even God may occasionally miss the beat of a sparrow’s wings. By acknowledging my fallibility, I am able to better prepare for the future.”

The comparison to God goes unremarked. My wife and I have already written on his extreme egotism; a need to feel as though he is at the centre of all things. His self-perception is that of a spider at the centre of a web, reaching out and controlling all things in his domain with a simple flick of his limbs.

“That is why I am at conflict with the detective, despite our never having met,” he says. “We are flip sides of the same coin, I fear. He is the only one in this godforsaken world who may match my own intellect. And yet he chooses to ally himself with tradition and order.”

“And you?”

“Oh, do not be so blasé as to believe I chose evil,” he says. He shakes his head, and his expression is the same as if he were talking to a child. “If I chose anything, I chose chaos. And for good reason. The great detective would prefer the world to remain entirely as it is: static and dull and uninteresting. He would have made a fine academic in that sense. Tell me, have you read the work of Charles Darwin?”

“I have.”

“And?”

“He makes many interesting points about the evolution of life on this planet.”

“Interesting points? You read and you do not understand. Darwin talks of a world that is in constant flux. Animals change and adapt to circumstance. Those that fail to do so, die. Evolution arises through change. I believe we may only discover our potential by introducing the unpredictable.”

“In other words, you are an agent of natural order?”

He nods. “To a degree, then, you understand?” He does not wait for a response. “The old Empire is rotting. There is a new world order coming, and I intend to be at its centre. Its architect. But, everywhere I turn, I am thwarted. Holmes. Always Holmes. The Great Detective. The hero of the ailing British Empire. You read the papers?”

“Yes.”

“How did his infernal biographer describe the case? Ah, the Red-Headed League …”

“One of yours?”

“One of mine. Almost all of them, you see. And now, not content with standing in my way, Holmes has discovered me. He intends to bring me into the light.”

“But, then, I still don’t understand. For what do you require my services?”

“In order to understand the great detective I need to understand myself. Your reputation is beyond reproach. And deserved.”

“Indeed?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. And now, I fear, you have become my co-conspirator. You had the chance, you realise, to turn me away?”

“I would never turn away any man in need. Whether seeking a cure for some mental affliction or simply attempting to understand his own mind.”

“No, that’s not it. You were intrigued by the puzzle I represented, by the very fact that you knew from the off I was not everything I appeared to be. You are a man of curiosity.”

“And I know what curiosity did to the cat.”

He grins. The wolf-teeth appear. I try not to shrink back.

“No,” he says. “Curiosity is a trait to be encouraged.” He leans forward. “Informing on one’s own patients, however …”

“He threatened you?”

“He said he knew of the notes we had taken. He told me that I was to burn them all.”

“And?”

“What choice do I have?”

She laughs. “What choice? What choice?” She stands, comes over and wraps her arms around me. I fall into her, breathe in the scent of her recently bathed hair. “The choice, husband, is to go to the police. The choice is not to submit to his bullying!”

I pull back and look at her. She does not understand.

“No,” a voice says, from just behind the door where I entered. “There is no choice.”

The man named Sebastian sets a light to our papers. We watch as he does so, powerless. He throws them on to the fire with detached efficiency. I think back to when the Professor told me that I was not to write down any of our conversations. I should have listened, then.

When he is done, Sebastian says, “Pack your bags.”

“Why?”

“The Professor requires your services. He has one more task for you. The reward will be handsome.” He speaks in short, declarative sentences. He is the Professor’s blunt instrument, used when a scalpel is insufficient.

Emily grabs at my coat as I stand. I shake her off. I have no choice. I made this deal with the devil. I am now his plaything.

I say, “I require nothing more than the clothes on my back.”

Sebastian laughs. “Your choice,” he says. And then, mockingly, “Alienist.”

The carriage rattles as we pass across the border to Switzerland. I attempt to pass the time by reading the newspapers, but am unable to focus on the stories at hand. Sebastian is no longer with me. He departed at Newhaven, after a young gentleman passed him a note on the platform. Judging by the expression on his face as he left me, it was not good news.

Two men enter my carriage. One of them is tall and gaunt, younger by some years than his companion. His forehead reminds me somewhat of the Professor’s, and he has that same coldness to him. His friend is older, more portly, and, like Sebastian, has the bearing of a military man. But he has not allowed soldiering to rob him of his humanity. He smiles when his friend leaves, and takes a seat opposite me. “That man,” he says, “can never sit still.”

“Not a happy traveller?”

“Not happy at rest.” He smiles. “Where are you travelling to?”

“Meirengen,” I say.

“Oh? Business or pleasure?”

“Business. I have a patient there waiting for me.”

“A doctor?”

“In a sense.”

He nods. “I am a medical doctor, myself.”

“The mind,” I say. “I am an Alienist by training. I run an asylum within the confines of London. And a private practice for those who need lesser assistance.”

“We, too, are headed for Meirengen.”

There is silence between us for a while.

“Your business there?” I finally ask, for want of anything better to do. The rolling countryside has finally lost its appeal.

“My companion’s business,” the man says. “I choose to accompany him, however.”

“A man should have friends,” I say.

“Yes,” the man says. “Without friends, who are we?”

Sebastian gave me a letter as we made our way to the station. Over the course of my journey to Switzerland, I periodically read and reread the Professor’s missive, searching for some meaning that I might have missed.

My dear Alienist,

As you advised, I attempted to talk to the Great Detective himself. We met at his rooms in Baker Street. I fear, however, that he is unwilling to reach a compromise between us, forcing me to take more drastic measures. I fear that even these may not be enough, however. He and I are on course for a reckoning.