‘Angus, they have been here for you. From Scotland Yard.’ Her inflections were much as you would expect from a gargoyle.
‘Really, my dear,’ Crow’s mind spinning, stretching for the right answers to the questions as yet unasked.
‘They said that you were not on duty tonight. Can you explain this?’
‘No,’ Crow said firmly. ‘There are some things concerned with the job that I do not have to explain. I certainly would not weary you with a recital of all the odd things a detective is called upon to do in order to earn his wages.’
‘Really.’ That she did not altogether believe him was patently obvious.
‘And what did they want from the Police Office, my dear?’
‘They asked that you should go as directly as possible to the Grosvenor Hotel – something about a Mr Morningdale.’
Crow was already reaching for his hat which he had set down but a second ago. ‘Jarvis Morningdale?’
‘It would appear so.’
‘At last.’ One hand on the street door.
‘He was there, earlier, it seems. Also there has been some kind of affray in Victoria Street nearby. In any case, your presence is required with some urgency.’
‘Do not wait up for me, Sylvia. This may take some time.’
On the corner, he bumped into Harriet returning from her evening out. Crow raised his hat to the girl, his heart bouncing and stomach turning over at her smile, which was as warm as the one she had given him but an hour earlier when they had parted.
Crow’s step was light as he almost danced along the sparkling pavement, turning this way and that in search of a hansom to take him to the Grosvenor. The world, it seemed to him, smiled broadly. In Harriet, Crow fancied he had at last found the answer to all his secret thoughts and hidden longings. Why, she was a mere slip of a girl, yet she made him feel like a young lad again, a dizzy young lad all sentiment and roses. The soot of the city, even, smelled to him like the rich heather of his youth. Her touch sent him into frenzies, and to have her near, in his arms, plunging in mutual congress, was as near heaven as he felt he would ever come.
At the Grosvenor, his spirits sank. Morningdale had been there, but was gone. A party of Frenchmen had also been there. They had gone as well. There were garbled and insubstantial tales from the staff concerning one of the Frenchmen leaving in haste followed by two consulting detectives from the Donrum Agency.
There was also a story from one of the beat constables. A ridiculous business – some foreigner being chased among the traffic, leaping from omnibus top to omnibus top and finally falling, between the shafts of a hansom, and being picked up in a stunned condition.
‘His two friends said they would take him to the hospital, sir,’ the constable told him. ‘It was all something and nothing really, and I had my time cut out directing the traffic. He’d had a mite too much to drink, I believe. Don’t think he was hurt bad, but I said as how I would call up at the Western Dispensary as soon as I could.’
Crow would have put a hundred sovereigns on there being no trace of the injured foreign gentleman, or his friends, at the Western Dispensary. Nor any other hospital. He sat down, in the manager’s office of the Grosvenor, and attempted to piece together what he could concerning Mr Jarvis Morningdale’s visit to the hotel, the presence of the fictional employees of the, equally fictional, Donrum Detective Agency, and the trio of French visitors. He was quite convinced, an hour or so later, that he had once again missed James Moriarty. A black despair settled over Angus McCready Crow on his way back to King Street. It was a despair which, he knew, could only be dispersed by the tender ministrations of Harriet.
Grisombre knew that he was alive by the aching in his head, the pain across his arm and the voices coming from the blurred shapes around him. He seemed to recall that he had been driven uncomfortably in some kind of cab. He also had a vivid picture of the side of the omnibus, the frightened snort of horses, and that terrible sensation of falling.
His sight cleared and he began to struggle. James Moriarty was leaning over him, and there were others in the background. Among them Wilhelm Schleifstein.
‘You are safe, Grisombre,’ Moriarty cooed. ‘It was foolish of you to run. Nobody wishes you harm.’
He struggled again, but had to sink back onto the pillow out of weakness.
‘It is true what the Professor says, Jean,’ Schleifstein came closer. ‘You have a broken arm, some bruises, and no doubt your pride is hurt. I know that mine was when the Professor led me such a merry dance, but what he says is true. He merely wishes to prove himself in the ascendancy. We have talked much and I am convinced. The continental alliance between us should stand, with James Moriarty at its head.’
