Mrs Halifax supplied a trembling housemaid — rather, a practiced harlot who dressed up as a trembling housemaid — to see to the feeding and pumping. Pouting Poll said she’d service the entire crew of a Lascar freighter down to the cabin boy’s monkey rather than look at the ungodly vermin, so hatches were battened over the spheres’ windows at feeding time. Not wanting to follow ma belle Véro to Frozen Knackers, Alaska, Polly did her duty without excessive whining. The Prof spotted the doxy and promised her a promotion to ‘undercover operative’ — which the poor tart hadn’t the wit to be further terrified by.
The squid were quite repulsive enough for me, but Moriarty decided their pale purplish cream hides weren’t to his liking and introduced drops of scarlet dye into their water. This turned them into flaming red horrors. The Professor, cock-a-hoop with the fiends, spent hours peering into their windows, watching them turn inside out or waggle their tentacles like angry floor mops.
Remember I said other crooks hated Moriarty? This was one of the reasons. When he was on a thinking jag, he couldn’t be bothered with anything else. Business as usual went out the window. While the Professor was tending his squid and sucking pastilles, John Clay, the noted gold-lifter (another old Etonian, as it happens), popped round to lay out a tasty earner involving the City and Suburban Bank. He wanted to rope in the Professor’s services as consulting criminal and have him take a look-see at his proposed scam, spot any trapfalls which might lead him into police custody and suggest any improvements that would circumvent said unhappy outcome.
For this, no more than five minutes’ work, the Firm could expect a healthy tithe in gold bullion. The Professor said he was too busy. I had thoughts about that, but kept my mouth shut. I’d no desire to wake up with a palpitating hellish vampire squid on the next pillow. Clay went off in a huff, shouting that he’d pull the blag on his lonesome and we’d not see a farthing. ‘Even without your dashed Professor, I shall get away clean, with thirty thousand! I shall laugh at the law, and crow over Moriarty!’
You know how the City and Suburban crack worked out. Clay is now sewing mailbags, demonstrating the finest needlework in all Her Majesty’s prisons. [23] A flash thief, he’d been an asset on several occasions. We’d never have got the Rajah’s Rubies without him. If Moriarty kept this up, we wouldn’t have an organisation left.
One caller the Professor deigned to receive was a shifty-eyed walloper named George Ogilvy. I took him straight off for a back-alley shiv-man, but he turned out to be another bally telescope tosser. First thing he did was whip out a well-worn copy of The Dynamics of an Asteroid (with all its leaves cut) and beg Moriarty for a personal inscription. I think the thing the Professor did with his mouth at that was his stab at a real smile. Trust me, you’d rather a vampyroteuthis infernalis clacked its beak — buccal orifice, properly — at you than see those thin lips part a crack to give a glimpse of teeth.
Moriarty got Ogilvy on the subject of Stent, and the astronomer poured forth a tirade. Seems the Prof wasn’t the only member of the We Hate N.A. Stent Society. I drifted off during the seventh paragraph of bile, but — near as I can recollect — Ogilvy felt passages of On an Inequality of Long Period owed a jot to his own observations, and that credit for same had been perfidiously withheld. It was apparent that, as a breed, mathematician-astronomers were more treacherous, determined and murder-minded than the wounded tigers, Thuggee stranglers, card-sharps and frisky husband-poisoners who formed my usual circle of acquaintance.
Ogilvy happily signed up as the first recruit for the Red Planet League and left, clutching his now-sacred Dynamics.
I ventured a question. ‘I say, Moriarty, what is the Red Planet League?’
His head oscillated, a familiar mannerism when he was pondering something dreadful. He looked out of our window, up into the pinkish-brown evening sky over London.
‘The League is a manufacturer of paper hats,’ he said. ‘Suitable apparel for our cousins from beyond the vast chasm of interplanetary space.’
Then Moriarty laughed.
Pigeons fell dead three streets away. Hitherto-enthusiastic customers in Mrs Halifax’s rooms suddenly lost ardour at the worst possible moment. Vampire squid waved their tentacles. I quelled an urge to bring up my mutton lunch.
Frederick Nietzsche witters on about ‘how terrible is the laughter of the Übermensch’ — yes, I have read a book without pics of naked bints or big game! — and establishes there is blood and ice in the slightest chuckle of these superior beings. If Fathead Fritzi ever heard the laugh of Professor Moriarty, he would have shat blood, ice and sauerkraut into his German drawers.
‘Yes-s-s,’ he hissed. ‘Paper hats-s-s.’
IV
From the Diary of Sir Nevil Airey Stent.
September 2
Notices are in! My lecture — an unparalleled triumph! The Dynamics of an Asteroid — in the dustbin! Moriarty’s hash — settled for good! I may draw a thick black line through the most prominent name on the List.
Now — on to other things.
Remodelling of Flamsteed House continues. All say it’s not grand enough for my position. Workmen have been in all week, installing electric lamps in every room. In my position, we must have all the modern, scientific devices. Lady Caroline fears electricity will leak from the wiring and strike dead the servants with indoor lightning. I have explained to her why this is impossible, but my dear featherhead continues to worry and has ordered the staff to wear rubber-soled shoes. They squeak about the place like angry mice.
Similarly, the Observatory must expand, keep apace, draw ahead.
At ninety-four inches, our newly commissioned optical-reflecting telescope shall be the biggest in the world! The ’scopes at Birr Castle and the Lick Observatory will seem like tadpoles! I almost feel sorry for them. That’s two more off the List!
Kedgeree for breakfast, light lunch of squab and quail eggs, Dover sole and chipped potatoes for supper. Congress with Lady C. — twice! Must eat more fish.
Reviewing my life and achievements on this, my forty-fifth birthday, I concede myself well-satisfied.
All must admire me.
Looking to the planets and stars, I feel I am surveying my domain. My Queen has her Empire, but she has gifted me the skies for conquest.
Mars is winking at me, redly.
September 6: A curious happening.
Business took me to the lens-grinders’ in Seven Dials. Old Parsons’ work has been indifferent lately, and I made a personal visit to administer a metaphorical boot to the seat of his britches.
After the booting was done, I left Parsons’ shop and happened to notice the premises next door. Above a dingy window was a sign — ‘C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities’. The goods on offer ran to dead birds, elephant tusks, shark maws, fossils and the like. I’d thought this site occupied by a bakery, but must be misremembering. Cave’s premises had plainly stood for years, gradually decaying and accumulating layers of dust and dirt.
My attention was drawn to the window by a red flash, which I perceived out of the corner of my eye. A stray shaft of light had reflected off an odd object — a mass of crystal worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. It might do for a paperweight if I were in need of such a thing, which I was not.
Then, I heard voices raised inside the emporium. One was known to me — that upstart Moriartian Ogilvy. Alone among the fraternity of astronomers, he has written in defence of The Dynamics of an Asteroid. His name was on the List.
23
See: John Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Red-Headed League’,