“We should have a couple of men inside if that can be arranged, or loitering about outside if necessary,” Moriarty said. “What I would suggest is that they break in and shoot the blighter right then and there, but I don’t suppose that’s feasible.”
“Afraid not,” the duke admitted. “Country of laws and all that.”
“They’ll have to keep a close watch on him while he is—wherever he is,” Mycroft said, “in case this is the actual mission rather than a mere reconnaissance. If he leaves without causing an incident for which he can be arrested, he’ll have to be followed. And God help the man who loses him!” He turned to Sir Anthony. “I believe I’ll put you in charge of that.”
“Many thanks, Mr. Holmes,” Sir Anthony replied.
[CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE]
WESTERLEIGH HOUSE
They have much wisdom yet they are not wise,
They have much goodness yet they do not well,
(The fools we know have their own paradise,
The wicked also have their proper Hell).
—JAMES THOMSON, “THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT”
HE FELT STRANGELY CALM. Westerleigh House was not a castle, it was only sixty or seventy years old, it was on Totting Square right in the heart of London, and he really preferred the countryside. His castle in the countryside if it came to that. Still …
The die was cast, the Rubicon was crossed, the … the … he searched his mind for another simile. The Ides of March were—no, perhaps not the Ides of March. Forget about the bloody Ides of March. The bloody Ides … He was practicing using “bloody” in a sentence. British gentlemen, he believed, said “bloody.” Not around ladies, of course. Bloody.
The hall was ready, the invitations were sent. The Dowager Countess of Neath had agreed to be hostess—no unmarried young lady would attend an event without an official hostess, so Macbeth had assured him. Even then her mother or a maiden aunt would come along as chaperone. Assisting as hostess was a service that the dowager countess performed regularly, and her price was reasonable. Now the acceptances were coming in. Many of the best people—the very best people—were curious about this Earl of Mersy and his claim to be the last Plantagenet and direct heir to the throne. If only four hundred years of history could be reversed.
As indeed they could—so Macbeth told him, and surely Macbeth should know. Those Germans on the throne didn’t realize how shaky was their … their seat. How slender was the thread by which they stayed in Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace and all those other places that his ancestors—his ancestors—had probably once owned. Just which castles had the Plantagenets owned? He’d have to ask someone.
Albreth Decanare, son of a butcher—a very rich butcher, to be sure, but still a butcher—and now claimant to the title Earl of Mersy and aspirant to the highest position in the British realm, was, with the aid of that fierce and frightening man he called Macbeth, going to turn those aspirations into reality. He was going to replace that doddering old lady in her widow’s weeds and take his place as the rightful king of England—and, of course, Scotland and Wales, and the overseas dominions—and emperor of India. He didn’t know anything about India. He’d have to look it up after he took the throne.
Albreth’s musings were interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall outside his study (in the gallery outside his drawing room, he corrected himself—precision in language was the mark of the true aristocrat), and Colonel Auguste Lefavre, henceforth known as Macbeth, opened the door and flung himself into the room. Exuberant in every motion and positive in every action, that was Macbeth. Even when standing still he gave the impression that it was merely a brief pause before he’d be dashing off.
“I’m surprised,” Albreth said petulantly, “that you don’t break furniture more often, the way you slam about.”
Macbeth glanced at him with an amused smile. “If you stay still too long,” he said, “it may catch up.”
“What may?” Albreth asked.
“Précisément,” said Macbeth. “One never knows. That is the problem.”
Albreth looked blankly at Macbeth for a moment and then changed the subject. “So,” he said, “where are we? In our plans, I mean,” he added as he saw Macbeth glancing around the room.
“It is good,” said Macbeth. “It marches. At the reception on Saturday I will have the pleasure of introducing you to the Princess Andrea Marie Sylvia Petrova d’Abore, a lovely young lady who is, I believe, sixth in line for the throne of the Duchy of Courlandt, which is somewhere around Estonia. She is unmarried, and would be a suitable match for you.”
