Moriarty Meets His Match: A Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery (The Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery Series Book 1) (25 page)

Every jaw dropped in astonishment.

Moriarty recovered first. “What happened?”

Sebastian took the cloths from her arms and dropped them on the floor. Then he pulled out a chair and guided her into it. Viola took the chair beside her, lowering herself into it at the same rate of descent. She took one of Mrs. Peacock’s hands with both her own. Sebastian kept his hand on the back of her chair while he gazed down at her with somber sympathy. The golden pair had wrapped her in their warm regard like a cashmere blanket.

“Tell us everything, Mrs. Peacock,” Viola said, giving the hand a little pat. “You’ll feel so much better.”

So this was how they did it. They surrounded you with sympathy, drew forth your secrets, and made you love them for it. These Archers worked their manipulative charm without a plan or a moment’s hesitation. What had Mrs. Gould called it? “Reading the mark”?

But what harm did they do? They weren’t picking Mrs. Peacock’s pockets or teasing out her bank statements. They might be playing her, but they gave full value in return.

Mrs. Peacock sniffed. “Mr. Peacock took his own life, my dears. He shot himself in the upstairs bathroom, minutes before the police came to arrest him for embezzlement. The bank blamed him for the whole fiasco and it’s true his signature was on the accounts. But he was driven into it — blackmailed is the word I’d use — by that greedy toad Oscar Teaberry, who vanished right before the annual review. He was somewhere in America when the shortfall was exposed.”

Viola frowned prettily. “We are all terribly sorry for your loss.”

Mrs. Peacock nodded at her with a faint smile, but her eyes were still focused on the past. “Mr. Peacock had risen faster than any clerk in the history of the bank. He was
that
talented. They appointed him Vice President for Foreign Investments. That’s when Teaberry set his hooks in him, flattering him and making him offers that we should have known were too good to be true. By the time we did know, the bank was so badly overinvested in Teaberry’s trumped-up silver mines there was no turning back.”

Pink spots of anger bloomed in her papery cheeks. “The bank even honored my husband at the annual Christmas dinner. I wore a gown of canary-colored silk, the most beautiful dress I’ve ever owned. The bank president himself made the first toast. ‘Eldon Peacock does the work of two men,’ he said.”

Her eyes met Moriarty’s, and she smiled grimly. “Two men, they said. Well, little did they know I was the second man. I balanced the books right here in this house until the trouble started.” She sat tall in her chair and looked around the room, taking in each member of their odd alliance. “What I put together, I can take apart. Between you and me, Professor, never you fear. We’ll get to the bottom of these books.”

She directed them to sort the materials by owner and then by date. While they worked, they told her what they had managed to learn about relationships among the board members. Sandy did most of the sorting. Moriarty grabbed a fistful of Nettlefield’s correspondence and began opening each letter, making separate stacks by topic on a pair of empty chairs. Sebastian leaned an elbow on the mantelpiece and helped Viola elicit Mrs. Peacock’s whole life history, including the revelation that her late husband’s creditors were about to repossess her house.

“I didn’t know how to tell you, Professor,” she said. “It won’t be for a few months yet. I’ll do everything I can to help you find a suitable place.”

Sebastian flashed her another of his patented smiles. “I shouldn’t worry about it, Mrs. P. Lina will come up with something. She always does. She would never allow you to lose your house, especially not while her professor is living in it.” He shot Moriarty a brotherly wink.

Her
professor? Moriarty’s world turned upside again. The more he learned about Mrs. Gould, the less he understood her.

Chapter Thirty

Moriarty worked with Mrs. Peacock at her dining table until the morning light overtook the lamps in spite of the heavy brocade drapes. He’d stoked himself with strong tea and gone to the office, grateful for the distraction of his job. Engines were straightforward matters of physics, a striking contrast to the tangled webs of chicanery and fraud they’d struggled to trace last night.

They hadn’t found Sebastian’s letters or anything strong enough to force the promoter’s hand yet, but Moriarty had gained a new respect for his landlady. She knew her way around a bank book, all right. She would find something, if there was anything to be found.

By the end of the day, Moriarty felt drained. He needed exercise to clear his mind and prepare his body for sleep. He went straight from the office to the London Athletic Club and hired a rowing costume from the attendant in the changing room. When he walked down to the bank, he found that all the single sculls had already been taken out. He stood scowling at the gray river, too weary to formulate a new plan.

