The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Read online

‘Jim has affirmed that he supports our claim to the legacy.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ Moriarty nodded. He had taken a pen and now signed his name with a flourish. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I must get on.’

  Jack and I found ourselves outside his rooms once more, the door firmly shut.

  ‘A man of few words,’ Jack said. ‘He’s always preferred numbers.’

  ‘He seemed grateful to you. In his way.’ We began to walk together along the corridor.

  Jack gave a nod. ‘What it is, see, is that our mother’s family owned some land, in Galway. Her brother allowed it to slip from his grasp, and now we’ve got the chance to get it back. It’s not for me, but I have a daughter, a sweet girl, newly married. I’d like her to have the proceeds. And James there, he’s always been keen to see justice done. In his own way. Mind you,’ he added, as we reached the main entrance, ‘it’s not solved yet. We’re in dispute with the son of the former owners, who’s determined to keep it at all costs. And now he’s disappeared. Only the odd threatening letter to show us he’s still in the fight. Well …’ He turned to me. ‘It was nice to meet you. I’m glad there’s someone in James’s life who can make him feel …’ Again, his gaze went to his feet, to the golden stone of the old steps. ‘He’s not an easy man, as I’m sure you know. He don’t need the money neither. No …’ He offered me his hand. ‘It’s about righting a wrong, all this. That’s the only thing that matters to him.’ We shook hands, and then he turned and walked out into the quad towards the porter’s lodge. I watched him go, thinking that whether he knew it or not, my professor was lucky to have such a brother.

  That afternoon I went to find Roland in the common room for our customary cup of tea. The quad was peaceful, and I wondered about this trio that had somehow come to be here, this angry murderous man who had come here to find Eveline, only to risk his life with our quiet porter who seemed to want revenge. We were just pouring our tea when—

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ Dr McCrae ran to the window, as a terrible wail came from below.

  In the middle of the quad stood the figure of Dr Brennan, motionless in her long skirt, her blouse pure white against the clipped green grass, her brown hair pinned up on top of her head.

  Her hand was across her mouth, and she was making an extraordinary noise of pure distress.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she began to wail. ‘Poisoned.’

  Again we raced downstairs. She was standing, stock still, repeating the cry, the word, ‘Poisoned.’

  It was then that we saw him, Edmund Sweeney, lying on the steps by the porter’s lodge. He lay in an unnatural pose, his body twisted, his eyes wide open, his mouth a grimace of horror.

  ‘So trusting,’ she was saying. ‘A pint of stout down by the river. That’s all it took.’ She was shaking, crying, and Roland went to her and led her to a seat next to the lodge.

  ‘I was too late,’ she was murmuring. ‘I was too late.’

  Someone had called the police, and now they arrived too, and a doctor, all of them examining the body of Edmund Sweeney.

  ‘I was too late,’ Eveline said again, louder now. ‘The betrayal of Seamus O’Connor,’ she went on, ‘to pretend to make up with him, while slipping something into his drink … And after all I’d done to make sure that the man I loved was safe. I caught Seamus alone, off his guard, just behind the lodge here. One move, and he was down. And I thought, the man I love will live.’

  Her words hung in the air. The gathered crowd quietened, all eyes upon her.

  She was calm now, and looked up at us all with a strange, empty smile. ‘Oh, I have nothing to lose. A punch to the throat,’ she said. ‘A ju-jitsu move, it’s lethal if done well.’

  The crowd appeared to slow, to freeze. We stared at Dr Brennan, and she gazed back. ‘I killed Seamus to protect Edmund. But I was too late.’ Her words rang out in the silence.

  The police officer took a step towards her. ‘Madam … am I right in understanding what you say? That … you … that the porter here … ?’

  Again, the thin smile. ‘I had it all worked out. His enemy would be dead, he would be safe in Ireland, and I would take refuge in my calculations.’

  She raised her hands to the policeman, who, red-faced and clumsy, locked his handcuffs around her wrists and led her awkwardly away.

