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

A man whom I took to be of Italian extraction, based on the width of his lapels, stood up and walked to the front of the chapel. ‘Let me see that thing,’ he said, pointing to the disc.

Another man – swarthy and unshaven – stood up and said: ‘If you try to touch that, I’ll cut you – I swear I will.’

The Italian turned and stared at him. ‘Sit down,’ he said quietly, ‘or I’ll slice your throat open and pull your tongue through the hole like a necktie.’

The swarthy man sat down, muttering, and the Italian man held out his hand. Moriarty’s agent took the phonograph from the gramophone and handed it across. The Italian examined it carefully, turning it over and over in his hands.

‘No label,’ he said eventually.

‘What about the other side?’ someone called from the back of the pews. ‘Play that!’

The Italian held the disc up so that everyone could see it. The reverse side was smooth. ‘Nothing there,’ he said. ‘It’s single-sided.’

‘Again!’ an East End thug said. He looked as if he would be more at home in a boxing ring than in a chapel. ‘Play the damned thing again, and louder this time!’

In all, we listened to the professor’s voice say the exact same things fourteen more times. By the end of the final recital I could have repeated his speech word for word, with all the gaps intact.

Some of the criminals had left after a few replays. Judging by their expressions they were disappointed and angry that Moriarty’s final secret had not been revealed in a more obvious manner. Others huddled together in small groups, comparing notes and attempting to descry whatever hidden clues Moriarty had left behind – if, indeed, this entire performance hadn’t been a charade intended as a final insult from a dead master criminal. All the while, Moriarty’s agent had moved to one side when it became obvious that nobody wanted to hear the recording a sixteenth time. The table, the phonograph and the gramophone he had left behind. A small group of criminals had gathered around it and were examining the record, turning it over in their hands and looking for some hidden message. Others were arguing with Moriarty’s agent, trying to get him to talk, but he kept shaking his head, saying nothing.

The elderly man beside me had listened to each reply, head thrust forward and eyes closed. Eventually, he too shook his head, made a ‘ Tch! ’ sound, stood up and pushed past the three of us. When he got to the aisle he turned and shook his fist at the gramophone player, his lips moving silently. He shuffled out.

There were barely half of the original attendees present by then. Holmes gestured to me and to Chidlow that we should join him at the back of the chapel. When he got there, in the relative shadows, he turned to us. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘I am at a loss,’ Chidlow said. His expression was grim. ‘I am hoping that you, Mr Holmes, have managed to spot something that I have not.’

‘Watson?’ Holmes asked, turning to me.

‘Assuming that the Italian gentleman is correct, and that the phonograph has no label affixed to it, then the only thing I can think is that there is something scratched into the shellac itself.’ I nodded towards the front of the chapel. ‘I suspect, however, that the gentlemen up there have been examining it for exactly that.’

‘And such a clumsy means of hiding information would be beneath the professor’s dignity,’ Holmes pointed out. ‘This is his final problem. He will not have made it easy for his putative successor.’

‘Does nothing occur to you, Mr Holmes?’ Chidlow asked despondently. ‘I cannot help thinking that one of the criminals who has already left has picked up on a clue that has passed the rest of us by.’

Holmes stared at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows. ‘I seriously doubt,’ he growled, ‘that any of these people has spotted a clue that has evaded my attention.’

‘Then you have spotted no clues yourself?’ he pressed.

Holmes looked away. ‘There are some indicative factors,’ he muttered. ‘But nothing definitive. Let us take our own look at the gramophone and the phonograph. Perhaps we may see something that the others have missed.’

Holmes led the way to the front of the chapel. There were eleven men still there, standing around and looking uncertain. One or two were talking together, but most of them appeared to have decided that they would operate alone.

Holmes went straight to the gramophone. As he approached it, Moriarty’s agent took a step forward. He watched to make sure that Holmes didn’t try to remove the disc. I noticed a bulge beneath his jacket: he was armed, and presumably willing to use force to ensure that the professor’s instructions were followed to the letter. His face was as expressionless as ever, and his eyes were invisible behind his shaded lenses.

Holmes picked up the phonograph and checked it minutely. ‘No label, as we were told,’ he murmured, ‘no recording on the other side, and no extra information scratched into the material. I am beginning to think – hello, what’s this?’

‘Something of interest?’ Chidlow pressed, moving closer. Several other men from the congregation moved closer to listen.

‘Ah, it is nothing,’ Holmes said dismissively, and handed the phonograph back to Moriarty’s agent. The criminals moved away again, disappointed.

‘What if,’ I suggested in a whisper, a thought having struck me, ‘the clicks and pops on the recording that we were meant to assume were caused by scratches were actually some kind of introduced code!’

‘That’s it!’ Chidlow said excitedly.

‘Alas, no.’ Holmes shook his head. ‘Your suggestion is plausible, but it had already occurred to me. During the fifteen repeats of the message, I timed the occurrence of the apparently extraneous sounds using my heartbeat as a guide. I discerned no regular pattern – they occurred randomly, as far as I could tell.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I did detect something else, however, which I will tell you about in a moment.’

Chidlow frowned. ‘What about the gramophone itself? Is there something about it that might provide a clue?’

Holmes shook his head. ‘Moriarty himself clearly said: “ this recording is all you will need in order to find my manuscript. I mean that literally – you need consider nothing else in this chapel but the phonograph you see revolving in front of you ”. I think, under the circumstances, we have to take the professor at his word.’

We stood there silently for a while, as the last few criminals drifted away. Eventually, we were alone in the chapel with the gramophone, the phonograph, the table and Moriarty’s agent. He looked at us, his face still impassive, then nodded towards the gramophone – enquiring, I suppose, whether we needed it any more. Holmes shook his head, and the man busied himself with slipping the phonograph into a cardboard sleeve, then lifting it and the gramophone off the table and carrying them away.

‘We can talk now,’ Holmes said. ‘Everyone else has left – either disappointed that the professor wasn’t being any clearer or because they think they have detected his hidden message and are currently following whatever clues they think they spotted and everyone else missed.’ He paused, smiling. ‘I can guarantee that none of them have spotted the real clue.’

Chidlow stared at Holmes with something close to awe in his eyes. ‘You did hear something! What was it?’

‘Did you remark upon the fact that the professor made reference to this very place?’ Holmes asked.

Chidlow frowned. ‘I believe he did mention it. You used the phrase just now.’

‘He said,’ I recalled, ‘ “ you need consider nothing else in this chapel but the phonograph you see revolving in front of you ”.’