Moriarty Meets His Match: A Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery (The Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery Series Book 1)

by Anna Castle

  He shook his head. He’d have to find a way to see her again. At the least, the kiss implied an interest or at least a willingness to receive his attentions. It was up to him to find or devise another opportunity.

  He rowed under the Battersea Bridge, focusing for many minutes on nothing but the river and the rhythm of his stroke. He watched the wake of his boat spreading downstream, enjoying, as always, the sensation of rowing backward into the future, watching the past slip behind him.

  He could not imagine what sort of man would choose so bizarre a method of murder as an exploding steam engine, but the evidence of sabotage now seemed incontrovertible. If Bruffin were right about the expertly placed puncture, then Holmes must be right about the crime. The explosion had been deliberately aimed at whoever pulled the lever.

  Which begged the question: Who knew which man would do the honors that morning?

  Moriarty cast his thoughts back to the Galleries as they had been on the night before the explosion. The various halls had not been terribly well-guarded, nor could they have been. Exhibitors worked through the night, coming and going through both the front gate and the goods entrance. The saboteur could have hidden in one of the elaborate displays until dawn, sabotaged the engine by the early morning light, then returned to his hiding place until the Exhibition opened and the crowds came streaming in.

  How long would it take to replace that sensor plate? Moriarty considered it while he rowed through a flock of ducks. The arrows of their individual wakes intersected his in a bifurcating pattern that shimmered in the sunlight. The ducks squawked at him as he disrupted their formation and resumed their positions as he passed.

  The sensor plate sat on the surface of the engine, necessarily so. It would be a matter of minutes to remove the housing for the warning bell, unscrew the original plate, screw down the new piece, and replace the housing. He worked it through in his mind, using strokes of the oars as a counting rhythm. Ten minutes at the outside.

  Holmes’s timeline was useless. Any number of persons could have switched those plates.

  A curious item, that hammered steel plate. Where had it come from? It must have been made or altered. It would have had to fit precisely, or Bruffin would have noticed it.

  Holmes would undoubtedly track the thing down. He seemed to have the resources of Scotland Yard at his command. Moriarty couldn’t hope to compete on that front.

  He glanced over his shoulder and realized with a start that he was about to pass under the Hammersmith Bridge. Great Scott, he’d come nearly six and a half miles! He normally turned at Putney. Now he had to row the extra distance back with the tide rising against his stroke. He would be late for work.

  As he turned the scull around, he returned to his first question: Who knew which man would open the demonstration? The question had a corollary: Who was the intended victim? Holmes had spoken with disdain of motive. Moriarty couldn’t match the detective in the arena of evidence collection, but he suspected motive would be the key to solving this crime.

  There’d been a scuffle at the last minute among three contenders: Oscar Teaberry, whose name was in the catalog as the president of the Compact Spherical Engine Company; Lord Nettlefield, who, with his gargantuan self-regard, considered himself the leading figure in that company; and Lord Carling, the ranking peer among the front-sheeters. Carling had won on grounds of precedence. His victory might have been predicted, but only if the murderer had known he would be there. Otherwise, odds would have been given to Lord Nettlefield.

  Who had a motive to murder the viscount?

  Holmes put Moriarty at the head of that list. What other names could be supplied? His son, Reginald, didn’t seem to like him much, but if all sons with controlling fathers resolved their resentment through murder, the male population would be halved overnight. Still, the son should be considered a suspect.

  Nettlefield must have business rivals, even enemies. He might have repaid an insult from a competitor with the same heavy hand he’d shown Moriarty at Durham, only this time he’d offended a man with fewer scruples. How could he investigate Nettlefield’s business history? He might start with the company prospectuses they kept at the Patent Office.

  Oscar Teaberry was an unknown quantity apart from his reputation as a man whose companies sailed close to the edge of outright fraud. He must have enemies — business rivals and investors who had lost money on his schemes.

