The Last Moriarty
Page 23
65. A VIOLIN BRINGS US TOGETHER
Zoe’s Stradivarius was found that afternoon by the police, in a connecting stairwell between Worth’s two flats at 198 Piccadilly. When I heard the news, I wondered how that valuable instrument had figured into Worth’s plan. I envisioned him taunting Zoe with the threat of its destruction in an effort to manipulate Holmes.
“Or he may simply have planned to sell it,” Holmes replied when I relayed my thoughts. “Fortunately, Mr. Worth is no longer able to tell us his true motives.”
The next afternoon Holmes and I brought the violin to Zoe’s flat. We found Lucy with Zoe, helping her pack for the journey to Rome.
Zoe opened the violin case and showed us the beautiful instrument inside. “I am so glad I did not lose this,” she said, looking first at Holmes, and then at Lucy. “It brought us together.”
“Twenty-one years ago,” Holmes said.
Zoe said, “I have always wanted to tell you. When you spoke of Linton Hill I was certain that you knew. But as I said in that awful warehouse, I was ashamed of not telling you, so I ran away. I am glad you deduced the truth.”
“So am I.”
Lucy looked at Holmes. “I felt a connection when we first met. And so did you.”
“I made observations and deductions,” he said.
Lucy said, “But how did you know?”
“After I saw the registry of your birth, it was merely simple arithmetic,” Holmes said. “You were born January seventh, 1875. You weighed eight pounds, seven ounces, which is quite a robust weight. We know the period of human gestation is nine months. So it would have been impossible for your conception to have occurred barely more than six months previously, at the time when I was away for school vacation during the early summer, and when Professor Moriarty falsely told his brother he had fathered you. Also, I knew where Zoe and I had been in the springtime of 1874.”
He looked at Zoe for a moment and then went on quickly, “As I said, the calculation is a simple one.”
“Oh, of course,” Lucy replied. “Quite elementary.”
66. INSOMNIA REVISITED
Zoe and Lucy departed Saturday on the Dover Express, on their way to Calais and then Rome.
Holmes and I were at Charing Cross Station to see them off. He embraced them warmly, as did I. Then he assisted each of the ladies in turn, lifting her by the hand as she stepped up from the railway platform into the first-class carriage. Lucy seemed amused and delighted at this, while Zoe accepted the gesture with a graceful smile.
We have had cheerful letters from each of them on several occasions during the five months that have passed since their departure. The most recent from Zoe came with the news that she had reconciled with her parents and that they had welcomed Lucy as their granddaughter. Zoe also mentioned that she would be remaining in Rome for a time because her mother was in failing health and needed care. Holmes accepted this news with equanimity.
Then yesterday we received a wire from Lucy. The troupe concluded its last performance in Italy and she was returning to London.
Last night, for the first time in five months, I was awakened by the sound of Holmes pottering about in his rooms below me. This morning I came down to breakfast and noticed that his papers, no longer strewn in their usual cascade, were now organized in neat stacks around our sitting room. In the adjacent space that had once been my bedchamber, his laboratory instruments and glassware shone with cleanliness.
At the breakfast table, Holmes informed me that he had made arrangements with Mrs. Hudson to make available a spare suite of rooms at the back of our building, in the event Lucy should need an accommodation for a few months.
“Or,” Holmes added with a casual shrug, “perhaps longer.”
I shall set these pages aside now, without recording any of my imaginings or hopes of what may transpire. I well know that it is a capital mistake to speculate until one is in full possession of the facts.
HISTORICAL NOTES
This is a work of fiction, and the author makes no claim whatsoever that any historical locations or historical figures who appear in this story were even remotely connected with the adventures recounted herein. However . . .
The design and location of the Diogenes Club in this story are based on The Athenaeum, a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall founded in 1824, active today, and thought by some to be the model for the Diogenes Club that appears in the original Sherlock Holmes stories created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The office of the registrar general of births, marriages, and deaths was located in Somerset House in 1895, but it was relocated nearly a century later. Due to its spectacular architecture, Somerset House has been used as a location for many film and television entertainments, including several involving Sherlock Holmes.
The Bank of England continues in full operation at One Threadneedle Street. No gold has ever been stolen from the Bank since its inception in 1654.
The Savoy Theatre and Savoy Hotel continue to operate adjacent to one another in the Strand, city of Westminster, London. The Mikado continues to be performed in hundreds of theaters throughout the world.
The Royal Navy converted from coal to oil, though the conversion was not complete until the end of the Great War.
John D. Rockefeller Sr. retired from business in 1897. In 1911 the United States government broke up the Standard Oil Trust. The move made Rockefeller the world’s first billionaire, and, adjusting for inflation, the wealthiest man of all time. He gave nearly all of the money to charities and to his children before he passed away at age 97.
John D. Rockefeller Jr. married Abby Aldrich, the daughter of Senator Nelson Aldrich of Providence, Rhode Island, and devoted his working life to philanthropy. Their union provided Rockefeller Sr. with six grandchildren, five of whom went on to lives of significant fame and responsibility.
The Corsair was purchased by the US government in 1898 and served in the Spanish-American War as the USS Gloucester.
In 1902 Morgan formed the International Mercantile Marine, a shipping trust that included Rockefeller’s American railway interests and, after a meeting with Kaiser Wilhelm on a new Corsair, the German Hamburg-Amerika Steamship Line. Morgan balanced his activity between business and philanthropic interests until his death in 1913.
Adam Worth was an American criminal who with his brother formed a successful crime network in London during the Victorian era. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is thought to have used Worth as a model for his fictional Professor Moriarty and may have modeled the foiled bank robbery described in “The Red-Headed League” on Worth’s successful robbery of the Boylston National Bank of Boston. Worth owned an estate in Clapham Common, a flat at 198 Piccadilly, and a yacht called the Shamrock.
Watson never published a reference to Zoe Rosario or Lucy James. In “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client” he refers to Colonel Sebastian Moran as still being alive in 1902, which may have been a deliberate attempt to conceal the circumstances of Moran’s death.
Sherlock Holmes continued to serve his country and other illustrious clients. His death has not been recorded, and there is speculation that he discovered a means of extending life through his researches on the properties of royal jelly, as recorded in his Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations on the Segregation of the Queen.
Lucy James will return.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book owes a great deal to the editorial wisdom and guidance of Thomas & Mercer’s Kjersti Egerdahl, Girl Friday Productions’ Jenna Free, Cathy Yardley, Anna Elliot, and especially my wonderful wife, Pamela Veley. I’m also grateful for the support and encouragement of Garner Simmons, Dan Matos, and also June Grube, who gave me the benefit of her fabulous proofreading skills. I also extend my warmest thanks to Todd A. Johnson of TAJ Design, Inc. for his creative cover, and especially to the remarkably talented Jacob Thompson for bringing these
words to brilliant life in the audio version of this book, available on Audible.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Veley is an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes and Gilbert & Sullivan. He wrote The Pirates of Finance, a new musical in the G&S tradition, which won an award at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2013. His books include Children of the Dark, Play to Live, Night Whispers, and Catching Up.