—No, that’s not her, that’s Lady Coreless. That’s the princess, over there with that man with the funny mustache.
—Well, she’s still a pretty young thing.
* * *
Pamela stepped up behind Cecily Barnett and clutched at her arm.
“Ouch!” said Cecily. “What is the matter?”
“It’s ’im,” Pamela gasped. “’Im.”
“Him? Him whom? Which one?” Cecily looked around the crowded ballroom.
“’Im with the ‘feet, feet,’ it’s ’im!”
Pamela let go of Cecily’s arm and, with one last “’im,” her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling. Slowly she slid toward the floor. Cecily and Sir Anthony were just able to catch her before she collapsed.
“Over there,” Cecily said, pointing with her chin. “There are some chairs by that wall.”
They half led and half carried Pamela over to the chairs and propped her up on one. Her eyes opened and she began taking deep, slow breaths. After a few seconds she sat up. “It was ’im,” she said. She reached up and pulled a long hatpin from her hair. “Where did ’e go?” she asked, waving the hatpin in front of her like a dagger.
“Careful with that thing,” Cecily said.
“I ain’t letting ’im near me. Where is ’e?”
“Which ‘him’ did you see?” asked Sir Anthony, searching around the room for someone who could be “’im.”
“’E were standing over there with that princess,” Pamela said, pointing to the other side of the room with the hatpin.
“The Slicer?”
“No, not the bloke what killed Rose, but the bloke what were with ’im. The ‘feet, feet’ bloke. But I don’t see ’im now.”
“Ah!” said Sir Anthony. “You two stay here and keep looking. I’ll go after him.”
“What should we do if we see him?” asked Cecily.
“Ah, drop a tray on the floor. Scream like you’ve seen a mouse. Something like that. The professor will be listening.”
“I ain’t afraid of mice,” Pamela said.
“Of course you’re not,” Sir Anthony agreed. “What about spiders?”
Pamela nodded. “I could scream if I saw a spider,” she agreed.
“Okay, then. A spider it is!” He headed off across the room.
“Or a bat,” Pamela added, calling after him.
* * *
Macbeth opened the narrow door in the right-hand corner of the small balcony. “It’s time,” he said in French, peering into the small room. “How do you feel? Do you remember what you have to do?”
Henry was sitting motionless on a short stool in the corner, his face impassive, as though he had somehow been turned off. Macbeth’s words served to turn him back on, and he slowly looked up, thought for a second, and then giggled. “I know,” he said. “I always know what I have to do.”
A look of mixed irritation and disgust crossed Macbeth’s narrow face. “Not that,” he said. “The rest of it. How to act, where to go … Why is it so dark in here? Turn up the light.”
“The dark is my friend,” Henry said, but he turned the screw on the wall sconce by his stool and brightened the flame. “I can accomplish much in the dark.”
“Yes,” Macbeth agreed. “It seems you can.”
Henry sucked in his cheeks and then released them with a popping sound. “I know what you think of me,” he said. “You think I am a tool, that I can be discarded when you are done with me.” He sucked in his cheeks again and stared at Macbeth for a long moment. Pop. “Perhaps you are the tool. Perhaps your very reason for existence is to help me in the Great Design. Have you not seen that I increase daily? That I get larger with every thread?”
Design? Macbeth thought. Thread? “I was unaware of that,” he said.
“You’ll see,” said Henry. “You’ll see … Are we ready?”
Macbeth nodded. “We are.”
“I feel the greatness growing inside of me. Leave me now to prepare.”
Macbeth backed out of the room and closed the door behind him. For a few seconds he stared at the wooden panels; then he turned and went downstairs to join the crowd and await the working of the Plan. His plan, not, he sincerely trusted, Henry’s Great Design. But suppose … No. He shook his head. Besides, after Henry had served his purpose this evening, it was arranged that he would be no more.
Ten minutes passed.