  Moriarty remembered Mrs. Gould crossing her lilac-gloved fingers when shaking hands with the man. Her late husband had been a mining engineer. She might well have the knowledge and skill to replace a sensor plate. He found it difficult to connect so heinous a crime with so lovely a lady, yet ladies had committed fouler crimes. Hell hath no fury, as the saying went.

  How could he find out about her past? One of his colleagues was addicted to the society pages, which Dr. Watson had quoted regarding her. He could start there. He might also learn something about her immediate future — someplace where he could engineer another encounter.

  The simplest hypothesis, however, was that the saboteur had achieved his intended goal: to murder Lord Carling. The best place to look for a hatred strong enough to provoke murder was inside the walls of the family home. The household must have known his lordship planned to attend the opening demonstration. Did Carling have a son who loathed him as much as Nettlefield’s? He must have a secretary; perhaps the man could be induced to answer a few questions. He could give the Patent Office gambit one more try.

  Moriarty smiled as he guided his scull onto the beach at the club. Mrs. Gould had given her address as Cheshire House, where she was a guest of Lord Carling’s daughter. With a little luck, he might catch two birds with one net.

  * * *

  Moriarty pulled out his pocket watch as he trotted up the steps to the Patent Office. Almost eleven o’clock: an hour late. He strode across the central corridor to the set of rooms where he spent the better part of his week checking new patent applications against the records to make sure they did not duplicate existing inventions. He shared an office with two men: Moses Jackson and Alfred Housman. Jackson, though younger, was an examiner, while Moriarty and Housman were merely assistants.

  The two friends had come down from Oxford together, gotten jobs together, and now lodged together with Jackson’s brother in Bayswater, not far from Moriarty’s house. They’d invited him out for drinks once or twice, but he’d always declined, and eventually they stopped asking. When he’d first come up to London, he’d been in no mood for the prying questions such social activities inevitably entailed. He might not mind it so much now. And he somehow felt he would like Mrs. Gould to think he had friends.

  Housman sat at the long central table they shared for studying the oversized volumes of patents. Jackson perched in his favorite spot on the corner. They had evidently been engaged in a lively conversation, stopping abruptly as Moriarty entered.

  “And here is the man himself,” Jackson said. They watched as he shed his hat and coat, hanging them on the rack by the door.

  “I apologize for my lateness,” Moriarty said. “I went for an early row and forgot to check the tide table.”

  “That’s twice in as many weeks,” Housman said. “And never once in all the year before.”

  “Our professor is a man of regular habits,” Jackson said. “Or he was.”

  Moriarty feigned an air of tolerant amusement. “Have I missed something interesting?”

  They grinned at him, their eyes alight with curiosity. “We have been wondering,” Jackson said, “if it could be a coincidence that the ever-punctual James Moriarty should be late on the very day a stranger appears at our door asking questions about him.”

  Moriarty’s heart clenched. Scotland Yard? He took a slow breath to calm himself, averting his face as he pulled out the chair at his desk. Trying to sound only mildly interested, he asked, “Really? What sort of stranger?” He turned the chair around and sat, slouching a little, crossing his right leg over his left and swin
ging his foot, like a man ready for a spot of jolly office chaffing. He remembered a joke from his Cambridge days. “Please tell me she was beautiful, rich, and not wearing anything.”

  No, that didn’t sound right.

  It hadn’t been. “Not wearing a ring, old bean,” Jackson said, chuckling. “A wedding ring, is what’s meant. Although I rather like your version better.”

  “No joy either way,” Housman said. “This individual was definitely male. Said he was a journalist from the Daily News. Absolutely Fleet Street — checked trousers, four-inch moustache, tickets in his hat band. And he possessed the most appalling beak. Like an axe blade.” Housman crooked his finger over his nose to demonstrate and a chill ran up Moriarty’s spine.

  Holmes.

  “He said he was following up on persons who witnessed that explosion at the Inventions Exhibition last Friday morning.”

  “Looking for the human interest story,” Jackson said. “He asked all sorts of questions about you.”

