Moriarty

‘We have arrested them — many times. They are all three of them graduates of Sing Sing and the Tombs but in recent years they have been careful to keep their hands clean. They pretend to be respectable businessmen now and there is no evidence to prove otherwise. Arresting them again would do no good. The police have questioned them repeatedly but there is nothing in this world that would make them talk. They represent the new breed of gangster, the one that we at Pinkerton’s most fear. They are no longer afraid of the law. They think themselves above it.’

‘Have you met them?’

‘I have observed all three of them from a distance and from behind a wire mesh. I always thought it best that we should remain unacquainted. If Devereux can keep his face a secret from me, it seems only fair to repay the compliment.’ Mrs Steiler walked past and placed another log on the fire although her restaurant was already sweltering. I waited until she had left us and then finished my account. ‘For two years we investigated Clarence Devereux with little success, but then, just a few months ago, we had a breakthrough. One of my investigators was a young man called Jonathan Pilgrim.’

‘I know that name too,’ Jones muttered.

‘He was only in his twenties when I first met him and in his enthusiasm and basic decency he reminded me of myself at his age. He was a remarkable fellow who’d come to us from the west. A fine cello player and a baseball player too. I once saw him pitch at Bloomingdale Park. When he was nineteen, he trailed a horse herd a thousand miles across the Texas plains and he’d had experience of ranches, mines — he’d even spent time working the riverboats. He joined the team in New York and, working on his own, managed to get close to Leland Mortlake. Let’s just say that the older of the two brothers had always enjoyed the company of a handsome boy and with his straw-coloured hair and bright blue eyes, JP was very handsome indeed. He became Mortlake’s secretary and travelling companion. The two of them dined together. They visited the theatre and the opera and hung out at the saloons. Well, in January, Mortlake announced that he was moving to London and he invited JP to go with him.

‘It was a brilliant opportunity. We had an agent right inside the gang and although Jonathan never came face to face with Devereux — how much easier it would have made our task if he had! — he did have access to much of Mortlake’s correspondence. Although it placed him in the greatest personal danger, he eavesdropped on conversations, kept an eye on everyone who came and went and made extensive notes on the workings of the gang. I used to meet with him secretly on the third Sunday of every month at the Haymarket, a dance hall on Thirtieth Street. He would report everything that he had learned to me.

‘From him, I gathered that although Clarence Devereux exerted almost total control over the American underworld, it still was not enough. He was turning his attention to England. He had been in communication with a certain Professor James Moriarty, exploring the possibility of what might be termed a transatlantic alliance. Can you imagine it, Inspector Jones? A criminal fraternity whose tentacles would extend all the way from the west coast of California to the heart of Europe! A worldwide confederation. The coming together of two evil geniuses.’

‘You knew of Moriarty?’

‘By name and by reputation, most certainly. Although it is unfortunately true that Scotland Yard is not always co-operative in its dealings with Pinkerton’s, we still have our contacts within the New York police — and for that matter with the Rijkswacht and the Sûreté. We had always been afraid that one day Moriarty might head west but it now appeared that the exact opposite had occurred.

‘Scotchy Lavelle, Leland Mortlake and Edgar Mortlake had all set themselves up in London by the start of the New Year. Jonathan had gone with them and, a few weeks later, he sent us a telegraph to the effect that Clarence Devereux had also joined them. It was exactly what we had been waiting for. There are not so many forty-year-old wealthy Americans in London. His psychological condition, if true, could also help to identify him. At once, the Midnight Watch drew together the passenger lists of every steamship that had made the crossing from America to England in the past month and although it was a huge task — there were hundreds of names — we still thought it possible to narrow them down. Unless Clarence Devereux had somehow found a way to fly, he must be among them and to find him we worked night and day.