The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty

A Scandalous Calculation Catherine Lundoff

The old man, his back bowed and hunched, rested one trembling hand against a lamppost. From his expression, his rheumy eyes might have seen nothing at all. Or, perhaps, he merely watched the Whitechapel crowds that eddied and flowed on the dirty cobbles around him. But an astute observer, had there been such to study him, might have noticed that his venerable head tilted a bit and his gaze grew sharper when a dark-haired lad, cap pulled low over his face, approached.

The lad looked like any tradesman’s apprentice, albeit cleaner than most. His pants bore only a few scuffs and patches and his hand, when he moved it from his pocket to pull his cap down lower on his forehead, was pale and nearly clean. He walked briskly past the old man and down a side street, as if bound on an errand for his master.

The man unbent slightly and walked after the lad, shedding a few years with his strides as he moved. The two might have been nothing more than two men hurrying on errands, or looking for a pint before nightfall. There was no reason for the old man not to walk down that particular street in the London dusk and settling fog. No reason for him to take a different direction from the lad’s, if such was not his destination.

Ahead of him, the boy stopped to look up at a nondescript shop, a former tailor’s establishment with rooms above it. His movement exposed an expanse of pink cheek, one still too young to have known a razor’s edge. Then, as if he knew that he was being watched, he spun on his heel and began walking briskly away, his strides stopping just short of a run.

The man followed, his walk still slow and a little unsteady. The youth might have outpaced him easily enough, vanishing into the fog that was drifting to cover the end of the street, if another man hadn’t stepped out in front of him. The boy went to dodge around him, but was stopped by heavy hands on his collar and his arm.

“I’ve been looking for you, Miss Adler. Or, should I say, Mrs Norton?” The old man’s voice was deep and hollow, with a touch of the sibilant. That voice alone might have been enough to halt a brave man in his tracks.

The boy struggled against his captor, his expression shifting swiftly from annoyance to fear, then that abruptly smoothed over with a bland, puzzled expression. “You got the wrong lad, guv. I ain’t no Miss Adler or any Mrs Norton.” His voice was nasal with an accent that echoed London’s backstreets and poorer quarters. “Chilton, apprentice to Master Carragher, the printer, that’s who I be.”

“Let us not waste time with these games, Mrs Norton. You have something that I need, and I fancy that I have something of yours.” The old man gestured and they heard a distant whistle. Shortly thereafter, a black coach rolled up to the cobbles next to them. The horse snorted and tossed its head, making the harness jingle, and the boy jumped, his face at once a painting of fear and suspicion.

He, or rather, she, looked at the old man, “Who are you?” Looking at the erstwhile lad now, that same astute observer might have seen a lass in boy’s clothes, as her confidence ebbed away. Or, perhaps, he would have seen just a very frightened boy, though he might not understand the reason for that fear.

“You may call me Professor. More than that you do not need to know.” He glanced at the coach and the driver stepped down and opened the door. He gestured at the step and the big man hauled the woman up into the coach as if he was manhandling a puppy, for all that she kicked and struggled. The old man climbed in after them and placed his stick against her back, like a knife’s edge, and she went still and limp, dropping into one of the padded benches inside. He made another gesture as he sat across from her and the big man left them to climb on behind the coach. The door closed and latched behind him.

A moment later, they were being rattled over the cobbles. “Where are you taking me?” Her voice quavered, then steadied.

“So many questions, Mrs Norton. One might think that the answers would be useful to you in some way. You will not escape me, nor will I release you until you are no longer useful to me. Do I make myself clear?” His eyes were no longer rheumy and there was little that suggested extreme age in his bearing. Now, he seemed a man of just above middle years, intelligence and a certain ruthlessness written on his lean face and sharp features.

Irene Norton’s dark eyes narrowed a moment, apparently taking his measure, and she sat up straight, shedding all suggestion of an impoverished apprentice. “Why are you abducting me then, Professor? What is it that you want of me?” She studied him in a series of quick glances, taking in the coach as well as her companion, as far as he could determine.

The Professor sat back, putting his face in shadow and thus making his expression harder to read. “Mrs Norton, you have returned to London seeking someone, someone quite close to you. But you are concerned about encountering some individuals from your past, one being Sherlock Holmes and the other a member of a royal family from a foreign nation, hence your disguise. You received information, a note, I believe, informing you that news about the person you were seeking was to be obtained at the address you were looking at when I approached you.”