  “We did our best,” Housman said, “considering how little we know. You live near us on Westbourne Crescent and you held a chair in maths at Durham. End of story. I’m afraid you won’t get much of a feature. Funny, when you think it’s been nearly a year. Six hours a day, six days a week, and we don’t even know where you’re from.”

  “Miswell,” Moriarty said. “Gloucestershire. No one’s ever heard of it.”

  “He asked the oddest question,” Housman said. “Wanted to know where we get our pencils. We were pleased to inform him that the Patent Office is supplied by Smythson in Bond Street. Only the best for Her Majesty’s servants.”

  The pencil! What had he told Holmes about his pencil? Moriarty feared he might have been caught in a direct lie, and a pointless one.

  “We didn’t even know you were at the Exhibition on Friday morning,” Jackson said, now sounding more like a supervisor than a curious coworker. “Didn’t you tell us you had some personal business to attend to?”

  “Did I say that?” Moriarty tried for a sheepish grin but doubted it worked. Subterfuge was not among his talents. “I have a bit of a fascination for those spherical engines. I wanted to see the first demonstration when everyone was fresh.”

  “We would have gone with you,” Housman said. “I’d say it counts as part of our proper work, wouldn’t you, Moses?”

  “Why not?” Jackson’s eyes gleamed. “But now you must tell us everything, Professor. Every last detail. Were you really there for the explosion? It must have been horrendous. We could call back that reporter chap if you like. Get your name in the paper.”

  “He left a card.” Housman reached for a pasteboard rectangle lying on the table. He passed it to Jackson, who leaned forward to hand it to Moriarty.

  He felt another icy stab as he read the name “Archie Buddle.” Holmes had mentioned that name at supper, some old confidence trickster he’d once interviewed. He’d used it deliberately on this card as a challenge.

  The game was afoot.

  Chapter Twelve

  Angelina waited on the pavement as Peg extracted herself from the cab. The dresser had really grown too stout. She must be wheedled into walking every day once this crisis was past, along with Viola. London brimmed with beautiful parks. Maybe they could find a house near Hyde Park or in St. John’s Wood to be close to Viola. Assuming they weren’t being lodged at Her Majesty’s expense in prison.

  Sandy heaved a large basket from the boot and stood ready to follow her into Madame Vivier’s dress shop. They’d struck two more houses over the weekend, including Cheshire House. Lady Lucy had left them a list of preferred items before leaving with her mother for his lordship’s funeral in the north. The other house had also belonged to a family with a taste for ostentation. The basket was nearly filled with plate and other oddments, with a couple of old gowns heaped on top, supposedly being brought to the dressmaker to be remade. Now that there would be money again, they could be sold along with the silver.

  Peg held the door while the captain was ushered into a room at the back by Madame Vivier herself. This was a small, trim woman with black hair and dark eyes shaded by thick black brows. Her French accent was genuine, though not of the class from which she claimed to descend. Regardless, her skills rivaled those of the most famous couturiers in Paris, though her prices were far more reasonable.

  She also ran a tidy little sideline fencing items of value for clients who found themselves short of cash. Peg had learned about her from the gossip downstairs at one of the houses they’d visited. The Season was expensive. Ladies often needed a discreet source of extra funds to tide them through.

  The basket clanked softly as Sandy set it down, bringing an equally soft smile to Mme. Vivier’s lips. She beckoned an assistant to help her make an inventory of the contents. Peg joined them, determined not to be out-haggled by any jumped-up Froggie cloth-cutter.

  Sandy dusted his hands and spoke to Angelina. “Shall I come back in about an hour?”

  Angelina cast an eye over Peg’s spreading backside. “It’s a beautiful day. I think we’ll walk home.”

  Mme. Vivier left her assistant and Peg dickering over the silver. “I have zee perfect piece of silk for you, Madame Gould. Tres beau. You will adore it.” She led her to the front room, where she displayed bolts of elegant fabrics on tables and behind the long counter. The rest of the room was dotted with chairs and small tables where one could sit and be shown fabrics and patterns with one’s friends.

