第 10 页

“Where is Jude?” I asked again, this time with slow and determined insistence.

He looked down at the shards of broken glass calmly and muttered, “sixty-eight little pieces, almost quite beautiful.”

He really was the oddest person I had ever met and very difficult to interact with. His eyes were either staring straight at me with a searching intensity or looking through me in a glazed, disinterested fashion.

“Clearly you will not co-operate until you have seen your friend. Come . . .”

He beckoned for me to follow and we left the room. A timid young servant scurried past and he raised his hand to get her attention.

“There is untidiness in the study, kindly restore order at once,” he instructed.

We progressed along a wide corridor in silence before entering a large scullery. Jude was sitting at a vast table greedily scoffing from a feast of meat, vegetables and bread.

“Stop!” I shouted, running into the room and grabbing a chicken leg from his hand just as he was about to devour it. He looked at me in shock. I turned to the professor shaking it at him. “Is this poisonous? Is all this a trap? Talk to me. What do you want with us!”

The professor took out a spotless white handkerchief from his pocket, draped it over his hand and took the chicken leg from me before taking a large bite.

“Delicious, you should try some,” he exclaimed, carefully wiping the grease from his fingers and using another handkerchief to dab his lips.

I folded my arms and turned away in anger. I felt he was just toying with us for his own entertainment. He signalled to the large-bosomed cook fussing over the table of food.

“Please take the young man from the room Mrs Dench.”

“Wait, no, where are you taking him?” I shouted but, as I felt the cold barrel of a pistol against my neck, I decided it was pointless to protest.

“He will be safe, but you must understand that my orders are to be obeyed,” said the professor as he removed the pistol.

“Intolerable chaos,” he grumbled once we were alone, casting a troubled eye over the piles of food on the table and dirty pans heaped in the sink. “We must leave at once.”

He ushered me from the room and walked me back to the study. Once inside he shut the door, seemingly more at ease away from other people and disorder.

“I do not wish to harm you in any way. I have been watching you since you murdered my associate Mr Burgess the house master. An unpleasant man but initially so useful. Unfortunately, as is often the case with my associates, he was found to be untrustworthy. You saved me the trouble of sending someone to deal with the matter. It is what first brought you to my attention. I wondered to myself, was it simply a sheer moment of rage which enabled you to dispose of him? Did you lash out in automatic unskilled self-defence? Or was it an innate ability? I began to watch you, or rather paid others to watch and inform. Your recent escape from prison was simply brilliant, the pinnacle in your development.

“But it is time that this raw little street brawler learnt to do things properly. I will provide the very best tutors, all at my expense. Your mind will be educated and your body trained thoroughly in all forms of physical combat. You will shoot like no other; learn martial arts and box better than any man. You will learn to respond to every situation physically, like a machine, a fighting machine, a perfected physical specimen.

“You will have discipline and intelligence which will make you indestructible. In return you will work for me. I am surrounded by fools like Moran who are weak and imperfect, you will be the one I can trust above all others, my creation. My wife.”

I stood silently possessed by utter disbelief. Surely these were the ravings of a madman, a fantasist? I had to escape somehow, get away from this lunatic before I became in serious danger.

“I have a brilliant mind,” he continued. “It is a burden and blessing. I cannot befriend, trust, or love. I am frustrated by the limitations of my own frail body. I need you to compensate for my physical weaknesses, to be an extension of me. You are the one I have waited for, the one I can mould and on whom I can rely.”

He became increasingly animated, advancing towards me in a desperate manner, oscillating his head from side to side as he spoke.

“I am letting you see this because you must know who I really am,” he said, then looked down at my dress. “A hundred and eight cross stitches, ninety six creases.” He then looked up to my head, “Eighty six thousand, five hundred and sixty eight strands of hair, sixty two eyelashes on the right eyelid and fifty four on the left. This is how I see my world, this is what I see. I can’t be this way alone anymore. I cannot be the only one who knows.”