She shifted slightly in her seat but her face portrayed no astonishment that he had known these facts about her and her purpose in London. Instead, she tilted her face and looked at him sidelong. “How long have you been following me?”

“I had little need to follow you, Mrs Norton, as I knew that you would be unable to resist responding in person.” He glanced out the window before he looked back at her. “We are very nearly at our destination so I will speak plainly. You wish your husband returned unharmed, do you not, Mrs Norton?” This time, he had the satisfaction of seeing her expression shift, her lip tremble. She would do what he wanted now, without protest or argument.

He waited in silence for her to speak, to confirm what he already knew. Women broke so easily. Here was something that he shared with his erstwhile foe, Sherlock Holmes, that same casually voiced contempt for the weaker sex that broke through even Dr Watson’s carefully edited accounts from time to time in The Strand. But then, his erstwhile rival had held so many of his fellow beings in contempt that it had led to his downfall. The Professor blinked away a memory of fast-moving water pouring over sharp rocks.

“Yes.” Her voice was low and soft, yet sharp enough to cut through his memories and drag him back to the present. “Yes, I want my husband back, as unharmed as he was when you seized him. I want to leave England with him, to never return if necessary. You will have nothing to fear from giving him back to me and giving both of us our lives, Professor.” Her dark eyes brimmed with tears under her cap until she rubbed them away gracefully with one bent wrist.

“That remains to be seen, Mrs Norton. I will require you to renew an old acquaintance, as well as to perform in your former profession tomorrow evening. I trust that you can still sing. You will follow my instructions exactly or there will be consequences. Do you understand?”

She flinched a little at his words, or perhaps, his tone; her mind was not as quick as his, of course, but it was fast enough to grasp the implications of his words. She might have heard the rumors about Holmes’s death as they had spread like wildfire through the criminal underworld after Reichenbach. But there would be no need to abduct her husband to persuade her to confront the detective; she had crossed swords with him in the past and won. So she must realize that he was speaking of the new King of Bohemia.

But her tone sounded neither surprised nor apprehensive, despite what must be the state of her thoughts. “Yes, I can still sing. But why?”

He studied her from the shelter of the shadows and thought that he would have preferred tears, pleas, some open display of weakness that told him that she was in his power. Inwardly, he cursed Holmes for sowing the seeds of doubt, seeds that grew up despite the certainty of his own survival and the demise of the detective.

He had returned from Reichenbach to find his criminal empire in shreds and his closest henchman, Colonel Sebastian Moran, about to flee England as the false news of his own demise circulated. Now he would have to rebuild, and for that he needed tools like the woman who sat staring at him, unblinking despite the coach’s jostling. Yet, he would succeed and this time there would be no detective to attempt to stop him. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a card, which he passed across the coach to his companion.

The coach creaked to a halt as he spoke again, “You will perform at that address tomorrow night at eight. Prepare yourself. Put on the dress and jewels that you will find in your room; this coach will arrive to take you to your destination at seven. You will receive instructions then. Speak to no one and make no attempt to escape in the meantime, Mrs Norton. Your disobedience would be most damaging to your husband.”

Her mouth twisted, as though she bit back a response or a refusal, but she said nothing and rose obediently when the coach door opened and she was handed out. She glanced back once, then away as she mounted the worn steps of the small hotel where the coach was stopped. As they drove away, the old man noted that she did not look back again.

Professor James Moriarty sat back on the coach cushions with a curl of his lip. It was by no means a smile, but it radiated a certain self-satisfied pleasure. At last, a plan was coming together. Once the opera singer obtained what he wanted from the King of Bohemia, he could access the funds that he needed from the King’s own treasury. Those would be sufficient to finance his recovery, to restore him as the Emperor of London’s underworld again.

As to what would happen after that to the opera singer and her husband or to the King of Bohemia himself, it was of little moment to him. They might continue to be of use to him, particularly Mrs Norton. He would enjoy making the woman who had outwitted Sherlock Holmes one of his tools. The coach rattled on through the fog as he lost himself in his thoughts.

It felt like only a few moments later that the coach stopped, its progress halted by some sort of traffic obstruction that he couldn’t see from where he sat. A sharp rap from his cane on the coach’s ceiling caused a panel to open behind the coachman’s seat. “Dray overturned, sir. Should I look for a way round or wait for ’em to clear it, sir?” He flinched a little as he spoke, as if fearing a blow, but stayed where he was, uncertainty on his features.

