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

The third man was none other than Jacob Moriarty. He stared at me with narrowed eyes and then melted away into the courtyard beyond the archway. I am sufficiently vain to consider myself possessed of a pleasing face. Perhaps not a truly handsome man, and not as memorable as Holmes had been, but sufficient to be easily remembered. I had no doubt a description of myself and my mount would be with Moriarty residing within in very short order.

I pushed the horse on a little faster. It was foolish of me to come here. Had I been identified then I was in immediate danger. There was no way I could have known of the professor’s survival, but I should have anticipated that some of his henchmen would be loyal to the estate.

Holmes would not have been so headstrong. He would have come here, of that I had no doubt, but he would have had a plan. Perhaps with one of his cunning disguises to conceal his identity. Or else hiring one of his seemingly endless associates to scout the territory for him. What he would not have done was parade himself past the main gate like some Soho streetwalker.

I kicked my horse into a trot and moved out of sight of the gates. There was little cover along the cliff path beyond a few stands of scrubby gorse and hawthorn and I kept moving until I came to the tall, square fortress-like mine building, which stood almost a quarter of a mile from the walled house and garden. I dismounted and secured the gelding by a convenient trough in the shaded side of the stone building. As the horse drank, I sat back on the remnants of a cart and considered my options.

The mine was abandoned, and seemed to have been for some time. The wheel that should have topped the station was already gone and the windows stood dark and glassless. I tried the only door and found it locked, which was curious in a place so obviously ill kempt. I peered through the nearest window. The inside was stacked with boxes, barrels and chests, all far newer than the abandonment of the building would allow. Not hard to imagine what was in the array and easier still to link it all from the postmistress’s gossip to Jacob Moriarty.

I stepped back to peer around the side of the sheds towards the house visible across the rabbit-cropped sward. There, in that stately array, was the man I found in the darkest portion of my heart to hate with an implacable depth of feeling I had not thought myself capable of. A hatred that doubtless bordered on insanity in that moment.

The weight of my service revolver, which I always kept close when travelling wilder places, pressed heavily on me as a reminder of my soldierly past.

Presumably the reputation of the family, and the fact that it was broad summer daylight, lulled them into believing themselves safe from intruders. I am certain no sane person would have attempted entry, but in the event it was simplicity itself even taking in my own derisory health.

Once inside, I made my way to the house in short order through a neglected garden and ramshackle collection of recently constructed outhouses. It must have been an impressive manor at some point but had been let go. Sad, in some respects, but to my advantage when it gave me a great deal of cover to approach the house itself.

I slipped across a small walled terrace and in through an open window. Still no sign of any guards or staff, though I could hear voices coming from the service quarters raised in ribald laughter. Plainly not a house run on traditional lines, because no butler or housekeeper of my acquaintance would have allowed such laxity. But once again this was only to my advantage.

Once inside, however, I was at a slight loss. I crammed myself into a dark alcove, praying I would not be discovered, and stood for some minutes weighing up my situation and wondering if I should retreat.

Above stairs was eerily quiet with none of the noise I had heard earlier permeating into the main house. Like the gardens, the house was shabby, and as clean as one might anticipate. The carpets were unswept and the walls stained above the lamp sconces. No electricity or even gas in this ancient place, just oil lamps and candles like any commoner’s cottage. I was surprised, therefore, to hear the tinkling of a telephone. A tall figure strode across the hall to where the instrument sat. It was Jacob. His end of the conversation was abrupt and the call short and unwelcome from the way the younger Moriarty slammed the handset back into its cradle.

He turned back the way he had come, shouting ‘Cole! Get my horse. We have a cargo!’ He paused. ‘Mrs Dench? Mrs Dench!’

‘Yes Mr Jacob, sir?’ A portly woman of mature years bustled along the hallway. She was dressed in the traditional blue dress and white apron and cap of a nurse and I smiled. This, I reasoned, must be the postmistress’s missing Aunt Alice.

‘I must be out for a few hours.’ He glanced up the stairs and swore vehemently – and I saw the poor woman flinch. ‘I will be back as soon as I may. I trust you to keep things on an even keel.’ He swept away, leaving the woman visibly shaken. Once he had gone, she hurried up the staircase, and to the end of the landing. She entered a large bedchamber, and I was close behind.

Inside the room was dark and fetid. The curtains were drawn and a fire lit despite the warmth of the day. It smelled strongly of bodily functions, of sweat and urine and worse. And there, in the depths of a huge four-poster bed, lay the man that I had dreamed of facing ever since my return from the Reichenbach Falls.

As I stared at Professor James Moriarty so Mrs Dench was staring at me.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

‘A doctor,’ I replied. ‘How is the patient?’

‘Close to the end, sir. The infection of the lungs is too deep.’

I nodded, approaching the bed as calmly as I was able, though my blood raced noisily in my ears. ‘Fever?’

‘Up and down, sir. Mostly up. And his pulse is weaker by the hour.’

I nodded and smiled. ‘Thank you, Nurse. Would you be so good as to fetch me some soap and water?’

‘Sir.’ She inclined her head and withdrew.

Only when she had left the room did I approach the bedside.

The man was little more than a skeleton: eyes sunken deep into hooded brows as dark as bruises; yellowed skin, taut across his face, dampened with fever. He lay prone in a welter of snowywhite pillows, his cracked lips moving slightly with silent words as he raised his head.

He was a pathetic wreck of a man yet those eyes blazed with every particle of that vast intellect which had made him infamous still very much intact. This was the man who had driven Holmes into fleeing across to the Continent, and the man who had taken the dive into those violent waters of Reichenbach. The man, I had no doubt in that moment, who had ordered the carriage accident and who had ordered me shot – executed.

The eyes opened slowly, pale blue eyes that were surprisingly sharp for one deep in the grip of ague. Eyes that focused on me and crinkled in amusement. ‘Ahh … my—’ he struggled to draw a noisy breath ‘—good … Doctor … finally.’ He laughed … wheezed … coughed, and laughed again. His frail shoulders shook with the effort and his eyes watered, but through the tears those gimlet eyes never left mine.

Blood hammered at the back of my eyes in a red rage, which fogged my thoughts. I don’t recall picking up the pillow. I have no recollection of holding it between both hands and pressing it firmly across the arrogant face of the most evil man I had ever encountered.

His hands brushed at mine, too feeble to grip my wrists or push me away. His legs moved, knees raising the coverlet by just a few inches and back again. His hands fell away to flop across the cover, twitching feebly for a second or two longer before even that slight resistance had ceased.