Moriarty

I cannot say how many minutes passed. I was aware that I was falling into a deep sleep, which had stretched out like a chasm beneath me. I knew that if I closed my eyes I would never open them again but still I could not stop myself. I had stopped shivering. I had reached some strange condition beyond cold and hypothermia. But even as I felt myself drifting away, the door opened and a man appeared, barely more than a silhouette in the flickering light. It was Mortlake. He looked down at us with contempt.

‘Still with us?’ he asked. ‘You’ll have cooled down a little, I suppose. Well, come this way, gentlemen. Everything has been made ready for you. On your feet, I say! There is someone I believe you wish to see.’

We could not stand. Three men came into the room and pulled us to our feet, handling us with as much care as if we had become carcasses ourselves. It was strange to have their hands on me but to feel nothing. However, even opening the door had raised the temperature a little and the movement seemed to restore my almost frozen blood. I found that I could walk. I watched Jones stand with all his weight resting on his walking stick, attempting to regain at least something of his dignity before he was propelled towards the door. Neither of us spoke to Edgar Mortlake. Why waste our words? He had already made it clear that he intended to enjoy our pain and humiliation. He had us completely in his power and anything we said would only give him the excuse to torment us more. Helped by the ruffians who had surely accompanied us from the cemetery, we made our way out of the storage room and into a vaulted corridor, the rough stonework like that of a tomb. Walking was difficult on feet that had no sensation and we stumbled forward until we came to a flight of stairs, leading down, the way now lit by gas lamps. We had to be half-carried or otherwise we would have fallen. But the air was warmer. My breath no longer frosted. I could feel the movement returning to my limbs.

A second corridor stretched out at the bottom of the stairs. I had the impression we were some distance underground. I could feel it in the heaviness of the air and the strange silence that pressed upon my ears. I was already walking unaided but Jones made tortuous progress, relying on his stick. Mortlake was somewhere behind us, doubtless relishing what was to come. We turned a corner and stumbled to a halt in a remarkable place, a long subterranean chamber whose existence might never be suspected by those who walked above.

It was formed of brick walls and vaulted ceilings with arches, dozens of them, arranged opposite each other in two lines. Steel girders had been fixed in place above our heads with hooks suspended on the ends of rusting chains. The floor consisted of cobblestones, centuries old and heavily worn, with tramlines swerving and criss-crossing each other on their way into the bowels of the earth. Everything was gaslit, the lamps throwing a luminescent haze that hung suspended in mid-air, like a winter’s fog. The air was damp and putrid. A pair of trestle tables had been set up in front of us with a number of implements which I could not bring myself to examine and there were two rickety wooden chairs; one for Jones, one for myself. Another three men, making six in total, awaited us. They presented an even grimmer spectacle than they had at Dead Man’s Walk for we were their prisoners, entirely in their hands. It was we who were the dead men now.

None of them was speaking and yet I heard echoes … voices, far away and out of sight. There was the clang of steel striking steel. The complex must be vast and we were in but one secluded corner of it. I thought of shouting out, calling for help but knew it would be pointless. It would be impossible for any rescuer to tell where the sound had come from and I would surely be struck down before I could utter two words.

‘Sit down!’ Mortlake had given the order and we had no choice. We sat on the chairs and, even as we did so, I heard an extraordinary sound: the crack of a whip, the rattle of wheels turning on the cobbles, the clatter of horses’ hooves. I turned my head and saw a sight I will never forget: a glistening black carriage, pulled by two black horses, hurtling towards us with a black-clad coachman at the reins. It seemed to form itself out of the darkness, like something from a tale by the Brothers Grimm. Finally, it drew to a halt. The door opened and Clarence Devereux stepped out.

Such an elaborate entrance for so small a man! And all for an audience of just two! Slowly, deliberately he walked towards us, dressed in a top hat and cape with a brightly coloured silk waistcoat visible beneath and what could have been a child’s gloves on his tiny hands. He stopped a few feet away, his face pale, examining us through heavy-lidded eyes. It was only here, of course, that he could feel at ease. For a man with his strange condition, to be buried underground might come as a relief.