The Opium Fiends of the East End (4)
The carriage halted at the threshold of the East End district. Of course, it was on Moriarty's explicit orders.
Fred Porlock watched his boss step down from the carriage, donning his hat, with a faintly dissatisfied expression. But he soon fell silent and followed suit, stepping out into the street. The high-and-mighty sorts who knew nothing of his circumstances might call him a street ruffian. It wasn't entirely wrong. Fred Porlock was a vagabond magician, versed in crime, one of those who had elevated it to a way of life.
But the Professor was different. It might sound like something out of a children's tale, but he truly was the most villainous villain of them all—and Porlock's superior. Even when the Professor cracked his tiresome jokes or chatted casually, Porlock could never fully relax inside.
But if I stick with the Professor, I'll make it big too. As long as I don't harbor foolish thoughts, I'll gain far more than I lose.
The Professor had proven it all over the past three years. By age, he was barely out of his early twenties, a fresh-faced youth who hadn't even hit thirty. Yet no one in the organization dared entertain such notions about him.
The magician trailed after the Professor into the Chinese quarter. Moriarty had insisted on walking from the East End's entrance partly to scout the streets, but more than that, to immerse himself in the district's crime and sin.
The East End, which made proper Londoners recoil in horror, felt strangely altered the moment one crossed its threshold—the very air seemed to shift. It wasn't his senses deceiving him. The stench hit hardest of all.
Of course, this vast city was mostly filthy in proportion to its size and fame. The Thames had been polluted for decades, saturating the city with its reek. The black, rippling waters of the Thames seemed so alien now, far from any blue river, that one might imagine it swallowing a tossed corpse without a trace. Moriarty himself used the Thames to feed the eels, so he had no major complaints, but even he couldn't help wrinkling his nose at the odor.
Still, living in London meant growing accustomed to such smells. And the East End demanded acclimation to the stench of crime as well.
The elite often blamed the poor, those born into crime's cradle. But the East End's core issue was its status as a massive slum. Poverty bred chaos, chaos bred crime, and the vicious cycle spun on. It wasn't just Marx receiving Moriarty's discreet personal sponsorship; the social reformers tirelessly advocating for the people were shouting East End solutions in Parliament for good reason. Of course, those cries were still mere meaningless noise—for now.
Moriarty himself didn't want it any other way. The city needed more crime. Only then could he devour it all and bestow upon it elegant enigmas.
That was why he backed the social reformers and socialists. Their rightness or wrongness mattered little. If they incited the masses, unleashed vast violence, and sowed chaos in society, that was beautiful—and it served Moriarty's ambition to swallow everything.
The East End sprawled wide enough that the Chinese enclave lay some distance away. The two men strolled casually through the filthy, squalid streets. In the West End, one saw constables patrolling every block, but here, not even a trace remained.
The streets weren't crowded, but the sparse passersby all lacked vitality, existing merely to scrape by day to day. Fortunately, perhaps sensing something ominous from Porlock, no street urchins swarmed for pickpocketing or begging.
"So why's that Chinaman looking for you, Professor?"
Porlock wasn't the thinking type. That was always the Professor's job. But that's why he trusted the Professor's words. No point in his own half-baked schemes when the Professor's answers were far sharper and simpler.
"He wants us to come under him."
"What? Those Chinamen have no conscience? Well, they wouldn't let folks sell opium freely, so yeah. Slanty-eyed bastards got no business ethics, Professor!"
"On the surface, it'll be a request for cooperation, but really, it'll be an offer to submit. Don't worry too much, though—we're just probing today. There's still distance before any West End-East End war breaks out."
"The opium fiends eyeing our stuff lately?"
"Maybe. Mariani wine sells like hotcakes. They might've gone greedy over the profits. Plus, opium and booze together? Not really competitors. Hell, it'd make more money combined. Our product's flying off the shelves in the dens these days, right?"
Moriarty tossed it out as a jest, but he knew it wasn't the truth. Even if Mariani wine was a hit, he couldn't monopolize it alone. It had swept Europe, with rumors even the Pope in Rome had blessed it. Substitutes abounded—coca-laced wines from other routes, rival importers. His organization's edge came from higher cocaine concentrations, but limits existed there too.
This era barely grasped the concept of narcotics. Opium was the poor man's cold remedy and cure-all. Coca leaves and cocaine from South America were fine spices, imperfectly refined. Morphine chased away daily fatigue. Moriarty knew they were drugs that would wreck the body eventually, so he mostly avoided them. But selling them? No pangs of conscience. As the ancient Greeks said, ignorance alone was sin. Their fault for consuming without knowing the harm.
Still, Fu Manchu's behavior already grated on him. He was preparing to swallow him eventually, but it might need hastening.
"Or it could be about Fu Manchu's eldest son visiting M."
"...I told you not to take that consultation back then, Professor. If it goes south, it's on you, got it? Anyway... nothing too problematic in that session, right?"
Moriarty replied with a faint smile. Porlock shuddered theatrically and shook his head, sensing something.
Moriarty gathered his thoughts and spoke again. "Fu Manchu has four sons and one daughter. Different mothers all—very Chinese. The youngest is a latecomer, doted on already. Son of his favorite concubine, apparently."
"How do you know that?"
"Heard it once. I don't forget what I commit to memory."
"Then why can't you remember people's names half the time?"
"I shove them to the back. People must organize, Porlock—like how you couldn't find your usual hat this morning and stole George's. Yours is in the bathtub, by the way."
Porlock stared wordlessly for a moment, then shook his head in disbelief. Shocking, but the Professor's word was law—he was sure of it.
"Damn... you're scary every time, Professor. How do you know that stuff?"
"Isn't it simple? The problem's those who can't see it. Anyway, the key is that the Chinese king of the East End is old. Time to name a successor."
"Oh."
Silence fell again. Even if Moriarty saw Porlock as a dimwit like the rest, the man had learned plenty working with him—no need for a special lecture.
By now, Eastern faces dotted the streets, growing thicker ahead. The real Chinatown entrance loomed.
"Speaking of successors, I thought I was your number two, Professor. Wasn't I?"
"...What nonsense is this?"
Porlock's joke drew an eye-twitch from Moriarty at his stupidity. Porlock flinched but, thanks to street-honed instincts, sensed he could continue.
"In the carriage, you said you needed a secretary-slash-brain. I figured that was me."
"Porlock, strictly speaking, you're just one department head."
"Aw, too bad. No promotion thoughts?"
"Want to quit?"
"Kidding! I'm always devoted to the company, boss."
The business talk continued—of course, only because Moriarty felt like it. Porlock listened attentively. The Professor was brilliant and arrogant, but his professorial habit of showboating to students made him love lecturing. Point it out, though, and he'd deny it furiously.
"Think about it a bit, Porlock—you'd see how foolish that sounds. You don't know the full scale of our operation."
"Only you do, Professor."
"Exactly. No one else knows the whole picture but me."
"Then shouldn't we pick a successor or number two soon? By the way, Professor, you live so dull—no women. When's the wedding? Not into boys like the upper crust, right? If you're passing it on, start prepping now. Kids late in life are hell."
"I'm a bachelor. And we—well, you're old, so you're out. I'm still young. I won't vanish till I've swallowed this city."
"Damn, I'll retire before you age, then. Don't wanna see that."
They bantered on through the Chinese streets when suddenly, eyes turned their way—aware of the strangers. Expected. But not the sudden shove as someone barreled past Moriarty, fleeing like a hunted animal.
As he stumbled, Moriarty heard a beastly growl.