The Revenge of Moriarty (18 page)

‘You take me up Cornhill and drop me on the right hand side. I'll show you where. Then you take her up to Helen's as fast as you can.'

‘Jump up then guv'nor.'

Four minutes later Ember was tapping on the shop door opposite Freeland & Son.

‘Best get hold of Blind Fred,' grunted Ben Tuffnell to young Saxby after much shaking of his head.

‘Where?' asked the lad. He was feeling cold and not a little tired. He was also hungry. Too much liquor and not enough solids while waiting in the Chapel for the Nob.

‘This time in the morning he'll be up near the Angel. I'd go myself, but …' Tuffnell left the rest unsaid. It was not an excuse. His duty was to stay on watch at the German's house.

Saxby took an hour to find Blind Fred who was playing penny Nap in a sluicery which was no more than a cellar. The lad drew him to one side and whispered the urgency into his grubby, waxy ear. Fred looked uneasy once the message got fully home.

‘Ben Tuffnell said I was to tell you,' Saxby made it sound apologetic. ‘He said you'd know what to do.'

‘Have to go to the fountainhead,' muttered Blind Fred. ‘Nothing else for it. Have to go to Bert Jacobs. Can't get Ember so he'll have to do. The girl's sleeping,' he bobbed his head towards the corner of the damp little cellar where a bundle of rags appeared to have been dumped in an unceremonious pile – Blind Fred's young daughter who guided him around the streets giving credence to his blind lie. ‘You'll have to take me over to Notting Hill, lad.'

Saxby sighed, shivered and resigned himself to the chore of carting Blind Fred to wherever he wanted to go. Within five minutes they were out on the street again.

Ember blurted out the tale to Spear whose unease became more apparent by the second.

‘What in tarnation's happened to the Nob? I'll rot the shirkster's bones if this is his making.'

‘I have to get back before they catch my wind,' Ember was starting to sound plaintive. ‘And I want that copper out of the way.'

‘Never fear about the blue boy, we'll put him to sleep. I'm worried that you'll get clean away with the sparkling glass: and we'll not lay hands or eyes on any of you.'

Terremant was at Spear's side. ‘We'll have to catch them in Edmonton, that's all,' he growled.

Spear nodded. ‘Betteridge, get yourself in a blue suit, you'll be going on the beat, and pray that the copper's sergeant don't fancy an early morning stroll.' Then, to Ember, ‘You get back to your job.'

As Ember closed the door behind him, he saw Betteridge climbing into one of the small pile of police uniforms that had been set ready for the following night.

Spear watched the grubby little villain scamper across the road and disappear into Bishopsgate. He felt in his pocket, curling his fingers around the eel-skin – the short canvas sausage stuffed with sand, which he had taken to carrying. He exchanged a few brief words with Terremant, and grinned at Betteridge, who was now complete in his uniform with the broad-brimmed, combed helmet square on his head. Then he gave a come-on nod to Terremant and left the shop.

‘Oh, constable, don't arrest me, I've a lakin and six nippers to support,' smiled Terremant as he followed Spear through the door.

Betteridge, unhappy in his disguise, waited, watching events from inside the doorway.

Spear and Terremant jog-trotted down to the narrow St Peter's Alley and waited out of sight, their eyes not leaving the corner of Bishopsgate. Within five minutes the police constable appeared and had hardly got around the corner when Terremant set off running towards him, shouting and waving, his voice shrill.

‘Murder,' he yelled, ‘Bloody murder, help.'

The constable, deflected from his normal round, began to run towards Terremant, and as the two met, the big punisher let fly a babble of information – ‘Over there … there … in the alley … it's a woman … Oh my God it's horrible … murder …' And with these cries he almost pushed the hapless policeman into St Peter's Alley and into the arms of the waiting Spear.

Terremant knocked his helmet off and spun him around while Spear delivered the blow with his eel-skin, hard to the base of the skull. The copper folded up like a concertina, only uttering a short grunt as the wind went out of him.

Terremant doubled back to the shop, tipping the wink to Betteridge, who slid out into the street and began to pace the swooning constable's beat.

