The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

The Case of the Choleric Cotton Broker Martin Edwards

The Diogenes and the Tankerville clubs occupy premises a mere seventy yards apart, yet concealed behind their doors are worlds as divergent as Mayfair and Madagascar. The sound of a raised voice in the silent sanctuary of the Diogenes would startle a listener as much as a volley of gunfire. By way of contrast, the bustle and argument indigenous to the Tankerville calls to mind Charing Cross Station at six o’clock on a Friday evening. When, one chilly April afternoon in 1889, a sturdily built visitor to the Tankerville proclaimed in loud and forceful tones his disdain for Colonel Sebastian Moran, nobody paid the slightest attention, except for myself and Professor Moriarty.

“How dare you, sir!” the man thundered. “Place this city out of bounds to me, would you? I never heard of such impertinence!”

The other three men were unaware that their conversation had an interested witness. This was as well. My life would have been in the gravest peril had they known that I was eavesdropping. I had taken up my station, in a tall, high-backed, and thankfully capacious William and Mary armchair, some twenty minutes before Moran ushered his guests into the Reading Room. This is the smallest and least frequented of the public areas in the Tankerville. Members seeking to take advantage of the facilities offered by that institution have more pressing concerns than literature, although the club library caters generously for those with recondite tastes. My chair was separated from the three confederates by an untenanted chess table, and a small desk at which an elderly member who, having discarded his ear trumpet, was poring over an exotic calfskin-bound book, privately published in Marseilles. Occasionally, he emitted peculiar yelps of pleasure at the more extravagant illustrations.

Intelligence had reached me indicating that Moran had summoned a senior associate to an urgent meeting at the Tankerville. The agenda was unknown, but believed to be of the utmost gravity. I deemed it essential that we should learn something of whatever fresh devilry was contemplated by the Professor’s henchman. Of my two most trusted lieutenants, however, one was recovering from his injuries after being set upon by a gang of Moriarty’s thugs in the Old Kent Road, while the other’s face was already familiar to Moran from a previous skirmish in Berlin. With the utmost reluctance, I concluded there was no choice but to take the exceptional step of involving myself directly in the matter.

The organisation that I shall, for the purpose of this narrative, identify simply as the Office had procured the recruitment of two of its agents to the staff of the Tankerville. One man, T, who served as a porter, had made sure that I was furnished with a forged membership card, while his colleague, J, supplied an occasional glass of brandy in the capacity of waiter. The Reading Room was reputed to be Moran’s favourite haunt, and the location where he liked to issue instructions to his acolytes. What we had failed to anticipate was that the Professor would also attend the meeting. Nothing could more clearly confirm the seriousness of their business, since despite the intimacy of their relations, it was unheard of for Moriarty and the Colonel to be seen in public together.

“How I amuse myself in private is none of your business.” The man’s accent suggested a curious mixture of influences. Having made a small study of the subject, I concluded that he was a native of Liverpool (the south of the city, rather than the north, in my opinion) but one who had travelled far and wide. I even detected a faint twang redolent of old Virginia. “And that, sir, is an end of the matter.”

Prior to my arrival, J had effected subtle adjustments to the positioning of the furniture, so that I was able, by craning my neck, to benefit from a view of much of the room in an ornately framed mirror without myself being observed. In the reflection, I saw Moran take a single pace towards his guest. Advancing years had not diminished the Colonel’s formidable physical presence, and he resembled a ferocious tiger – of the kind he had bagged so many times in India – about to pounce. Any ordinary man would have quailed at the malevolence in those penetrating blue eyes, but his companions were no ordinary men.

Moriarty did no more than allow his eyelids to flicker, yet it was enough to halt the Colonel in his tracks. When he spoke, the Professor’s voice was clear, yet pitched low enough for it to be difficult for me to hear.

“Gentlemen, please. Such a display of rancour is unseemly. You must appreciate, my dear fellow, that the Colonel is simply anxious for your own well-being.”

“You … authorised this command?” The man appeared taken aback. He thrust a hand into the pocket of his jacket, drawing out a small pillbox. With legerdemain of a kind born only of long practice, he extracted two tablets, and swallowed them whole.

