Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels)

by Kurland, Michael

  “In what asylum did Monsieur Whosis de Whatsis reside?” Barnett asked.

  “La Maison de Fous de Sainte-Anne la Belle, which is just outside the town of Brunoy, to the south of Paris.”

  “Run by a religious order?” Holmes asked.

  “Perhaps at one time,” said the abbess, “but in recent years it has been staffed by a group calling itself Le Sacristie de l’Agneau de Dieu.”

  “Sounds religious to me,” Barnett observed.

  “So you would think,” Abbess Irene agreed. “Indeed, the order claims the imprimatur of the bishop of someplace-or-other, but it is not listed in any official Church documents that I am aware of.”

  “So,” said Holmes, “it seems a reasonable inference that the Belleville Slicer is still alive and practicing his craft, albeit on the other side of the Channel. But why, and at whose behest? It is at the maison de fous of the beauteous St. Anne that I imagine the answers to the questions are to be found. We must take ourselves thither.”

  Barnett rose. “Thank you, Abbess, for your assistance, and you, Mademoiselle. Deschamps, I admire your courage, and we are most grateful for your help.”

  “Please,” she said. “Determine whether this monster is alive or dead. And … and … and if he is alive—kill him.”

  [CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE]

  THIS DAY’S MADNESS

  Yesterday This Day’s Madness did prepare;

  To-morrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair:

  Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:

  Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

  —OMAR KAYYAM (TRANSLATED BY EDWARD FITZGERALD)

  BUCKLE STREET SLUNK OFF of Commons Road at an oblique angle, twisted around to the left, swerved to the right, and ended at a brick wall. The street was inhabited by decaying warehouses and yards filled with the detritus of long-closed businesses, discarded furnishings, and cast-off lives. Beyond the wall was a narrow yard haphazardly filled with parts for trams from a defunct attempt to create a short-line steam railroad.

  The house at the left edge of the yard was boarded over and fenced in, and it had been unoccupied for three decades before Colonel Auguste Lefavre had discovered it. When Lefavre had returned to London as “Macbeth,” the house had filled the need for a secret gathering place, a supply depot, and a prison. For the past two months the madman Bonfils d’Eny, known as “Henry,” had been kept in an upper room under guard, allowed out only in brief intervals to further the baleful needs of the Sacristy and his keeper, Macbeth.

  For the past three weeks the Prince of Wales had been lodged in a comfortable but secure room on the ground floor, under the impression that he was being held for ransom. He was not pleased.

  “He has complaints,” said Prospero.

  Macbeth looked up from his writing. “Which one?”

  “The prince.”

  “Which one?”

  “His Highness. The real prince. Although your bloody friend Henry ain’t no walk in the park neither.”

  “What’s his complaint?”

  “The prince? Aside from the usual as how we can’t do this to him and the like, he wants his morning Times, he wants to get some exercise, he wants to see us tried in the dock as common criminals, and he wants to know why his ransom hasn’t been paid.”

  “Yes. And Henry?”

  “He wants to know why he’s being kept inside all day, and he wants his bit o’ skirt.” Prospero grinned. “And he wants to know why he can’t meet the prince.”

  “Ah!” said Macbeth. “So he knows who our guest is, does he?”

  “He may be crazy as a loon,” Prospero offered, “but he ain’t stupid.”

  “See that his needs are met,” said Macbeth. “The day is almost upon us, and we need him eager, but not rabid. Tomorrow we move to the Russell Court house and clean him up for the big moment.”

  “We’s got a trollop set for him now,” Prospero said. “She ain’t much, but she’ll do.”

  “Ah!” said Macbeth. He pushed himself up and bounced around on the balls of his feet for a few seconds like a pugilist entering the ring. “Let us commence the evening’s festivities.”

  Prospero moved ahead of him down the hall. “I don’t like this part of it, I tell you,” he said.

  “Necessary to the day are the evils thereof,” pronounced Macbeth.

  Prospero turned to look at him for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t like it. Nohow.”