“I say! Hallo, Professor! Fancy meeting you here.” Mark Ramsay’s voice penetrated Moriarty’s mental fog. Ramsay’s gaze took in his costume and gestured at his own jersey and breeches. “I see we’re in the same boat, ha-ha! They don’t expect any singles back for at least a half an hour. I don’t suppose you’d like to share a double?”

They got a double scull out of the shed and into the water and took up their positions, with Moriarty in back and Ramsay in front. They rowed in silence for a while, learning each other’s rhythm. The repetitive motion warmed Moriarty’s blood and calmed his mind, as it always did, bringing his powers of reason back to life.

The central question was whether Mrs. Gould had been involved in any way with either of the two murders. He could forgive her anything short of that; possibly even that if he could only understand it. Of course, the odds of her ever forgiving him had sunk to nothing.

As Nettlefield’s confidential secretary, Ramsay would be aware of the actions of the police. He had previously shown himself willing to offer assistance. Moriarty spoke to the man’s back. “I wonder, Ramsay, if I might trouble you with a little question.” Funny how words formed themselves into blandly acceptable phrases no matter what turmoil lay beneath.

“What sort of question?”

“Having to do with these recent events. You know, that business at Hainstone’s on Sunday.”

“Ah, yes. Nasty, that.” Ramsay shot a glance over his shoulder. “I want you to know, Professor, I had no idea what Holmes had planned for that meeting.”

“You couldn’t have prevented it, though I appreciate the thought. For a few ghastly minutes, I thought I was headed for the gallows. I’m sorry it took another murder to show how far off Holmes was about me.”

“Even he couldn’t deny the obvious connection between the two deaths. I mean, two of Teaberry’s board members being hoisted by their own petards, so to speak.”

“Precisely,” Moriarty said. “But to be honest, Ramsay, I’m rather worried about Mrs. Gould.” He pointed with his oar at a piece of flotsam up ahead and made a bit of a production out of avoiding it. “Is there any possibility she had anything to do with Lord Hainstone’s murder? She was there, after all. I suspect she’s been the victim of some of Teaberry’s frauds. She’s the widow of an engineer; she might have managed that engine business somehow. But I find it impossible to imagine a lady being capable of cold-blooded murder.”

Ramsay suspended his oars above the water and turned half around to look Moriarty in the face. “You’re wondering how an ordinary human being could perform such monstrous acts.”

“I suppose I am.”

Ramsay nodded and went back to rowing. “Sometimes an ordinary person can be driven to acts of which he — or she — would not be capable in ordinary circumstances. Acts of desperation. These men’s swindles have destroyed many lives.”

Teaberry had boxed Mr. Peacock into a trap from which there had been only one way out. Sebastian Archer might be forced to a similarly dire solution if no other way out of his dilemma could be found. Moriarty now understood what had driven Mrs. Gould to such extremes of deception, but mightn’t the same urgency drive her to kill? Perhaps Hainstone had caught her searching his desk and threatened to expose her and thus her brother.

“I’ve been learning that sorry truth over the past few days,” Moriarty said. “But I’m afraid it only adds to my concern. Have you heard anything from the police?”

“Oh yes, we’re fully informed. Mrs. Gould was undoubtedly inside that room for some length of time. She left her gloves under the desk. She could only have done that before the meeting took place.”

“Then she must have heard Mr. Holmes’s story.”

“I’m afraid she must have, Professor.” Ramsay cast a glance over his shoulder. “She told the police she entered the library looking for a quiet place to rest. The noise of the fête had given her a headache. Moments after she went in, she heard a group of men in the corridor. Not wishing to speak with them, she slipped behind the drapes, intending to go out through the French windows. But she got it wrong and ended up trapped in one of the window wells. By then, it would have been too embarrassing to come out, so she stayed.”

Quite a plausible story. Moriarty mentally tipped his hat to the lady’s skill at improvisation.

“At any rate,” Ramsay said, “there she was, stuck behind the drapes during that whole appalling summation. Finally, everyone left, or so she thought. She claims to have heard the murder actually being done. Dreadful for her, if true.”