* * *
Henry pranced through the doorway and onto the small balcony and danced forward to the railing as though he were on springs. At first no one noticed him as he bounced gently from foot to foot and surveyed the crowd below. Then an elderly colonel of the Horse Guard saw him and poked his neighbor, and a plump woman saw him and ahemmed to her husband, and the sighting spread and the room grew quiet except for the low buzzing of muted voices identifying what, or who, they were seeing. A tall, slender man in the elaborate dress uniform of the 10th Hussars, bespangled with medals and ribbons across the chest, he looked, remarked one young lady who was almost overcome by being so near, just like his picture in Vanity Fair.
“It’s His Royal Highness, that’s who it is, right up there. Trust me.”
“Prince Albert Victor, that’s who it is. I was in the royal box at Ascot with him last year, no farther away from him than I am from you right now. You have my word, and that’s him.”
“I didn’t think any of the royals would be coming to this event,” said a knowledgeable young man. “I actually spoke to the Honorable Hortense, invited her to come along with me, don’t you know, and she said none of them were coming on instructions from the palace.”
“I suppose His Highness can go where he wishes without permission from Grandmama,” opined his companion.
* * *
Pamela Dilwaddy, her eyes fixed on the man on the balcony, mouthed, “It’s the other ’im,” and rose from her chair. Cecily put her hand on the girl’s arm and said something to her, but she heard not a word and slid out of the grasp as though it weren’t there and started walking slowly across the room.
For a minute the putative HRH stood on his perch in a regal pose and stared down at the people below and smiled a secret smile. A few who were close thought they heard a giggle, but perhaps it was a random noise from the great room. Then, all at once, Princess Andrea of Courlandt came through the door and appeared beside him. Had she been pushed into the space? It seemed that it took her a moment to regain her balance. She looked around her as though she were not sure just what she was doing there.
Just as those below were thinking, because one could hardly keep from thinking, Tall, handsome prince, petite elegant princess, perhaps … they saw the prince take her hand.
Well …
With a sudden gesture the princess pulled her hand free as one would recoil from a deadly adder and took a step back, a look of horror on her face.
What?
The prince turned toward her and giggled—that was clearly a giggle—and grabbed at her shirtfront, pushing her up against the curtain. There was a long silver object in his hand. A knife?
Why would he…?
The princess gasped and tried to break free of his grasp, but he held fast. He raised the knife. She screamed.
Those below were curiously silent, as though they were watching a play and didn’t know how they were meant to react to this scene. Some sort of joke, of course, but in very bad taste.
“My God!” It was Albreth, their host, yelling at the top of his voice and running across the room toward the balcony “Not here, not now, not her!”
Henry turned and leered at the crowd below, then turned back and slashed—
—at where the girl’s throat had been a moment before. But the princess’s blouse had ripped, loosening his grip, and she dropped to her knees, her hands up to avert the blow. His blade missed its target, cutting her arm and slashing the side of her head. He looked annoyed and grabbed for the princess, who had fallen, screaming, to the floor beneath him.
The door at th
e rear of the balcony suddenly swung open and Moriarty pushed in, thrusting and slashing the air ahead of him with his walking stick. With one sharp blow he knocked the knife from Henry’s hand, and then the two were grappling and swaying at the edge of the balcony, a furious Henry clutching madly at an implacable Moriarty. They twisted this way and that so that first one and then the other was pushed against the railing. Then, with a sickening cracking sound, the railing gave way, sending the two of them in a roiling mass to the floor below.
Henry landed on top, and within seconds he had risen and launched himself into the crowd. Moriarty, stunned, lay where he had fallen for a few seconds longer before pushing himself to his feet and stumbling after.
From somewhere about his cummerbund Henry produced a second knife, a long, thin, wicked blade, and he lunged forward, the guests parting before him like the Red Sea before Moses. In this open lane stood only Pamela, mute and eerily composed, directly in his path.
Henry grabbed Pamela and lifted her, and she went limp in his arms. He continued forward, using her body as a shield as he ran toward the door.
