John Gardner - Return Of Moriarty

For TONY GOULD-DAVIES

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with G. P. Putnams Sons Berkley Medallion edition / April 1976

Contents

Preface

LONDON: Thursday, April 5, 1894

(RETURN TO LIMEHOUSE)

Friday, April 6, 1894

(FANNY INVESTIGATED AND MORIARTYS MEMORIES OF THE AUTUMN OF 1888)

Friday, April 6, 1894

(THE REAL MORIARTY)

Friday, April 6, 1894

(A DAY IN THE COUNTRY)

Sunday, April 8, 1894

(taking stock)

Monday, April 9, 1894, 1:00a.m. To 9:00p.m.

(THE ENEMY AND THE TRUTH CONCERNING MORIARTY AT THE REICHENBACH FALLS)

Monday, April 9, 1894, 9:00p.m. onward

(THE NIGHT OF THE PUNISHERS)

Tuesday, April 10, to Thursday, April 12, 1894

(CROW AMONG THE PIGEONS)

Thursday, April 12, 1894

(THE MANNER IN WHICH MORIARTY PROCURED FREEDOM FOR THE JACOBS BROTHERS)

Friday, April 13, 1894

(THE CONTINENTAL ALLIANCE)

Saturday, April 14, 1894

(AN ASSASSINATION IS ARRANGED)

Sunday, April 15, to Wednesday, April 18, 1894

(THE WEDDING)

Saturday, April 21, 1894

(THE HARROW ROBBERY)

Sunday, April 22, to Friday, April 27, 1894

(THE REALMS OF NIGHT)

Friday, April 27, 1894

(THE LAST TRICK)

Saturday, April 28, 1894

(THE SECOND EXILE)

Glossary

Preface

There is need for some explanation regarding this volume and how it came into being. Therefore certain facts should be made clear at the outset.

In the summer of 1969 I was engaged in research concerning the current problems and operational methods of both the Metropolitan Police and the sprawling criminal underworld of London and its environs. During this period I was introduced to a man known to both the police and his associates as Albert George Spear.

Spear was at that time in his late fifties: a large well-built man with a sharp sense of humor and lively intelligence. He was also an authority on Criminal Londonnot only of his time but also of the previous century.

Spear was not without problems, being well-known to the police, with a record of many arrests and two convictionsthe last carrying with it a sentence of fifteen years for armed bank robbery. In spite of this he was a thoroughly likable man, whose favorite pastime was reading any book that came to hand. On our first meeting he told me that he had read all my Boysie Oakes books, which he found amusing and entertaining rubbisha criticism not far removed from my own view.

One night toward the end of August I received a telephone call from Spear saying that he wished to see me urgently. At the time I was living in London, and within the hour Spear was sitting opposite me in my Kensington house. He brought with him a heavy briefcase, which contained three thick leather-bound books. It is as well to say here that the bindings and paper of these books have since been subjected to the usual tests and indisputably date back to the second half of the nineteenth century. The writing contained in them, however, cannot with absolute certainty be dated, the results of chromatographic analysis and further tests being inconclusive.

Spears story concerning the books was intriguing, the volumes having come into his possession via his grandfather, Albert William Spear (1858-1919), and in turn his father, William Albert Spear (1895-1940).

My informant told me that he had not really examined the books until recently. All three generations of Spears seem to have been involved in criminal activities of one kind or another, and Spear remembers his grandfather talking of a Professor Moriarty. He also claims that his father spoke much about the Professor, who was apparently a legendary figure in the lore of the Spear family.

It was on his deathbed that William Spear first spoke to Albert about the books, which were kept locked in a strongbox at the family home in Stepney. They were, he claimed, the private and secret journals of Moriarty, though at the time of his fathers death the younger Spear was more concerned with the activities of one Adolf Hitler than with the family legend.

Although Spear was an avid reader, he had not really read or studied the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle until the late 1960s a strange omission, but one that did not worry me since I was also a latecomer to Dr. Watsons chronicles concerning the great detective.

However, when Spear eventually began to read the saga, he quickly came across the few references concerning Holmes archenemy, Professor James Moriarty, and was immediately struck by the descriptions in the Holmes books which had bearings on some of the things his father had told him.

One night he became so intrigued by both the similarities and paradoxical inconsistencies that he began to examine the books he had brought for me to see.

The pages were in good condition, and all three books were crammed with careful, rather sloping, copperplate handwriting. One could make out certain dates and street plans, but the remaining script was at first sight unintelligible. Spear was convinced that his father had told him the truth and what he possessed were the real Professor Moriartys private journals, written in cipher.

I cannot deny that my first sight of those books gave me an immense thrill, though I remained on guard, expecting the sharp Spear to put in a plea for hard cash. But money was not mentioned. It would please him, he told me, if someone could decipher the journals and perhaps use them to good advantage. His interest was purely academic.

In the days that followed I came across a number of immediate inconsistencies, not least of which was the fact that the journals continued for many years after the spring of 1891the year in which, according to Watson, Holmes disappeared at the Reichenback Fails, presumed dead after a fight with Moriarty, only to reappear in 1894 with the story that it was Moriarty who had perished.

If these journals were those of the same Moriarty, then obviously someone was either glossing fact with fiction or there was some strange case of mistaken identity.

My own knowledge of ciphers being small, I eventually took the books to my good friends and publishers Robin Denniston (who has had much experience with codes and ciphers) and Christopher Falkus. After many long hours of arduous trial and error, coupled with applied science, the cipher was broken. The result is that at the time of writing, some one and a half books have been decoded.

Quite early in this operation we realized that the documents could not be published as they stood. Even in these permissive times there is little doubt that Moriartys inherent evilwhich lurks on every pagecould cause concern. Also, the memories of too many revered and famous personalities would be subjected to wanton rumor and scandal.

We decided, therefore, that it would be best for me to publish Professor Moriartys story in the form of a novel, or novels. This is why some of the locations and events have been slightly altered though in some cases, such as Moriartys involvement in the Ripper murders and the so-called de Goncourt scandal, there is no point in concealing the facts.

As further reason for this form of treatment is that Spear disappeared shortly after handing the journals to me. As I have already stated, we cannot positively date the writings, so it is just possible, though I do not believe this, that Albert Spear, with a mischievous sense of humor, has taken some pains to perpetrate the second largest literary hoax of the century. Or maybe his grandfather, who is much mentioned in the journals, was a man of imagination? Perhaps the publication of this first volume may bring us some of the answers.