“Ah!” said Albreth. “So she is coming to meet me? Is she attractive?”
“She is said to be quite handsome. She is coming,” Macbeth added, “because she will go to any fete or ball that is suitably upper-class and where they serve food. Although her pedigree is impeccable, her family is penniless. Were it not for that, she would certainly wait for the sanctioning—if that is the word—council of the House of Lords to approve your patent of nobility before attending any rassemblement that you sponsored.”
Albreth hung his head like a dog that has been chastised by its master. Then he brightened up. “The patent cannot be long in coming, and then she and a dozen like her will be dancing at my balls and hoping to catch my eye, and vying for the royal favor.”
“I think you’ve left out a step or two,” Macbeth said dryly.
“Yes, but my day will come!” Albreth spun around with little dancing steps, holding his frock coat away from his body so that it billowed like a sail. Then with a sudden lurch he stopped spinning and turned to Macbeth. “The Outrage,” he said, “will it be long in coming?”
Macbeth looked at him silently for a moment, thinking … whatever he was thinking. “It will come,” he said. “In due course. At the proper moment.”
“Yes, but when?”
“You don’t really want to know,” Macbeth told him.
“I don’t?”
“Please, trust me on this as you have on so much else.”
Albreth considered this. “I’d really rather not know,” he agreed. “I’d rather not know any of … this. I know it’s weak, but when I think about that man, Henry, and what he does—”
“Don’t,” Macbeth advised. “He is a necessary tool, that’s all. And those he, ah, eliminates are nobodies, worthless lives that do not matter. If a dozen people stand between you and the throne, then we do what must be done.”
“I know,” Albreth sighed. “The omelet and the eggs and all that, but still—” He paused and squinted in Macbeth’s general direction. “A dozen?”
“More or less.”
“But I thought…”
“Have to keep him happy between times, you see. The ones that we didn’t want to be, ah, public, were disposed of. If they’re found after the Outrage, it will just add to Prince Albert’s score.”
Albreth shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It may sound weak, but I don’t like it. I’m just not comfortable—”
Macbeth grabbed him by the shoulders and stared into his eyes. “If you want to be a king,” he said with considerable force, “you must think like a king, act like a king. How many people do you think your royal ancestors eliminated to get or hold the throne? Have you thought of that?”
“I try not to,” Albreth said.
[CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR]
FRENCHIES
Glory be to God, who determined,
for reasons we know not,
that wickedness and stupidity should rule the world.
—ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU
“YOU WANTED FRENCHIES,” said the master of the Mendicants Guild, “and Frenchies is what I ’as got for you.”
They were in the professor’s study, Moriarty settled in the great swivel chair behind his desk and Twist pacing the floor with an occasional lurch or hop, which the professor affected not to notice.
“What sort of Frenchies?” Moriarty asked cautiously.
“The usual sort,
” replied Twist with the sideways leer that passed with him as a smile. “Ones what speak French and wear bespoke suits that are just a wee bit too tight all over.”
“Ah!” said the professor. “And where have you found these sartorial paragons?”
Twist looked at him suspiciously for a moment and then nodded. “It’s this’ere way,” he started. “I put me chaps about where you suggested they ought to ’ang out—”
“Chaps that speak, or at least understand, French?” Moriarty interrupted.
“What does yer take me for?” asked Twist in an aggrieved voice.
“Go on.”
“A lot of the brothers, when they found out they was to get a shilling a day in addition to what they could make off the maund, suddenly found, deep within their livers, an intimate, as they says, knowledge of the French language,” Twist explained, “but I weeded out the genuine parlay-vooers from the scrum by the simple expedient of having a chap who was a genuine Froggie—staying with us a bit whilst avoiding some officious rozzers back in Paree—gab a bit with the lot. Them as didn’t take the snuff was excused except for a carefully selected group of stalkers and a few who was kept as runners, if they could run, or as watchers if they was particularly immobile—as with having no legs to speak of. Beggars make useful watchers, as you yourself have noted. Begging don’t draw no attention past the act itself and the momentary decision whether to part with a ha’penny or a swift kick, and they is soon forgotten. Some particularly nimble lads was kept as carriage followers.”
