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

His dorm room was a poor environment in which to consider these matters, or indeed to think at all. He’d made a limited effort to personalise his living environment, merely affixing two pictures to the wall near his bed (drawings given to him as a going-away present by his family: one of a soldier, the other of a steam train), and the furniture had been scratched and battered by the room’s previous occupants, which in itself annoyed him; his predecessors at the school seemed to have aims that extended only as far as carving their names on the surfaces of desks, drawers and doors, whilst he was increasingly feeling that, with appropriate discipline and focus, a person could carve their name across the surface of the known world and become a byword for achievement, like Alexander or Napoleon.

Moriarty had, then, given scant consideration to the topic of obedience and its importance, and instead had thought about the cold smile on the tutor’s face as he had stated the punishment; a near-sneer, as if the tutor derived some pleasure from exercising the power he had over his pupil. Moriarty could only conclude that the authority the tutors had over him and the pupils – indeed, the power all adults had over boys of his age – derived from the concept of “might makes right”, a phrase he had read recently. The tutors had control over him solely because of their age and perceived seniority, he concluded; even their limited intelligence was not a hindrance, as they had the physical ability to force the pupils to obey orders, should the need arise.

Moriarty spent a full four minutes considering the imbalance of this – that lesser individuals should be able to manipulate those whose thinking was demonstrably superior – and then he had pulled on his coat and set about disobeying the terms of his punishment. Easily bypassing the groundskeeper who was supposed to be ensuring he remained within his dorm, he exited the school building.

And then he left the school grounds, and headed into London.

Whilst the others were at London Zoo in Regent’s Park, Moriarty spent a little time in Hyde Park. On the south side of the park, wooden hoardings had been erected, ahead of the Great Exhibition, which was scheduled to take place the following year. Beyond the edge of the park, horse-drawn carriages passed by in a constant creak of wheels and clip-clop of hooves. Nearer to him, a stream of people passed by the work in progress, couples and nannies pushing baby carriages made of wood and wicker. He watched them pass by, and felt no connection with them at all.

Moriarty stayed in Hyde Park for a while, standing on the Serpentine Bridge and musing about the flow of the rivers through London, how vital they were for the city and yet how they were for the most part unseen, like the blood flow Descartes had written about. As he stood on the bridge and watched the wind playing over the face of the water, a butterfly landed a short distance from him, a dash of colour against the stone of the bridge.

It occurred to him that lingering in one place might prove to be a mistake; if the school party was unable to see the fourlegged attraction in Regent’s Park, the masters might decide to take the boys for a walk elsewhere in the capital, and he might be discovered. One single person too many in the queue ahead of the pupils might lead to undesirable consequences, and he did not intend wasting his time explaining himself to the older but lesser minds of the school simply because a conjunction of unlikely events had led to him being discovered. He decided to move on, to head towards the East End, generally following the route of the rivers of London, the city’s hidden circulatory system.

He set off towards the park gates and, as he walked past the butterfly, it flew into the air, wings beating frantically.

He walked at a measured pace – he knew the length of his stride and the distance he could cover before he needed to get back to the school – and though he was still young, his height, his thin face and his high forehead made him look older. His long arms, and the subtle vertical striping of his coat, made him look even taller, and he stood out from the crowd both in appearance and bearing. His head moved from side to side as he took in all the details of his surroundings, and, as he made his way past Hyde Park Corner and on to the edge of Green Park, he realised that he was moving through the crowd unimpeded, the surrounding people leaving a space around him.

Moriarty allowed himself a flicker of amusement at this; he was happy for people to avoid him out of suspicion if not out of fear or respect, but, as he felt an east wind pick up and blow the thin strands of his hair back from his forehead, he found himself almost wishing to experience the normal Brownian motion of a body through a crowd, as others standing closer by might have afforded some protection from the wind that even now pulled at his coat.

As the carriages passed by and kicked up mud, he stood and looked across Green Park, at Constitution Hill, which was not a hill but a road; the road where Peel, the founder of the Metropolitan Police Force, had sustained a fatal wound after falling from his horse, but where all three of the attacks on Queen Victoria had failed. The moral, if one was to be sought, appeared to be that accidents were more likely to be fatal than assassination attempts, and less likely to attract further investigation.

Moving through the crowd as if in a bubble, Moriarty walked along Piccadilly, following the edge of Green Park.

Always keeping at least ten paces between them, the older boy followed, confident he had not been seen.

The crowds grew denser on Piccadilly, and Moriarty considered entering a shop to escape the throng. There was a bookshop there, and he had money enough to afford to make a purchase – having read of the recent premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin , he was minded to see if he could find a copy of the source material, preferably in the original German – but he also knew it would be difficult to hide a new book upon returning to the school. Any new item attracted the attention of the other boys, and would lead someone to hide the book by way of playing a prank, or, worse, news of the acquisition would reach the ears of the tutors.

So Moriarty did not enter the shop, despite the appeal of the items in the window display. Instead, he stood for a few minutes, carefully looking at the titles and authors of the books on show beyond the glass of the windows. He noted the presence of new novels by Dickens and Hawthorne, and of the older, taller boy who had been following him since Hyde Park.

And then he set off walking once again.

Moriarty varied his pace now, and stopped often, ostensibly to look in shop windows, and it was clear the boy was indeed following him. A game, perhaps, or some more sinister intent, but he did not feel he had time spare to consider the matter, as he must be back at the school before he was missed.

He had vaguely decided to make his way to the Bank of England and spend some time outside the building. There, should anyone ask, he would say he was admiring the architecture, but in fact he would be considering the Walbrook River which ran beneath the area, and how its route, if accessed, might allow one to enter the Bank from beneath. This was a thought experiment, of course. Nothing more.

But now his attention was diverted by the older boy, who walked when he walked, stopped when he stopped, and held his distance no matter the direction Moriarty turned, as if in orbit around him. Time was now becoming the crucial consideration, and Moriarty wasted a full minute standing before an art dealer’s premises just off Haymarket, not even noticing that the picture he was staring at was called Le Petit Mathématicien because he was preoccupied using the glass of the window to observe behind him.