Read Moriarty Returns a Letter Online

Authors: Michael Robertson

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Adult

Moriarty Returns a Letter (19 page)

BOOK: Moriarty Returns a Letter
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In an earlier day, or in just a slightly different setting, or with just the slightest difference in phrasing in the words coming out of this lout’s mouth, Reggie would have flattened him. He was ready to do so now.

But the rain was pouring down, and he was trying to stay focused on his objective—which was to get off the road and out of the rain—and mainly, most important, to get Laura in a warm bed for the remainder of the evening, safely, away from crazed stalkers and Darla Rennie and the paparazzi and anyone else who might be inclined to interfere. No complications. No drama. Just that.

And so Reggie merely growled:

“The car doesn’t need fixing. All we bloody need is for you to change the bloody tire. Are you going to do that?”

“Well, it’s raining, mate, can’t you tell? So I’ll do what I said and take you and the car and the lady into town—or you can change the bloody tire yourself. You choose.”

“Just get the fuck out of the way,” said Reggie.

For a moment, it looked as though the tow driver might not do that. For just a moment, it looked like they would indeed come to blows. Reggie could see in the bloke’s eyes that he was ready to do so, as ready for it as Reggie himself now was.

“Suit yourself,” said the driver, and then he stepped aside, and with just one quick glance back over his shoulder he stomped back to the tow truck.

Reggie watched in just a bit of surprise. It was not standard procedure for the tow driver to refuse to do the repair. He had to know that Reggie would later call and complain to his employer. And it was not a sensible course of action, if the driver had simply been intending to run a road repair scam, to have pushed it so close to a confrontation. There was no advantage to be gained in doing that.

Reggie knelt in the mud to change the tire. Laura stood in the rain, trying to hold the umbrella over both Reggie and herself and the baggage, as he finally wrestled the spare out of the boot.

“What was all that about?” said Laura. “Why was he so insistent on driving us into town?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Reggie. “Hold it a little to the left, please?”

 

20

It was dusk when Reggie torqued the last bolt into place.

There were no streetlamps; there were in fact no lights visible of any kind in any direction.

Still standing with the umbrella in the rain, Laura asked if she should get the torch out of the boot.

“No,” said Reggie. “Nearly done.”

And he was, but it was a bloody good thing. He was pretty sure there was indeed a torch in the boot, but he also couldn’t remember the last time he had checked the batteries in it.

He pounded the wheel cover back into place.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

Soaked and muddy, they put the tools away, tried to shake the water off the umbrella, and got back into the car.

Reggie turned the key. The starter cranked, at a high pitch. Then nothing.

Reggie glanced over at Laura. If she was concerned, she wasn’t showing it. She stowed the umbrella behind the seats.

Reggie turned the key again; the starter whined—and then the engine caught on, spit twice through the tailpipe, and roared into life.

Laura smiled slightly.

“That’s nice, isn’t it?” she said.

Reggie nodded, and they drove out onto the road.

Forty minutes later they spotted the turnoff for the Marylebone Super Slumber hotel.

The rain was letting up. The yellow and white lights of the hotel broke the darkness.

They drove up securely, on a fine gravel road, to a building that had once been a large country farmhouse but now, to all appearances, was completely renovated. The white paint on the exterior walls fairly glowed with ethereal light. Candles and tablecloths were visible through the windows on the first floor.

It was wonderful.

A young male bellhop came out as Reggie and Laura were just opening the car doors. He took the bags from the boot and loaded them onto a cart. Then he hovered around Laura like a puppy, trying to think of additional services to perform, until Reggie got out of the car with his briefcase.

“Let me help you with that,” said the bellhop.

“Thanks, I’ve got it,” said Reggie.

“I’ll just put it on the cart with the others,” said the bellhop, reaching for it.

“No, thank you, I carry my own briefcase,” said Reggie, wrestling it back.

The bellhop stood back, as if thwarted in the one thing that he truly had to do, but he quickly recovered.

“Right, then,” he said cheerily. He turned back to Laura, grabbed hold of the cart with the luggage, and then, as if it were in doubt, told them to come this way.

They proceeded into the lobby, which was country-house modern, with elegant use of wood and stone, sparkling clean, and perfectly lit.

“This will do then, won’t it?” said Reggie.

Laura nodded. “It’s perfect. I take back every negative thing I ever said about your hotel luck.”

The desk clerk checked them in, remarking that they had been given the highly desirable top-floor suite, at the special request of the hotel chain manager herself.