  We drifted back to the department in ones and twos, fragments of conversation along the corridor. ‘Always the worry with these Irish …’ ‘Never should have hired a woman …’

  That night I slept fitfully. I arrived in college next morning hoping to find some solace in parabolic differentials. Moriarty’s door was locked. As the morning went on, there was still no sign of him. The department was abuzz with gossip and police. The body had shown signs of arsenic poisoning, someone said. ‘A slow death,’ someone else replied. ‘Two days. Most unpleasant.’

  Later that day, Roland and I were together in my room when Jack Moriarty appeared at the door. He was out of breath and seemed upset. ‘No sign of him,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve got a spare key from the lodge.’

  Roland and I hurried with him to Professor Moriarty’s room.

  The room was bare. All books gone. Just the desk, two chairs, the empty shelves.

  On the desk lay the Greuze painting, and next to it the Göttingen papers. They were labelled: ‘For Mr Gifford’.

  We gazed around the empty space.

  ‘Gone,’ Jack said, at last.

  ‘How strange.’ It was Roland who spoke. ‘How odd to bail out like that. I know some of the chaps were a bit harsh on him. But I always liked him. You know, the other day, the day after poor Seamus was killed by our unreliable Dr Brennan, that other man was looking for her, skulking about downstairs, the police after him. And Professor Moriarty brought him in here, calmed him down, gave him a drink, sent him on his way. Didn’t give him away to the police at all.’ He pulled out his watch. ‘Well, students await. Toodle-pip.’ The door closed behind him.

  Jack was staring at the painting. ‘You know,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the image of the boy, ‘I heard this morning, our claim to the farm has been settled. The one descendant left who was opposing our claim was found dead, yesterday. In this college.’

  I touched the Göttingen papers, tracing my finger along the pages. ‘Kepler’s equation,’ I said. ‘Relating to the Two-Body problem.’

  Our thoughts seemed to whisper in the silence. ‘Mathematics,’ Jack said, after a moment. ‘It asks for nothing back.’ He surveyed the empty room. ‘It’s always like this. He comes, he goes. Sometimes here, sometimes there. I’ll tie up this Galway land now that poor Mr Sweeney is out of the way. My brother’s share will be paid into his bank account.’ He turned towards the door. ‘I’m sure I’ll see him again when he deems it necessary.’

  I picked up the painting under one arm, the papers under the other.

  In the corridor, we shook hands. ‘Well,’ Jack said, ‘I don’t suppose I’ll see you again.’ He sighed. ‘Back home, see. A place of safety. A warm fire. My wife at my side.’ He shook my hand again, and we parted.

  I walked out into the London afternoon. I thought about the two killings. Edmund Sweeney was the one man standing in the way of Moriarty’s inheritance. Seamus the porter had sworn to kill Edmund. And Moriarty, having made sure Seamus was installed in his porter’s lodge, then championed Eveline’s appointment. Knowing, all the while, that Edmund would find her, would follow her to the ends of the earth, thereby placing himself in the vicinity of Seamus – who wanted him dead.

  A simple calculation.

  But he hadn’t factored in one important thing: that Eveline loved Edmund so much that she would kill Seamus before Seamus could kill Edmund.

  He hadn’t prepared for the workings of the human heart.

  One thing I knew, from my father’s work: that arsenic would kill someone in half a day, not three. Whatever was making Edmund look so green on Wednesday, was probably nothing more than the cockles in the Old Red Lion.

  A
nd now, a year later, I am sitting in our little house in Greenwich. That autumn, Angela did me the honour of becoming my wife. We’re expecting our first child at the end of this year. Her father found me a rather good position as a clerk in a law firm, and it seemed only right that I should provide for my family. I catch myself thinking about Moriarty from time to time. The Greuze boy is on the wall of my study here. I look at his angelic blond curls and wonder if he, too, finds the glory of the heavens in the pure abstract truths of mathematics.

  As for my work on the orbits of celestial bodies – one of these days I shall write it up. I shall give Professor Moriarty an acknowledgement. And, who knows, perhaps one day he’ll read it. Wherever he is.

  Author’s note:

  The author would like to acknowledge Carl Murray, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary, for his scientific advice.

