The Return of Moriarty (15 page)

One approached Horsemonger Lane Jail through a narrow and gloomy alley turning off Stone's End and leading to the main gateway, a flat-roofed building that managed to house both the Governor and his family and the scaffold, the last meeting place of so many unfortunates.

Fanny approached the gateway and rattled the iron knocker. It was only seconds before the grille opened to reveal a face that had the appearance of being made of well-worn leather. She glimpsed the top of the high blue collar and upper buttons of the man's uniform.

“Visiting?” the warder asked, his voice devoid of feeling.

“I've come with victuals for a prisoner, sir.” She made a point of stressing the
sir.

“Name?”

“Whose name, sir?”

“The prisoner, girl.”

He had taken her for a servant, which was not surprising. Apart from her mode of dress, the prison housed a large number of debtors who were the constant recipients of food, drink and clothing from friends in less constrained circumstances.

“Moran. Colonel Moran.”

The warder peered at her through the grille, rather as though he were viewing some curiosity at a fairground.

“Moran the murderer, eh? And who's sending him victuals, eh?”

“A brother officer.” Fanny had been well schooled by Moriarty.

The leather face crinkled into what was meant to be a smile.

“Comrade in arms. His name?”

“Colonel Fraser.”

The leather face grimaced again.

“Colonel Fraser knows how to pick his servants.” He began to withdraw the bolts and swing the door open. “When you've delivered the Fortnum and Mason's, perhaps you would care to take a little tipple in my quarters.”

The grimace had turned into a leer.

Fanny did not have to force a blush to her cheeks, the blood rose fast, embarrassment mingled with fury. She fought back her anger.

“I am expected back. The colonel runs a strict household.”

The turnkey nodded. “Your day off then?”

“I'm sorry, it's very difficult.”

“It is also difficult to obtain permission to visit prisoners.”

Fanny felt relieved.

“I do not have to see the prisoner,” she smiled. “The basket has to be delivered, that's all.”

She was inside the gatehouse by this time, the door closed and bolted behind her. Across the narrow courtyard she saw the lowering, depressing buildings, stray figures—prisoners, but not all in prison garb—interspersed with blue-uniformed turnkeys, their keys hanging from circles of metal attached to polished belts.

The gatehouse warder looked at her, a hungriness in his sharp eyes. Eventually he shrugged and nodded.

“As you wish.”

There was a long, sloping wooden shelf bolted to the wall outside what she took to be his office. Three or four heavy books, or ledgers, rested on the shelf, and the leather-faced man consulted one of these before shouting across the yard to one of the turnkeys, who was intent on watching a group of shambling prisoners.

The turnkey—from the warder's shout, Fanny learned that his name was Williams—walked quickly over to the gatehouse warder, who looked up sharply, first at Fanny and then at the turnkey.

“Visitor for Moran. Men's Block A, cell seven. She's only delivering grub, so they need not be left alone—there's instructions about that anyway.”

Williams nodded. “This way then, girl.”

Fanny followed him across the yard, moving to the right. The solid block of the Sessions House was on one side, the main prison building on the other. The prisoners they passed were not as she had ever imagined, for those in this section of the jail were mainly debtors, tradesmen who appeared down on their luck yet in good spirits.

They turned left, through another gate, and then right. Fanny knew now that she was within the prison proper; there was a smell peculiar to it, soap and another, odd, oppressive odor she could not identify. There was also a quality of echoing awe—the sounds of a nightmare, of footsteps, the clang of doors and the hollow murmur of voices—all far away and muffled by brick and enclosed space.

Eventually they came to a long narrow passage flanked at intervals by the iron cell doors, each marked in white paint with a number.

“Men's Block A, cell seven,” he intoned, taking his keys and selecting one.

The bolt was drawn back and the door swung open.

“Moran. A young woman bringing victuals,” Williams barked.

Fanny did not know what to expect. There was no fully formed picture in her mind. The floor was wooden, the walls bare whitewashed brick, and light came from a small barred window set high in the far wall, though high would hardly be the word for the plain ceiling, which rose only some eight or nine feet. The furnishings were simple: a hammock, rolled and hanging from a hook on one wall, a basin and jug of water, a small table and stool.

