Moriarty (28 page)

But tonight Fanny was, not unnaturally, deeply concerned. “Does Mr. Spear worry you?” she asked now, as Pip leaned forward to give the fire a poke and pat Snapper as the dog made himself more comfortable, curling and settling himself on the mat to doze.

After a moment's pause for reflection, he said, “The Professor worries me far more than Bert Spear.” He straightened up and reached over to clasp her hand. “Life has been… what's the word I'm searching for, Dove?” It was his favourite word for her, Dove.

“Peaceful? Tranquil? Idyllic …?”

“All three of them and more besides.”

“And now it is over, Pip. That's what you want to say, is it not?”

“I don't
want
to say it, my Dove, but it is what must be said.”

“We are just going to walk out on Sir John and Lady Pam?”

“What option have we? I think we must go, and the sooner the better. To France, maybe. I hear there's a community of English gentlefolk there in the south at a place called Mentone, got their own church, like an English village church and everything. We'd be bound to get places there with some family, and the weather is clement.”

Fanny nodded, not even attempting to hide the tears starting in her eyes.

“Look, Fan,” he said quickly. “We talked about this some time ago. When we first came here. We knew it would not last.”

“Could not last,” she said. “But now it has …”

Snapper, the dog, was suddenly alert, rising up and growling, pointing toward the kitchen door, his right paw raised in expectation. Anyone could walk in through the back door, be in the kitchen in a trice; folk around here had no reason to lock their doors.

Pip got to his feet, standing, silent, moving behind his chair. Fanny, who had been seeing to some mending, dropped it into her lap and looked around, noting that one of the shotguns was in its usual place in the corner. Then her hands flew to her face as both sections of the
kitchen door swung back and, as though by some theatrical illusion, James Moriarty stepped into the room, his presence almost electrifying, certainly commanding; he was carrying his silver-topped cane and wearing his half-tall top hat, the long, bulky black greatcoat with its handsome fur collar, and a white silk scarf around his neck, stylishly tucked inside the coat.

“Sit down, Pip. I have not come to kill you.” A little bow. “And good evening to you, Fanny.” He began to remove his soft, hand-stitched leather gloves.

Snapper's growl became louder, the dog crouching, baring his teeth, ready to spring. Moriarty gave a low-pitched whistle, a hissing sound, one arm moving, a finger pointing. The dog gave a little yelp and trotted over to sit in the corner to which the finger had been pointing. The Professor's uncanny mesmeristic skill spread to the control of animals, legendary among those close to him. “Are you going to invite me in, Pip? Fanny?” he asked, calm and not unfriendly.

Paget's eyes flitted toward the door.

“Do not even consider it,” the Professor cautioned, his face like stone, the eyes still and heartless. “I have Daniel Carbonardo at the front. You recall Danny the Tweezers, Pip?”

Paget remembered Carbonardo as a confident who lived apart from Moriarty's family. He remembered him as a short man, splendidly fit, always glowing with good health; a man with sallow good looks, adored by women. What he remembered most were the screams.

“Come, let us sit together.” Moriarty took Paget's vacated chair and Fanny slowly got to her feet, indicating her chair to her husband, who sat in it, with Fanny sinking and finally squatting on the floor at his feet.

“So, here we are.” Moriarty smiled at them, like a father happy to embrace his family; he ran his right thumbnail down his cheek, from just under the eye to the jawline.

“Let us get right to the heart of matters. Albert Spear has been to see you today. What had he to say for himself?” He raised a hand as though to stop them speaking immediately. “I should tell you that I bade good Spear not to let you see him. Not to show himself to you. Yet it is obvious he did.”

“He couldn't help himself, Professor. He is more used to city ways. I had him here, over a barrel as they say. Well, over two barrels—the shotgun, that is.” He tried a cheeky smile, and Moriarty nodded, showing that he understood.

“I have good friends here,” Paget continued, “and was warned so that I got to him, rather than him getting to me.”