‘Do not bother yourself with it now.’ Moriarty even sounded concerned. ‘You are safe, and will be kept so for a time, but my people will treat you like your own. Sleep and I will return tomorrow.’
Grisombre nodded and closed his eyes, slipping into a deep healing sleep during which he dreamed of the top decks of a hundred omnibuses moving steadily down a well-lit street. All the passengers were women, their eyes and faces reflecting a mocking smile. The women were all identical and he could name each one. The Madonnae Lisas.
Moriarty took out the leather-bound journal, turning to the rear pages which contained the coded notes on the six men at whom his total reserves were directed. Taking his pen he drew a thin diagonal line through the pages that dealt with Grisombre.
* We know from the Moriarty Journals (the whole story is in The Return of Moriarty) that the Professor was thwarted, in 1890-91, in an attempt to steal the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London. The French Crown Jewels were another matter and consisted of the Crown of Charlemagne (supposedly the genuine stones in a modern setting) which was used at the coronation of Napoleon; the Crown of Louis xv (possibly set with false stones); a diamond-encrusted sword belonging to Napoleon 1; a watch encased in diamonds given to Louis xiv by the Bey of Algiers; and the splendid Regent diamond – if not the largest diamond in the world, probably the purest. From some notes in the Moriarty Journals, it would appear that the Professor toyed with the idea of making these Crown Jewels his own property in the late 1880s, but he records at one point that ‘The Regent is the only piece worth taking’.
* There is little point in cataloguing the talents of Edgar Degas the artist, for they are well known to all. At this time he was sixty years of age and his eyesight, weakened during army service in the Franco-Prussian war, was daily growing worse. He was also, by now, concentrating on sculpture, which he called ‘a blind man’s art’. He held very strong views about Leonardo’s Gioconda and, together with many other artists, campaigned vociferously against any attempt being made to clean it.
* The theft of the Mona Lisa. In the light of the theft revealed in this chronicle, and the further events documented in the next few pages, it is interesting to note the following:
On Monday, 21 August, 1911 – some fifteen years after James Moriarty removed Leonardo’s work from the Louvre – the Mona Lisa was found to be missing. It was not traced for two years. Finally, in the second half of 1913, Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian house-painter, was arrested for trying to sell the picture in Florence.
During the ‘missing’ period, two theories were voiced by various factions of the French Press. (1) It had been stolen by a French newspaper in an attempt to prove an earlier assertion on that newspaper’s part, that the painting had already been stolen. (2) The theft had been engineered by an American collector who would have an exact copy made and, in time, would return the copy to the Louvre, keeping the original for his own private collection. We now know that in many ways both theories were correct – though late in their exposition.
* Zidler and the Moulin Rouge. Zidler, the impresario, has been rightly called ‘one of the architects of Montmartre’s fame’. As early as the 1870s the centre of the more vulgar, exciting, night-life of Paris was to be found around the Clichy and Pigalle areas of
Lower Montmartre. This was the swarming territory through which a large section of the Parisian underworld passed: a place of thieves, fences, pimps, prostitutes, tricksters, gypsies, singers, dancers, and rogues. It was most notable for its wine shops, café’-concerts and cabarets, and was also the womb of that dance which is so popularly evocative of Paris in the so-called ‘Naughty Nineties’ – the cancan, which began life as le chahut, a wild improvised version of the quadrille, in which modesty was thrown to the wind. Its popularity began to spread from places like the Elysé-Montmartre, but came to full commercial maturity when Zidler converted a former dance hall, the Reine Blanche in Pigalle, into the famous Moulin Rouge. Toulouse-Lautrec, in his paintings and posters, has made it, and those associated with it – in particular the extraordinary sensual La Goulue, and Jane Avril – familiar to all. To the Moulin Rouge, and other night haunts of the area, came fashionable Paris, not to mention the fashionable world (La Goulue, at the height of her fame, is reported to have taunted the Prince of Wales with the words, ‘Hey, Wales. It’s you who’s paying for the champagne.’). By this time, however, Zidler had sold out the Moulin Rouge – in 1894 – and, though still a popular attraction, its fortunes were diminishing. La Goulue left in 1895, and, by the time Moriarty went there in search of Grisombre, Jane Avril was working at the more popular Folies Bergére.
