The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 5

  So Moriarty did not enter the shop, despite the appeal of the items in the window display. Instead, he stood for a few minutes, carefully looking at the titles and authors of the books on show beyond the glass of the windows. He noted the presence of new novels by Dickens and Hawthorne, and of the older, taller boy who had been following him since Hyde Park.

  And then he set off walking once again.

  Moriarty varied his pace now, and stopped often, ostensibly to look in shop windows, and it was clear the boy was indeed following him. A game, perhaps, or some more sinister intent, but he did not feel he had time spare to consider the matter, as he must be back at the school before he was missed.

  He had vaguely decided to make his way to the Bank of England and spend some time outside the building. There, should anyone ask, he would say he was admiring the architecture, but in fact he would be considering the Walbrook River which ran beneath the area, and how its route, if accessed, might allow one to enter the Bank from beneath. This was a thought experiment, of course. Nothing more.

  But now his attention was diverted by the older boy, who walked when he walked, stopped when he stopped, and held his distance no matter the direction Moriarty turned, as if in orbit around him. Time was now becoming the crucial consideration, and Moriarty wasted a full minute standing before an art dealer’s premises just off Haymarket, not even noticing that the picture he was staring at was called Le Petit Mathématicien because he was preoccupied using the glass of the window to observe behind him.

  And the older boy was still there; he had produced a cap from a pocket somewhere about his person, and turned his collar up as if to protect him from the wind, but this was no disguise, and he was clearly following Moriarty. If this was some sort of game, the boy seemed intent on pursuing it. Moriarty had, however, played enough games to know that you stood a stronger chance of victory if you knew the rules. Or if you created them.

  He nodded slightly to himself, then set off walking again, expecting the boy to follow; this expectation was met.

  Moriarty walked at a casual pace until he reached a corner and knew he was out of sight, and then he broke into a half-run for a short distance, increasing the distance between them. As he passed through the crowds in Trafalgar Square, he paused near the base of Nelson’s Column, apparently looking at the two bronze reliefs at its base, and, yes, the older boy was still there.

  He moved on, down towards Whitehall. Once more, other people seemed instinctively to clear a path for him, which gave him an advantage over his follower, and Moriarty was soon on Whitehall, just across from the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police.

  He ducked into the doorway of a nearby building, and waited.

  As he’d calculated, less than thirty seconds later, the older boy came along, frowning at the apparent disappearance of his quarry. He stopped and looked across the road, but when he saw Moriarty was not there either, he took off his cap and rubbed his head, as if to summon an explanation of the situation. He was staring at the police building when the voice came from the doorway behind him.

  “If you’re going to keep following me,” Moriarty said, “maybe I should speak to the police about it. What do you think?”

  The older boy turned round, looking both surprised and annoyed. As he struggled to form his response, Moriarty realised that the boy was tall, but not as old as he first appeared; he carried himself with an adult’s bearing, but his bright eyes suggested that childhood was not so far behind him.

  “Don’t – look, no need for that,” the older boy said. “I was looking for someone to … someone to help me with something. There could be money in it.”

  “You want me to help you?” Moriarty narrowed his eyes. This sounded unlikely, but he was willing to play along, and the other boy seemed sufficiently off guard that he’d struggle to formulate a lie. “Help with what?”

  The older boy glanced over his shoulder at the police building, and then looked back at Moriarty, weighing up how he should answer the question.

  In that instant, Moriarty deduced that the boy was telling the truth about having an enterprise in mind, and it was clearly one that, at the very least, pressed hard against the limits of activities permitted by the law.

  “There’s a card game,” the boy said. “I’m part of it, but I need someone else to—”

  “I don’t have money,” Moriarty cut in, “if that’s what you—”

  “No, no,” the boy said firmly. “I have money, but I need someone else to be there, to help me, er …”

  “To help you gain an advantage?”

  “Something like that, yes,” the boy replied, looking serious. “Well?”

  “I …” Moriarty paused. He had his own vague plans for the day, but was intrigued to see what the boy was talking about. It would, after all, give him first-hand experience of the world of gambling; and the money was an additional inducement.

  He reached his decision, his gaze flicking across the road to the police building.

  “What’s the game – and where is it?” All other considerations aside, Moriarty had to return to school before his absence was noticed.

  “The game’s called Twenty-One,” the boy said, with a hint of a smile. “The Yanks are starting to call it Blackjack, I think. The aim is to—”

  “To make twenty-one,” Moriarty said. “Or as close as possible to it. Yes, I’ve heard of it.” He’d read of it in Cervantes, where it was known as ventiuna.

  “Good, good,” said the boy, and he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well then, you’ll see how a player would have an advantage if someone was giving him clues as to the cards the other players were holding.”

  “Yes,” Moriarty said, nodding. More than an advantage; it would make victory almost certain.

  “So I need someone in the room with me.”

  “And where is this game?” Moriarty asked again.

  “Clerkenwell – do you know it?”

  “Only slightly,” Moriarty said. “Which part?”

  “The part with the building work.” The boy grinned. “Farringdon Street. You know it?”