Moran sat at the table, head in hands, the classic picture of the man incarcerated. Fanny was shocked as he raised his head. Moran had never been the most attractive of men; now, in his moment of extreme peril, the deterioration was marked—a wildness in the eyes and tremors, which, while not excessive, were undeniably present in his hands, shoulders and face.

His eyes showed no sign of recognition, the mouth half opening as though he wished to speak and was prevented by some kind of paralysis.

“Colonel Moran.” Fanny approached him, her voice softly modulated. “Your old friend, Colonel Fraser, sent this basket for you and wished to know if there was anything else you needed.”

“Fraser?”

His brow creased, his puzzlement so apparent that Fanny, for a fleet second, experienced consternation. Perhaps, she imagined, the Professor had made a mistake about Colonel Fraser. Then Moran's face lapsed into a bleak smile.

“Jock Fraser,” he murmured. “Old Jock Fraser. Kind. Kind of him.” Moran gave a throaty chuckle. “Tell him I will need his Jocks to cut me down from Ketch's tree.”

Fanny moved forward and placed the basket on the table.

“He will send me with more later in the week, sir.”

“Tell him that he is a good friend.”

She waited for a moment, then realized the interview—if that was what one could call it—was terminated. She did not know that the basket she left on the small table of Moran's cell would be his own particular termination.

Fanny wanted to run as soon as the cell door closed behind her. The turnkey seemed to take his time with the lock and Fanny caught herself counting, a childhood and childish habit from which she could not break herself—a trick to get through nervous moments.

Eventually Williams straightened and nodded.

“We go back now, or is there anything else you would like to see?”

“I prefer to go, sir.”

Once outside the prison gates, Fanny wanted to break into a run; she felt like a criminal wishing to flee the scene of a felony. In the back of her mind she also knew that she had need of a bath to erase the scents of that horrible place from her nostrils and body.

A little before six, Moriarty began to dress for his meeting with Alton at the Café Royal. At the same time the turnkeys and warders were coming on duty for the evening shift at Horsemonger Lane Jail.

The man assigned to Men's Block A started his rounds and eventually arrived at cell seven, taking the usual perfunctory squint through the Judas hole in the door. The fact of what he saw did not register for a few seconds. Then his head jerked back toward the hole. A moment later he was unlocking the door and shouting for help.

Colonel Moran lay on his side by the table, his stool overturned. He had consumed one glass of the wine that had been brought in with the basket of food, and part of the veal and ham pie had been torn away and eaten. From the remains of the pie half a hard-boiled egg started out like some grotesque accusing eye.

There was little either the turnkeys or the doctor, who came on the scene some five minutes later, could do for the colonel. He had vomited considerably and, from the attitude he had assumed on the cell floor, it was apparent that his death had been extremely painful.

“It could be
Strychnos
nux vomica or one of the other vegetable poisons.”

The doctor was a somewhat pompous man who moved about the cell with exaggerated care, sniffing at the wine and food, playing the detective.

Inspector Lestrade, grave and worried, arrived an hour or so later. He talked with the doctor, made a brief examination of the food and wine, then began to interrogate the turnkeys with some care. He eventually came to the warder who had been on duty at the gatehouse when the basket was brought in, and later questioned Williams, who had accompanied the girl to Moran's cell.

Eventually, about seven o'clock, the inspector left Horsemonger Lane in a hansom, bound for the residence of Colonel Fraser in Lowndes Square.

The colonel was tall, sparse, with a yellowish complexion and brusque manner. He did not suffer fools gladly and, from the first, appeared to regard Lestrade as a simpleton.

“'Course I knew Moran. Friend of his at one time, though I cannot say that I am proud of that now. I suppose you have to trace back his career though.”

“What prompted you to send him the basket of food?” Lestrade's mouth traced a tiny, somewhat mean, smile.

The colonel's jaw dropped.