“Indeed, my dear fellow. I count myself not merely as a colleague, but a friend. I am motivated solely by a desire to ensure that you come to no harm. So far, you have enjoyed considerable good fortune, but I fear that will not last for ever. Better quit the game now, while you remain ahead of the pack.”

An expression of uncertainty disrupted the other man’s wellfed features. I diagnosed a swaggering and aggressive personality, to which any hint of doubt was inimical. Yet the way in which he tugged at his heavy moustache suggested indecision. His sudden change of mood was easy to comprehend, for the silky menace lurking behind Moriarty’s suave protestations of goodwill was a thousand times more alarming than a crude threat of violence. I did not wonder that he phrased his reply with a humility conspicuously absent from his contemptuous riposte to Colonel Moran.

“You will appreciate, Professor, that I have not the slightest wish to incur your displeasure. The goodwill that subsists between—”

“Enough!” Moriarty lifted his right hand, and gave a smile cold enough to freeze flesh. “We shall say no more on the subject. I believe that your train departs from Euston in thirty minutes. Let us summon a cab without delay, so that you are sure to arrive at the station in time.”

Before the man could speak, Moran interjected. “After all, you would not wish to be too long absent from the company of that beautiful young belle of yours. Eh?”

The provocation in his jeering tone was unmistakable, and the other man appeared to fight a battle within himself before responding. When at last he spoke, caution prevailed, but evidently it had been a close-run thing.

“Very well, gentlemen. I shall take my leave of you. Professor, I shall reflect on what you have said. I owe you no less.”

With a crisp bow, he took his leave. Once the door had closed behind him, Moran turned to the Professor.

“Dangerous.”

Moriarty inclined his head. “Such is the nature of a loose cannon.”

“Pity. These past two years, he has made himself damned useful.”

The Professor gave a gentle sigh. “You will recall my mentioning after my first conversation with him that his proclivities would render him unstable in due course.”

“Yes, I must admit that you were right. As usual.” The note of admiration struck me as genuine, not grudging. “How fortunate that we have prepared for all eventualities.”

“Good fortune has nothing to do with it, Colonel. Planning and preparation, therein lies the secret of sustained success in any field of human endeavour. The nursemaid is aware of what is required?”

“Our people in the north country assure me of her reliability.”

“Excellent. And the staff at Flatman’s?”

“They are ready to provide evidence of impropriety, should the police display their customary ineptitude in following up clues helpfully laid before them by the nursemaid. I have every confidence that the path we have constructed will lead to the gallows.”

Moriarty permitted himself a thin smile. “Do not be so sure, Colonel. The machine of justice in this country is as susceptible to malfunction as the most antiquated equipment in the humblest factory. Happily, that is of little consequence. What matters is that our activities continue to flourish without risk of compromise.”

The Colonel clicked his heels. “You may be assured of that.”

With this, they departed the Reading Room, leaving me to muse on their cryptic conversation for another half-hour, until a loud and echoing squeal of delight from the aged student of exotica finally drove me to seek refuge in the infinitely more congenial environment of the Diogenes Club.

I took time to reflect on what I had learned at the Tankerville. During the course of my life, I have been accused of a medley of vices, but nobody has yet sought to characterise me as that dullest of oafs, the man of action. Haste on the part of the authorities, a stubborn insistence on being seen to be doing anything rather than nothing explains much that is wrong with our world. Hence my insistence on ensuring that my work is conducted out of sight from the public I serve. I exclude my brother from criticism in this regard; a man in business as a consulting detective cannot afford complete anonymity. Nevertheless, his celebrity gave me cause for concern in relation to Professor Moriarty. It seemed to me that it was merely a question of time before the two men’s paths crossed, with consequences that I found myself reluctant to contemplate. I saw it as my duty to make sure that my brother remained unaware of the full extent of the Professor’s nefarious activities until I was left with no choice but to reveal how much I knew. Even then, I would need to insist that he refrained from divulging matters of detail to his chronicler. One kingdom, two distinguished lives, and at least a dozen pristine reputations depended upon our discretion.

