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

“It is a mongrel race,” the Professor remarked. “Your grandmother’s brother was Vernet, the French artist, was he not?”

“You are well informed.” I inhaled deeply. The aroma of cigar smoke in the Reading Room was far from unpleasant. “Would you be so good as to satisfy my curiosity on one or two little points?”

“That was our shared purpose in meeting, was it not?”

Each of us had taken sensible precautions as regards our attendance at the Tankerville. Agents from the Office were stationed at every exit of the building, while Moriarty’s associates had gathered in the bar. I was, however, confident that this encounter would not end in bloodshed. Our respective organisations had too much to lose.

“I take it that J sought to play a double game?”

Moriarty nodded. “He approached the Colonel shortly after your previous appearance within these unhallowed precincts. His claim that he wanted to be on the winning side was plausible, and he gave an account of your visit here as an earnest of his bona fides. Such a fellow might have proved useful, but alas! A cursory check on his rooms by one of our ruffians who has a way with a jemmy revealed that the man kept a private journal, and had been so incautious as to make a detailed note of his conversation with the Colonel. No creature on earth is so vile as the blackmailer, as no doubt you will agree. It was sensible to give the fellow his quietus before he made some threat in response to our failing to meet his financial aspirations.”

I nodded. “And Mrs Maybrick?”

“The woman Yapp insists that she administered the fatal dose, as Moran had instructed her to do. She occupied Maybrick’s bed more often than his wife over the course of his final months, and had every opportunity to do our bidding. And yet, for all her dogged protestations of guilt, I cannot help wondering …”

With a sigh, I moved my remaining bishop one square back. “Such is the difficulty when a man provides so many disparate persons with cause to put him to death.”

Moriarty’s thin smile indicated that he had anticipated my move, and was gratified by it. He consolidated his excellent pos ition by shifting forward his rook. His triumph was barely suppressed. Mate in five moves.

“You understand our own embarrassment?”

“Most certainly. For a criminal gang to discover in its midst the most notorious murderer of modern times might seem in some quarters almost a cause for pride. In practical terms, I suspect you found it deeply worrying.”

“Quite so. I am reluctant to withhold admiration from Maybrick, to the extent that the crimes in Whitechapel have escaped detection, but it was abundantly clear that his good fortune would not persist for much longer. Drugs enslaved him – I am tempted to say that the arsenic-eating was the least of my concerns – and his libidinous appetite seemed incapable of satiation.”

“Five women dead, butchered in such a manner as to signify an increasing depravity and lust for blood.”

“The emotive terms are yours, not mine. The harlots themselves were of no consequence.” He caught my frown of disapproval, and dismissed it with a gesture of his claw-like hand. “My people maintain premises in five cities of this kingdom which offer a menu rich and varied enough to satisfy the most extravagant tastes. That was not enough for Maybrick. He failed to acknowledge that our success depends upon management and control. The risk that he might be unmasked at any moment was intolerable. Barring him from London was no more than a stopgap measure. Soon he would have embarked upon a fresh murder spree on Merseyside. Consider our dilemma. You run an organisation yourself, and will readily understand the need to pinpoint any weak link, and then eliminate it.”

I advanced my queen’s knight, and saw from the sparkle in my opponent’s eyes that he regarded the heroic sacrifice as an act of desperation. “You may be assured that is precisely why I arranged to grant J the opportunity to encounter Colonel Moran in person.”

Moriarty clapped his hands. “Bravo! You may lack the skill of a Staunton or a Paul Morphy, but in your chosen field, you are nonpareil.”

His rook seized my knight. Pursing my lips, I said, “You flatter me, Professor. For me, it is an honour to place my services at the disposal of Her Majesty.”

His grunt was laden with contempt. I moved my bishop again. “Check.”

I studied with interest the emotions washing over that devilish face. Shock, anger, despair. His intellect enabled him to calculate his options within a matter of moments. With a stifled curse, he knocked over his king.

“Another game?” he muttered. “You must allow me the opportunity to … take my revenge.”

I rose, but did not extend my hand. “Some other time, perhaps.”

A cold hatred flared in those cruel eyes. For just an instant, it made me tremble, but then I exulted, for I had won more than a game of chess.

“Until the next time, Mr …”

I raised my hand. “No names, please. In my organisation, we trade solely in initials. Please call me simply … M.”

‘Who is there?’

The grainy darkness behind the piano shivered. A face, pale, thin, no longer young, looked at the old man in the tattered dressing gown and said, ‘It is only me.’

Ancient lungs sighed in relief and the old man put his pistol back in his pocket. ‘How did you get in?’ he said. ‘I am told that my brave young soldiers from Macedonia are preventing anyone from entering my palace. They fear there may be elements who wish to do me harm.’

A tall, spare man walked out of the darkness and stood with the old man in the vast pool of light cast by the ceiling chandelier.

‘Isn’t electricity marvellous?’ he said.

The old man, his face drawn down by a nose that resembled both a beak and a knife, sniffed.

‘You still think it’s dangerous?’ the younger man said. There was a mocking tone in his voice.

It wasn’t lost on the old man. ‘Keep a civil tongue when you speak to me,’ he said.

The man tilted his head, signalling his understanding. ‘I apologise unreservedly, Your Majesty.’

‘My Kizlar Agasi is just outside …’

‘No. No he isn’t. You know I do think your chief eunuch may have gone, sire.’ He drew a thin finger across his own neck. ‘Bit concerned for his head. Can’t get the staff these days, can you?’

The spare man located a heavily gilded chair and sat down.

The old man, Abdulhamid II, Sultan of Sultans and Caliph of the Ottoman Empire, Shadow of God on Earth, widened his night-black eyes. In thirty-three years, no one had ever sat down before he did. But his guest wasn’t just anyone and he knew it.

‘What are you doing here, Professor?’ he said. ‘Do you have information I can use?’

The Professor examined his fingernails. ‘You know, sire, they have electricity at my hotel, the Pera Palas. Electric lights, even an electric elevator to take guests and their luggage to their rooms. It’s very modern, very innovative. Built by a Frenchman. Surprised you allowed it at the time, given your fears …’

‘Get to the point, Moriarty.’ The old sultan sat. The room, though vast, was stuffed with heavy, dark furniture. The largest item, a desk covered with notebooks both open and closed, filled at least a quarter of the chamber. Every so often it would draw the sultan’s gaze. ‘If you are here, then you either want something from me or you come with an offer. What is it?’

‘What is what?’

Outside in the darkness in the grounds of the sultan’s palace of Yildiz, the sounds of animals, their hunger sharpened by the desertion of their keepers, made noises halfway between howls of pain and the last gasps of the dying. Amongst the monkeys, parakeets, giraffes and gazelles, roamed lions and leopards and other creatures Moriarty had only half spotted as he’d ascended the hill leading up to the sultan’s quarters.