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

‘By the way, you will not of course be able to play your prized Stradivarius for some time because of that wound. I do hope that you will be happy with the fiddle that I swapped for it. I purchased it at a market on the Old Kent Road for 1/6d. Consider it a reply to your removal of my painting La Jeune Fille à l’Agneau , by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. I had meant to tell you that there is one thing you need to be aware of. No matter how good your disguise, a man who continuously smokes the strongest, most foul-smelling of tobaccos as you do will always leave an odoriferous trail that is quite offensive and distinctive to those of us who do not partake of the habit.’

The bell rang downstairs.

‘Ah, I imagine that is Dr Watson, returning from looking after his uncle, to come and congratulate you on your latest success and get the background for his next tale to peddle to The Strand . I will take my leave.’

Moments later, Dr Watson opened the door and came in, travelling bag in hand.

‘Holmes! I’ve been reading the …’

He stopped, dropped his bag and held out his hand. ‘Munro! Congratulations to you, too, old man. Your country owes you both a great debt.’

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ replied Inspector Munro. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t stop, though. I have to get back to Scotland Yard.’

‘No, we mustn’t keep him,’ added Sherlock Holmes. ‘Watson, I know that you will be eager to know all about this trivial business that Munro and I have had the pleasure to work on together. We were just debating what title you would give it.’

‘I think we have come to an understanding, though, haven’t we, Mr Holmes?’

‘Indeed, Munro. Indeed. We’ll leave it up to the good doctor here.’

Prague, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 187–

A gunshot resonated through the narrow alley. In the quiet streets of the Old Town long after midnight, no other sound would be more shocking and out of place.

If any of the inhabitants of the old houses opened their window and looked out, they would see a young man running fast through the streets. He was wearing no hat or overcoat, though it was freezing and the pavement was covered in snow. If the accidental observer saw lamplight illuminate his face, they’d wonder if they hadn’t seen a ghost: so pale and thin had it seemed.

Had they been at the Franz Joseph railway station three days ago, they would have met him under very different circumstances and probably wouldn’t have remembered the encounter. They would see a rather thin, tall young man in an impeccable if somewhat boring clothing, with a simple yet elegant ebony walking cane. He had one of these unexceptional, hard-to-recall faces. Except for the eyes. A more astute observer would surely notice the slightly sunken grey eyes and their piercing stare. They would pigeonhole him as a high clerk or a man of learning – and in this they wouldn’t be wrong, as he’d been a mathematics professor at a small yet renowned English university.

What casual observers wouldn’t see was the blade concealed in the man’s cane, the small derringer resting between two shirts in his case and the Sheffield switchblade in his coat’s pocket. Those who would have seen any of these items probably wouldn’t be inclined to tell others about them, if only for the impracticality of conversing if you’re dead.

The man’s name was James Moriarty and, at this moment, his main concern would be avoiding this impracticality himself.

There was a quiet knock on the door. “Do you wish any refreshments, sir? Today’s newspapers?”

Moriarty shook his head and the salesman left for another train car, searching for other compartments with lights on to offer his goods.

The sun hadn’t risen yet but James was up habitually early. A lot of his business tended to go on in the wee small hours of the morning, if not in the middle of the night. Luckily, he never felt the need for much sleep. Sleeping only kept you from more thinking – and thinking was what James Moriarty valued most of all.

He reached into his jacket’s inner pocket for a small folded piece of paper. This had been the reason he was sitting in a train going to Prague after all.

Dear Professor Moriarty,

I am writing you because it has recently found a way to my ears that Herr Robert Zimmermann in Prague uncovered information implying the existence of a certain Bernard Bolzano’s manuscript, previously thought to have been destroyed. The work in question is said to concern a rather unusual approach to the binomial theorem. I believe this to be of interest to you, sir.

Little could be derived from the letter. It had been sent from Prague and written in the plainest black ink on a plain paper, put in a completely plain envelope. The handwriting had apparently been altered, though if he were to secure a sample of a suspected author’s usual handwriting, he would surely recognize it. Otherwise, he had nothing except for one important fact. That someone had been very careful. Moriarty, in fact, expected that the letter had not been written by its real author, merely transcribed by someone else.

As for the self-described identity of the author: James Moriarty had no friends and did not believe in benefactors. Everyone followed their own agendas in the end. The secret of gaining power over others lay in knowing exactly what theirs were.

Now someone thought he’d known his agenda. Moriarty would gladly let them think that.

As soon as he found a decent hotel and checked the exit routes from his room, James Moriarty went to introduce himself to the Prague academic society.

After his university’s small town and London, Prague was a pleasant change. It was a smallish city by a Londoner’s standards but impressive nonetheless, much more interesting than the town he’d been living in these days. Under the city’s famous thousand spires, he walked toward the mathematics wing of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Charles-Ferdinand University. To get to Zimmermann’s office, he used an alias from a colleague from Edinburgh, certain that no one would know the Scot personally here, and a story remarkably close to the truth – that he heard the professor had been compiling Bernard Bolzano’s work and he’s interested in it. He had sent Zimmermann the note about his arrival yesterday, apologizing for such a quick notice. One day was still passable for an eccentric professor and not long enough for Zimmermann to start making serious enquiries, should it come to that.

Moriarty had developed a custom of not forming assumptions before having acquired the facts, but the first encounter with the renowned scholar surpassed his expectation nevertheless.

First glance into his office: a disorderly mess everywhere. Books lay open on the floor, table and spare chairs. A mug of what presumably had once been tea fulfilled the role of a paperweight. The papers beneath – full of sweeping handwriting not remotely resembling the anonymous friend’s letter – looked an incarnation of chaos.

Robert Zimmermann himself was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a mane of dark hair greying at the temples, clad in what may have been fashionable here at least a decade ago. He spoke in fairly good English, albeit with a strong Teutonic accent: “Ah, Professor Galbraith, is it so? I received your note! I’ve heard a lot about you!”

I doubt it , Moriarty thought. Aloud he said: “And I’ve heard a lot about your work, Professor Zimmermann. Your accomplishments in both philosophy and mathematics are astounding and your work on uncovering Herr Bolzano’s manuscripts is commendable. I have been studying his Grössenlehre because some of my own work centers on the binomial theorem that he mentions there, albeit briefly, not having published possible other manuscripts on it …”