A sibilance escaped Moriarty’s colourless lips.
‘We shall have need of you later,’ Stent said, producing a long thin knife — which he proceeded slip into the book, cutting at last its virgin leaves. ‘You can take off those ridiculous smoked glasses. Though, if you have suffered some onset of blindness which has not been reported in the press, it would explain a great deal. Gentlemen of the Royal Society of Astronomers, it is my contention that no man who has ever looked through a telescope with sighted eyes would ever be able to make the following statement, which I quote from the third paragraph of page one of The Dynamics of an Asteroid…’
Stent proceeded to dissect the book, wielding words like a scalpel, and flicking blood in Professor Moriarty’s face. It was a merciless, good-humoured assassination. Entertaining asides raised healthy laughter throughout the evening.
The sums were well above my head, but I snickered once or twice at the amusing way Stent couched his refutations. I should have kept a stonier face: the next day, Moriarty had Mrs Halifax despatch Véronique, my second favourite French dollymop, to Alaska as a mail-order bride. Fifi, my first choice, was too good an earner to waste, but I’d learned a lesson.
At every point, Stent invited a response from Moriarty. None came. The Professor sat in silence as his theorems were shredded, his calculations unpicked, his conclusions burst like balloons.
Sir Nevil Airey Stent had no idea that the Professor’s interests extended beyond equations. Blithely, the Astronomer Royal continued his lecture. Though I knew only too well what the clot was getting into, I could scarcely blame him for digging his own grave in public.
No one would have believed, in the next-to-last years of the nineteenth century, that his lecture was being watched keenly and closely by an intelligence greater than his own; that as he blathered on and on he was scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a berk with a microscope might scrutinise the tiny wriggly bugs that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency, Stent read from his little sheaf of notes, serene in the assurance that he was royalty among astronomers.
Yet, across the gulf of the lecture hall, a mind that was to Stent’s as his was to those of the beasts that perish, an intellect vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded the podium with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew his plans against him.
‘In brief, sirs,’ Stent said, wrapping things up, ‘this asteroid is off its course. Heavenly bodies being what they are, this cannot be allowed. Stars are inexorable. The laws of attraction, gravity, propulsion and decay are immutable. An asteroid does not behave in the manner our colleague alleges it does. This august body will fall prey to… to men from Mars, with three legs, eyes the size of saucers and paper party hats… before the asteroid will deviate one whit from the course I have charted. I would wager five pounds that Professor Moriarty can say no different. James?’
The pause stretched on. Moriarty said nothing. It was summer, but I felt a chill. So did the rest of the audience.
The silence was broken by Markham, the adenoidal twit who had introduced Sir Nevil. He stood up and called for a round of thunderous applause, then announced that the gist of the speech was now available as a pamphlet at the cost of 6d. There was a rush for the stall outside the lecture room, where a brisk trade was done.
Moriarty remained in his seat as the room emptied.
‘James,’ Stent said cheerfully from the podium as he gathered his notes, ‘it’s pleasant to see you in such evident health. There’s actually some colour in your cheeks. I bid you a respectful good night.’
The Professor nodded to his nemesis. Stent left by a rear door.
Moriarty didn’t move from his chair. I wondered if he even could.
Stent had set out to murder Moriarty the Mathematician. He didn’t suspect his victim had another self. An unmurdered, unmerciful enemy.
‘Moran,’ he said, at last, ‘tomorrow, you will call on The Lord of Strange Deaths in Limehouse. [20] The Lord is out of the country, but Singapore Charlie will act for him. You remember the Si-Fan [21] were able to import the swamp adder we supplied for Dr Grimesby Roylott[22]. I wish to place an order for a dozen vampyroteuthis infernalis. That is not yet an officially recognised genus of coleoidea, but specimens come on the exotica market from time to time.’
‘Vampyro-whatsit?’
‘Vampyroteuthis infernalis. Hellish vampire squid. Often mistaken for an octopus. Don’t let Singapore Charlie palm you off with anything else. They are difficult to keep alive above their spawning depth. Pressurised brass containers will be necessary. Von Herder can manufacture them, reversing the principle of the Maracot Bell. Use the funds from the Hanway Street jeweller’s, then dip into the reserve. Expense is immaterial. I must have my vampyroteuthis infernalis.’
I pictured what a hellish vampire squid might be. And foresaw unpleasant experiences for Sir Nevil.
‘Now,’ the Professor said, ‘there is just time to catch the last falls. Would you be interested in making haste for Wapping?’
‘Rath-er!’
III
The next few weeks were busy.
Moriarty dropped several criminal projects, and devoted himself entirely to Stent. He summoned minions — familiar fellahs from previous exploits, like Italian Joe from the Old Compton Street Café poisonings, and new faces nervous at being plucked from obscurity by the greatest criminal mind of the age. ‘PC Purbright’, a rozzer kicked off the force for not sharing his bribe-takings, was one such small fish. A misleadingly strapping, ferocious-looking bloke and something of a fairy mary, PCP specialised in dressing up in his old uniform and standing lookout for first-floor men. He had a sideline as a human punching bag, accepting a fee from frustrated criminals (and even respectable folk) who relished the prospect of giving a policeman a taste of his own truncheon. If you paid extra, he’d turn up while you were out with your darby girl and pretend to make an arrest — you could beat him off easily and impress the little lady with your fightin’ spirit. Guaranteed a tumble, I’m told. He came out of the Professor’s study with wide eyes, roped into whatever bad business we were about.
I was sent out to make contact with reliable tradesmen, all more impressed by the colour of Moriarty’s gelt than the peculiarity of his requests. Paul A. Robert, a pioneer of praxinoscopes, was paid to prepare materials in his studio in Brighton. According to his ledgers, he was to provide ‘speculative scientific educational illustrations’ in the form of ‘rapidly serialised photograph cells from nature and contrivance’. Von Herder, the blind German engineer, bought himself a weekend cottage in the Bavarian Alps with his earnings from the pressurised squid tanks and something called a burnished copper parabolic mirror. Singapore Charlie, acting for the mad Chinaman who had cornered the market in importing venomous flora and fauna, was delighted to lay his hands — not literally, of course — on as many squid as we could use.
The pets were delivered promptly, by Chinese laundrymen straining to lift heavy wicker hampers. Under the linens were Herder Bells, which looked like big brass barrels with stout glass view-panels and pressure gauges. A mark on the gauge showed what the correct reading should be, and a foot-pump was supplied to maintain the cosy deep-sea foot-poundage the average h.v.s. needs for comfort. If this process was neglected, they blew up like balloons. Snacks could be slipped to the cephalopods through a funnel affair with graduated locks. The Professor favoured live mice, though they presumably weren’t usually on the vampyroteuthis menu.
20
I could use this footnote to reveal the identity of the holder of this title — or at least the name he most commonly used — but Dame Philomela assures me that, even after a 120 years, this would not be advisable: ‘You’d be risking a lot more than getting your pussy’s ear clipped!’
21
The Si-Fan: A Chinese criminal-political faction, active throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
22
See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Speckled Band’,