“Food? Basket? What in Hades are you talking of, man?”

“Your servant. The girl. She took a basket of foodstuffs to Colonel Moran this afternoon.”

“Girl? I do not have any girl. A housekeeper, yes, but at sixty you would hardly call that lady a girl.”

Fraser's color mounted to a dangerous scarlet.

Lestrade frowned, concerned. He had not considered this turn of events, as the trail seemed to have led exclusively to Fraser.

“You have not sent any victuals to Colonel Moran?” The eyebrows raised questioningly.

Fraser exploded in a welter of expletives, leaving Lestrade in little doubt as to his vehement denial.

“I would not send Sebastian Moran a rope to hang himself!” Fraser's voice seemed almost to buffet the shimmering glass ornaments in the large room. “Good God, Lestrade, the fellow's let the side down—school, regiment, family. I would not be seen in his vicinity, let alone send him anything.”

“The girl said that she came from you,” Lestrade bumbled, trying to grasp at straws.

“For the last time, there is no girl in my employ, nor did I send anything to the wretched man. You have my word on that as officer and gentleman. Any more of this and I will have to speak with my friend, the commissioner.”

The wind had gone from Lestrade.

“I'm sorry, sir. It is a matter of some importance.”

“How?”

“Whoever took the food into Moran used your name, sir. It would seem that the food was poisoned. Sebastian Moran is dead.”

“And I am supposed to be an accomplice to his cheating the hangman?”

“Your name—”

“The hell with that. If you have more to say, you must say it to my legal advisers, Park, Nelson, Morgan and Gummel, Essex Street, Strand, West Central. So good day to you, sir.”

On his way back to New Scotland Yard, a crestfallen Lestrade tried to clear his mind of the events surrounding Moran's undoubted murder. He had caught the colonel in the act of attempting murder—he was undoubtedly the killer of young Adair. He paused in thought, mentally adding the fact that Holmes had led him to Moran. Someone obviously wanted Moran dead. But why? Perhaps he should approach Holmes? He vaguely remembered that the great detective had made a reference to Moran's involvement with the infamous Moriarty. But he, too, was dead. Perhaps another ruler of organized crime had risen in Moriarty's place. Indeed there had been rumors of the roguish Michael the Peg in the East End, though in that morass of evil it was always difficult to penetrate to the truth. He kept coming back to the same question: Why should someone wish Moran dead? The answer was always the same: Moran had had some information. But what? Lestrade still worried at the problem as the hansom turned in through the gateway of Scotland Yard.

A private room had been booked for Moriarty and his guest, and Alton was already waiting at the Café Royal when the Professor arrived a few minutes after seven. It was early for diners and few people were in the restaurant when the two men met. Moriarty spoke only perfunctorily, to bid Alton good evening and motion him through the downstairs rooms and up the staircase.

Though only a senior turnkey at the 'Steel, Alton had the appearance of a well-dressed man-about-town, a fact owing in no small measure to his long association with Moriarty and the Professor's organization. He was a slim man of medium build, with a strangely gentle face, which he had attempted to harden with a short, graying, beard—a failure, as the beard emphasized the hint of kindness omnipresent in his large gray eyes. But the look belied the man, for Roger Alton could be ice cold, hard as granite, and at times as unfeeling as tortoiseshell.

The pair, looking as unlikely as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, threaded through the glittering ground floor of this, the most notable London restaurant of its time, past the marble-topped tables and ornate gilt and velvet trappings, up the stairs and through into the private room, the door held open for them by a grave and bowing majordomo.

Moriarty, making no reference to Alton, ordered the meal: a relatively simple repast of mock-turtle soup, scollops of salmon and tartar sauce, ribs of beef with horseradish and potatoes, and Parisian tartlets. There were also the trimmings of French salad and cheese, a full white Burgundy with the salmon, a light red with the beef.

The two men ate in near silence, exchanging only the most necessary scraps of conversation. It was not until they were well into the beef that Moriarty rose, checked that no waiter lingered near the door, and then addressed Alton with a certain formality.

“You have two of my people under your care.”