The man from the north country intrigued me. We had for some time been aware that Moriarty’s web stretched across the continents, but we had struggled to identify the individuals who supervised his criminal affairs outside the United Kingdom. In particular, neither the American authorities nor the energetic men of the late Mr Pinkerton’s Agency had been able to identify Moriarty’s representative in the United States. Plainly, a man of business whose legitimate commercial interests stretched across the Atlantic would prove an invaluable asset to the Professor, and I suspected that I had been in the presence of just such an individual. I found, as usual, that an hour or two of gentle slumber followed by a first class Chateaubriand proved unmatched in facilitating the deductive process, and by the time I was joined for a postprandial port by the Home Secretary’s right-hand man, I was ready to disclose my conclusions.

“A riddle and a half!” W exclaimed, once I had recounted verbatim the discussion that I had overheard. “A nurse, a hotel, the gallows … what do you make of such disjointed fragments?”

I savoured my drink. The importance of the day’s events justified a certain indulgence, and I had chosen the vintage of 1834, and that colossus of ports, Kopka’s Quinta de Roriz.

“Let us begin, my dear W, with Moran’s subordinate. What do we know of him?”

“Very little,” my companion responded grimly. “We need to redouble our efforts to trace his identity.”

“The task may be easier than you suppose. The timbre of his voice is unusual and suggestive. A Liverpudlian of the mercantile class, whose domestic or work commitments have led him to spend significant periods of time in London and the east coast of North America in recent years. One infers from the exquisite tailoring of his suit – to say nothing of the satin waistcoat with ivory buttons – that he enjoys considerable wealth. His choleric demeanour, however, is unlikely to be the product of a background of privilege. Those born to wealth are educated from an early age to conceal their tempers behind a cloak of good manners.”

Sir W snorted. A hereditary baronet, he may have detected an ironic thrust, notwithstanding my beatific smile, but I was unrepentant. My endeavours earlier in the day entitled me to mix business with a little personal amusement.

“I surmise that his travels are attributable to business rather than pleasure, and that he has enjoyed success in his chosen line. Given that the Liverpool Cotton Association dominates commerce within his native city, the assumption that he is a merchant or broker in cotton is reasonable if not beyond argument. Consider. If, through Moran, our friend Moriarty secured the loyalty of such a man, his ability to conduct covert operations in the United States would be greatly enhanced. A successful broker with interests in, say, Virginia would have unimpeachable reasons for coming and going across the Atlantic. I suspect that his usefulness would by no means be confined to delivering secret messages to American crooks. He might himself direct operations in accordance with the Professor’s plans for spreading criminality across the civilised world.”

“Damnable!” my companion exclaimed. “But why would such a man – an entrepreneur – put himself at Moriarty’s disposal?”

“I was intrigued by the fact that his complexion is pasty, with hints of grey and yellow. One would expect such a choleric fellow to be red-cheeked. Evidently, he enjoys indifferent health, and I speculate that the faint tinge of yellow may be attributable to a bout of malaria in the past. The disease is not uncommon in the cotton fields of Virginia. His readiness to swallow pills suggests to me that, however genuine the maladies that he has suffered, he is also something of a hypochondriac. The conclusion, as I am sure you will concur, is plain.”

W stirred in his chair. “I cannot claim that it is obvious to me.”

“The man is a drug fiend, depend upon it. The pastiness of his cheeks is due, I suspect, to an overfondness for arsenic. Some medical men recommend it for the treatment of malaria. Quinine is more effective, but less appealing to those with unconventional instincts. The peasants of Styria take arsenic as a means of freshening the complexion, but our friend is more likely, in my opinion, to favour arsenic because of its aphrodisiac qualities.”

“I say!”

I raised a hand to still W’s protests. “Deplorable, perhaps, but we must take the world as we find it, rather than as we would wish it to be. Believe me, even a man with the finest mind and purest heart may resort to desperate remedies in moments of acute stress, and, although this fellow is no fool, I doubt there is much in his life that is pure.”

“You think this arsenic habit has weakened his moral fibre?”

“He may have been blessed with little enough moral fibre to start with,” I replied. “I caught sight of a betting slip protruding from one of his pockets. It had been crumpled, perhaps in disgust. A man with a fondness for the racetrack will often display other weaknesses of character and, although his attire was at first glance immaculate, my eyesight was keen enough to detect a faint shadow of crimson on his collar, no doubt the legacy of an amorous liaison earlier in the day.”