Pamela twisted slightly in his grasp and seemed to punch him in the chest, and a look of surprise came to his face, but he kept moving. Then she thrust at him again and again, in the chest, in the neck, in the face, and he staggered. Blood was coming from wounds in his neck and face. He stumbled.
Pamela was on top of him now. With a heave of his body he threw her off and tried to rise, but she was back in an instant, sobbing and thrusting again and again with the long hatpin between the fingers of her closed fist. A peculiar gasping noise came from his mouth, and his body shuddered and was still.
Cecily ran over to them, and in a moment of inspiration quelled the muttering from the people behind by calling out in her clear soprano voice, “My God—it’s not His Highness at all—it’s an impostor!” Then she knelt beside Pamela, who continued to stab the body, and tried to stay her arm. “You can stop now,” she said. “He is dead.”
“Not dead enough,” Pamela cried and stabbed him once, twice, three more times before crumbling in a faint beside the body.
* * *
Sir Anthony was in a long hallway now, trying to work his way toward the small balcony, which was somewhere to his right and above. He tried the doors as he passed them—small room, small room, toilet—aha! Here was a flight of stairs leading up. It was unlit, but the door above was open, spilling light onto the steps. He started climbing.
Suddenly a tall man appeared on the landing below him, silhouetted by the light behind. He was brandishing a long blade, which gleamed in the reflected light. Before Sir Anthony had a chance to react, the man stopped and peered up at him and then lowered his weapon. “It’s you,” he said. “What luck!”
“Moriarty!” Sir Anthony exclaimed, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. “By God, man, you gave me quite a start! What’s happening?”
“Come and help me,” Moriarty said, sheathing the sword back inside the protective body of his owl-headed walking stick. “The slasher is, I think, dead, but his master is still at large. But first—it will take the two of us, and we must be quick!”
“Help you do what?”
“His Royal Highness is in a small room behind the balcony, and he’s under the influence of some powerful narcotic. We have to get him out of here.”
Moriarty joined Sir Anthony, and they hurried up the stairs and pulled open a door next to the one leading to the balcony. A man who was undoubtedly HRH was leaning against the wall, looking with wide-eyed wonder around him. The prince’s uniform jacket was spattered with blood, and his tunic was torn. “My God!” said Sir Anthony, touching the blood smears, which felt dry and cold under his fingers. “What on earth…”
“They were setting the stage for His Highness to be found after the princess was stabbed,” Moriarty said. “It is, I imagine, cow’s blood or pig’s blood, but it would have done the trick. Help me get him downstairs. We’ll take him out the back way.”
Sir Anthony took one arm and Moriarty the other, and between them they eased His Highness out of the room and along the corridor. A very short man in servitor’s costume poked his head out from a door farther down. “This way, Professor,” he called in a stage whisper that reverberated down the hall. “I has found the egress.”
“Very good, Mummer,” said the professor. “You lead the way.”
Along the corridor, into a narrow hallway, down another flight of stairs, and into a room with a large brick oven, perhaps once used as a bakery.
“Hello,” said a man in a leather apron, coming in from a doorway in the far wall. “You some of the daily help, are you? Waiters, I fancy, by your garb.”
“You’ve got it, mate,” the mummer agreed.
“What’s all the fuss and commotion I’m hearing upstairs?” the man asked, pointing with his finger in the general direction of upstairs.
“Some sort of accident,” Moriarty told him. “Perhaps you should go help. This chap has fainted, and we’re taking him outside.”
The man nodded, seeing the wisdom in this. “Too much alki-bloody-hall,” he opined. “Shouldn’t partake whilst you’re at work, I says. Through that door there will get you out the back.”
They nodded their thanks and continued out the door with their burden.
The beam from a bull’s-eye lantern turned to shine on them as they came out into the mews. “Ah!” said a familiar voice, “you’ve made it—and with His Highness. Good, good.”