  “As I say, only slightly,” Moriarty replied, nodding. Farringdon Street was being created as they constructed tunnels to cover and divert the River Fleet, one of the city’s largest waterways. It seemed he might yet follow his intentions for the day, to an extent. “I’ve heard about it. What would I have to do?”

  “Look, if you’re in, we can talk on the way there. Come on, we need to make our way east.” He put his cap back on his head, and looked at Moriarty expectantly.

  “You mentioned money,” Moriarty said, not moving.

  “I did,” the older boy said with a sigh. “I’ll share my winnings with you. A quarter for you, three-quarters for me.”

  Moriarty hesitated for a moment and, taking this as a sign of reluctance, the boy rolled his eyes and tutted.

  “Oh, very well – a third for you,” he said. “Is that good enough?”

  “That will do,” Moriarty said, aware that his receiving anything was likely to be dependent on the success of the other boy’s plan, whatever it might be.

  The two of them started walking towards the Strand.

  “If we’re to be partners in this,” Moriarty said, “will you at least tell me your name?”

  “Of course,” the boy said. “My name’s Martin, but they call me Smiler. What’s your name, then?”

  “Moriarty. They call me—”

  He hesitated. After his arrival at the school, the boys had taken less than a week to find a nickname for him, and it was the obvious one given his high forehead and solemn way of talking, but he had no intention of encouraging Martin to call him Professor.

  “—they call me Moriarty,” he said firmly, and Martin smiled.

  “Is that a Paddy name?” Martin asked, after a moment’s thought. “Did your family come over here because of the famine?”

  “So, this game,” Moriarty said, allowing a hint of exasperation to his tone. �
��If you want me to help you, we should discuss how to do it. My family is of no importance.”

  “Blimey, don’t get all worked up,” Martin said, clearly amused by this reaction. “So, about the game. I heard about it from a builder friend of mine who lives in Norwood. The men who are working on building the Farringdon Road often stop early and play Twenty-One, and they’re playing today. You need a good sum to buy into the game, but that means the winner can take home a good amount, too.”

  “What kind of amounts do you mean?” Moriarty asked, glancing at the building they were just passing: Coutts Bank, known for the large sums it handled for its illustrious clients.

  “Not those sorts of amounts,” Martin said, having followed Moriarty’s gaze, “but the builders are being paid well, and so the smallest wager a player can make is a florin.”

  “A florin?” Moriarty said in surprise, and Martin looked round to see if anyone had overheard him.

  “Keep it quiet, will you?” Martin snapped. “Perhaps approaching you was a mistake.”

  “No,” Moriarty said firmly. “No mistake. But that amount, it … do you have enough for more than one round of the game?”

  Martin nodded, and Moriarty thought for a moment. A florin was not a small amount and, having only been introduced in recent times, the coin had a certain exotic novelty about it. If Martin was telling the truth, then there was much more to this enterprise – and indeed more to Martin himself – than one might initially have imagined.

  “Where did you get the money?” he whispered, and Martin smiled slightly and shook his head. “Did you—”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Martin said.

  Moriarty deduced that this meant the money was not his, and Martin was the operative for some unseen person or persons, away from the scene of the crime and therefore apparently uninvolved if it failed or attracted police attention. This idea intrigued him, that a person might engineer events and yet be invisible.

  They neared the end of the Strand, and passed a theatre called Punch’s Playhouse and Marionette Theatre; Moriarty recalled that the unseen men who manipulated the puppets whilst remaining hidden during a Punch and Judy Show were known as “professors”.

  “And what do I have to do?” Moriarty asked. “I doubt I shall be playing Twenty-One with your money.”

  “You’re right,” Martin said, nodding. “No, the game is held in an empty house near the building works at Farringdon, and we need someone to keep watch for the local bobbies.”

  “I see,” Moriarty said. He nodded, but his tone betrayed him.

  “You seem disappointed,” Martin said. “Or is it that you don’t understand me? When I say ‘bobbies’, I mean police. What is it you call them in Ireland? Peelers, is it?”

  “I understand you perfectly well,” Moriarty said coldly, “but I expected you would need more from me – is this why you followed me halfway across London, and now would have me walk the other half? To be a watchman for a card game?”

  “Let me finish,” Martin said, and his smile took on a sneering look. “You’re to be the watchman, yes, to make sure that no one interrupts the game, but standing at the window of the room, watching the street outside, you will also be able to see the cards of the other players, and to signal me about their hands. So, I can—”

  “Will I be able to see all the other players’ cards?” Moriarty asked.

  Martin looked surprised. “There will be four players,” Martin said slowly, “and I shall sit facing the window. From your position, you should be able to see at least two of the other hands, and you can signal to me—”

  “And the other player? If he has a good hand, which I cannot see?”

  Martin said nothing to this, and they walked in silence through Temple Bar, the gate-like structure at the point where the Strand joined Fleet Street. They were close to other pedestrians, but Moriarty knew this was not why Martin had suddenly grown so silent.

  Beneath their feet, the River Fleet flowed, and only one person above it on the street that bore its name gave it any thought.

  “You have a better suggestion then?” Martin said eventually.