  A Good Mind’s Fate

  Alexandra Townsend

  It was a rare man who had the courage to ask Moriarty about his past. It was an even rarer man whom Moriarty would bother to answer. In his opinion, courageous men were most often fools. Not that it made them special. Almost everyone was a fool.

  But then there was the occasional moment when the wind blew southerly and the moon was exactly half full, in short when it struck his fancy, that the great Professor could be bothered to answer some questions.

  Molly was a charming girl. She was a child on the cusp of becoming a lady. She delivered occasional messages within his criminal network. She was good for work that required a face that would be underestimated. Moriarty liked to tutor her in advanced mathematics sometimes.

  “Professor,” she asked one day, as they haggled their way through cosigns and imaginary numbers, “why did you decide to become a criminal?”

  It was a bold question, but she asked it without accusation. It was a simple quest for information. Molly didn’t judge morals. She judged facts. Moriarty had hopes that he wouldn’t have to kill her one day. It might actually be a waste.

  That night the wind and moon and so forth must have been right. For once, Moriarty was pleased to tell the story. “Molly, have you ever read Crime and Punishment?” She shook her head. “Well, you should. Add it to your reading list. I expect you to finish it by next week.”

  “Yes, Professor,” she said with a hint of humor. He glared and she balked. “I mean, yes, sir. By next week.”

  “Good.” He watched to make certain she showed no further signs of insubordination, then continued. “It’s an involved story that goes on longer than it should and ends with a compulsory preachy moral. All the same, it quite captivated me as a lad. It’s about a man who commits murder simply to prove that he can, to prove that he is more important than all the morals in the world.”

  In his mind, that sentence was filled with qualifiers and footnotes, but he’d said what was necessary to get Molly’s attention. She waited, now seated notably closer to the edge of her chair. Good.

  “I believe I was about your age at the time. I was young. I hadn’t given much thought to the future, my career, or the nature of crime. That book opened my mind to many things.

  “It taught me that there are ranks of men in this world. And I don’t mean the ones you’re taught about: the rich and the poor, the brave and the cowardly, the saintly and the wicked. No. Those are the simple categories a world of children plays with. The only real distinctions worth noting are those very few who can master the rules of the invisible games of the world, and then rise above those rules themselves. Those, dear Molly, are the only men worthy of respect.”

  “And what about women, Professor?” Molly asked, with something dreadfully akin to hope in her eyes.

  “Women,” Moriarty said with a severe look, “are governed by the most insipid fluff of all, the scraps that the idiot men of the world leave them. Keep up with your maths, Molly, and perhaps you’ll be able to keep a brain under all that cotton the world will stuff in your skull. Now, no more interruptions.”

  Molly looked confused, but nodded solemnly.

  “It gave me such ideas, Crime and Punishment. It made me question every rule I’d ever heard. I already knew I was a genius, of course. It’s impossible to have an intellect like mine and not know it. And yet there I was, letting my magnificent brain be constrained by the laws and policies written to herd the masses into line. It was absurd! It was …”

  He shook his head. “My work truly began when I was fifteen. There was a book I wanted. An excellent edition of Euler’s De fractionibus continuis dissertatio. I wanted it, but didn’t have enough money for it on hand. All I had was my schoolmate Timothy and the knowledge that he liked to play games of poker with the other boys. Gambling was forbidden at our school. He might have been expelled. It didn’t take much to convince him to steal the book for me.”

  Moriarty grinned in that very way that chilled brave men to their bones. Memories could be so sweet. “But I think that is enough for tonight, dear Molly. Now, show me what you’ve learned.”

  A week later, they met again, a surprise but not an unpleasant one. The Professor had expected to be in Rome. Pressing matters in Dublin had come up instead. There was an art-smuggling operation that had suddenly spiraled out of control. Moriarty sorted it out within hours, but he was still irked it required his presence at all. Another maths lesson was a good way to soothe his ruffled mind.

  Molly’s progress was good. He could see she had a grasp of mathematics in a broader scope than most did. She understood the formulas and theories as more than arbitrary rules to be followed. Anything less would have been a waste of his time.