Professor Moriarty bit back a blistering oath. This was something outside his calculations, a variable where he had not expected one so soon after his recent success, and it filled him with a brief surge of uncertainty that surprised him. He regained his composure with an effort. Very well, then he would have to adapt. “Yes, find another route.” He checked his pocket watch. “I do not intend to be late for my next appointment.”

The man must have caught the edge of menace in his voice because the panel closed abruptly and the Professor was gratified to hear a shout and the crack of a whip from the box. The coach lurched forward and he had reason to be grateful for the new springs he had had installed as it rattled around him. The driver made good speed, urging the horse to a teeth-rattling trot where he could and the Professor lost himself in thoughts mathematical, pondering a theorem that had recently occurred to him.

He allowed himself an instant of icy rage, one not given voice aloud, at how much the late Holmes had inconvenienced him. His theories would make him the toast of mathematics scholars the world over once they understood his brilliance, and would have done so by now if he had not been distracted by minor obstacles.

Crime was useful in its way, sparing him a life of scholarly privation as it did, but it could not replace the beauty of mathematics. Still, his lips twisted a bit at the picture of himself in a garret. Crime was also more of a challenge than the labyrinth of academic pursuits at present. He permitted himself to speculate on whether or not the singer would succeed in liberating the King’s signet, before dismissing his concern. If she failed, he had other tools in place. Less amusing ones to be sure, and possibly less effective, but available if he chose to use them.

The carriage lurched to a halt, nearly throwing him across to the opposite bench. He glared up at the roof before throwing open the window. “What is it now?” His tone froze the air around the coach, but that wasn’t enough to stop the fleeing boys who had halted their progress with a cart they had rolled across the narrow street. One wore a jacket and cap that looked somewhat familiar. The Professor’s eyes narrowed; he had left a man to watch Mrs Norton as a matter of course, but he could not dismiss the notion that she might have given him the slip. Or the equal possibility that he might be mistaken about the running boy in the fog.

He dismissed this as a distraction. Regardless of who planned it, this delay must be deliberate. Someone had an interest in delaying his progress or perhaps ensuring that he missed his afternoon appointment. As to who that might be, he could think of a dozen enemies, the list coming to him as easily as breathing.

The realization that he had so many foes to choose from brought the understanding that he was vulnerable. His men were fewer and scattered and his present position was unshielded. Someone knew this coach, possibly had blocked his way with the overturned dray as well. He swung the door open and gestured to his man perched on the box. “Come with me. We will find another conveyance. This one has become too … noticeable.” He gestured to the driver with his right hand, two fingers against the brim of his hat that might have been a dismissal or might have meant nothing at all.

He turned and walked away without waiting for an acknowledgement, his man at his heels. The square was not a familiar one and, for the first time in decades, he had a sense of being exposed, hunted. This was unacceptable. “I need a bolt-hole. Fetch the Colonel once you have escorted me to … ?” He ended with a question, his tone expectant. His companion murmured a response, too low for any passers-by to hear.

The Professor grimaced and gave a cold chuckle. “If that is the closest haven, then it must needs suffice. Lead on.” He gestured and the man led him through a warren of twisting streets to a nondescript warehouse. The cobbles milled with drivers loading and unloading their wagons from each establishment on the street.

The Professor eyed the few scattered gentlemen in the crowd, attired as much as he was himself, and caught himself before he could nod approvingly. He would not stand out here, not for anyone who was not looking specifically for him. His man had chosen well.

Still, he reflected, as they entered the building, his companion in the lead, it might be as wise to take a page from the book of his foes and don a disguise before he left this place. But there would be time to consider that once he dispatched messages for his lieutenants. Such a list of petty details accompanied vulnerability! He promised himself that he would not know this feeling again, not once he had regained all that he had lost.

His mood was not improved when he found himself overseeing the kind of foolish, yet necessary tasks that he once might have delegated to his underlings. Only the lack of more competent tools to hand left some of his men alive, however temporarily.

After several incidents calculated to undermine his faith in his new organization, he determined that he must himself attend the reception for the King of Bohemia. It could not be entrusted to anyone else, not if he wanted to ensure that all would go as he planned. He scowled ferociously at one of his new lieutenants. “I will attend tomorrow’s reception myself. I shall also need evening clothes; send my valet to me tomorrow.”