  The girl was waiting for them by the front door where the carriage driver had dropped her. She was young and frail-looking and reasonably clean, with dark eyes and a full mouth. She wore a high-necked gown of light gray taffeta that had once been elegant, but that was several decades and many owners ago. “Say, what sort of place is this?” she asked as Macbeth led her down the hall. “It sure ain’t much to look at from the outside. From the inside neither if it comes to that,” she added, looking around.

  “It suffices for our needs,” said Macbeth. “Come this way.”

  She held back. “I were promised a quid,” she said, her voice showing how unbelievable she had found the offer.

  “And a quid you shall have,” Macbeth reassured her. “There’s the door,” he pointed. “Your gentleman awaits.”

  “Say, he don’t want to do nothing kinky, do he? I ain’t into that kinky stuff.”

  “I assure you,” Macbeth said, “all he wants to do is satisfy his carnal desires.”

  She looked puzzled for a second, but then her face cleared up. “’At’s all right then, innit?” she said, going to the door. She knocked cautiously and was rewarded with a giggled “Come in, my dear, come in.”

  She went in.

  The screams didn’t start for about ten minutes. They were eating supper in a small room down the hall, and the sounds were muted and distant through the walls. They affected not to hear. After the second scream Prospero pushed his chair back. “I have eaten enough,” he said. “I think I’ll go outside. Smoke a cigar. Take a walk.”

  Macbeth stood up, his jaw tight and the muscles in his neck twitching slightly as he struggled to remain impassive. “You think this is simple?” he demanded. “We are attempting to overthrow an entrenched monarchy, or at least create such discord that all of Britain’s gaze will be internally fixed for the next two years, and we have but one tool. It is imprecise. It is distasteful. But it’s what we have. A few lives are lost, mostly meaningless people the world will not miss. Think of the cost in lives if Britain goes to war with France. Weigh that against the life of this cocotte.”

  “I think I’ll take a walk,” Prospero said.

  It was less than two minutes before the screaming stopped.

  A few minutes later Henry’s door was pulled open and he peered into the hall. He giggled. “Je suis fini,” he announced.

  Macbeth stood up and felt in his waistcoat pocket for some coins. Counting out one pound’s worth, he tied them into an oversized handkerchief and went to get a couple of men to help him do what had to be done.

  [CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO]

  WHO THINKS EVIL

  It is a fact that cannot

  be denied: The wickedness of others

  becomes our own wickedness because

  it kindles something evil in our

  own hearts.

  —CARL JUNG

  * * *

  MYSTERIOUS DISTURBANCE AT COVENT GARDEN OPERA HOUSE

  ROYALTY PRESENT

  SPECIAL TO THE EVENING CALL

  TUESDAY, 30 SEPT., 1890

  The Call has just received information regarding a disquieting event that occurred four evenings ago at the famed Covent Garden Opera House. While the evening’s opera was in progress an unknown assailant made his way into the backstage dressing rooms and attacked Mlle. Mathilde van Tromphe, the opera’s prima donna, with a large knife, causing a grievous wound on her neck. The timely arrival of Sergeant Albert Cottswell of the Metropolitan Police caused the aggressor to break off his attack and prevented this
appalling incident from becoming an even greater tragedy. Sir Vincent Poberty, a local surgeon, came up from the audience to assist, and Mlle. van Tromphe was taken to St. George’s Hospital, Hyde Park, and released to recuperate in her flat. She is expected to make a complete recovery, although it is not yet known whether she will be able to sing again. The singer stated that she did not know her attacker and can think of no reason for his actions.

  According to our informant, His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor was present at the performance, and was actually backstage at the time of the attack, but he sustained no injuries and was apparently unaware that the outrage was taking place. It is not entirely clear just what His Royal Highness was doing at Covent Garden that evening, as his visit was not on the published Palace schedule, and was not announced beforehand.

  When asked to comment on the affair, a Palace spokesman said that the Palace had no knowledge of the incident. He further stated that the prince declined to give an interview.

