The Return of Moriarty (40 page)

By early afternoon Tanner had returned with what intelligence he had been able to glean. It disclosed little except that Professor Moriarty had been forced to resign from the university because of a scandal concerning two of his pupils—and it was thought that he had finally left the academic cloisters in the company of his youngest brother, who appeared to have visited him at the university on a number of occasions.

Crow also learned a little about Moriarty's family: his upbringing in Liverpool and the two younger brothers, both named James, one of whom was an officer in the 7th Lancers. As for the youngest brother, there seemed to be no information except that he had left home to work with the Great Western Railway Company, which, strangely, could not trace an employee of that name.

Crow wondered if it were possible. The youngest brother was not traceable. So? He came back to his original line of reasoning. If the Professor was able to appear in two guises, one younger than the other, it might be that the Moriarty they sought was in reality the famous professor's youngest brother. He instructed Tanner to continue the search for any further facts concerning James Moriarty minimus.

Crow then turned his attention to the morrow and the man Paget who was to be married at eleven o'clock, by the curate of St. Andrew's, Limehouse. He had this on the word of a sergeant in his late thirties, with much experience in the clam-closed dockland world. So Crow sent for the man.

It was natural that Crow should be anxious about the source of the intelligence concerning Paget's wedding, and his interview with the sergeant lasted for the better part of an hour. But like all good detectives, the sergeant was reluctant to reveal the name of his informant.

“It's not easy down there, sir,” he told Crow. “You can be working in the thick of villains and transgressors of the worst kind, yet not know a damned thing. You plod on and trust to luck. All I can tell you is that this Paget's a big bloke with a lot of connections, and he's to be hammered proper tomorrow. As for my informant, I've never had anything from her before, but it does seem to be a straight tip. I did get the impression she was nervous in talking to me, that she was being watched and held some kind of grudge—but that's only intuition.”

“Nothing wrong with intuition, Sergeant, not so long as it can be backed up with common reason and logic.”

The sergeant laughed. “I've yet to associate common reason or logic with a woman.”

Crow was immediately depressed for the thought of the imminent departure of his freedom rushed back into his mind. Weddings appeared to be the vogue, so tomorrow he would take a trip down to Limehouse and see this Paget and his bride turned off. If nothing else it should prove an interesting venture.

That Moriarty could pull strings at all levels was a plain fact of life, so nobody questioned what methods he had used to arrange the wedding without the formality of banns. It was enough to say that the Professor decreed the marriage would take place at St. Andrew's at eleven o'clock, and only a very limited number of people would be allowed into the ceremony. The celebrations afterward in the main floor of the warehouse would be another matter.

As always, the Professor's orders were obeyed to the letter, and at five minutes before eleven o'clock only a handful of people were waiting at the church. Paget was sitting in the front pew with Parker—spruce and smartly dressed, shaved and looking almost respectable—beside him as best man. Spear was not allowed to come over to the church, but Bridget, Kate Wright and her husband were there, as were Ember, Lee Chow and a couple of the punishers with Terremant. There was no fuss, no choir or organ, for Moriarty did not wish to call any undue attention to the church wedding. The music, dancing and loud roister could safely be conducted behind the locked and bolted doors of the warehouse later.

Parker had set his watchdogs around and about, but nobody paid any special heed to the few old ladies, and a couple of men roughly dressed in corduroy, with red chokers at their necks, who sat at the back of the church. Weddings, christenings and funerals always drew a few strays who liked to wallow and weep for people they did not know.

Angus Crow felt conspicuous in the unaccustomed garb, but the detective with him was quite used to posing in disguise and he assured his inspector that he looked nothing like a policeman.

Promptly at eleven o'clock there was a stir at the back of the church. The curate appeared before the altar and walked down to the nave as Paget, nudged by Parker, took up his place.