“My dear fellow!”

“Even an affluent businessman may find such pastimes expensive. A desire to supplement his finances may cause him to consort with rogues. And scoundrels come in no more sophisticated guise than Colonel Moran and Professor Moriarty.”

“Very well, I am persuaded. You said that in the conversation between those gentlemen, mention was made of a nursemaid and Flatman’s. Have you formed a view as to their significance – if any?”

“Flatman’s Hotel is to be found in Henrietta Street. It happens to be frequented by members of the cotton-broking fraternity, but may no doubt prove a suitable venue for intrigue, as well as discussions about trade over tea and crumpets. The vague outlines of a plot are taking shape in my mind, but they are nothing more at present than shadows in mist. The data available to me is inadequate, and precisely what fate Moriarty intends for his Liverpudlian aide, I cannot be sure.”

“You believe the man’s life is at risk?”

“Unquestionably.”

“We must do something to save him!” W cried. “This wretched villain may prove a source of vital information about the activities of Moran and Moriarty. If only …”

I shook my head. “You will be disappointed, I fear. The fact that the Professor has taken the extraordinary step of breaking cover illustrates the strength of his determination to resolve whatever difficulty he faces. I have never known a human being who was his equal in both callousness and ingenuity. When Moriarty described the man as a loose cannon, he sounded uncannily like a judge passing sentence after donning his black cap.”

In the days that followed my foray to the Tankerville Club, fresh information dribbled out, like drips from a leaky tap. Within three weeks, it had formed a murky puddle. The man from Liverpool was indeed a cotton broker, James Maybrick by name, and his business interests took him regularly both to London and to Norfolk, Virginia. While crossing the ocean some eight years earlier, he had been introduced to a comely fellow passenger twenty-three years his junior. The girl was called Florence Chandler, and her late father had once been the mayor of Mobile, Alabama. The relationship prospered, possibly due to an attraction of opposites, and the couple married in Piccadilly in July 1881 before settling in Aigburth, on the outskirts of Liverpool. Their home, Battlecrease House, stood across the road from Liverpool Cricket Club, of which Maybrick was a member, and his wife a lady subscriber. He was known to have more than one mistress, and rumour had it that one woman had borne him no fewer than five children. Florence was now the mother to a young boy and girl, but she too was not lacking in admirers. James Maybrick’s younger brother Edwin was among them, and so was a man called Brierley, another cotton broker who was a member of the cricket club. While the parents were otherwise engaged, the children were cared for at Battlecrease House by a woman named Alice Yapp. Her previous situation had been at Birkdale, near Southport, and, unusually, she had been engaged by James Maybrick rather than by his wife. I did not doubt that Alice Yapp was the nursemaid of whose reliability Colonel Moran had spoken.

Each new titbit that came my way deepened my anxiety. The fog in my mind was clearing, and the criminal design that was emerging was nightmarish in its cunning. Moriarty and the Colonel were, if I was right, contriving to commit a murder that could never be laid at their door.

Soon my worst fears were realised, as news came that James Maybrick was dead. The police worked swiftly, and arrested his wife three days later. She was subsequently charged and, at the inquest, a coroner’s jury returned a verdict – by a majority of thirteen to one – that Florence Maybrick had administered poison to her husband. It was tantamount to a verdict that she was a murderess.

The trial was held in the magnificent neo-classical surroundings of St George’s Hall in Liverpool, but although I arranged for my subordinate P to hold a watching brief on behalf of the Office, I did not attend personally. This was not entirely as a result of my distaste for travel. Any contribution of mine must be made far from the glare of scrutiny by the press and, in any event, someone in this dreadful business needed to have the luxury of being allowed to think, rather than feeling compelled to run hither and thither to no particular purpose. The police had been extremely active, and so had the family, led by the deceased’s brother Michael, well known as a composer of popular music, and a man determined to establish that his sister-in-law was a cold-blooded killer.

I found myself, to my surprise and regret, unable to rule out the possibility that she was guilty. It was impossible for her to deny that the marriage was unhappy, and not merely because of her husband’s many peccadilloes. Beyond question, she was an adulteress. Rumours were swirling around Liverpool like Mersey waters during a thunderstorm, and some said that Edwin Maybrick, youngest of the brothers, and the junior partner in James’s business, shared more with the dead man than a blood tie and a business interest. He admitted his closeness to Florence Maybrick, but insisted that theirs was a platonic relationship, and whatever suspicion attached to him, no evidence came to light to gainsay his word.