* Literally, ‘Shut your beak, little cooking pot, or I’ll break your wing’. The French criminal argot, according to M. Joly, ‘transforms living forms into things, assimilates man to animals’. Thus: the mouth un bee, the arm un aileron. Moriarty’s most insulting remark was to call the girl a marmite – one who supports a pimp.
* Such performances – like the famous Le Coucher d’Yvette – were commonplace in the cabarets of Montmartre. One of the most famous artistes was Angèle Héiard who disrobed while miming a flea hunt. But it is unlikely to have been Mme. Hérard whom Moriarty saw at La Maison Vide, for she performed almost exclusively at the Casino de Paris.
* The various continental systems – which kept a careful track of all personal movement – were most strongly resisted by both the British police and Government as an infringement of individual freedom.
LONDON AND ROME:
Tuesday, 9 March – Monday, 19 April 1897
(A fall from grace and a Roman interlude)
‘The timing is of great importance,’ said Moriarty. ‘But, Spear will attend to that side of the matter. What I really need to know, dear Sal, is whether or not you feel our Italian Tigress is ready.’
‘She’s as ready as makes no odds.’ Sal Hodges sounded a trifle put out, as though diffident to the Professor’s questioning. She turned to view her half-clad body in the long mirror which graced the wall of the bedroom. ‘These new French drawers, James, do they titillate your fancy?’
‘Fripperies, Sal, icing to a cake that is already good enough at any time.’
‘As good a mixture as Carlotta?’
‘More spicy. Tell me about Carlotta’s readiness.’
‘I have done so. She’s as ready as she will ever be.’ She came over to where the Professor lay. ‘Your questions tell me that you are about to take the journey to Rome, James.’
Silently he nodded. ‘Easter is the only time that it can all be brought together with any certainty.’
‘The girl is well-schooled. Just mind that you do not teach her other things while she is with you.’
‘Am I not to be her father?’
‘Then I’ve no doubt it will be an incestuous business.’
‘She is but bait, Sal, and, talking of bait, it is time to take other steps. You say that Crow is well hooked?’
‘Harriet tells me that he says he cannot live without her.’
‘Excellent. It sounds as though he is well into the madness which takes men at his time of life.’
‘What do you plan?’
‘When a man takes to a habit and circumstances suddenly deny it to him, Sal, the man often plunges to his own destruction. I have seen it happen again and again. Crow has sown his own seeds. He must now reap the harvest. Get word to Harriet. She must now leave, with stealth, without word, without explanation. Here today. Tomorrow gone. We will need do no more, for human nature will arrange matters for us.’
‘And you are off to Italy?’
‘With two disguises, the ruby necklace that looked so pretty on Lady Scobie’s throat – the Scobie Inheritance, I believe they called it – and our pretty young Miss Carlotta.’
Harriet’s unexpected departure struck Crow all of a heap. She had been there, her usual smiling and pretty self in the morning when he left for New Scotland Yard. She even gave their special secret signal which was a token of the beautiful, if illicit, experience they shared. When he returned that evening, tired and concerned regarding the interview he had been called to by the Commissioner, she was gone.
Sylvia did not stop talking. ‘Just a note on the kitchen table, Angus. A plain note. I am leaving, signed H. Barnes. No explanation. Nothing. I am leaving. H. Barnes – I did not even know she had another name. Servants just do not know their place any more …’ And so on in the same vein until Crow’s head seemed about to burst.
There was no note for him. No message. Not a hint. After dinner – a scratch affair put together at short notice by Sylvia – he sat in the parlour, with his wife still prattling on and on, and sank into such gloom that he could have wept.