  “Yes,” Moriarty replied, “in fact, I do. Have you heard of card counting?”

  “What?” Martin said, frowning. “Are you telling me you can—”

  “Yes, I can,” Moriarty said. “Mathematics is my strongest subject. After a handful of rounds of Twenty-One, I will know which cards are yet to be played, and can give you an indication whether you should ‘hit’ for another card, or … is it ‘stick’? Is that the word?”

  “Yes,” Martin said, sounding doubtful. “Are you certain you could keep count in that way?”

  “I have done it before,” Moriarty said, and this was true: whilst watching others playing cards, he had little difficulty in calculating what the next card dealt or revealed would prove to be. “I would merely need to cough, or make some other agreed signal, to indicate whether you should take a card. And I would have no need of seeing the other players’ hands, just your cards.”

  “So I would sit with my back to the window, and you would look at my hand?”

  “Precisely.”

  They walked down Fleet Street, closing in on Farringdon, and Martin was quiet, thinking about this proposal. He knew of card counting, but had never been able to do it. And the younger boy’s notion did remove the element of doubt about visibility of the other hands …

  “We could try your suggestion,” Martin said, and in that moment Moriarty felt the balance between them shifting, as if a moon had suddenly become the focus for the rotation of a planet, or there had been a reversal in an asteroid’s dynamics. “It might work.”

  Moriarty nodded, as if he was ambivalent to the approval of his proposal, despite the sensation he had of how easily one could go from being followed to leading, from puppet to professor; all one needed, it seemed, was knowledge of a particular sort, applied at the appropriate point.

  “We’re nearly there,” Martin said, and they turned north off Fleet Street. Ahead of them Moriarty could see the signs of the digging and building works that were underway. “What signals should we use then?”

  “A cough for hit,” Moriarty said, “and a sniff for stick? How does that sound to you?”

  “Cough for a card, sniff for stick,” Martin said, nodding. “Yes, that sounds reasonable.”

  They walked on, and soon started stepping round holes in the paving and road surface. In several places, there were holes big enough for a grown man to enter, carelessly covered with pieces of wood or other items. As they walked past these larger holes, Moriarty could hear the sound of water running, the river, and this reinforced that there were forces at play beneath the everyday world.

  “Before we go in,” Moriarty said to Martin, “tell me, why me?”

  Martin frowned at him, not understanding.

  “Why did you pick me? Out of all those in Hyde Park today, why did you think I was most suitable for this – and likely to agree to it?”

  Martin laughed, but it was a sound lacking in warmth or mirth.

  “I saw you in Hyde Park,” Martin explained, “standing there, without family or friends. And I saw the way you looked at the people passing by – you were frowning, almost sneering, as if watching them from a distance, even when they were close by. You looked at them as if they were—” Martin shrugged “—animals in a zoo. I knew then that you were more like me than the others in the park. I guessed at your age, too, and thought that the money might appeal.”

  Martin looked at Moriarty, and the sly smile on his face suggested he thought Moriarty might be disappointed by this explanation, that he might have preferred to have been told that he looked more intelligent, or even more devious, than the others in the park. But Moriarty merely nodded, his expression unreadable.

  “This is the house,” Martin said, pointing to a large and dilapidated house. In truth, it was more absence than building: the top floor was lost beneath a collapsed roof and the str
ucture had caved in, though in the mess and disruption of the surrounding street the missing three-quarters of this house was unremarkable.

  The front door, its wood burned in places and scratched in others, looked as if it would prove impossible to open, but Martin stepped to the door and pushed it inwards with ease.

  Martin gestured inside, and Moriarty hesitated.

  “Oh, very well,” Martin said with a smile. He tugged his cap from his head and tucked it into one of the pockets of his coat – pockets that, Moriarty noted, seemed to go down a long way – and stepped over the threshold into the hallway.

  Inside the house, there was a strong smell of damp plaster, and from the walls came the sound of mice, or possibly rats. Martin took a few steps down the darkened hallway, then pushed a door, and the two of them stepped into the room beyond, their footfalls noisy on the wooden floor.

  The flickering of a number of candles revealed that the room had long since ceased to be a parlour, and was now devoid of furniture save for the small table and four chairs that sat at its centre. Three men stood in the room, and it seemed to Moriarty as if they represented a series of stages in an advertisement for a combined facial hair tonic and weight-loss patent medicine; the first man was clean-shaven and fat, the second man had a moustache and was stocky of build, and the third man was bearded and thin. They were all talking in low voices when Martin and Moriarty entered.

  “Ah, the younger generation!” the bearded man said, and laughed. “Welcome.”

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Martin said. “Apologies if I have kept you waiting.”

  “No apology is needed,” said the clean-shaven man, in a voice that was higher-pitched than Moriarty expected. “Who do you have with you this week?”

  “This young man was recommended to me by an acquaintance,” Martin lied smoothly. “I did not ask his name, nor did he offer it. I told him of our game, and of our need for a watchman, and he agreed to assist.”

  “He has no … shall we say, qualms about gambling?” the bearded man asked.

  “None,” Martin said. “I promised him a small fee for his time, and—”