Alfred Brierley, by contrast, could not plausibly deny his misconduct with the wife of his friend. It appeared that, as recently as March, he and Florence Maybrick had shared a two-room suite in Flatman’s Hotel, reserved by her in the names of “Mr and Mrs Thomas Maybrick of Manchester”. The feebleness of that particular subterfuge was not her only error. An improperly affectionate letter she had written to Brierley had been discovered shortly before James’s demise. She had unwisely given it to Alice Yapp to post, and the nursemaid – claiming that it had become damp after being dropped “in the wet” by the Maybrick’s young daughter – had opened it. Shocked by its contents, she had reported them to Edwin, who in turn informed Michael. The noose was being placed around the young woman’s slender neck even before her husband drew his last breath.

While P supplied regular instalments of news about witness testimony, I wrestled with the problem. One could readily conceive half a dozen credible solutions to “the Maybrick Mystery”, as the newspapers called it, and many more that were fanciful but not wholly beyond the bounds of possibility. James Maybrick may have died accidentally, after taking an overdose of arsenic, and suicide was not out of the question; he was a longsuffering hypochondriac, he may have tired of the ceaseless battle against ill health. If murder it was, he might have been the victim of someone other than his wife who happened to bear him a grudge. Among members of the household, Nurse Yapp herself was rumoured to have attracted her employer’s attention, and this might explain her fiancé’s recent decision to end their relationship. Edwin was not lacking in motive. And then … but no, speculation is the enemy of rational deduction. I reminded myself to concentrate my energies on analysis of the facts, and nothing else.

By 8 August, although I had failed to reach a definitive conclusion on the mass of contradictory information before me, members of the jury were sent out to consider their verdict. Upon their return, they announced that Florence Maybrick was guilty as charged. Old Stephen, the judge, whose mind appeared – not least to P – to be failing, displayed an unholy relish in passing sentence of death.

“My dear fellow, what on earth is to be done?” W demanded, as we sipped sherry in the Diogenes Club.

“What would you have me do?” I yawned in a vain attempt to mask my discomfiture.

“These are dark days. If it were not bad enough for us to lose a first-class man …”

I said nothing. The body of J had been fished out of the Thames at Wapping thirty-six hours earlier. Marks found on his body established incontrovertibly that he had endured such excruciating torture that death must have come as a welcome release.

“… now we have to address the consequences of this infernal murder trial! The whole case represents a stain upon our glorious system of justice. I can tell you that the Prime Minister is deeply concerned about the prospect of continued unrest after those dreadful scenes in Liverpool. Have you read the newspapers?”

I inclined my head. “The same mob that howled for a hanging a short time ago jostled and elbowed the woman Yapp as she left court after the verdict. Journalists who were baying for Mrs Maybrick’s blood now fulminate against the verdict. To read the editorials, one would presume the woman is a saint, and the dead man a lecherous ogre of whom the world is well rid.”

“The latter point, at least, is well made. In comparison to her husband, Mrs Maybrick is as pure as driven snow.”

“But she is a woman, and he was a man. Therein lies the critical distinction. The verdict is tantamount to execution for adultery. We may never be able to determine the precise truth of her husband’s fate, but I am certain that Moriarty had a hand in it. Thanks to the bigoted summation of a decrepit old man teetering on the brink of insanity, however, a woman faces the long walk to the gallows. I hear that the prison governor has already had the scaffold built. It is utterly monstrous.”

“My dear fellow,” W said, “I have seldom seen you so roused.”

I realised that I had raised my voice. An elderly club member seated at the far end of the room had raised bushy eyebrows, and an expression of concern crinkled his leathery features. Such expenditure of energy and emotion was quite alien to me. Slumping back in my chair, I felt overcome momentarily by the weight of frustration and dismay.

“I ask you one question, my friend. In England, the country each of us loves and serves, how can such injustice be tolerated?”

“Most unfortunate, I concur.” W gave a helpless shrug. “But we do not have a court of appeal.”