  The opera being performed was ‘Mefistofele,’ a retelling of the Faust legend by the Italian composer Arrigo Boito, which has not been seen on the London stage for over twenty years. Mlle. van Tromphe was singing the role of Margaret. The assault took place after the third act in the singer’s dressing room, where she was resting and awaiting the final curtain to take her curtain calls. The call from the stage for assistance caused some comment, coming as it did in the middle of the act, but no one in the audience was aware of just what had occurred, although there was some remarking about the fact that Mlle. van Tromphe did not come out to take her final bows, a fact almost unprecedented in the annals of the theatre.

  Interviewed at his station house the next morning, Sergeant Cottswell stated that he was only doing his duty and he was pleased that Mlle. van Tromphe would recover. He declined to answer any further questions, averring that it was for others to say what had happened.

  There is some talk about earlier outrages of a similar nature that are alleged, by a source who wishes to remain anonymous, to have taken place at various locations about London in the past month.

  * * *

  * * *

  BODY FOUND IN THAMES

  The mutilated body of a young woman was pulled out of the Thames at the foot of Narrow Street, Limehouse, early this morning. The police surgeon estimates that it had been in the water no more than a day. This is the latest in a series of such finds over the past month. None of the women has been identified, the action of the tides and the river creatures having added to the original disfiguring sufficiently to make the bodies unrecognizable, although it is believed that they were all women of the streets.

  * * *

  * * *

  REMINISCENT OF THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

  Could these indignities signal a return of the infamous Jack the Ripper, whose outrages in the Whitechapel district two years ago (continued on p. 7)

  * * *

  * * *

  “Help yourself to the kippers,” His Grace Albert John Wythender Ardbaum Ramson, sixteenth Duke of Shorham, told Clarence Anton Montgrief, fifth Earl of Scully and hereditary holder of the baronetcies of Reith and Glendower, with a gesture toward the serving tray on the sideboard. “They’re tasty, very tasty.” He then waved a hand at the butler. “Horrock, fix His Lordship a plate.”

  “I can’t eat,” said His Lordship, clasping his two hands firmly over the third button of his waistcoat and shaking his head. “I seem to have a delicate tummy these days. Anything I put in it goes around twice and then comes up again.”

  “Rum go,” said His Grace. “What you need is some good strong curry. I’ll have my man fix you up a bowl of Bharleli wang. It’ll do wonders for the touchy tum.”

  Lord Montgrief’s face turned an interesting shade of pink at the thought. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Thanks anyway.” He got up, clutching the chair firmly, as Professor Moriarty entered the room a few steps ahead of Mycroft Holmes and Sir Anthony Darryl. “Ah, there you are,” he said. “I presume you have something to tell us.”

  They were in the breakfast room of the duke’s new London domicile, erected a scant twenty years before, shortly after Chimbraunghtenly (pronounced “Chimley”) House, the duke’s four-hundred-year-old ancestral residence in the city—where Queen Elizabeth had dined, where, legend had it, Charles I went to hide from the Long Parliament in an attempt to flee to the Continent—was razed to make way for several hundred very profitable rental homes.

  “Perhaps you’d better leave us now, Horrock,” said His Grace, with another wave of his hand, “and shut the door behind you. We are not to be disturbed until I ring.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” murmured Horrock, backing out of the room and closing the door.

  Moriarty paused in the doorway to adjust his pince-nez and then continued into the room. Mycroft strode over to a soft chair by the sideboard and settled down, and Sir Anthony found a straight-back chair in a corner of the room and proceeded to be unobtrusive.

  “Things are pulling together,” Moriarty said. “I have word from Mr. Barnett, the journalist who has gone to Paris on our behalf, that a man answering the description of our unknown assailant was active in Paris about two years ago. He was known locally as ‘the Belleville Slicer.’”

  “And we heard nothing of him over here?” asked the earl.

  “We were preoccupied with our own slicer at the time,” Moriarty reminded him. “Besides, we don’t pay much attention to news from France unless it concerns an Englishman or a war. And they, I should note, return the favor. We regard the French as being slightly foolish, and they regard us as being awfully stuffy.”

  The earl plumped back into his chair and sniffed. “Stuffy?” he said. “Well, really!”