“Dreadful, indeed!” Moriarty remembered her struggling to open the stuck window. Had she been listening to Lord Hainstone being strangled? Or had she heard him threatening her, and realized she had no alternative but to fight back? “Why didn’t she raise the alarm herself?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Ramsay said. “She says she heard the door close and that’s when she slipped through the drapes into the room. She saw Hainstone, obviously dead, and went out into the corridor to get help. But then she heard another door, which startled her. She was afraid she might run into the murderer, so she went back to the library, meaning to go out the French windows. There she found Lord Nettlefield bending over the body and screamed. The music was still playing, so all this must have happened in a matter of minutes. She didn’t know if his lordship had just entered the room or if he had hidden as she’d come through before. That’s when I came back in to get his lordship’s envelope. I found them together and shouted, ‘Stop screaming,’ or something like that, and then ran out onto the terrace.”

“Was that you?” Moriarty summoned the sounds into his memory, stroking his oars through the silvery water while he ran back over those strange, horrible moments one more time. “I heard you,” he said after a long moment. “You shouted, ‘My lord! What have you done?’”

Ramsay shipped his oars and turned almost fully around. “Oh, I don’t think so. Are you sure that’s what I said?”

“I could be wrong.” Moriarty frowned and pointed his chin at the oars. These constant hiccups were most annoying. It took them a full half minute to restore their synchrony.

Ramsay grimaced and returned to his oars.

They rowed in silence while they regained the rhythm of their strokes. Then Moriarty asked, “What does Lord Nettlefield say happened?”

“His lordship says that he was on his way to the plump babies contest when he remembered his envelope. He turned back down the terrace and entered the library through the French windows. He heard the music boxes playing and saw Lord Hainstone lying on the floor. His first instinct was to rush to the man’s aid. It was only after he had verified that nothing could be done that he saw Mrs. Gould standing there, screaming. He suspected her at once — he’s never trusted her — and grabbed her to keep her from escaping. Then I burst in, and so on and so forth.”

Putney Bridge loomed before them. Moriarty asked, “Shall we turn here?” They maneuvered a half circle through a variety of other small craft and headed back downstream. Moriarty reviewed the sequence of events, putting together everything he had seen and heard.

“Both of their accounts seem plausible to me,” he said, “but they can’t both be true. They don’t quite overlap. It appears to be his word against hers.”

Ramsay shook his head but didn’t turn around. “Mrs. Gould could not have killed Lord Hainstone, Professor.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“It’s simply not possible. That musical jump rope is like all of Teaberry’s products: attractive, but useless. The handles have to be made extra large to accommodate the music boxes, you see. They’re a good three inches wide. That’s why we always have an army officer demonstrate the thing. I doubt a woman could have grasped those handles and pulled with any force. And she couldn’t have gripped the rope itself. It’s very coarse hemp.”

“It sounds a most unsuitable toy for a child,” Moriarty said, hope flowering in his breast.

“Mrs. Gould had left her gloves under the desk, remember. Her hands were unmarked after the event, as I recall. Rest assured, Professor, she is innocent of that crime.”

Innocent!
Moriarty’s heart leapt as his last doubt was blown away. Then it sank again as he remembered the vile insinuations he’d poured upon her innocent head. How could he ever redeem himself? What could he ever say to her to show how deeply he regretted his vile words?

He would do everything in his power to help her brother escape from Teaberry’s clutches. But when they found the evidence they needed, which he had no doubt they would, he would send it to Sir Julian to handle, sparing Mrs. Gould the pain of any further communications from him.

They reached the Athletic Club. They rowed up onto the bank and carried the boat back to its slip. They handed their tickets to the cloakroom attendant and waited for him to fetch their bundles.

“One last thing, Professor,” Ramsay said. “The police will recognize soon enough that Mrs. Gould can’t have done it. She doesn’t need protection from them. Reginald Benton, on the other hand . . . You don’t know him particularly well, do you?”

“We met for the first time at the Exhibition. I’ve seen him once or twice since, but not to speak to. He looks very much like his father.”

“He is very much like his father. His lordship is chiefly concerned with his public image. He’s quite prickly about it, as you know. Reginald cares about appearances as well, but he has other desires and believes he has the right to indulge himself as he pleases. There have been incidents involving young women on the estate —”

Ramsay broke off when the attendant returned. They tipped him and walked down the corridor to the changing room. They found an unoccupied stretch of bench and began to change into their street clothes.

“What kind of incidents?” Moriarty asked.

Ramsay frowned. “I mustn’t tell tales out of school. But if you care for that woman in the slightest, Professor, I shouldn’t leave her in the hands of the Bentons for one minute longer than necessary.”