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dock?’
    â€˜I’ll make it my business.’
    â€˜If all is well, Ember is to meet him outside the dockyard once he has been paid off. They will go straight to the Great Smoke. By now arrangements should have been made there.’
    â€˜And us?’
    â€˜One of the Jacobs will be meeting me. The other will await you and Bridget. We are all to rest the night in some comfort at Liverpool. We need time to talk before going on, and the Jacobs will have the latest intelligence.’
    â€˜It’ll be good to get back.’
    â€˜Things have changed, Spear. Be prepared for that.’
    â€˜I am, but it is funny how one misses the cobbles and fogs. There’s something about London …’
    â€˜I know …’ Moriarty appeared to be lost for a moment in private thoughts, his head filled with the street sounds of the capital, the smells, the texture of life in his city. ‘Good,’ he said quietly. ‘Till tomorrow, then, in Liverpool.’
    Spear hesitated by the cabin door, bracing himself, one foot forward against the constant roll of the vessel.
    â€˜The loot is safe?’
    â€˜As the Bank of England.’
    â€˜Perhaps they’ll be asking you for it.’
    â€˜They can ask away,’ the Professor’s eyes strayed towards the locker which housed the big leather trunk they had brought all the way from San Francisco.
    When Spear had gone, Moriarty opened the locker, suppressing the desire to pull the trunk out into the cabin, open it and gloat over the fortune it contained. He had no illusions regarding wealth. It brought power and was a bulwark against most of the pitfalls that besieged a man in this vale of tears. If wisely husbanded, wealth would in turn bring more wealth. His ventures in London – both legal and illegal – would be raped and plundered by now: Crow had seen to that. Well, the contents of this leather trunk would help rebuild his web-like empire, bring the recalcitrant foreign element to heel, and then, like some magic formula, would redouble themselves again and again.
    Balanced atop of the leather trunk was a second piece of luggage: an airtight Japanned trunk of the kind used by officers and government men in India. Moriarty rested his hand on this box, smiling to himself, for it contained his store of disguise material: clothes, wigs, false hair, boots, the harness which he used to give him the permanent stoop when appearing as his long-departed eldest brother, and the corset which helped to give that lean look in the same guise. There were also the paints and powders, the lotions and all other artifacts of his armoury of deception.
    Closing the locker, the Professor straightened up and looked across to the foot of the bunk and the final piece of luggage in the cabin: the big Saratoga trunk with all its trays and compartments in which he carried his daily clothes and immediate needs. Crossing to it, Moriarty took out his chain and selected the correct key, sliding it into the brass lock and lifting the heavy lid.
    Resting on top of the first neatly arranged tray lay the Borchardt automatic pistol – one of the very first of its kind – which had been given to him by the German, Schleifstein, at the meeting of the continental alliance two years before. Below the weapon lay two oblong leather-bound books, and above it a small wooden stationery cabinet containing quantities of notepaper (much of it bearing the letterheads of various hotels or businesses, all filched as the opportunity arose, for who knew when they might have a use or purpose?), blotting, envelopes and a pair of gold-mounted Wirt fountain pens.
    He drew out one of the books and a pen, closed the lid of the trunk, and walked with the roll of the ship to the small armchair which was bolted to the cabin floor.
    Making himself comfortable, the Professor leafed through the book. The pages were closely filled in a neat copperplate hand, interspersed with occasional maps