By now he was completely possessed by agitation, muttering out numbers incoherently and jerking his shoulders uncontrollably. He began to fit, the pupils of his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the floor shaking from spasms which gripped his body violently. Saliva dribbled from his mouth.

I tried to stay calm, this was my opportunity to escape, find Jude and make our way back to the docks ready to stow on the first possible ship abroad.

I ran to the door, which was locked, and tried to force it open. Then I ran over to the professor to search him for the key. I looked down at this strange feeble figure, convulsing at my feet, and suddenly felt the most unexpected wave of compassion. Presumably no-one else knew of this great man’s afflictions and by allowing me to see them in this way, he made me feel compelled to assist and not betray that trust. I don’t think anyone else in my life, except Jude, had ever trusted me quite like that before.

I bent down, took his head in my hands and wiped his face with my dress. I simply held him and waited for the episode to pass.

Finally, after a few minutes which seemed like an eternity, the spasms and jerks subsided and his body became limp and still. He lay in my arms breathing deeply for several minutes then slowly opened his eyes. He looked into my own with a deep intensity, searching for a look of disgust, disappointment, mockery, but saw only compassion.

“I knew I could trust you,” he whispered.

“You can,” I replied, and truly meant it.

From that moment I became unexpectedly bound to this complex man. I was flattered by his trust, intrigued by his eccentricities, enamoured by his abilities and seduced by all the money and power which he would come to bestow upon me.

He agreed to enlist Jude as my own personal support and allow him to train with me. What other choices did we realistically have? If we returned to our old life we would be arrested and if we went abroad we would face poverty again which I no longer had the capacity to endure.

I married Professor James Moriarty in a private ceremony in the grand meeting rooms of his palatial town house on the affluent outskirts of London. Jude and Colonel Moran were our only guests and as soon as the proceedings concluded I was taken down to the vast network of high vaulted cellars to begin my intense physical training. The bridegroom retired alone to his private rooms, as ever shunning any human company.

Now, finally, he had an ambassador in the making. This would allow him to retreat almost completely from the real world which was becoming increasingly impossible for him to tolerate.

I would be his gatekeeper, guard and protector, a perfect specimen in an unbearably imperfect world. Because we were married, I would be a possession too. He owned me now. By accepting his protection, money and training I would be dependant upon him. Everything was working out exactly as he had always hoped and he couldn’t resist allowing himself a brief but satisfied smile as he sat in his study counting each drop of rain falling softly against the windows.

As a child James Moriarty had always found comfort in the rhythmic pounding of the rain as it pattered against the window of his bedroom. He was a difficult child, an embarrassment to his upper-class parents. James and his younger brother were left in the care of a governess most of the time while their parents travelled all over Europe and India as his father strived to advance his military career.

As soon as they were old enough, both James and Jonathan (baptised James also) were sent away to a strict boarding institution. It was hoped that such an education would bully James out of his crushing shyness, under-developed speech and general malady.

His brother was a boisterous child, bright and confident, and began to excel at school. The reports forwarded to his parents as they traversed around the world were glowing and justified the enormous fees which the school charged.

The reports about James were altogether quite different. Eventually the school wrote to his parents asking them to remove their impossibly backward and withdrawn child who simply did not respond to their strict methods. He was a loner; a strange, quiet child who preferred his own company to anyone else’s and spoke only if forced. His father was furious, shamed by the little boy’s eccentricities and angry over the amount of money wasted trying to educate him.

James returned home from school that summer after his last term and barely recognised his father when he collected him from the station. James was ten years old and had hardly seen his parents throughout his life. He felt no connection to them. He felt no connection to anyone and was strangely devoid of any emotion.

That summer his father favoured the bottle, played endless games of sport with his youngest son and regularly beat his docile wife when the drink took him badly. He did not wish to see James or communicate with him. His nanny was under strict instructions to hide the boy away to contain the shame. His younger brother was banned from having any contact with his older sibling in case his condition was contagious.