He gestured dismissively and his men scattered to do his bidding. Professor Moriarty scowled at the barren room around him, wishing he’d returned to his comfortable apartments instead of going to the nearest safe hole. A bed had been found and assembled for him, at least, so he would not have to sleep rough in the bargain, but this was not the luxury he had grown accustomed to.

He closed his eyes and pictured the night to come, calculating the outcome of all the possible interactions between Irene Norton and the King. This was the kind of planning that had guaranteed his success in the past and, as he ran through the probable outcomes, he was certain that it would do so this time as well. That assurance was enough to ensure that he fell into an untroubled sleep before midnight.

When his men greeted him in the morning, they were in the company of his valet. The latter had brought both a portmanteau of his evening wear and breakfast, both of which contrived to make him composed and coldly confident once more. His men felt the shift in his mood, too, and responded to commands he had merely begun to formulate, almost predicting his every wish and request, until it was time to leave.

The Professor was soon dressed and as ready for the reception as if he had planned to attend it all along. He dispatched two of his men with instructions for Irene Adler, the name she would be performing under tonight. Let the King think her husband dead, the marriage dissolved, her still in love with him, whatever was necessary in order for her to get close to him again.

It would be enough. He pressed a napkin to his lips, wiping away the grease from the last of the cold meat and the pie that made up his supper. Colonel Moran was outside, dressed as a coachman and ready to drive him to the reception. His lieutenant could back up his plans in the event of a miscalculation, another piece falling into place. The signet would soon be his, and the forgeries that followed would set all his other plans in motion.

Once this step succeeded, he had only to defeat his foes, wipe them from the chessboard, and he would have his empire again. Visions of that success filled his head as he climbed into the coach, warming him against the slight chill of the night air. Yet even these jolly thoughts were not enough to completely distract a predator like him and he contemplated the details of all that he would need to do to solidify his success.

The mathematical precision of even his most shifting plans spread out before him until he felt the coach slow, then stop. A glance out the window told him that they had arrived at their destination and he straightened his cravat and adjusted his hat. Tonight, he had discarded the idea of a disguise, opting to attend as a version of himself. He was Professor James Moriarty, a mathematics professor from some local college or other, no one could ever remember which, a scholar with a passing interest in Bohemia and his fellow scholars there, not the “Napoleon of crime,” as Holmes had dubbed him, not tonight. No one would suspect otherwise, with the exception of Mrs Norton and he had sealed her lips effectively.

He moved up the stairs with the quiet, fragile dignity of one whose studies have made his eyesight unreliable and any time spent away from his books a burden. The footman at the door had little difficulty believing his story about a lost invitation, particularly when a sovereign for his continued cooperation accompanied the tale. Achieving the ballroom was a matter of moments and little trouble.

He surveyed the crowd inside with a glance, nodding to several acquaintances and preparing himself to the appearance of the event’s hosts at his elbow. A noble government functionary and his lady wife, vaguely familiar with some of his better connections, were as resigned to his presence at this event as he was to their polite chatter. Only their enthusiasm for the mysterious opera singer who had requested to perform for the King and the presence of the King himself were evident and certainly far more fulsome than their interest in a mere scholar of mathematics.

They amused him a little, but he was glad to see their backs once he had been safely escorted to the card room, far from the dancing and any young ladies he might opportune or any important guest he might bore; so he interpreted his host’s actions. It was useful to be underestimated from time to time. He buried himself in commonplace conversations and pleasantries until an announcement from the door sent them all to the ballroom. The most important guest had arrived.

The new King of Bohemia was large, loud and florid. His attire and that of his guards sent a shock of barbaric splendor of furs and scarlet through the otherwise temperate attire of the other attendees. The Professor watched him critically as he swept down the stairs, a nod for each bow and a smile for each lady. His fingers flashed with rings, but at this distance none of them appeared to be the one that Mrs Norton was taxed with retrieving.

As if his thought had summoned her, the singer appeared on the heels of the King’s entourage, the extravagance of her emeraldgreen gown subdued plumage in comparison to his party’s brighter hues. She was pale, but her head was high, her expression resolute. The Professor gave her a thin smile that she could not see and vanished back into the throng, out of sight. He could watch her easily enough, but saw no point in providing a distraction by letting her see him.

