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

‘Believe it or not, your praise means a great deal to me, Mister Holmes. Thank you.’ His head moved slowly left and right: a nervous habit now, I presume, rather than an actual physical problem. ‘You and I are living fossils, Mister Holmes, like the horseshoe crab. The world has evolved around us, leaving us behind, stranded on the beach of time. I have spent the last few years regretting this, and I have decided – reluctantly – to do something about it. I am coming out of retirement, Mister Holmes. Thanks to the pharmaceutical industry I expect I have a good few years left in me, as have you. I give you fair warning that I am planning something that will rock this nation to its very foundations. Stop me if you dare, Mister Holmes. Stop me if you can .’

Holmes gazed at the professor for a long moment, then turned to me. He seemed to be standing straighter, and his face, although still lined and old, was alive with fierce intelligence.

‘Professor,’ he said firmly, ‘it will be my pleasure.’

December 1867

“You summoned me, Professor Moriarty?”

Moriarty glanced up from his paperwork and shook his head. His features were sharp and angular. He was youthful, barely out of his twenties, but his hair was already the grey of a pending thunderstorm. He could have appeared austere and menacing if not for the brightness of his genial smile. The flash of his teeth shone with obvious good humour and kind, inoffensive mirth.

“Professor?” Moriarty laughed. “Goodness, no. I’m likely the Moriarty you’re looking for. It’s not a common name around these parts. But I’m not a professor. I’m only a humble reader. I haven’t been offered the chair yet.”

He encouraged his visitor to enter the room and motioned for him to sit on the other side of his cluttered desk. There was still snow dusting the shoulders of the visitor’s woollen jacket. His uncapped head glistened with melting snowflakes, which perspired down his brow and over his cheeks.

“Please,” Moriarty insisted. “Make yourself comfortable. The weather is very festive today, isn’t it?”

“Thank you, Professor.”

Like many of the academic offices in the university, Moriarty’s quarters were cramped to the point of claustrophobia. The shelved walls were overflowing with books. The desk was littered with pens, pencils, correspondence, papers, opened and unopened tomes, and piles and piles of marked and unmarked assignments. A copy of that month’s Lancet lay open on the page with Lister’s article about the benefits of his “antiseptic surgical method”. Beside that was a copy of that morning’s Times , headlined with the words CLERKENWELL OUTRAGE.

Moriarty tapped the largest bundle of papers on his desk and said, “Unless my treatise on the binomial theory meets with unprecedented success, I’m likely to remain a humble reader here for a long while.”

His guest, settling into the discomfort of the office’s only other seat, said nothing.

Moriarty found a black leather-bound notebook on his desk and began to leaf through the bright-white pages. The size and shape of the book suggested it might be a diary or a journal. Lettered in gold on the front were the words “ quid pro quo ”. Chasing his finger down one neatly written journal entry, Moriarty’s lips moved as he read through his day’s scheduled appointments. Eventually, he looked up from the book with a grin.

“It’s Gordon, isn’t it?”

Gordon nodded.

“Thank you for taking the time to come up here, Gordon. I understand you have a lot of important assignments to complete before the university closes for the Christmas holidays so it’s very much appreciated.”

“Why did you want to see me?”

“Good,” Moriarty laughed. “You’re direct. I like that. It suggests a focused mind.”

Gordon said nothing. He waited expectantly.

Moriarty picked up the leather-bound notebook and waved it importantly in the air as though it explained everything. “Professor Bell asked me to read through one of your papers. He believes you’ve been cheating.”

The light in the office was good. It was lit by a large window to the east and the morning sun washed the room with stark wintery warmth. Snow on the sills and ledges added to the brightness, making every detail in Moriarty’s quarters superbly lit.

The sunlight illuminated Gordon’s face.

After Moriarty mentioned the accusation of cheating, Gordon’s pale cheeks blushed with the faintest hint of pink. His lips remained closed. His mouth was an inscrutable line, neither smiling nor frowning. Purposefully, he said nothing.

“This is a serious allegation,” Moriarty went on. His tone was etched with concern. “You’re in your final year, Gordon. It has to be said, your results on the whole have been unremarkable so far. But, up to this point, they’ve always been deemed honest. This accusation could prove ruinous for you.”

Gordon remained silent and motionless.

Moriarty watched the young man intently.

“You’ll note that I said ‘the accusation could prove ruinous’,” he went on. “With a scandal like this the accusation doesn’t have to be true. Accusations alone are often enough to devastate a fledgling career.” He pointed at the newspaper headline: clerkenwell outrage – a dozen dead, one hundred injured. “If they’re left unchecked, accusations can have that sort of impact,” he said darkly.

Gordon met his gaze. His lips didn’t move.

“What do you have to say for yourself, Gordon?”

Gordon straightened in his chair. He rolled his broad shoulders and squared his jaw. “I don’t suppose it matters what I have to say for myself,” he began carefully. “If Professor Bell asked you to read through my paper, the only thing that matters is what you think. Do you think I’ve been cheating?”

Moriarty laughed again. It was a cheery sound and his tone seemed genuine.

“I wouldn’t want to play cards with you, Gordon,” he decided. “I’d wager you’ve won a fair share of bluffs in your day, haven’t you?”

Gordon didn’t answer.

The silence that stretched between them bordered on being interminable.

Moriarty reached for pen, ink and paper. He placed them on the blotter and began to write a missive. As he wrote in a fussily neat hand, he read the words aloud.

“Dear Professor Bell,” he began.

Gordon’s eyes narrowed.

“At your request I have carefully examined the academic paper you suspected of being plagiarised.”

Moriarty glanced up from the note and studied his visitor.

Gordon tapped his shoe lightly on the floor. He could have been trying to dislodge snow from the tread, Moriarty thought. But, from the student’s posture, it seemed obvious that the toe of his boot was now pointing towards the office door. Even if Gordon was unaware of the fact, Moriarty thought, the young man appeared to be planning an escape route.

“I can understand why you had suspicions about this piece.” Moriarty continued to read the words aloud as he wrote them. “After having read some of the other works you feared had been copied, I also noted that there were some strong similarities in their structure, lexical choice and derivative conclusions.”

Gordon’s lips had tightened to a puckered scowl.

Wrinkles of concentration creased his otherwise smooth brow.

His hands were curled into fists.

Despite what he’d said before, Moriarty suspected, if Gordon really was a poker player, he should be well advised to limit his gambling to low stakes games. The blush was now more than a faint suggestion of pink. It was difficult to tell where the melting snow ended and Gordon’s nervous perspiration began.