Fortunately, Master Jonathan Moriarty ignored this instruction and often snuck into James’ room to probe his unusual mind. Their favourite game, one of the only things that gave James any true pleasure, was for Johnny to fire off impossible mathematical questions and watch in amazement as his brother instantly answered correctly.

“What’s nine thousand divided by two hundred, add one hundred and forty two?” Johnny would shout out in delight, knowing that his elder brother would know the answer instantly.

“One hundred and eighty-seven.”

James was quick and correct, as always.

He counted everything and it brought him great comfort. Sometimes though, it could be a burden. When he looked out of his bedroom window, instead of seeing the bountiful garden stretching down to a pretty stream, he saw thirty two trees and felt compelled to count all the leaves.

He could hardly sleep at night because of his endless nocturnal compulsion to count the stars, memorise their formations and document everything on intricate charts. Indeed, one of his most celebrated publications in later life was a work of great cosmological significance entitled ‘The Dynamics of an Asteroid.’

He only ever saw beauty in something which was perfectly formed and would enthusiastically reach for pencils and paper to draw an exact copy. He would sit alone in his room, with everything in its place, drawing and writing out long complicated sequences of numbers and equations.

Once, when the two brothers were together playing their mathematics games, their father burst into the room. He was possessed by rage to see his sons disobeying him. He was drunk and Johnny was terrified as his father grabbed him by the collar and dragged him from his elder brother. He hurled him out through the door then ran back into the room ripping up their calculations.

“Leave! Mine. Mine,” shouted James as he tried to grab them back.

The shredded papers fluttered to the floor. His father finally looked at some of the torn pieces, precise drawings of the solar system and sketches of botanical perfection. He turned towards Jonathan who was standing shaking in the doorway.

“You did these?” he asked him. “Clearly your intelligence is far more advanced than we thought. How foolish you are to waste your time with this imbecile.”

“No! It’s James, James did these. I could never, honestly father, James is a genius and you don’t realise.”

“Liar! Why do you protect him? How dare you lie to me?” raged their father. He advanced forward to strike him and Johnny shouted to his brother.

“James, nine hundred and sixty two plus two hundred and fifty-six multiplied by eleven?”

The young boy continued to gather up his papers and without hesitation replied, “Thirteen-thousand, three-hundred and ninety-eight.”

His father hesitated before swinging at Jonathan, hitting him hard in the face, sending him to the floor. James counted the two hundred and eight torn pieces of paper on the bedroom floor and gathered them up into a neat pile. His younger brother staggered away towards his own room longing to return to school and escape from the father who he had grown to hate.

Their father kept the pieces of paper snatched from James and looked at them later that evening when sober. He sat beside the fire in the drawing room and began to study their complexities, checking all the mathematical calculations to make sure that they were correct. He was simply baffled; how could such a quiet boy barely able to speak understand these figures? How could he draw with such skill?

To the nanny’s utter surprise, he asked for the boy. She had always been instructed to keep James out of his father’s sight and was understandably confused by this new instruction.

She obliged her master and took James to the drawing room afraid that the boy was to be subjected to a beating.

James entered the room and felt compelled to count all the tassels which edged the large Indian rug laid out in front of the fire. His father took his bowed head to be a sign of respect and wondered if perhaps there was hope for the boy after all.

“James, tell me, what is one hundred and forty two thousand divided by ninety-two?” he asked.

“One thousand five hundred and forty three point four seven eight two,” James replied, still fixated by the tassels and threads which made up the Indian carpet.

His father had prepared the answers in advance and knew his son was correct. They carried on together in this way for at least an hour and soon the father began to realise that his child was something of a prodigy.

For the remainder of the summer, all the attention shifted away from Johnny towards his elder brother as an army of tutors, assessors and even a few doctors came to visit.

Now, at dinner parties, it was not Johnny who was summoned to play the piano or read one of his poems to entertain the guests, but rather it was James who was sent for. He was made to perform his amazing mathematical feats as the guests shouted out their questions.

Intense tutoring taught him how to improve his speech, hour after hour of exhaustive lessons trying to coax words and sentences from him rather than numerical sequences.