Instead, he turned his attention to the other attendees and had a moment of what he might have recognized as shock, had he been familiar with such a sensation. A solid gentleman, tall and fat, without medals or uniform to signify his station, caught his eye. The man’s nose was hawk-like, his eyes hooded but gleaming with dark intelligence. Yet it was not that which had caught the Professor’s eye. There was something familiar about that countenance, but he was certain that he had not seen the other before.

It shook him, this recognition that was not one. The other man glanced at him, then elsewhere, as if indifferent to his presence, but somehow, the Professor still felt the urge to deflect his interest. He shifted away, seeking the shelter of the refreshment table in the next room. There, he found a moment’s respite, an eddy in the crowds where he could overhear the gossip around him. Opinions were split on whether or not the reappearance of the opera singer or the King was the most exciting thing occurring at this particular reception.

It did not entirely please him, Irene Adler-Norton’s notoriety in these circles. His plan hinged on her being able to approach the King and rekindle his affections enough to distract him. She was his best chance to steal the signet easily, as long as she was not the focus of undue attention. Moving another piece on his chessboard would take more time, delay his plans. His bankers would be expecting an influx of funds from the Continent soon, funds that would be freed by what he could do with the King’s ring and his forged signature. There must be no delays; of that, he was determined.

He obtained a cup of tea and moved carefully toward the wall where he could observe the crowd. Across the room, the King started at the sight of the opera singer, while she cast her eyes down demurely. The Professor was too far away to hear what they said to each other, but then it was of little moment. What they did next would be of far greater significance.

There! The King gave her a lingering glance and reached for her hand, then pressed it to his lips. They stood in that posture for a breath too long, then parted as she moved toward the pianoforte. A few words to the accompanist and a hush settled over the assembly. Mrs Irene Norton parted her red lips and the voice of an angel poured out.

Her audience hung on each note, the King’s gloved finger in mid-stroke of his substantial mustache. For a wild fanciful moment, the Professor contemplated picking his pocket or slipping the ring off his hand. But it might be simpler to remove his finger, if it came to that. He filed that idea away in the portion of his planning that involved last resorts, then dismissed it for the moment. Unable to resist obtaining a closer view, he inched nearer to the singer.

Mrs Norton sang several arias from popular operas, then a song in what appeared to be Bohemian, judging from the reaction of the King and his men. If nothing else, the Professor thought cynically, he had ensured Mrs Norton’s successful return to the operatic stage. Perhaps she would be grateful, though he suspected that she would not.

Not that such concerns mattered. She commanded the King’s attention with every tilt of her head and he hovered near her as if he could not pull away. If she felt uncomfortable with so much regard, it was not obvious to any who watched them. Rather, she seemed shyly to accept his adulation while responding no more than propriety might allow. This reserve unnerved the King, clearly accustomed to a more enthusiastic response and it captivated him. This much, the Professor could observe with little effort, but much impatience.

Someone jostled his elbow, causing him to spill his tea, and he whirled with a snarl, a smothered exclamation clamped behind his teeth. The young fool who had bumped into him looked simultaneously pained and annoyed, as if he had been incommoded by the Professor’s presence in that part of the room. But he summoned both a servant and a passable apology then insisted on procuring another cup of tea to replace what he had spilled.

The Professor wanted nothing of the kind, but it was harder than he expected to lose the persistent young gentleman, who remained solicitously at his side. His vacuous and continuous conversation occupied several critical minutes, and it was some time before the Professor turned his attention back to the King and Mrs Norton.

They had vanished, at least from immediate view. He glanced around the ballroom, checking the visible alcoves and exits for his quarry. They were not in sight, though the King’s men were still visible in the throng. He parted from his new companion with no small effort and circled the room. In truth, the singer was doing no more than he had commanded. If it were necessary for her to lure the King into a more private setting, it should matter little to him as long as she was successful. Still, he would have felt greater reassurance that his plan was intact if he had seen them leave together.

He gestured, a small, subtle movement with his left hand, and one of the waiters paused by his side with a polite bow. “Do you require refreshment, sir?”

“Information, if you please. Where is he now? Did he leave alone?”

The man fiddled with the glasses on his tray, as if trying to find the right one. He didn’t ask which “he” the Professor meant, instead indicating a distant staircase with a slight tilt of his head. “We— I don’t believe he was alone, sir.” He handed the Professor a glass and turned away at his nod of dismissal. The Professor made note to ask Colonel Moran where he had found this paragon and how they might call for his services again. They would make good use of him in the future, of that he was sure.