Moriarty nodded. “The process you employed sounds eminently satisfactory,” he allowed, “and the results of your eleemosynary efforts? What interesting information have your minions gleaned?”
“You got me there, Professor; I admits my iggoranced.”
“How’s that?” asked Moriarty.
“Eel-monsy who, when he’s at home?”
Moriarty thought back for a second and then said, “Hah! ‘Eleemosynary’ is the word.” He spelled it. “It means pertaining to charity or good works.”
Twist leered again. “I could just listen and listen as the words plop from your mouth.”
Moriarty leaned back in his chair. “Amusing you is my singular goal in life,” he said.
“Very funny,” said Twist, dropping into the overstuffed leather armchair on his side of the desk. “And don’t forget to give me the dollop with what to pay the lads afore I leaves. Eight quid I makes it, give or take a tuppence or two.”
“First the information,” said Moriarty. “Then we’ll see about the dollop.”
“’At’s right,” Twist admitted. “You ain’t got to pay for the ride till we gets where we’re going—and that’s the whole of the law.” He pulled a long, rolled-up paper tied with a bit of red twine from an inner pocket of his ragged jacket and set it on the desk. “What I got for you is a bunch o’ spots and a possible.”
“Let’s hear.”
“The lads done as you suggested, and put their begging bowls or other accouterments of the profession, as it were, hard onto the Frenchies’ embassy by Hyde Park and the consultulate at Finsbury Circle and tagged those who came out talking French or sounding like they should be talking French, if yer see what I means.”
“With French accents?” Moriarty suggested.
“Like that.” Twist agreed. “They was a lot of the blighters, too. It seemed like half of the blokes what came through them doors were Froggies.”
“Quelle surprise,” said Moriarty.
“All of that,” Twist agreed, “but as luck would ’ave it, there is a lot of us.” He pulled the twine on the rolled-up paper and spread it open on the desk, revealing a sketchy but carefully drawn map of London. “I ’as the spots marked out for you. We give a number to each of the Froggie gents, and scribble on this’ere chart where ’e—or in a couple of cases she—was picked up and where ’e went. Them as walked, our runners scrabbled after; them as took carriages, our lads ’opped on the backs when they could. They is pretty good at ’opping, our lads.”
“So what have we found?” Moriarty asked, fastening his pince-nez firmly on the bridge of his nose and peering down at the map.
“Well.” Twist paused dramatically and then stabbed a finger onto the map. “’Ere,” he said, “right ’ere, we might ’ave got a glimpse of the cove yer looking for.”
Moriarty leaned back in his chair. “Really?” he asked, drawing out the syllables until that brief word sounded like a sentence.
“Could be, could be,” Twist said.
“Right at”—Moriarty peered down at the map—“Randall Court?”
“’Ouse number 7, to be prezact. My man Shivers, who followed another bloke to the ‘ouse, seen the bloke you want come out of the door and get into a grandiloquent carriage like for dukes and earls and suchlike, and ride off.”
“Were there markings—a crest or insignia of any sort—on the carriage?”
“Nary a blob.”
“Interesting,” allowed Moriarty. “What made him think it was the right man?”
“’E fitted the description what you gave. Tall posh bloke, skinny, and what to clench it, ’e giggled a bit as ’e were escorted to the carriage.”
“Escorted?”
“Right enough. By two other blokes. One sort of short and solid-looking, and the other dressed like a footman, but Shivers sez ’e weren’t no footman, ’e were a toff dossed out in footman togs as you might say.”
“How could he tell?”
“Shivers, ’e sez, ‘Well, ’e didn’t walk like a footman, did ’e? And ’e was giving orders to the other two like what no footman ought to do,’ ’e sez.”