Three Sundays must, by law, elapse between sentencing in a capital case and execution. Whilst I ruminated, the conviction of Mrs Maybrick was denounced on both sides of the Atlantic. Fourteen days after the verdict, I was ready to take the short stroll to Whitehall, where the Home Secretary had consented to see me.

Sir Henry’s tenure in office had coincided with a sequence of regrettable scandals, most notably his refusal to prevent the hanging of the Jewish umbrella stick salesman Lipski, and the failure of Scotland Yard to apprehend the maniac responsible for the Whitechapel murders. Now he was besieged by protests and petitions concerning the fate of a young belle from Alabama. A barrister by profession, he had previously struck me as shrewd but aloof. This evening, I glimpsed the real man behind the face he presented to the public: weary, bewildered, and tormented by conscience.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries over a glass of the most splendid Amontillado, we turned to the matter in hand. “I understand that Her Majesty is not unsympathetic to the plight of the convicted woman.”

Matthews bowed. “It has been conveyed to me by the Palace that she will accept my recommendation. But to overturn the unanimous verdict of a jury without further evidence of the most compelling nature … I tell you candidly, it would amount to much more than a confession of weakness on my part. It would launch a Whitehead at the ship of state. Yes, sir, the admission that our courts are unjustly is more damaging than any torpedo’s blast.”

“You regard capital punishment as morally repugnant, do you not?” I said quietly.

The Home Secretary sat up with a start. His cheeks were a becoming shade of pink. “What in great Heaven prompts you to say such a thing?”

“I am aware of your deeply held Catholic faith, and – forgive me – my observations of your pallor and nervous mannerisms at the time you allowed Lipski to die, following a trial tainted by prejudice, make me certain that the case caused you unusual distress. You held fast to the belief that a man in your position must do the right thing, but secretly you feared it was not right, but morally wrong.”

The heat from the coal fire was intense. Sir Henry mopped his brow. He was not the first decent man to have been brought low by the cares of high political office, and he would not be the last.

“My duty is to administer the law without fear or favour. I could no longer with honour remain in office if …”

I drained my glass with a wistful pang. It was as fine a sherry as I had tasted in a twelvemonth. “We can agree – can we not? – that the glory of the English law lies in its inherent pragmatism. Moreover, the secret of our island race’s survival and prosperity is due to our gift for compromise. Very well. A solution is within our grasp.”

“What do you propose?”

“You may advise Her Majesty to respite the sentence of death, and commute it to penal servitude for life.”

“No legal ground exists upon which …”

“Pshaw! Let us invent one that preserves the dignity of the court, as well as the wretched woman’s life. The evidence, one might say, leads to the conclusion that she administered arsenic to her husband, but there remains a reasonable doubt that it caused his death.”

“But that amounts to convicting her of a crime of which she was not charged. It is ridiculous! I never heard of anything quite so abhorrent to a logical mind.”

“I heartily concur, but for many years I have made the point to my brother – you have met him yourself, have you not? – that for all its virtues, logic is apt to be overvalued. We must confront the world as it is, and a little untidiness is a small price to pay for a life. I surmise that, in due course, the sanction will be further ameliorated, and it would not surprise me in the least if she were to be freed within the next fifteen years.”

“Nevertheless, that is a very long time.”

“True, my dear sir, but we must keep in mind that she may be guilty.”

One week later, Mrs Maybrick remained incarcerated in Walton Prison for the foreseeable future, but the scaffold erected for her had been dismantled, and, although her supporters continued to press for a pardon, the storm around the Home Secretary had abated. The Times had gone so far as to commend his decision, saying “It makes things comfortable all round …”

I meant to render Sir Henry one further service, and I was aided in my task when a messenger arrived at the Diogenes Club, bringing me an unsigned card inviting me to participate in a game of chess at the Tankerville.

Moriarty had read my mind, as I had endeavoured to read his.

“An elegant solution,” the Professor said, as he contemplated options for safeguarding his king.

“The British do not lack imagination,” I replied. “To characterise us as stolid and lacking in the power of creative thought does us a great disservice.”

“It is a mongrel race,” the Professor remarked. “Your grandmother’s brother was Vernet, the French artist, was he not?”