Back in St Peter's Alley, they dragged the copper up to the church railings, pulled his greatcoat down to his elbows, took off his boots and strapped his belt around his knees. Then, lifting him back, they pushed his wrists through the railings. Spear went into the churchyard as Terremant unlaced one of the boots. Using the laces. Spear secured the wrists. They then gagged him with his own socks.

‘First time a copper tasted his own feet,' laughed Spear.

They returned to the alley entrance to stand guard, well acquainted with the dangers of this deception, particularly as Betteridge would have to pass uncomfortably close to the police station in Bishopsgate. The quicker Ember got on with matters the better. Once they were safe the uniforms would have to be got out of the shop and over to some other secure spot. Like as not to Bermondsey. In any case, they would have to be used smartly, and in daylight – a prospect which concerned Spear, for there was a great difference between carrying out a deception and nabbing a gang under cover of darkness, and doing the same thing in the full light of day. Particularly as it would mean a frontal charge on the house in Edmonton.

In the meantime, Betteridge walked the streets as a constable, Ember worked on the safe, and Spear together with Terremant, awaited results.

As soon as he got back into the cellar, Ember took the two Germans, Peter and Claus, up through the access hole into the shop. Evans returned to the look-out, and Franz stayed by the door.

They worked in strict rote, each of them exerting as much pressure on the jack's lever as was possible, then handing over to the next man. Within ten minutes the upper hinge was responding, starting to move and come away. Then Franz gave a low call, denoting that the beat man was again about to pace by. A minute later, the huge German's head appeared in the hole.

‘Evans says he's working the other side of the road,' he called.

‘Change is as good as a rest, so they say,' grinned Ember, thinking that Betteridge was using his loaf.

The upper hinge cracked some five minutes later. Claus was working the key when it happened, quite suddenly and with some noise, for it took the dirty unkempt rogue by surprise, causing him to fall forward, dislodging the lever key which rolled back to the wall and into the cellar with a clanging echo.

Franz retrieved it, and they began work on the lower hinge, setting the jack into the crack just below the hinge itself. For half an hour it did not budge, and in that time they only stopped work once at Franz's command to Evans' signal.

In the few minutes which passed while they waited to carry on, Ember died a thousand deaths, his mind swarming with the worst possibilities – Betteridge discovered something going wrong at Spear's end of the business. He could smell himself as he crouched near the wall – not his usual unwashed aroma, but the stench of fear rising from his pores and bowels, hating himself for this tangible evidence of cowardice. Then the moment was past, and they were back at the safe, working the jack until their muscles ached at full stretch and the breath became short with exertion.

Outside, the day was beginning to sneak its way through the overcast, the first traces of light above the rooftops. In the streets life was starting up, carts and vans beginning to roll and early workers stirring and moving on the pavements. In the houses, lights blinked windows into being.

It was almost twenty minutes to six when the bottom hinge tore away.

Over by St Peter's Church, the policeman groaned and moved. Spear, at the top of the alley, whispered to Terremant that they could not risk waiting longer. The uniforms would have to be moved from the shop. They had to abandon things now or risk being seen near the copper.

‘We'll send a lurker back once we're clear,' he murmured as they hurried up Cornhill. ‘You'll have to get over to Bermondsey while I acquaint the Professor with what has become of matters.'

In the meantime, the Professor slept soundly and alone. He had been a mite on edge during the previous evening and decided to dispense with the services of either Sal or Carlotta. After all, if anything went amiss he did not want women cluttering his mind.

After dinner he sat by himself in the drawing-room, played a little Chopin and then took a bottle of brandy, a pack of playing cards, and his copy of Professor Hoffman's
Modern Magic
to his bedroom. He wanted to practise the six methods of changing one card for another, so he sat for a long time, before the tall mirror in his room, going through the sleights time and again. It calmed him powerfully, and finally when half of the brandy had gone, Moriarty undressed, climbed into bed and lapsed into a deep sleep, during which he dreamed of performing incredible tricks with a pack of cards made up of portraits – Schleifstein, Grisombre, Sanzionare, Segorbe, Crow and Holmes being the prominent pictures which sped, riffled, were palmed, made to appear and disappear at will in his dexterous hands. The clamour of the doorbell in the early hours did not penetrate his unconsciousness.