At bedtime it was worse than ever, for his mind began to play tricks, turning him to great fantasies of what might have happened to her. She was, in truth, the one constant factor that stayed in Crow’s head, almost to the banishment of all else. So, when the Commissioner sent for him on the following afternoon – for the second time in two days – the detective found himself hard pressed to give any reasonable account of the day’s activities.
The Commissioner was not pleased. ‘There are three robberies on which you appear to have made no progress,’ he chided, irritable and peppery as a curry. ‘Not to mention that disgraceful business in Edmonton, and the murder of old Tom Bolton. Now there is this Morningdale matter.’
‘Morningdale,’ repeated Crow as though hearing the name for the first time.
‘My dear man, I need explanations, not repetitions. Your mind seems to have been elsewhere these past few weeks. If I had not seen your private arrangements with my own eyes, I would take it that you had a spot of domestic turmoil. Or worse, that you had become involved with some woman.’ He made the last word sound like some dreadful serpent.
Crow bit his tongue and swallowed hard.
‘Now, the Morningdale thing. You, and you alone, Crow, apparently circulated that name, and a description, to the best hotels in London, asking that you should be informed if the fellow turned up as a guest. Yesterday you told me that it had something to do with the erstwhile Professor Moriarty. Yet you have given no details.’
‘I …’ began Crow.
‘Even your sergeant did not know who Morningdale was, nor what was required of him. The result was that when an hotel manager reported his presence, there’s none to take action, and you are not to be found. This is no way to run a detective force, Inspector, let alone a police force. Now tell me about Morningdale.’
Crow told him, in a somewhat garbled form, of his correspondence with Chanson, and his suspicions regarding the strange goings on in and around the Grosvenor. He was quite aware that he had not told the tale well.
‘It is all mere supposition, Crow,’ barked the Commissioner. ‘You do not even make it rhyme. You are looking for a man called Morningdale because a former associate of Moriarty’s is seen talking to him in Paris. He turns up at the Grosvenor. So do some fakesters posing as detectives; so, indeed, do three Frenchmen. The manager tries to find you and fails. You leave no message as to where you can be found. There is some kind of fracas at the hotel. Two of the so-called detectives chase one of the Frenchmen out of the hotel. Morningdale leaves – paying all the bills in a proper manner. The manager
again tries to find you. An officer is even sent to your house, and your good lady wife does not know that you are off duty. When you finally arrive at the Grosvenor, the birds have flown. You offer no explanation as to what you imagine they were about, nor even evidence that the law has been flouted – except for a bit of horseplay involving public transport: a misdemeanour at the most. That kind of thing comes before the courts every day, or is dealt with by the constable on the spot. Or perhaps you are not conversant with the dangerous game of hare and hounds which the young rips play across the tops of omnibuses? Perhaps, Inspector Crow, a term of duty back in uniform, dealing with everyday problems, would make you more familiar with the difficulties of this force.’
It was a direct threat, and Crow knew it. What the Commissioner was saying, in effect, was do your job properly or you’ll be back at some divisional police station up to your ears in paperwork and routine – with a generous loss in status to boot. A fate worse than death to the ambitious Crow.
Even with this knowledge, he could not pull himself out of the dreadful lethargy, loneliness and sleepless desire which now possessed him. Every waking thought turned on Harriet. Where was she? Why had she left? Had he caused some calamity? In the weeks that followed, Crow’s work began to run downhill at an alarming rate. His mind could not seem to grasp at the most simple pieces of evidence; decisions became more and more difficult to make; he was vague in giving orders; on two occasions he followed wrong trails and once made an arrest so unjustified that the man had to be released with grovelling apologies from all involved. The most galling problem was that he had nobody in whom to confide. In the week before Easter it became apparent, even to Crow in his state of mind, that the axe would fall at any moment. The Commissioner would be upon him like the proverbial ton of bricks. Yet he still yearned for Harriet; mooned over her like a lovesick boy; pined for her; could not sleep for her.