Moriarty (23 page)

Tonight he would be going to the Daily Mail War Benefit Night at the Alhambra as an elderly country cousin: a man he liked to call Rupert Digby-Smyth from one of the Cotswold villages, one of the Chippings, he thought, a man for whom a trip to London was a huge change in his routine, an exciting business.

In his sixties, Rupert was already set in his ways, nervous yet still with an eye to the good things of life. He was slim, with a full head
of greying hair; a somewhat bulbous nose, blue of hue; tired eyes; and the beginnings of a stoop to his shoulders. He dressed well, though in a slightly old-fashioned way: dark trousers and a black swallowtail evening coat that showed signs of mildew, a dull silk cravat that had originally been costly, and a shirt front that could have been stiffer, while on his feet were boots outdated many years, the soles a patchwork of mended leather. His cloak looked fine from a distance, with its silver lion's-head clasps, but on close inspection was frayed and dirty.

When Moriarty came down the steps to the cab, Harkness marvelled at his master's skill. Not in a thousand years would anyone take this old mutton as the evil, fit, and cunning Professor. This fellow looked as if he would require help to get across the road, and even more help to get across a woman—and there would be plenty of willing girls promenading at the Alhambra tonight; there always were.

The two boys, William and Walter, stood by the coach, ordered there so that they could identify the Professor later, when he came out of the theatre. Like Ben Harkness, they could hardly believe their eyes.

“I'll do my best to pick you up, Professor,” Harkness said as they set off for the theatre. “But it'll be a shade warm around Leicester Square by the time you're ready to leave.”

“Don't worry about me, Ben. I'll find my way back. Those two good boys have orders to shadow me. They learn quickly. It'll do 'em good.”

T
HERE WAS A HUGE
and excited seethe around the front of the Alhambra, people crowding in for this special night. A good thing, Moriarty thought, that he had sent young Taplin over to pick up tickets to his box that afternoon. He sat well back; even though disguised, he would never take for granted that no clever shins might see through his
disguise. “Err always on the side of caution,” he would tell his people. Even though, in the deep confines of his mind, he knew his disguises to be impenetrable, Moriarty seldom left anything to chance—his lack of readiness concerning the sexually intermediate photographer, Joey Coax, being the kind of exception that proved the rule.

He usually knew far more than he let on to those around him. For instance, before Sir Jack Idell arrived, all done up in his finery, the Professor was aware, through a man he had in the Alhambra's front-of-house staff, that Idle Jack had five seats booked in his favourite part of the theatre, the fauteuils, close to the promenade where the night ladies would usually parade unless the management had been got at by the many public decency organizations who held the old music halls were an abomination in the sight of the Lord: places of drunkenness, debauchery, and coarseness. The Alhambra was a theatre, not a hall, remember; people did not sit at tables drinking during a performance as in the old, true music halls, which were often rough, dangerous, and rowdy places, far from the incorrect collective memory of gilded and glittering theatres of fun. The real old music halls gave access to alcohol throughout performances, which were often enjoyed because of the drink, not in spite of it.

Here, tonight, the Alhambra was sucking in its large audience, particularly the seats in the stalls, and dress-circle stalls were filling up with the better-class clientele and the wealthy young bucks who frequented the palaces of variety: men and women in full evening dress, white tie and tails, some in dress uniform, a cut above the rough, coarse audiences of the ordinary halls. But there was that same hum of expectancy that Moriarty had always found exciting in places of entertainment. He smiled to himself, remembering the last time he had been in this theatre, when he had been concentrating on the act presented by the illusionist Dr. Night, whom he had manipulated and
used in his dreadful attempt upon the life of the Prince of Wales back in 1894.
*

He was quickly pulled out of his reverie by the arrival of Idle Jack and his party, Jack Idell clumping to his seat, flat-footed and slack-jawed. Tonight there were two bodyguards with him, Moriarty noted: a big, argumentative bruiser he knew as Bobby Boax and the short, pudgy Rouster Bates, whom he had expected. As Bates appeared, next to Boax, a childhood rhyme coursed through his memory:

That pretty much summed up little Rouster, whose eyes all but disappeared into his pudgy face.

Somewhat to Moriarty's surprise, Idle Jack was tonight escorting a lady, and he recognized her instantly: the Honourable Nellie Fletcher, youngest daughter of Viscount Pitlochry, said to be worth millions and none too concerned about the kind of company he kept, a great one for the gaming tables and the fast life. Now that would be a match, Moriarty considered. What an ideal thing that Danny was to take care of Jack that night, for the girl looked to be an innocent, and he had heard of Idle Jack's sexual proclivities, which he would not wish on any young maid. Certainly one of Idle Jack's many unprepossessing traits was his known penchant for rape. Jack was not the kind of man you could leave with your daughter, he had been told. “Nor your young son, either,” a particular friend had remarked. “Likes his greens violent,” Sal had heard.

Indeed, Jack Idell had few scruples about his urges and desires; other people's susceptibilities were never held much to the fore by him. Just as he was light-fingered regarding other folks' wealth, so he was light-handed in another sense. “A liar, a cheat, a thief, a womanizer, and a sacrilegious bugger to boot,” had been the way one cheated banker had summed him up. Moriarty had recently told Albert Spear, “I am a veritable Goldilocks compared to that liver-faced trossano.”