“What sort of orders?”
“Just what I asked ’im. And Shivers, ’e sez, ‘Well, I couldn’t tell you that, now, could I? ’Cause they was palavering in French, most likely. Anyway, it were French to me,’ sez Shivers.”
“And—”
Twist held up his hand as though to stop the onrushing question. “I knows what yer going to ask,” he said. “No, ’e didn’t follow the carriage. ’E couldn’t nohow ’cause the footman bloke stayed out there watching as it trotted away.”
Moriarty nodded and stood up. “Here,” he said, reaching into his desk drawer and removing a small cloth bag. “Here’s twenty pounds in silver. Distribute it amongst your crew with my thanks.”
“That’s a bit of all right,” said Twist, taking the coins and stuffing them into his clothing. “More than what I expected, but right enough all the same. You want us to stop, then?”
“No,” said the professor. “Keep on as you were, but leave number 7 Randall Court to me now. If your lads find anything else of interest, report it back to this house with due haste. Mr. Maws will know where to find me if need be.”
“Always a pleasure doing business with you,” the master of the Mendicants Guild opined.
[CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE]
COME FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW …
Oh evil ones,
Ye are a seed of the evil mind,
Ye are a seed of arrogance and perversity,
And so are those that honor you!
—ZOROASTER
THE EARL OF SCULLY TURNED from the great globe in the corner of Moriarty’s office, which he had been spinning, idly noting, with some satisfaction, how much of the earth was British. “So finally we have some tangible information,” he said. “The question is, what are we to do with it?”
“We could raid the building and arrest everyone inside,” suggested Duke Albert, leaning back in the overstuffed chair in the other corner and staring intently across the desk at the professor. “I could have Scotland Yard surround the building with an hour’s notice, and in two hours we’d have the lot.”
“Indeed,” Moriarty agreed, “but quite probably the wrong lot. And no telling what might happen to His Highness if he isn’t in the building—or even if he is.”
“Harumph!” said the duke.
“Then what do you suggest we do?” asked
Sir Anthony.
“That we follow—discreetly—anyone of interest who leaves the building. With a modicum of luck that will lead us to someone, or something, that will shed the required light on their intentions.”
“Very good,” said the duke. “I can get a dozen men from the Yard—”
Moriarty shook his head. “Excuse me, Your Grace, but I fear Scotland Yard men are not temperamentally suited for this job. Their inclination is to be gruff, forward, and positive. If they are tasked with keeping a place under surveillance, they don’t so much hide as lurk. We cannot allow these people to become aware that we’re watching. We need men who are shy and retiring to the point of invisibility.”
“Where do we find these invisible men?” asked the duke.
“Among the class of men who have come to me for advice in the past,” Moriarty told him. “The more discreet sort of burglars or the subtler sort of thieves would be best.”
“Humph!” said the duke. “What makes you think that sort of chap would be willing to assist us in this endeavor?”
“Money will be one incentive,” Moriarty said, “and, interestingly enough, for reasons I cannot fathom, most villains are mawkishly patriotic.”
“Interesting, indeed,” said the earl. “So we are to set a thief to catch a fiend. Of course, we’ll have to have some Yard men lurking somewhere about in case—in the hopeful case—an arrest must be made.”
“We still need to keep the circle of people in the know as small as possible,” said the duke. “Your average constable is just as unable to keep something like this a secret as would be a shopgirl.”
“I think that’s a bit unfair,” protested the earl. “There are many reliable men on the force.”
“And many taciturn shopgirls,” added Moriarty.
“Someone will have to know what they’re doing and why,” the duke pointed out.
“Perhaps,” suggested Sir Anthony Darryl, “the two officers who were involved in the Covent Garden affair. They already have some idea of what’s happening, and they seem to have kept their mouths shut about it.”
“Excellent idea,” agreed the earl. He turned his gaze to Moriarty. “How are we to use our, ah, forces?”
Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels) Page 23