  Mme. Vivier walked behind the counter and lifted out a bolt of indigo satin so lustrous it drew Angelina toward it as if by some enchantment.

  “Oh my stars!” She reached out both hands to stroke the glossy cloth.

  The dressmaker smiled as she flipped the bolt, unrolling a few lengths. Angelina held up the end, turning it to catch the light. She stroked her cheek with it and hummed with the sheer sensuous pleasure of the stuff. She met the dressmaker’s eyes, still petting the silk, unable to let it go. “I must have it. Is it terribly dear?”

  Mme. Vivier glanced toward the door to the fitting room. “I believe we can come to some agreement.” She unrolled more lengths, freeing enough for Angelina to hold it against her body as she turned to view the effect in a mirror standing nearby. She wrapped the fabric around her torso, covering most of her drab gray walking dress.

  “Zat color makes your hair glow like antique gold,” the dressmaker said. “I think an evening gown. Something like zees, perhaps.” She opened a magazine to a drawing of a Worth gown. “I have lace and velvet parfait for zee trimming.”

  “I’ll be the envy of the ton.” Angelina twisted this way and that to see how the fabric moved. It felt as good as it looked. That deep indigo was the most gorgeous color she’d ever seen. And oh, how weary she’d grown of gray and black!

  She’d need miles of the stuff for that gown though. It might cost more than her share of their current take. Then again, they hadn’t found the letters yet. Who knew how many houses they’d have to burgle before they were through?

  She sighed and stroked the sumptuous fabric over her hips. How easily seduced she was! Scarcely ten days ago, she’d protested. I’ve never broken any laws. Not me! Now she was hoping they could keep it up long enough to buy a gown. And perhaps a jeweled fan to go with it.

  Peg came in from the back room and let out a low whistle. “Cor, what a ravishin’ cloth! Makes your hair look like beaten copper, Lina.” She lifted an end, fingering the fabric and holding it up to Angelina’s face. They studied it together in the mirror.

  Mme. Vivier snapped her fingers at her assistant, who collected the fabric and followed them back to the fitting room. She set the bolt on the table and went to fetch an armful of lace samples. Then the bell over the front door rang and Mme. Vivier went to greet the new clients.

  Angelina stripped to her chemise with Peg’s help, trading her everyday corset for the evening one they’d brought in the basket so she could be measured in the correct undergarments. Angelina raised and
lowered her arms as directed while the assistant worked the tape around her body. Peg tried the various laces against the silk, humming tunelessly and sometimes working her lips in the way she did when she calculated yardages.

  The assistant brought her measures to her mistress, who returned with her dress-book, a pair of spectacles now perched on her nose. She quoted a figure that made both Peg and Angelina gasp.

  Peg shook her head. “It’s got to be done, ducky. That gown’ll put paid to the rumors about you and your dire lack of money. One look and they’ll know you’ve got plenty o’ splosh.”

  Angelina agreed. “But don’t cut it yet, Madame. Are you both quite certain it’s correct for me to go out in blue? I’m supposed to be a widow, don’t forget.” She frowned at Peg. “I can’t remember how many months I said it was.”

  “You lost your husband a year and a half ago, or so you told me in your letter of introduction.” The raspy voice belonged to Lady Frances Rochford, Angelina’s social godmother. Her ladyship stood in the doorway, holding a gray muslin in her hands and wearing a thin smile on her lips. “Surely you haven’t forgotten dear, departed Mr. Gould so soon?”

  Angelina cursed under her breath. Was there no privacy in this city? Couldn’t a woman change her clothes without half her acquaintance barging in and catching her with her, er, guard down?

  “Oh! My lady, how you startled me! I’m so distracted by this dreamy silk I don’t what I’m saying.” Peg handed her a wrapper, which she slipped on and tied about her waist.

  “It is a lovely material,” Lady Rochford said. She walked to the table to run her hands across the fabric. She wore dark gray silk with a pale gray stripe and a fall of ivory lace at her throat. Angelina had never seen her in anything other than gray or black.