‘They’ve called out the troops.’
‘Time to leave,’ said the professor.
Back in the foyer, Moriarty gave the nod. Our Comanche confederates left off pilfering and detached themselves from those still intent on making a political point.
Sapt had fallen head-first out of the chimney, blacked like a minstrel. The professor arranged the surreptitious return of his keys.
We left the building as we came, through the front door.
The Comanche melted into another crowd.
I came smack face-to-face with a junior guards officer, who was about to set diplomacy aside and invade. I stiffened my neck and snapped off a salute, which was smartly returned. Once you’ve worn the colours, they never wear off.
‘Carry on, lieutenant,’ I said.
‘Yes, sir,’ he responded.
As so often, Moriarty had contrived not to be noticed. Like those lizards who can blend into greenery, he had the knack of seeming like a forgettable clergyman or a nondescript tutor, someone who has got off the omnibus two stops early and wandered into a bloodbath which was none of his doing.
We strolled away from the battle. Shouts, shots, thumps, crashes and bells sounded. Nothing to do with us.
A cab waited on the corner.
III
Moriarty was in a black thinking mood. He chewed little violet pastilles of his own concoction and paced his room, hands knotted in the small of his back, brow set in a crinkled frown.
I was still full of the thrill of jizzwhackery, and minded to pop downstairs to call on Flossie or Pussie or whatever the tiny blonde with the lazy eye said she was called. After the hunting grounds, the boudoir – I’d learned that in India, along with how to keep an eye on your wallet in the back of your trousers while they’re draped over a chair.
But the professor was preoccupied.
The evening papers were in, along with tear-sheets of fuller reports that would be in tomorrow’s editions. Sapt was claiming that dangerous Ruritanian revolutionary movements needed to be exterminated. He called upon Great Britain, Ruritania’s ancient ally, to join the crusade against insurrection, alleging that the assault upon the Embassy (and his person) had been equally an insult to Victoria and Rudolf. Typical foreign sod, wanting us to fight his battles for him.
Back in Streslau, there had been street skirmishes between Michaelists and Rudolfites. Many arrests had been made, and Sapt was expected to return to his country with information which would lead to a complete sweep of the organised troublemakers.
The packet of photographs lay on our bureau. It seemed that reclaiming this property of a lady had interesting side-effects – Moriarty’s imaginary revolution had genuinely to be put down.
‘I hope the blasted country don’t go up in flames before Irene can cash these chips, Moriarty. She’ll get no blackmail boodle out of ‘em if they’re hangin’ from lamp posts in the public gardens.’
Moriarty growled. He left the room, and closeted himself in the dark, buzzing space where he raised his wasps and plotted the courses of heavenly bodies.
Speaking of heavenly bodies, my eyes went to the packet.
The seal was nice and red and heavy and official.
I remembered the line of Irene Adler’s throat, the trim of her calves under silk, the swell of…
No one had said anything about not examining the merchandise.
I listened out – Moriarty was whistling to his wasps, likely to be absorbed for hours; there was no tread on the stair and Mrs Halifax was ordered to keep all callers away. So, no chance of interruption.
I sat at the bureau, and turned up the gas-lamp to illuminate the blotter.
With a deft bit of penknifery, I lifted the seal intact so it could be re-attached with no one the wiser. My mouth was dry, as if I’d been in a hide for hours, watching a staked-out goat, awaiting the pad of a big cat. I poured a healthy snifter of brandy, an apt accompaniment to this pleasurable perusal.
With a warm pulse in my vitals, I slid the contents out of the packet.
It was like iced water tipped into my lap.
‘Disgustin’,’ I blurted.
A sheet of paper was slipped into the sheaf of photographs.
MY DEAR COL. MORAN
I knew you’d not be able to resist a peek at these ‘artistic studies’. Sorry for the disappointment.
For what it’s worth, you may keep all monies which can be raised from them.
If b____________________l proves unprofitable, I suggest you license them to a manufacturer of postcards.
My very best to the Prof. I knew I could rely on him to toss a pebble in the pond, sending out ripples enough to make a maelstrom. An ordinary workman would just have secured the package and been done with it. Only a genius on the level of a Buonaparte could turn a simple task into the prompt for turmoil raised across a whole continent.
Please convey the thanks of another colonel. Being Chief of Secret Police in ‘one of the most peaceable, least-insurrection-blighted spots on the map’ was not a career with a future. The Elphbergs were intent on retiring him, but now – I fancy he’ll be kept on with an increase in salary.
I expect you to retain the last figure for sentimental reasons, and I remain, dear Colonel Moran, very truly yours,
IRENE ADLER
I flipped through several more entirely innocent tourist photographs of picturesque Ruritania, until – at the bottom of the stack – I beheld the full face of the American Nightingale. In this final, studio-posed photograph she wore the low-cut bodice she’d affected on her visit to Conduit Street, somewhat loosened and lowered, though – dash it! – artistic fogging around the edges of the portrait prevented complete immodesty. Through the fog was scrawled her spidery autograph, ‘as ever, Irene’. Even thus frozen, she looked like the sort who would be much improved by a ‘Basher’ Moran Special. I gulped the brandy, and chewed my moustache for a few moments, contemplating this turn of events.
Behind me, a door opened.
I swivelled in the chair. Moriarty looked at me, eyes shining – he had thought it through, and was unhappy. When the professor was unhappy, other creatures – animals, children, even full-grown men – tended to learn of it in extreme and uncomfortable manners.
‘Moriarty,’ I began, ‘I’m afraid we’ve been stung.’
I held up Irene’s photograph.
He spat out a word.
And that was how a great shambles broke out in Belgravia, shaking the far-off kingdom of Ruritania, and how the worst plans of Professor Moriarty were exploited by a woman’s treachery. When he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always as that hitch.
Procedure by Adrian Magson
They smash through my front door at three in the morning. Two of them, dressed in black. The first – Patrick – is carrying a council kerbstone he probably found lying around somewhere, and which he uses to tap the lock out of the frame. He uses his other hand to turn on the lights and throw a small side-table along the hall. He does things like that to show how big and strong he is. People rarely argue with him.
The second man is tall, slim and black as night, with shiny dreadlocks hanging around his shoulders. He has a blowtorch in one hand and a Bic lighter in the other. Hooper. He strides cat-like to the foot of my bed and thumbs the lighter. The flame snaps the blowtorch into a steady, icy-blue tongue of fire which hisses like a dragon in the silence. I can feel the heat from six feet away. Hooper smiles.
I hope it’s a social call. Hooper is so far off the wall even the Yardies threw him out for being too violent. Now here he is in my bedroom.
‘I suppose knocking’s too fucking much to ask?’ I say. I don’t know these two all that well, but I’ve heard it’s best not to back down too quick. They respect that, for some insane reason.