They came slowly down the aisle: Fanny, composed and radiant behind her white lace veil, clad in a dress she had labored over for many hours—white silk, tight-waisted with a short train and high-necked lace cape. She looked undeniably small on the arm of the tall, dignified and stooping Moriarty, who had removed the sling from his damaged arm for the first time since the attempt on his life. Behind them walked Mary McNiel, the maid of honor, nervous and ill at ease.

Crow was fascinated, particularly by the man on whose arm the bride leaned. This was his first glimpse of the Professor, and the whole scene had about it an air of unreality for him, as though the characters in a novel were suddenly coming alive before his eyes.

The bridal procession came to a halt, the couple giving each other a quick and hesitant glance before the curate began to intone:

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.…”

Crow hardly heard any of the service, so intent was he in gazing at Professor Moriarty. It was a strange, depressing and brooding feeling to see the man standing there in the church. In some ways the very fact of Moriarty being in such a holy place made it worse; as though a great sea of invisible evil surrounded the man, emanating from him. Crow experienced odd and vivid sensations, associated with clear pictures in his mind, of huge and unquenchable waves breaking remorselessly upon rocks. The rock of the church, he thought, under assault from the heavy swell of Moriarty's powers.

When the time came for the bridal party to follow the curate into the vestry, Crow could have sworn that Moriarty turned and looked down the church, the deeply circled and sunken eyes seeming to gaze straight into his own, penetrating through his skull. It was an unnerving moment that sent an unaccustomed icy shiver running from the back of Crow's neck to the base of his spine.

When the happy couple emerged to return down the aisle, two things took the inspector by surprise: First, the man Paget was most certainly one of the people shown on Frome's adept sketch of the party at the Alhambra; secondly, the bride, looking happy and most fetching with her veil now thrown back, answered the description of the young woman who had taken the basket of victuals into Horsemonger Lane Jail on the day Colonel Moran died.

Though Crow was outside the church as quickly as possible, he was amazed to find that the whole wedding party appeared to have melted into the side streets, lanes, and alleys like the thin wraiths of smoke that drifted through all the byways of this area. The whole episode had about it an eerie quality, akin to what he had felt on first sighting the Professor.

The evidence and his reasoning did seem to be adding together, and although he had not been able to detect anything strange in the Professor's appearance—such as the use of disguise—he was sure and certain that the connection between Moriarty, the professor of mathematics, and Moriarty, his youngest brother, was the answer to one of the problems. The man, Paget, was now fully proven to be an associate, not simply of Moran, but also of Moriarty; it would also be of importance to speak with the woman who had become Mrs. Paget; Crow was positive that the servant girl at Horsemonger Lane and Paget's bride were one and the same.

But how best to act? That was difficult. To begin with these people had to be found in the warren of byways that ran through the maze of the city's East End; then, once found, could they be held? If Moriarty's power were really as great as Sherlock Holmes had originally indicated, then he would be protected by almost an army and his ways of escape would be manifold. Should they wait for him to show himself again? Issue a directive for his apprehension? The latter course seemed unreliable, for a directive of this sort meant dozens of people being alerted, and undoubtedly the word would get back to Moriarty within the hour. The last thing Crow wanted was for his man to go to earth.

In the meantime, Crow decided as they rattled back to Scotland Yard, he would still have to wait. Inevitably the Professor or one of his confidants would make a move. The feeling of gloom and frustration began to lift. The answers were there, near to the surface, and it could only be a matter of time now before this archvillain would stretch his head too far from his world into Crow's.

Nobody had ever seen the warehouse looking like this before. The place smelled of flowers, the lamps were lit and the atmosphere bright with gaiety. It was also full to capacity: a very wide cross-section of Moriarty's family of villains present to pay respects and celebrate Paget's wedding.

