Moriarty (24 page)

“It was very strange that I should first meet my wife in the Maze. I'd never been in the Maze before. (Well, I've never been out of one since.) I think every married man's a bit mazy, more or less. Well, to make a long story thick, I was walking up and down, and after walking for about two hours I found I hadn't moved; somehow or other I'd mislaid myself—“

And so on and on, with the story becoming more ludicrous as well as hilarious, until Dan Leno finally quit the stage to make way for the one-and-only Miss Marie Lloyd, “Queen of Comedy.”

She advanced to the limes and apologized for being late: “I got blocked in Piccadilly,” she explained with a leer.

Then she had a problem opening her parasol. Finally the parasol opened and she sighed, “Thank heavens, I haven't had it up for months.” Another of her winks before she went into one of her old favourites:

She did two more songs before the audience reluctantly let her go to be replaced by Miss Vesta Tilley, the great male impersonator
*
in white tie and tails. With her top hat jaunty on her head and a swagger in her walk, she sang a sad song that touched on the danger of crossing the class barrier:

Vesta Tilley gave way to the night's top of the bill, Mr. George Robey.

Looking like an unfrocked parson, with his little black hat at a rakish angle and the black almost cassocklike garment reaching to below his knees, his little cane whirling in his hand, on he bustled to loud applause, which seemed to puzzle him. The audience was certainly a surprise to Mr. Robey, and once he had spotted them he advanced to
the footlights, his nose a heavy red and his black eyebrows arched violently, his eyes shining like headlamps.

As ever, the sight of Mr. Robey produced titters and even guffaws of laughter, which brought him to a halt. “Desist!” he called out. Then a commanding, “Out! Out!” When this did not stop the laughter he declared, “Let there be merriment by all means. Let there be merriment, but let it be tempered with dignity and the reserve which is compatible with the obvious refinement of our environment.” And he would be off in a storm of staccato gags about bullying wives and henpecked husbands' noisy landlords and interfering relatives. “Kindly temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve,” he would say, and the audience would giggle and hoot even louder at this pompous comic.

Tonight he ended with a song telling the sad tale of how he had sought a father's permission for him to marry his daughter:

By the time he finished, the audience was helpless, for he was able to play them like an instrument. Even Moriarty, not the most humorous of men, wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.

The stage cleared once again and, as at the start, filled with the chorus and dancers in their military costumes. The orchestra struck up the best-loved popular song of the day, the chorus again seeming to march toward the audience—two steps forward, a step to the side, and two steps back—bellowing out:

The audience joined in Leslie Stuart's well-known chorus, and applauded louder than they had done for the entire evening as all the artistes lined up to take their final call, the orchestra quickly changing to waltz time to get the audience out of the building, a cold blast of air signalling that the doors at the front of the house had been opened.

Moriarty took his time; he did not want to be present when the deed was actually done, so he lingered, putting on his long cloak and gloves, grasping his silver-topped walking cane. He watched from the back of the box as Idle Jack clumped, flat-footed, up the aisle.
Moving heavily toward his death
, the Professor thought.
Jack Idell wouldn't be walking at all if he knew what waited for him
. Moriarty smiled grimly and began to leave the box slowly, not hurrying at all.

I
T WAS BITTER
outside, with the wind knifing across Leicester Square and a crowd starting to build up in front of the Alhambra's elaborate façade, some already crossing to the hansoms that were lined up on the far side of the road. Billy Walker shouted his paperboy cry, a pack of
Evening Standard
s under his arms, his eyes moving, sweeping the
interior of the Alhambra's foyer. Across the road, leaning on the rails bordering Leicester Square Gardens, Wally Taplin kept his eyes on William, occasionally glancing to his left, catching a glimpse of where Harkness had the stolen cab by the side of Cranbourne Street; Apple, the quiet little grey, snuffling, turning slightly, wanting to be off and Daniel Carbonardo sitting back, the Italian pistol held firmly in his right hand and his hat pulled down over the top half of his face.

Billy saw the big Boax, with Wood by his side, as they emerged from the auditorium. The woman Jack Idell was with was laughing up at him.
You'll laugh the other side of your face before long
, Billy thought, and waited until the group had pushed through the crush, almost out of the doors, before he lifted his arm with the newspaper in it.

Accordingly, across the road, Wally's arm went up in a kind of salute, his fist closed, and up at the top of the square Ben Harkness thumped on the roof of the cab, and Daniel shifted, bringing up the pistol and looking forward as Apple started to trot quietly down the road.

This isn't going to be easy
, Daniel thought; there were people and other cabs to his left, a whole crowd of folk out on the freezing pavement, but he could see Idle Jack's brilliantly white shirtfront as he pushed forward.

Daniel had Jack in his sights, his left forearm running along the left side of the cab, forward of the hood, which barely kept the flakes of snow off him in the wind. His right hand held the pistol comfortably, the barrel lying across his forearm as he squinted toward Idle Jack and adjusted his aim as the foresight came to bear on the shirtfront.

Harkness urged Apple forward, and Danny Carbonardo began to squeeze the trigger.

M
ATTHEW
S
HOTTON PULLED
on the leash and cursed his little dog, George, a sparky Yorkshire terrier whom he was taking for its nightly walkies lest it would foul one of his good carpets. This was not one of Matthew's usual jobs. As a rule, when he got home to their little house in Poland Street, George had already been walked by his wife, Ivy. Matthew worked in the ticket office at The Prince of Wales theatre, sometimes doubling as front-of-house manager, which earned him an extra couple of pounds a week. But tonight Ivy had a heavy cold coming on and she had told him he would have to do this late-night chore. Matthew didn't care for taking George out to do his business, but thought that needs must when the devil drives—and Lord knew, Ivy could be a real devil at times, particularly when one of her head colds was upon her.