Yet it was the fifth member of Idle Jack's party who interested the Professor most, for he had never actually seen Broad Darryl Wood in the flesh, the large, balding broad-shouldered, and undoubtedly highly intelligent ramper said to be Jack Idell's right-hand man. Another person of low morals and ruthless cunning, it was said of him that he had more pockets in his clothes than a normal man, for he needed them to hide the spoils he picked up while walking through any gathering. Ember said he had India-rubber pockets so he could filch from the soup kitchens; and the saying was that Darryl Wood could thieve the keys from St. Peter, while Idle Jack would never even wait for the keys—he would force the locks of the Pearly Gates to get in, and would bring a forged life history with him.

As he watched the arrival of Idle Jack's party, Moriarty was aware of the orchestra tuning up, and it was obvious that for tonight, the pit had been enlarged: Many new players, particularly among the brass, had augmented the usual pit band. He also caught a glimpse of two extra drummers, one settled behind a full set of timpani. There was obviously going to be a joyful noise put up tonight.

He took in a deep lungful of air and smelled the heavy redolence of tobacco, mixed with the scent of the many bottled bouquets the ladies liked to use—“their perfumes of Arabia,” as he had heard them called. The Professor had a good nose, and so he also detected the remnants of human sweat that joined with the other aromas hanging and jostling with one another.

Moriarty cast an eye over the entire house, putting names to faces, watching the audience settle and seeing the thin blue haze of tobacco smoke hanging a few feet above their heads, swirling and thickening in the rays from the spotlights operated from behind the dress circle.

Now, as the excited buzz and ripple of the audience reached its peak, the conductor finally took his place, tapped on his music stand, and raised his baton. The house lights dimmed and slowly the chatter died out, leaving in its wake the expectant hush of an audience brought to readiness. Then, the brass bellowed out
Tan-ta-ra-ra-ta-ta-tum-ta-ra-ra
—

The curtain rose on a hundred men and women dressed in military red coats, blue trousers, and busbies, seemingly marching in time toward the footlights as they sang the simplistic jingoism of an opening song written especially for tonight's benefit, sending thoughts toward the war in South Africa, the brass blaring loud above the strings and the drums keeping up a persistent military beat—

“I feared for the roof,” Moriarty said later, and the audience loved it as the singers and dancers seemed to form fours and march in time to the banal song. They clapped and cheered, Idle Jack's party yelling with the rest, Jack leaning over toward Boax, exchanging a joke, heads back, mouths open in laughter.

Let him have his fun
, the Professor thought.
He has little time left
.

The chorus ended, the stage cleared, and the tempo changed for Eugene Stratton, The Dandy-Coloured Coon,
*
black-faced with white lips and eyes and a magnificent style in his soft-shoe shuffle as he quietly danced on—

And on with his expert dancing—certainly better than his singing—the drummers giving the soft-shoe a counterpoint on the skulls.

There followed a plethora of popular acts: Kaufman's Trick Cyclists, billed as “Twelve Cycling Beauties,” circling the stage performing impossible bicycle tricks, very eye-catching in their pink two-piece costumes, form-fitting to show off their figures and excite the gentlemen, the lower half hugging the thighs but ending just above the knees; the amazing juggling Cinquevalli, “The Human Billiard Table”; and to close the first half, the much-loved Fred Karno and His Speechless Comedians with their manic slapstick sketches.
*

The Professor had arranged to have a glass of brandy brought to his box in the interval and he sipped it with relish, watching half hidden by the decorating drapes as Idle Jack moved about in the audience, greeting acquaintances, always with the roguish Boax a foot or so behind him like a leech. As he became animated, it seemed to Moriarty that Idle Jack lost his slack-jawed Farmer Giles look, becoming almost suave as he moved around, introducing the Honourable Nellie Fletcher to friends. Moriarty had heard that much of Jack Idell's outward appearance, the walk and drooping jaw, was put on to throw people off his actual astuteness. He wondered now if this could be true.

The most difficult position on the variety bill was always the second-half opener, and tonight the job fell to an immaculately dressed—white tie and tails—good-looking, slight young man who walked on carrying only his opera hat and cane, introducing himself, “Good evening. I am Martin Chapender.”
^†
He crushed the hat and laid it on a small table, then proceeded to amaze the house with effects
that seemed to be true magic. He swallowed his stick and produced it from his pocket, conjured full-sized billiard balls from the air; freely selected cards from a shuffled deck rose eerily from the deck placed in a glass.

Chapender then flicked open his opera hat, looked slyly at the audience, and asked, “Were you expecting a rabbit?”—immediately pulling a kicking bunny from the hat. He then wrapped the rabbit in newspaper and tore the newspaper into small pieces to show that the animal had gone.

Chapender next went into the audience and borrowed none but Idle Jack's handsome heavy gold watch and chain, which crumbled to nothing in his hands, startling Jack Idell. Then, drawing attention to a box that had been suspended from the flies throughout, Chapender asked for the box to be lowered and unlocked it to reveal the rabbit, with Jack Idell's watch around its neck.

Now the huge old music-hall names were beginning to arrive, fresh from a night's work somewhere else in London, and the first to be greeted with a roof-lifting cheer and applause was Mr. Dan Leno, “The Chief of Comedians,” indisputably the greatest comedian of his day and “Champion Clog Dancer of the World.” Tonight, the little, comic-faced, sad-eyed man introduced one of his beloved characters, Mr. Pipkins, recognizable by many a man in the audience:

“That's her mother's doing. ‘Pon my word, I don't know whether I'm married to the mother or daughter sometimes. Oh they do beat me, and of course you daren't hit a woman; well, I know I daren't. I can assure you I'm one mass of bruises; if my coat wasn't sewn on me I could show you some lovely bruises. I suppose it's because I enjoy bad health that I bruise so nice. I don't know what I wanted to get married for. Yet I might have done worse; I might have got run over or poisoned. My life's one long wretchedness; and it's