  “Tell us,” said the Duke of Shoreham, “about this slicer fellow.”

  Moriarty nodded. “The Belleville Slicer, who turned out to be a gentleman named George Bonfils d’Eny, was apprehended a bit over two years ago, after killing several young women and, apparently, young boys. Mr. Holmes’s brother, Sherlock, has returned from whatever distant bourn he had been investigating and has been of some assistance to us in Paris. It was through a connection of his that this information was garnered.”

  Mycroft, who had been carefully pouring a bottle of stout into a suitable glass, looked up and added, “My brother and Moriarty’s journalist friend Mr. Barnett have uncovered what may well be the genesis of this plot,” he said. “It has the sort of convoluted logic of a bevy of madmen, but is nonetheless dangerous for that.”

  “And the Thingummy Slicer?” asked the duke.

  Mycroft waved the glass at Moriarty, who took up the story. “Monsieur Bonfils d’Eny was found to be insane and was confined to the asylum of St. Anne outside Paris, where, some six months ago, he is said to have died. Sherlock Holmes and my associate Mummer Tolliver went to St. Anne to ask about d’Eny and were shown where he was buried in the small cemetery just outside the rear gates. There is a discreet tombstone marking the spot.”

  “But if he died—” began the duke.

  Moriarty held up his hand. “I am of the opinion that the reports of his death are greatly exaggerated, as Mr. Twain once said, and probably specious.”

  “You mean he didn’t die?” asked the Duke. “But if there’s a gravestone…”

  “Ah!” said Moriarty. “That’s the thing, that tombstone. I direct your attention to that tombstone. St. Anne has been caring for the criminally bewildered for some two hundred years, and many of its residents have died there—with, according to Holmes and Tolliver, nary a stone to mark the spot. If some relation did not care to claim the deceased for private burial, then he was removed to an unmarked pauper’s grave in Montparnasse Cemetery under an ancient grant from the city.”

  The duke put a finger to his nose and rubbed it thoughtfully. After a few moments he asked, “So?”

  “So when something quite unusual happens, there may well be a quite unusual reason for it,” said Moriarty. “A stone has bee
n erected for Monsieur d’Eny in a cemetery currently reserved for the deceased members of the Order of Le Sacristie de l’Agneau de Dieu, which has run the place for the last score of years. Among some much older graves, there are a dozen or so holding defunct members of the order, and the one for Monsieur d’Eny. It would seem that someone wants to be able to point to the stone and say, ‘See, he’s deceased. There he lies.’ Which might make a curious mind consider the fact that he might not, after all, be as deceased as all that.”

  “You’re saying he might be our madman?” asked the earl.

  “He fits the description,” said Mycroft. “Not only his physical appearance but in the manner of his assaults. I would say there’s little doubt that d’Eny is very much alive, and is our substitute prince.”

  “So now we know who,” said His Grace the Duke of Shorham, who was pacing furiously back and forth along one side of the great table that took up the center of the room. “All that remains to be discovered is what, where, when, and for the love of God why! What have the French, or at least the Order of Le Sacristie de l’Agneau de Dieu, against us that they should devise such a heinous plot?”

  The earl stared briefly at His Grace the duke and then turned to Moriarty. “Just who, or what, is the Order of the Sacristy of the Lamb of God?” he asked.

  “I can give you some information on that,” Mycroft interjected. “The Most Secret Service has been keeping an eye on them for the past few years.”

  “We have a Most Secret Service?” asked the duke. “I didn’t know.”

  “Hence the name,” said Mycroft. “The existence of the service is known to only a few highly placed officials in the Foreign Office and Scotland Yard and the prime minister.”

  “And yourself,” said the duke.

  “Of course,” Mycroft acknowledged. “It was at my instigation that it came into being some years ago. Several ministers considered it unsporting, but when I showed them what other governments were doing here in Britain, they came around. As a matter of fact that young man”—he waved a large hand in the direction of Sir Anthony—“is one of our best agents. Completed a delicate task for us in Tangiers two or three months ago.” He gave a slight laugh. “And as a reward he’s been dragged into this mess.”