Moriarty gave a grim smile and a nod. “I can understand that. You were always exceptionally good at your work, Pip. When you disappeared after your wedding it was like someone vanishing and leaving no trace. It took several months for me even to get a whiff of you, and then only because Sir John Grant is a good and valued friend. Now, both of you. Do you admit to your sin of disappearing from my employment? Do you admit to the manifold sins and wickedness which you have committed most grievously by thought, word, and deed?”

“It was my fault, sir. I take the full blame. Never was it Fanny here.”

“So.” He appeared to be weighing up the situation. “You put me at risk, Pip Paget, and you have both provoked my wrath and indignation. Can you show any sorrow for what you have done? Can you repent?”

Fanny gave a little sob, and Pip looked at her, saw the tears, and felt a little indignation of his own. “I repent. Sincerely,” Fanny said, her eyes downcast.

“And you, Pip Paget. Is there any reason for me not to set Daniel on to you?”

“I betrayed you, Professor. I knew what I was doing and I have dreaded this moment of meeting you again. Coming face to face with you. I know you have extreme ways of punishing those who are disloyal.”

“Can you show any repentance, sorrow for what you have done?”

A whole album of pictures ran through Paget's mind: the times he knew of when Moriarty had ordered the deaths of those who had crossed him. In the back of his head he heard words from the past, in the Professor's quiet voice: “You have played the crooked cross with me, so be it.” Names floated through his head, people he had known who could still be alive today had it not been for them crossing Moriarty.

“Of course I'm sorry, sir. Anyone would be sorry to offend you as I have. God knows I've been looking over my shoulder ever since.”

“So you can promise me repentance?”

“Sorrow, sir. Yes.”

“And to go back, what did Albert Spear have to say to you?”

“He told me that you were looking for me, and that he had found me, and that was not hard. He would have to tell you where I was.”

“He give you any advice?”

Paget shook his head. There was no point dropping Spear into the sewers that wait for all men to drown in.

“So, when you looked over your shoulder for all those years, Pip, what did you eventually expect to see?”

Paget did not know if he could explain it; he wondered if he had the words to draw the nightmares that sometimes disturbed him, even when he was not asleep. “I expected some terrible creature, sir. Some fanged hound coming at me out of the night, its teeth dripping and its eyes on fire wanting vengeance.”

“So, I am reduced to a hound? A dog? Some mythical beast?”

“No, sir. I was bound to you by oath.
Am
bound to you. I would expect you to look for a terrible revenge because I broke that oath.”

Moriarty nodded as if in agreement.

“Well.” He turned to Fanny, smiled at her, then looked at Paget. “Whatever happens between us, Pip, I trust Fanny will return and work for me. I have so missed her cooking, and besides, in my London house I am having my kitchen rebuilt especially for her.”

Fanny's head was raised, slightly cocked to one side, arrogance guttering in her eyes. “You did so many good things for me, sir. You stood by me and paid off that black-hearted butler who tried to take advantage of me and then had me thrown out of my place.
*
You were good to me and Pip, helped us with our marriage …”

“I was like a father to you both, Fanny, and I wouldn't have you forget it.” Moriarty's voice was rising, cracking stern now.

“If you do something terrible to my love, Pip Paget, I'll never come near your house again, Professor,” she said with huge affirmation. “You do away with Pip and you must do away with me also.”

A good, spunky girl
, Moriarty thought.
The kind of girl I need by my side
. He hoped against all hopes that Sal Hodges would bear witness in the same way should Idle Jack wish her to come under his employ.

Aloud he gave a little nervous laugh. “Pip, you would surely expect some kind of penance, some way to expiate the huge and mortal sin of your betrayal?”

“Of course, sir. I would do anything to make it right. I am heartsore and sorry.”

“Then maybe there is one way.” James Moriarty looked him down. The eyes that had the power to drug a man bored into Paget's brain, making him want to telescope into himself and so disappear.