  “Do you speak Russian, sir?”

  He paused over a note he was about to make. “I speak twenty-three different languages, child. But yes, Russian is among them. Why?”

  “How long have you spoken it?” she asked with an odd insistence. “When did you learn it?”

  Moriarty frowned with impatience. “Nearly fifteen years ago. Now stop trying to be mysterious. You aren’t clever enough for that.”

  For once Molly didn’t seem stung by the strike against her intelligence. “I read Crime and Punishment like you asked me to, sir. As far as I can calculate, it wasn’t published when you were a boy. Unless you’re much younger than you look.” She glanced at him nervously, but he allowed her to continue. “And it was only translated into English a few years ago.” A pause. “Why did you lie to me?”

  Again, he appreciated the lack of hurt in her voice. It acknowledged where they both were in the pecking order. He had the right to lie to her at any time about anything and they both knew it. Whether he answered her now was merely a matter of courtesy.

  “There was a time when I saw crime as a sort of charity, you know,” he said. He leaned back in his chair with a small smile on his lips. “I was more religious then. I had a sense of my actions bearing importance in a larger cosmic game. To my mind, both nobles and stable boys deserved the chance to climb up in the world. But the laws of men are imperfect and so often hold that poor stable boy back. The only option was to break those laws.”

  Molly watched him steadily. “You became a criminal to fight against class discrimination?”

  “Of course. I had to do what was right.” He looked away. “I was so naïve in those days. Sometimes I wish I could be that hopeful about the world again.” He sighed painfully and went back to correcting her worksheet. It seemed logarithms were still giving her trouble. He got three problems in before she spoke.

  “I think you’re lying to me again, Professor.”

  “Good. Then you have an eye for details and you can recognize a pattern. Keep it up and I’ll train you to spot forged artwork.”

  She nodded. It seemed like a fair trade. She also thought she sensed another challenge in his words. “Were you ever really a professor, sir?”

  Moriarty snorted. “I taught for several years at Durham. That much is public knowledge. Learn to do a little research.”

  “But that assumes that M
oriarty is your real name.” She spoke reasonably, with only the slightest shiver. No one said the Professor’s name lightly. “If it were me, I wouldn’t go by my real name.”

  “Not all of us get the choice, poppet.” He tweaked her nose. A little harder than necessary. He was losing patience. “Now get back to work. I refuse to discuss any more with an idiot whose proofs are this sloppy.”

  They worked strictly on her maths for the next three hours. Moriarty’s drive was so fierce, he may as well have had a whip in his hand. It was hardly the best learning environment, but it relaxed his enormous mind just a bit. There was always a comfort that came with the simple logic of numbers and the satisfaction of frightening those around you.

  Molly didn’t see Professor Moriarty again for months afterwards. She ran the occasional message for members of the gang. From the snatches she overheard, she knew the Professor was busy. Very busy. With every message, the men who gave and received them looked more and more worried. Business was becoming difficult. The Professor was not pleased.

  There wasn’t much more to gather from the gang members. They knew the penalty for not guarding secrets. Still, the air grew quiet and tense around them. Slowly, Molly’s work dwindled until there were no messages to run at all, at least none that she was trusted with.

  In the meantime, Molly focused on her reading and did a lot of thinking. Was the Professor really who he claimed to be? True, there was a record of a Professor James Moriarty at Durham University. The dates even lined up with the Professor’s apparent age. But that could be a ruse. There was nothing the Professor wasn’t capable of.

  In the end, she decided to dismiss any conspiracy theories. The man obviously enjoyed teaching. The background of the publicly known James Moriarty was probably close enough, if not the Professor’s exact identity. Besides, the question was obviously a distraction from her real enquiry, the one the Professor had challenged her to answer for herself. Why was he a criminal?

  Molly pushed herself to understand books on criminal theory and dismissed every obvious answer that came her way. Crimes were committed for money and power or out of passion? They echoed an inherently sinister aspect of the criminal’s bloodline or mind? It was all nonsense. Maybe a common criminal was simply evil by nature, but the Professor was not common in any respect.