“You are well informed.” I inhaled deeply. The aroma of cigar smoke in the Reading Room was far from unpleasant. “Would you be so good as to satisfy my curiosity on one or two little points?”

“That was our shared purpose in meeting, was it not?”

Each of us had taken sensible precautions as regards our attendance at the Tankerville. Agents from the Office were stationed at every exit of the building, while Moriarty’s associates had gathered in the bar. I was, however, confident that this encounter would not end in bloodshed. Our respective organisations had too much to lose.

“I take it that J sought to play a double game?”

Moriarty nodded. “He approached the Colonel shortly after your previous appearance within these unhallowed precincts. His claim that he wanted to be on the winning side was plausible, and he gave an account of your visit here as an earnest of his bona fides. Such a fellow might have proved useful, but alas! A cursory check on his rooms by one of our ruffians who has a way with a jemmy revealed that the man kept a private journal, and had been so incautious as to make a detailed note of his conversation with the Colonel. No creature on earth is so vile as the blackmailer, as no doubt you will agree. It was sensible to give the fellow his quietus before he made some threat in response to our failing to meet his financial aspirations.”

I nodded. “And Mrs Maybrick?”

“The woman Yapp insists that she administered the fatal dose, as Moran had instructed her to do. She occupied Maybrick’s bed more often than his wife over the course of his final months, and had every opportunity to do our bidding. And yet, for all her dogged protestations of guilt, I cannot help wondering …”

With a sigh, I moved my remaining bishop one square back. “Such is the difficulty when a man provides so many disparate persons with cause to put him to death.”

Moriarty’s thin smile indicated that he had anticipated my move, and was gratified by it. He consolidated his excellent pos ition by shifting forward his rook. His triumph was barely suppressed. Mate in five moves.

“You understand our own embarrassment?”

“Most certainly. For a criminal gang to discover in its midst the most notorious murderer of modern times might seem in some quarters almost a cause for pride. In practical terms, I suspect you found it deeply worrying.”

“Quite so. I am reluctant to withhold admiration from Maybrick, to the extent that the crimes in Whitechapel have escaped detection, but it was abundantly clear that his good fortune would not persist for much longer. Drugs enslaved him – I am tempted to say that the arsenic-eating was the least of my concerns – and his libidinous appetite seemed incapable of satiation.”

“Five women dead, butchered in such a manner as to signify an increasing depravity and lust for blood.”

“The emotive terms are yours, not mine. The harlots themselves were of no consequence.” He caught my frown of disapproval, and dismissed it with a gesture of his claw-like hand. “My people maintain premises in five cities of this kingdom which offer a menu rich and varied enough to satisfy the most extravagant tastes. That was not enough for Maybrick. He failed to acknowledge that our success depends upon management and control. The risk that he might be unmasked at any moment was intolerable. Barring him from London was no more than a stopgap measure. Soon he would have embarked upon a fresh murder spree on Merseyside. Consider our dilemma. You run an organisation yourself, and will readily understand the need to pinpoint any weak link, and then eliminate it.”

I advanced my queen’s knight, and saw from the sparkle in my opponent’s eyes that he regarded the heroic sacrifice as an act of desperation. “You may be assured that is precisely why I arranged to grant J the opportunity to encounter Colonel Moran in person.”

Moriarty clapped his hands. “Bravo! You may lack the skill of a Staunton or a Paul Morphy, but in your chosen field, you are nonpareil.”

His rook seized my knight. Pursing my lips, I said, “You flatter me, Professor. For me, it is an honour to place my services at the disposal of Her Majesty.”

His grunt was laden with contempt. I moved my bishop again. “Check.”

I studied with interest the emotions washing over that devilish face. Shock, anger, despair. His intellect enabled him to calculate his options within a matter of moments. With a stifled curse, he knocked over his king.

“Another game?” he muttered. “You must allow me the opportunity to … take my revenge.”

I rose, but did not extend my hand. “Some other time, perhaps.”

A cold hatred flared in those cruel eyes. For just an instant, it made me tremble, but then I exulted, for I had won more than a game of chess.

“Until the next time, Mr …”

I raised my hand. “No names, please. In my organisation, we trade solely in initials. Please call me simply … M.”