“One of my Praetorian Guard is, even now as we speak, betraying me. I know one way of catching out this man, but I would rather find him fair, run him down by stealth within my family.” He took a long and deep draught of air. “Philip Paget, I want you to come back and take your place, your old place, in my Guard; and from there I will charge you to winkle out the traitor in our midst. If you do that, then I shall pronounce complete forgiveness and raise you to the highest position within the family. If you don't or can't do it, then I'll see you crushed, and your wife with you.”

Paget and Fanny exchanged a look, both knowing that once more they had little option. To survive, Pip had to take on the task. Quietly he said, “I shall do it, to the best of my ability, Professor,” and, without even thinking about it, he took Moriarty's right hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed the signet ring on his finger: a sign that, once again, he was owning to the Professor as his master, his liege lord, the one he would obey and defend through thick and thin.

Following her husband's example, Fanny curtseyed and kissed the Professor's ring, knowing deep within herself that this would be their last chance, that Moriarty was being uncharacteristically merciful, and that if matters went wrong again, Professor James Moriarty would leave no stone unturned to see them both crushed, obliterated from both this life and the next. She had heard it from Pip, who often told her, “He'll have us killed and after that he will extract the worst possible vengeance on us. He will have our bodies burned so that all hope of the Blessed Resurrection will be gone for us.”

Followers of the One True, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church believed that to burn the physical body made it impossible—except for those martyrs miraculously saved—to be raised from the dead and made one with Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Day of Judgement. The expunging of the flesh and excommunication from Holy Church were the two most terrible punishments that could be meted out on a Christian man or woman. Moriarty was careful; most of his key followers had been Roman Catholics, or at least held the Catholic beliefs.

Pip Paget, one such, put on a contented look, his face suffused with goodwill. Inside, he felt nothing but dread, because he knew Moriarty, probably better than most men. The promises made by the Professor were so out of character with the man he knew that it was impossible for him to believe in the olive branch Moriarty had offered them.

The Professor believes I have the skill and cunning to entrap whoever is betraying him within his Praetorian Guard
, he reasoned.
Once I have done his bidding he will dispose of me with as much emotion as he would show in swatting a fly away from his food. I am a means to an end: no more, no less. I have shown a certain weakness, a lack of complete trust, so Moriarty will never have faith in either me or my Dove, Fanny, ever again. The trick will be to outfence him and get us away from his circle of dominance before the axe falls
.

Moriarty clasped both of them in a tight embrace, then told them that there was much work to be done. “You will have to be at this address,” he said, handing Pip Paget a discreet business card that omitted his name but showed the address. “I would suggest you arrive at the back door before eight in the morning—”

“Tomorrow?” Fanny cried. “That soon?” Then again, “Tomorrow?”

“That is entirely your choice.” Moriarty did not even look at her. “We have a meeting of the Guard at eight in the morning. I would like
you there. Go to the back door, Terremant will let you in, and Fanny, you can start in the kitchen. I shall leave money. I am known locally as Mr. P. That is the only name by which I am known. I trust you will come, and I look forward to seeing you. Good night.”

He left behind him a kind of emptiness, as if his bulk, his quiddity, had removed air from the house. For one split second Pip Paget thought that he caught the man's essence, a trace of French cologne, the quick burn of cognac in his throat, and an eerie sense that he could feel the white silk scarf running through his fingers. His voice also seemed to linger.
“I trust you will come.”

I
DLE
J
ACK HAD BEEN
out with Broad Darryl Wood. Using a trusted cabbie, they had done the rounds of his best places—the knocking houses, drinking dens, bucket shops, and nightclubs where his word held sway. He was a little perturbed, because it was obvious that a slight trickle of men and women had begun to return to Moriarty's camp, though it had not yet become a haemorrhage.

Now, Jack thought hard and long about the situation. He had, some time ago, put out a plea to other leaders of criminal factions in Europe for a meeting in London proposing an alliance, just as Moriarty had done some years before. As yet none of them had responded.

One thing was plain to him. It was necessary to crush Moriarty and so loosen the hold the Professor had on a large section of the criminal underworld.