“Is it you, Holmes?” Moriarty asked. “The Belleville Slicer is dead, but his companion—his keeper—is still at large in the house. Unless he managed to leave during the ongoing festivities.”
“He tried to,” Holmes said. “I have him here.” He turned the lantern so the beam shined on a man sitting on the sparse sidewalk and glaring up into the light. “I imagine this is the man you want. He was one of the gentlemen who brought His Highness in, and he seemed to be in charge. So when he emerged in something of a hurry a few minutes ago, I scuppered him up. He was not happy about it, and there was something of a scuffle, but I prevailed. I found this in his pocket.” Holmes waved a crumpled scrap of paper at them. “It’s the ‘Macbeth’ cable from France.”
“Ah!” said Moriarty. He turned to the man. “Then you must be the fabled Macbeth. A pleasure, I must say, to finally make your acquaintance.”
The man struggled to his feet. His evening jacket was in disarray, his heavily starched collar was pulled out in front, and his extravagant mustache was pointing up one one side and down on the other, giving his face a look of bewildered indecision. “You will release me at once!” he demanded, waving his manacled hands in front of him. “This is an outrage! You cannot do this to me!”
“Really?” Moriarty asked, sounding sincerely interested. “Why not?”
The man came to a position of attention, or as close as he could manage with his hands tied. “I am Colonel Auguste Pierre Marie Lefavre of the French general staff, currently serving as military attaché to the French ambassador. I have the diplomatic immunity. Whatever you may think I have done, it is of no consequence. You must release me immediately!”
Silence descended on the group as they considered this.
“You could just shoot ’im, Professor,” the mummer suggested.
“I couldn’t watch such a thing,” said Holmes. “I’d have to turn my back.”
“What?” Lefavre took a step back. “No—you couldn’t…”
“Why not?” Moriarty asked. “You seem to have little hesitation about taking a life—or two—when it serves your purpose.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Those people were…” Lefavre paused.
“Expendable? Sacrificed for the greater good?”
Lefavre said nothing.
“We shall not shoot him,” said a quiet voice, and a dark figure stepped out of the shadows by the doorway.
“Your Grace,” said Holmes.
“I didn’t think—” Lefavre began.
The duke raised his hand, and Lefavre was silent. “You will be taken from here directly to the Tower of London,” pronounced the duke. “You will not communicate with anyone between here and there. Once there, you will be held at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I would say that Her Majesty’s pleasure might well include taking you out into the courtyard early one morning and putting a noose around your neck, but that’s not up to me.”
“Pity,” said Holmes, turning to Moriarty. “I’ve never actually seen you shoot a man, Professor. It would have been an enlightening experience.”
Lefavre said, “You can’t—”
“I can,” said the duke. “In the name of Her Majesty and by the power intrusted to me by the Special Committee of the Privy Council, I will.” He turned and whistled, and a carriage started toward them from down the street. After a brief and curiously silent struggle Lefavre was thrust into the carriage, the duke went in behind him, and the carriage began its unhurried journey to the west.
Sir Anthony murmured something.
“What’s that?” asked Moriarty.
“‘We ’ave ’eard o’ the Widow at Windsor,’” Sir Anthony recited,
“‘It’s safest to let ’er alone: / For ’er sentries we stand by the sea an’ the land / Wherever the bugles are blown.’”
“A bit of Kipling,” said Holmes, “never hurts.”
[CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE]
A MIDNIGHT DREARY
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied Being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
—ALEXANDER POPE
IT WAS NINE THIRTY TUESDAY MORNING; the sky was overcast, and the air was moist. Benjamin and Cecily Barnett left their hansom cab at the Brook Street corner of Hanover Square, unfurled a large black umbrella, and walked the short distance to the Roman pillars marking the portico of the otherwise stolid brick facade of the Earl of Scully’s London residence. They were admitted by a butler, stoic of face and precise of dress, who led them to an oak-paneled room at the back of the house with large bay windows overlooking the garden.
Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels) Page 26