The newlywed pair sat at the table set before the “waiting room” door, together with Moriarty himself, Ember, Lee Chow, Parker, the Jacobs brothers, Terremant, and Spear propped up in a chair. On their right a small dais had been set up for a band—a brace of violins, a cornet, two banjos, a zither and an accordion—ready to launch into
The Happy Peasant, Il Corricolo, Mona,
and later, when the party was in full swing, '
Appy
'
Ampstead, Knocked 'Em in the Old Kent Road
and
My Old Dutch.

At twelve noon the wicket gate, set in the big double doors, was locked and bolted, the warehouse full and the party ready to commence. Moriarty's orders were no admissions after noon.

The long series of trestle tables running down the left side were crowded with pies and molds, cold chickens and turkeys, hams and pickles, in the center of which stood a three-tiered wedding cake. There was champagne and ale to drink and a myriad pastries, jellies and trifles to choose from. In many ways it was a strange sight, as though this odd mixture of people were trying to ape the manners, style and etiquette of the middle classes.

This was most apparent on the table running down the other side of the floor, crammed as it was with gifts for the pair. The finders had been out and about to provide their tokens and tributes, though, apart from one or two objects, a certain sameness was visible. There were gold Albert chains and Langtry Alberts, bracelets and bangles decorated with Oriental pearls and diamonds; “Love Laughs at Locksmith” brooches; rings in abundance; gold keepers and knot rings, signet rings and heart charms and gold scarf pins. There were at least a dozen silver pencils, and four of gold; watches, both ladies' and gents', with Swiss horizontal and lever movements, and barrel movements; two sets of antique patterned fruit spoons; a solid silver-back brush set in a case, for Fanny; a silver combined match box and sovereign purse; a pair of field glasses; bottles of the Royal Perfumery's Chypre and New-Mown Hay.

In effect all the gifts were things that could be easily pocketed or taken quickly from their rightful owners. The only larger items being those given by the Professor himself: a haberdashery cabinet for Fanny, containing cottons, silks, tabs, buttons, needles, pins and all the paraphernalia women used; and, for Paget, a dressing-and-shaving case in dark French Morocco, with razors and the usual cutlery.

The guests who crowded the warehouse were of an unlikely variety: men and women dressed fashionably, some with taste, others looking flashy, gaudy even, in contrast with the more sober-suited men, who could easily have been professional people, doctors and bankers, maybe politicians; and it was notable that both these groups were at variance with the rougher, down-at-heel folk—people one could see daily on the streets of East and West Ends alike.

To an outsider the strangest thing of all was the fact that all these class divisions appeared to intermingle easily, laughing and jesting with each other, so that a bruising bully was seen talking merrily with an elegant city gent; a recognizably flash woman could be observed twinkling her eyes and undulating her charms at an elderly man who might have just walked in from the Stock Exchange; a delicate lady of high fashion clinked her champagne glass with a man who, even to the least experienced eye, could be little else but a person of dubious habits.

Paget and Fanny remained almost oblivious to the throng, except when one or another of Moriarty's employees—for everyone there served the Professor in one way or another—came over to the table to offer congratulations, after first paying their respects to Moriarty himself.

Yet in the far corner of Paget's mind there were the two-pronged, irksome nags of concern and despair. He could not deny that he had never before felt the warmth and tenderness that flowed between him and Fanny; nor could he deny the paradoxical sense of suspicion that his bride could just possibly be the one within the Professor's private domain who had already betrayed Moriarty and was willing to do it again. There was also the overriding unease, which had first come to him at Harrow, manifesting itself in the consistent knowledge that his present life was no way to achieve that happiness he so earnestly desired for the two of them.

Moriarty sat near, receiving the guests as they came to the table, rather like some princely father: shaking their hands or accepting their embraces, listening to their sweet, dripping words or requests with the same firm and unshakable concentration he always displayed. Yet deep within him there was a disquieting anxiety. He doubted if anyone else had noticed the two men sitting at the back of the church during the wedding ceremony. He had. He had also smelled the danger, that same scent that had reached his seventh sense when Holmes had come too near. The two men were he was certain, police; and one of them probably bore the name Crow.