Moriarty

‘In the past few weeks, I have become aware of a silence, an emptiness — a sense of fear. None of the auction gangs are active. Nor are the pawners, nor the cardsharps. The young women in the Haymarket and on Waterloo Bridge have been absent from their trade.’ He blushed slightly. ‘I speak to them sometimes because they can be useful to me, but now even they have gone. Of course it may be the case that the superlative work of Mr Barton and Mr Patterson has been rewarded with the state of affairs we have all wished for, if only in our dreams: a London free of crime, that with Moriarty finished, his followers have become disheartened and crept back into the sewer from which they came. Sadly, I know that is not true. As the philosopher puts it, nature abhors a vacuum. It may be that Devereux came here to ally himself with Moriarty. But finding Moriarty gone, he has simply taken his place.’

‘I believe it too,’ someone — I think Lanner — said. ‘The evidence is there, in the streets.’

‘Outbursts of violence,’ Bradstreet muttered. ‘That business at the White Swan.’

‘And the fire on the Harrow Road. Six people died …’

‘Pimlico …’

‘What are you talking about?’ Lestrade cut in, addressing himself to Hopkins. ‘Why should we believe that anything has changed? Where’s the proof?’

‘I had one informer who was prepared to speak to me and I have to say that in a way I had a certain liking for him. He had been in trouble from the day he climbed out of the cradle. Petty stuff. Fare dodging, thimble-rigging — but lately he had graduated in the school of crime. He had fallen in with a bad lot and I saw him less and less. Well, one week ago, I met him by arrangement in a rookery near Dean Street. I could see at once that he did not want to be there, that he had only come for old times’ sake for I had helped him once or twice in the past. “I can’t see you, Mr Hopkins,” he said to me. “It’s all changed now. We can’t meet any more.” “What is it, Charlie?” I demanded. I could see that he was pale, his whole body shaking. “You don’t understand …” he began.

‘There was a movement in the alleyway. A man was standing there, silhouetted against the gas lamp. I could not see who he was and anyway he was already moving away. I cannot even be sure he had been observing us. But for Charlie, it was enough. He did not dare to speak the name but this is what he said. “The American,” he said. “He’s here now and that’s the end of it.” “What do you mean? What American?” “I’ve told you all I can, Mr Hopkins. I shouldn’t have come. They’ll know!” And before I could stop him, he hurried away, disappearing into the shadows. That was the last I saw of him.’ Hopkins paused. ‘Two days later, Charlie was pulled out of the Thames. His hands were tied and death was due to drowning. I will not describe his other injuries, but I will say only this: I have no doubt at all that what Mr Chase tells us is the truth. An evil tide has come our way. We must fight it before it overwhelms us all.’

There was a long silence after this. Then Inspector MacDonald once again turned to Athelney Jones. ‘What did you find at Bladeston House?’ he asked. ‘Are there any lines of enquiry you can pursue?’

‘There are two,’ Jones replied. ‘Although I will be honest and say that there is a great deal about these murders that still remains unclear. The evidence takes me in one direction. Common sense takes me in quite another. Still … I found a name and a number in Lavelle’s diary: HORNER 13. It was written in capitals and circled. There was nothing else on the page. It struck me at the time as very strange.’

‘I arrested a man called Horner,’ Bradstreet announced, rolling his pipe in his hands. ‘John Horner. He was a plumber at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Of course, I’d got completely the wrong man. Holmes put me right.’

‘There is a tea shop in Crouch End,’ Youghal added. ‘It was run by a Mrs Horner, I believe. But it closed long ago.’

‘There was a block of shaving soap in the same drawer,’ I recalled. ‘I wondered if that might be significant?’ Nobody spoke so I continued. ‘Could Horner perhaps be a druggist or a chemist’s shop?’

Again, this elicited no reply.

‘What else, Inspector Jones?’ MacDonald asked.

‘We met a man, an unpleasant character by the name of Edgar Mortlake. Mr Chase knew him from New York and identified him as one of Devereux’s associates. It seems that he is the proprietor of a club in Mayfair, a place called the Bostonian.’

That name caused a stir around the table.

‘I know it,’ Inspector Gregson said. ‘Expensive, trashy. It opened only recently.’

‘I visited the place,’ Lestrade said. ‘Pilgrim had a room there at the time of his death. I looked through his things but I found nothing of any interest.’

‘He wrote to me from there,’ I concurred. ‘It was thanks to him that I knew about the letter that Devereux had sent to Moriarty.’