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

Food interested him not one whit, despite his housekeeper, Mrs Hudson’s attempts to coax his appetite with all manner of little snacks. Her entreaties to open a window to let in fresh air fell on deaf ears as he studied the spiders that he had allowed free rein to weave their silvery gossamer webs in the darkest corner of his rooms. Their behaviour intrigued him for they were among the most efficient of nature’s killing machines, as he had witnessed at first hand in the case of the Patagonian Ambassador.

His mood had not been helped when he surfaced that afternoon after taking a nap in his bedroom to find that Mrs Hudson had taken the opportunity to air his room and to remove all of the cobwebs and their architects with duster, dustpan and brush.

The arrival of a telegram came at the right moment, when the bookcase with the dummy book in which he kept his syringe and secret supply of cocaine started to tempt him.

He tore it open with his thumb and read:

Mr Holmes. Would value your opinion about Fulham murder.

Strangulation. Will call at 7 p.m.

Inspector Alistair Munro

With an exultant cry, he skewered the telegram to his mantelpiece with a stab of his jackknife, his usual method of filing documents of interest. A thin smile crossed his lips and almost immediately he felt his mood had lightened.

At a couple of minutes before seven o’clock, Holmes heard the sound of a Hansom cab pull up on the wet cobbles outside his 221b Baker Street residence. True to his word, Inspector Alistair Munro rang the bell at exactly seven o’clock and, moments later, upon being admitted by Mrs Hudson, his footsteps could be heard bounding up the stairs. Holmes opened the door to his robust rap.

Alistair Munro was a good-humoured man of the same height as Holmes, albeit of slightly broader build. He had sandycoloured hair and moustache in keeping with his Highland ancestry and an accent to match. He removed his customary bowler and Ulster as he came into the room. He tossed them on to a free chair, while Holmes busied himself with the whisky decanter and the gasogene.

‘Warm yourself by the fire, Munro. You have had a busy evening, I see. You mentioned a murder in Fulham, yet I perceive that in the hours since you sent the telegram you have been across the river in Putney in order to search for clues as to the reason that the pawnbroker was murdered.’

‘How the devil did you know that, Mr Holmes?’ the inspector asked incredulously, sitting forward to gratefully receive his whisky and soda.

‘A simple matter. In the band of your bowler hat you have a seven-penny omnibus ticket, which is the second-class fare from Scotland Yard to the stop on the south side of Putney Bridge. Your telegram talked about the Fulham murder, which you will note already has a whole paragraph in this evening’s edition of the Daily Chronicle . Yet the Chronicle article talks about the murder of a Putney pawnbroker. Ergo, you had already been at the murder scene in Fulham then returned to Scotland Yard to report to your senior before heading across the river by omnibus. I presume that you chose that method of travel rather than using an official vehicle in order to be incognito as you investigated the pawnbroker’s shop and home in Putney. Having done so, you travelled here by Hansom.’

‘Exactly so, Mr Holmes,’ Munro replied, waving his hand in refusal of the cigar box which Holmes held out to him. ‘You forget I don’t smoke,’ he added with a half-grin.

‘On the contrary, Munro, I keep hoping that you will one day turn to tobacco. It is a great aid to the detective mind.’ He shut the box and tossed it on the floor by the fire. ‘Now, pray tell, why exactly should the murder of a pawnbroker in Putney be of interest to me.’

‘Because, Mr Holmes, the pawnbroker is none other than Liam O’Donohue, Professor Moriarty’s quartermaster.’

Holmes had picked up his cherry-wood pipe, but at mention of Moriarty’s name his jaw muscles tightened. ‘Then give me the facts, Munro.’

Munro took a sip of his whisky then laid the glass on the side table. ‘Very well, Mr Holmes. This morning one of the local constables was on his beat on Dawes Road in Fulham when a woman rushed into the street screaming murder. He recognised her as one of the cleaners at the Fusilier’s Club, a so-called gentlemen’s club. I say ‘so-called’, because it is nothing more than a gaming house and bordello. Men go there to gamble with cards, dice, playing all manner of games with rules of their own devising. That is, it is a place full of professional cheats and rogues. There is a bar where they can drink or they can enjoy the company of ladies of the night in an upstairs lounge, or, after negotiation, in one of the many boudoirs.’

‘Is the Fusilier’s Club one of Professor Moriarty’s establishments?’

‘No sir, it is independent. It belongs to an American consortium as far as I have been able to ascertain. It is run by Jack Lonsdale, a manager who oversees the gaming and by Mrs Dixie Heaton, the madame.’

‘And O’Donohue, was he a member?’

‘He was. That was why it was such a shock to the cleaning woman. She knew him. She opened one of the downstairs rooms and found him lying splayed out on the floor, dead as a doornail. He’d been strangled.’

‘What with? A garrotte of some kind?’

Munro shook his head and took another sip of whisky. ‘Bare hands, Mr Holmes. Or rather, it looks like one hand. There were bruises on his throat, you see. The constable was a competent fellow, he didn’t disturb the scene of the crime, but locked the door and reported to the Fulham Road station. The inspector there knew of O’Donohue’s connection with Professor Moriarty, so he sent word for me at Scotland Yard, knowing that I deal with anything to do with him. I went straight there and examined the scene and questioned everyone in the club before going back to the Yard to report to my superintendent.’

‘You are presumably confident that the murderer was no longer there, but I perceive that you have no real clue as to who the murderer is.’

‘Exactly, Mr Holmes. My worry, and the superintendent’s worry too, is that this could spark off a gang war. Apart from Moriarty’s criminal empire, there are lots of other gangs that would love to take over some of his activities. There are Chinese tongs in Limehouse, Italians in Clerkenwell and …’

‘I am possibly even more aware of many of the lesser gangs of London than you, Munro,’ Holmes said with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Yet I must agree, if someone has been foolish enough to execute one of Moriarty’s gang, especially a high-up member such as O’Donohue seems to have been, then they can surely expect repercussions.’

He picked up coal tongs and lifted a glowing cinder from the fire to light his cherry-wood pipe. ‘And then you went to Putney to check his shop and his living quarters.’

‘I did, but I found nothing that could help me. Yet although I know he is Moriarty’s quartermaster, I don’t know exactly where he keeps his warehouses. I have men scouring the wharfs in both directions from Putney Bridge.’

Holmes smoked in silence for a few moments then abruptly stood up. ‘Then let us go. It is time to view the body.’

Munro drained his glass and stood with alacrity. ‘That is just what I was hoping you’d say, sir. I instructed the Hansom driver to wait. We will go straight to the mortuary at Fulham, where I had the body taken.’

The body of Liam O’Donohue lay covered by a blanket atop a slab in the green-tiled mortuary.

‘I delayed the post-mortem examination until you had inspected the body,’ Munro explained, as the mortuary attendant, a bucolic-looking constable by the name of Grimes, removed the blanket.