George performed near one of Shakespeare's dolphins, looking up at Matt as though this was the cleverest trick in the world. He then barked twice, and Matt Shotton gave the leash a sharp pull. He was aware of the crowd spilling out from the Alhambra and of the traffic and people. Then George barked loudly again and slipped his leash, pulling it from Matt's hand and heading off, barking and jumping, through the railings and out onto the road, as though the great three-headed dog Cerberus had been let loose and was at his heels.

The problem with George was that he thought he was human, a spunky, tough little lad with no fear. After all, hadn't he tried to break down the parlour wall to smash through when next door's bitch, Dippin, was on heat? When he sensed things were right, he would hurl himself at the wall: This little ball of black and ginger hair would take a running jump at the wall in his heartfelt attempt to smash his way through. George reckoned he could go anywhere and do anything. One of his favourite pastimes was worrying horses.

All little George was aware of was the hansom and its horse trotting down the centre of the street. George did not particularly like horses,
so he barked louder than ever and ran out, yapping, snapping, and leaping up toward the larger animal.

Ben Harkness was taken by surprise. Apple, usually the most docile of creatures, reared to the left; then, finding himself heading toward a crowd on the pavement, he reared up again, pulling to the right just as Danny Carbonardo squeezed the trigger.

Danny was thrown back in the cab but could not stop the pistol from firing: once, twice, three times; and Ben Harkness saw first a woman stagger back, wheeling around as a bullet thumped into her shoulder, and then, to his horror, young William Walker stagger, mouth open in a soundless scream as blood blossomed on the boy's shirtfront and splashed over his newspapers as he dropped them. There were screams and an agitated movement in the crowd. Harkness gave Apple a flick of the whip and pulled hard on the reins, dragging the cab to the right and urging the horse on as their speed increased and they made their way toward the only possible exit.

Left out of Leicester Square, bearing left. The Old City Hall coming up on their right, then hard left into Charing Cross Road, going straight on until they reached Cranbourne Street again, turning right, away from Leicester Square, and so into Long Acre, where they planned to ditch the cab and escape on foot.

Danny Carbonardo cursed roundly throughout. “I've let him down!” he shouted. “I've let the Professor down.” And Harkness quietly said, “It happens to us all sooner or later. It was that fucking little canine.” The fucking little canine had followed, barking, until they almost got to Charing Cross Road.

“I should have shot the little bleeder,” Carbonardo said with a lot of feeling.

“Oh, Danny; you're not a child or a pet killer. Wouldn't have done to have shot him.”

F
INALLY
, M
ORIARTY PUSHED THROUGH
the doors out into the wicked cold of Leicester Square, with tiny particles being carried on the wind. There was an ambulance pulled up close to the theatre, two big horses between the shafts, blowing steam into the freezing air. There were police bustling around and some nurses. But no sign of Idle Jack.
My God
, Moriarty thought.
What the hell's happened? Don't say that Carbonardo's missed him. How could that be?

Then, with horror, he saw they were lifting the body of young William Walker into the ambulance, blood dripping from the stretcher. The Professor swallowed hard, almost weeping.
My poor good boy
, he thought.
Daniel Carbonardo, where's your natural aptitude now?

“What's happened?” he asked a police constable nearby.

“You move along, sir. There's been a terrible shooting: lady over there wounded, and the paperboy killed outright. Didn't know what hit him, poor boy. There one minute, gone the next.”

“Good, brave lad. Dear God,” Moriarty breathed, turning to see a young woman weeping and a nurse bandaging her shoulder, which dribbled blood.

The woman was only some seventeen or eighteen summers old, seated on a step, upset and beyond comfort by the man with her, who murmured, “Come, Jessie. It'll be fine.”

“How would you know?” The woman spoke sharply; and as Moriarty turned, he was sure that he glimpsed Albert Spear in the crowd, with the boy Sam who had worked at the Glenmoragh Private Hotel, but when he looked again they had gone, melted away.

So the Professor, filled with anger and rage, stumped off toward Piccadilly, where he would get a cab. His cloak filled with air, billowing and floating like a great sail behind him, and he spotted young Taplin across the road, trying to keep pace with him.

They had failed to kill Idle Jack, God rot him. He put his head down against the wind, which carried particles of snow and ice painfully into his face.

Moriarty reached back into his long black Irish past and pulled out from many generations ago an old curse, from his travelling ancestors, the diddicoi, and he murmured it onto Idle Jack's head:

As he made his way up toward the “Dilly,” the wind blew stronger and the snow hit his face like needles, as though nature itself was reacting to his muttered spell.

LONDON & OXFORDSHIRE: JANUARY 20, 1900

F
ROM THE MOMENT
he stepped through the back door into the passage running past the kitchen, Albert Spear was aware of the sense of disaster pervading the house.

The down he could feel seemed to have reached saturation point, as if it even affected the dust motes floating in the thin sunlight shafting through the windows from the cold early-morning air. It was not actually freezing today, a mild thaw having set in during the night.

Spear already knew what was up, or was near certain that he knew. The morning papers had given him the tip with headlines like
SHOTS FIRED WOMAN WOUNDED BOY KILLED
. And
MURDER OUTSIDE ALHAMBRA
. Or
MAN IN HANSOM SHOOTS NEWSBOY
.