They were all there, the tiaras, earrings, necklaces, throwing glittering fire from their velvet-lined boxes and black velvet bags. Even in the gaslight, and with the early morning taste bitter in their mouths, the three men around the safe could not fail to sense the beauty of their haul.

Ember called to Franz, telling him to get Evans off to pick up the cab in St Helen's Place and get back. ‘As if he's carrying the wind.'

Franz threw up the canvas bag they had brought for the loot and disappeared to find Evans. It was all speed now, and the Germans were as excited as boys let out from the schoolroom. Ember, who had been raised on the Professor's stern discipline as far as crackings were concerned, had to shut them up with threats. In spite of the need for haste, he took grave care in selecting the items from the safe and stowing them away in the bag, making positive that he had all the gems of real value before laying a finger on the trays of rings and watches which were Mr Freeland's stock. Last he jammed back the heavy door, leaning it against the safe, so that it might just pass muster to any real policeman squinting through the Judas slits in the shutters. Then, with a quick nod, he allowed the other two to clamber down into the cellar, before grabbing up the brief bag of tools and the canvas sack and making his final descent through the floor.

He was half-way down the lane to Bishopsgate when he heard the police whistles from up the street.

Betteridge had no option. He was plodding up Threadneedle Street, from the direction of the Royal Exchange, when he saw the sergeant bearing down on him from the Bishopsgate end. Bill Betteridge had much experience of the police, and not a little of the Houses of Correction. He was not of a mind to tussle with this burly sergeant, so he had no option: he turned on his heel and ran pell mell back from whence he came.

The sergeant, thinking some crime was being committed, or that Betteridge was in full chase of a villain, pulled on his whistle chain, blew three blasts and followed what he thought was his constable.

The shrill blasts from Threadneedle Street carried up Bishopsgate to the ears of a pair of constables arriving at the station for the six o'clock shift. Being men of some character, they replied with answering blasts and started to run. At that very moment, Evans turned the four-wheeler out of St Helen's Place.

The police whistles sent a crazy streak of panic through Evans' head. Convinced the police were on top of him, he whipped up the horses and took the cab at speed, careering down the street. It was an action which set the pair of constables running at an even faster pace, both blowing their whistles and reaching for their truncheons.

Evans slewed the cab across the road, reining up the horses to bring it in close to the pavement hard by the alley leading to the back of Freeland & Son. He misjudged badly, going past and pulling up a good ten yards on, so that the four men crouched in the lane were forced to run in the open, down the pavement, scrabbling for the door and safety.

Ember was the last in, throwing the canvas bag in front of him as he leaped aboard, shouting to Evans, yelling at him to whip up the horses. Evans needed no bidding, being thoroughly rattled by this time, and they were away with such a jolt that Ember was almost toppled backwards into the road. As it was, his fingers were banged hard on the door causing him to release the brief bag, sending it flying into the roadway in the path of the two pursuing constables, one of whom hurled his truncheon after the departing vehicle.

Ember was shouting curses in the cramped interior of the cab. He knew that he should have used a canary – some woman to get the tools and the loot away in the opposite direction. Now they were marked in the cab. They would have to abandon it before long and make their separate ways back to Edmonton – with the canvas bag: and he would not be allowed to go alone, not with the loot. Franz would stick to him like they were frozen brothers.

They let the two Germans off near Finsbury Square, then left the cab in a side street off the City Road. Evans went off on his own with instructions to get to Edmonton using every back double he could find. Ember was right. Franz stayed with him as though they were manacled.

Bertram Jacobs personally woke the Professor shortly after six. Polly Pearson had been cleaning the grates – sometime between five and half past – when the, bell had clanged from the tradesman's entrance down the area steps. Martha was in the kitchen seeing to the early morning chores, getting Bridget Spear's breakfast and stoking up the oven fire.