He stationed himself near the foot of the staircase that the waiter had indicated and waited. His instructions to Mrs Norton had been quite clear; once she secured the signet, she was to make a wax impression of it, then slip it back into the King’s possession. Failing that, she must steal it. How she was to do either was not his concern. He cared only that she reappeared with it soon and gave it to the man who signaled her. After that, she could wait upon his pleasure for news of her husband.

A brief stir at the top of the stairs caught his attention and he looked up in time to see Mrs Norton and the King on the landing. He looked angry, while she appeared to be most distraught. He saw her wrench her hand from the King’s grasp and propel herself down the steps as rapidly as was feasible in her emerald gown. Her cheeks were flushed and she dashed an angry tear away as she descended. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she reached into her reticule, clearly searching for something.

A gentleman bowed and handed her his handkerchief. She thanked him and, after a moment of holding it in her hand, pressed it back upon him without seeming to use it. Any words exchanged between them were too swift and low for the Professor to hear, but that didn’t matter. That had been the prearranged signal and Mrs Norton had provided either the signet or its copy. Biting back a smile, Professor Moriarty exited the room without waiting to see her departure or her host’s reaction to it, happily assured of the success of his plans.

It was time to retrieve Godfrey Norton and prepare for his next steps. He thought it best to show Mrs Norton that her husband was still intact. Otherwise, she might be tempted to warn the King before he had the opportunity to use the ring, and that would be most unfortunate.

As he anticipated, Colonel Moran was waiting for him outside and he entered the coach with a brief nod to his lieutenant. They went by a roundabout path down several thoroughfares to a building on the outskirts of Whitechapel. There, the Colonel stopped and handed the reins to the guard before disembarking from the coach. The same man who accompanied the Professor earlier met the Colonel at the door and ushered him inside.

A few moments later, they emerged with another man held between them. He had a hood over his head and he hung limply from their grasp as if he were asleep or drugged. They hauled him toward the coach, only to be intercepted by a gentleman riding down the street on a smart hack. He slid his horse smoothly between them and the carriage. “I say,” he said, “your friend a bit worse for the drink? He might do better without that bag on his head, though.”

The Colonel reached a hand toward his pocket, his expression menacing. But another coach had appeared on the street and stopped next to the Professor’s. Professor Moriarty, had he chosen to appear at the coach window at that moment, might have recognized the gentleman on the hack as his tea-spilling acquaintance from the King’s reception.

Certainly, the two men who emerged from the stopped coach would not have been in attendance at that same gathering. “My friends from Scotland Yard would like a look at this chap’s face,” the gentleman on the hack continued serenely, as if he had not seen the Colonel’s hand move toward his pocket, then fall away. The big man clenched his fist and dropped their burden before lunging at the men from Scotland Yard.

The Colonel released the man to fall limply to the cobbles and embarked on a lunge of his own, this one calculated to take him away from the detectives and down the nearest alley. He nearly collided with the hack. The gentleman now held a pistol in his hand, with the barrel most unequivocally pointed at his heart. Colonel Moran froze and held out his hands in a gesture of surrender. His companion was being subdued with truncheons and it was some moments before anyone had the opportunity to check the inside of the Professor’s coach.

In the end, it was a new arrival who flung open the door and swore softly at the sight of the empty cushions. The lady with him turned away and swept over the cobbles to free the fallen man’s head. She applied some salts from her bag and, a moment or two later, Mr Godfrey Norton, barrister, coughed his way back to life, if not immediately back to health.

Mrs Norton looked up at the large gentleman standing next to the coach and murmured in a choked voice, “Thank you, Mr Holmes. I am eternally in your debt.”

The gentleman’s hooded eyes appraised her and her husband for a long moment before Mr Mycroft Holmes favored her with a bow. “I believe that England may be in yours, madam. You have foiled a plot against one of Her Majesty’s allies and kept our government from losing face. Allow me to have you escorted to your lodgings and a doctor fetched for your husband.”

The Professor moved out of earshot after that. He didn’t need to hear more; the details of how the clever Irene Adler and her allies had wrecked his plans could wait. The accompanying painful loss of faith in the mathematical precision of his plans, the precision that should have guaranteed his success, was overwhelming. But it would pass quickly enough. Holmes’s brother was a variable that he had not accounted for in his calculations and he had underestimated Mrs Norton. These were not mistakes that he would make again and, when he returned from this Elba, his empire would once again be his. The Napoleon of crime disappeared into the fog.