They took the lift up to the third floor; the bellboy brought their luggage, got his tip, and departed.

It was not a suite; it was just one large bedroom, but it was a very large one, and with a pink-tile bath and loo attached, a mirror for the entire length of the his-and-hers sinks, and a king-sized bed with so many plush decorative pillows one could swim in them.

Laura went to the window, pulled open the heavy, golden drapes, and looked out.

“In the morning,” she said, “I expect we’ll see wild ponies on the rocky crags and a golden sunrise over the moor. But tonight we’re on our own for entertainment.”

Reggie sat on the bed and picked up the hotel phone.

“Shall I make dinner reservations for eight?” he said.

“You shall not,” said Laura. “You shall have room service deliver a bottle of champagne and then go away. I mean room service go away, not you. After they deliver the champagne. Which they’d better do damn quick.”

Laura was climbing from the window side of the bed, where she had been standing, to the phone side of the bed, where Reggie was sitting, tossing pillows out of her way as she came toward him.

 

21

The fire alarm went off at three in the morning.

Reggie knew it must be three, instinctively, because he knew that whenever people tell of bad things that happen in the middle of the night, 3:00
A.M.
is what they really mean.

Not midnight. At midnight, good things often happen, and very good things had been happening at this particular midnight, he was still recovering from them, and he was—until that jarring sound—in the most profound sleep from them.

He leaped out of bed. Well, not quite. He felt as though he had leaped, but he had only just managed to get his bare feet on the floor.

The alarm was not the pleasant, bell-ringing noise used for fire drills in public school, but a shrill, syncopated shriek—and it filled the room.

Laura was sitting up next to him. She smelled enticing, and shrieking fire alarm or not, Reggie took a moment to inhale.

“How is it,” said Laura, “that the world always seems to know when I’m naked?”

The alarm continued to insistently shriek as they hunted up their most available clothes. Reggie quickly pulled on his boxers. Laura immediately put on Reggie’s long-tailed shirt, and was looking about for something to complete the ensemble when someone pounded hard on the door.

Reggie opened it. The bellhop was there.

“Fire alarm! You must get out now!”

“Where is it?” said Reggie.

“What?” said the bellhop, who seemed to have lost his focus for some reason.

“The fire.”

The bellhop didn’t answer that question; he just stared at Laura, who hadn’t quite gotten the shirt buttoned yet.

“There is a robe in the bath! I’ll help you find it!” he said, and he eagerly tried to enter the room.

“No, you won’t,” said Reggie, pushing him back into the corridor. “Thank you for the warning. We’ll be right along.”

With Laura in the bath getting her robe, Reggie, still in just his boxers, took a moment to pick up his briefcase.

“Leave your belongings,” said the bellhop, back in the doorway. “There’s no time.”

“I’ve already got it,” said Reggie.

“I’ll hold this for you, so you can go back in and get dressed,” said the bellhop, reaching to take the briefcase.

“You said there’s no time,” said Reggie, holding on to it just from habit.

“It’s very cold downstairs,” said the bellhop. “You really should—”

Laura came out of the bath now in her bathrobe, and carrying Reggie’s as well. She tossed it to him.

“You can never tell Reggie anything,” she said. “He doesn’t even worry about shrinkage. Are we all ready then?”

“This way,” said the bellhop, even though he didn’t seem quite satisfied with things, and Reggie and Laura dutifully followed him down the corridor to the stairs.

A dozen guests of the hotel had assembled in the lobby.

“We’re the last ones down,” said the bellhop, as though they had badly lost a contest.

“Well, to be fair, we were on the top floor,” said Laura.

Now the on-duty manager—a well-tailored man of about fifty—walked out to the center of the lobby and called for attention.

Everyone would be allowed back in their rooms, he said, as soon as the staff had completed their security sweep of all the floors.

“Does that mean that there was not in fact a fire?” said Reggie.

The manager turned and took note of Reggie—and then exchanged an insider’s glance with the bellhop.

“Oh no,” whispered Laura to Reggie. “You’ve gotten on the troublemaker list.”

The manager didn’t want to respond directly to a question from a troublemaker, so he deliberately turned to address everyone else in the room.

“The system is new,” said the manager. “And there is some slight possibility of an occasional false alarm. But the good news is, we have completed the check and it is now perfectly safe to return to your rooms.”

And then, before the crowd of guests could actually disperse, the manager looked directly at Reggie.

“And I can tell you unequivocally that this was not a drill,” he said, quite loudly. “In future, we would hope that
all
guests would follow both the hotel rules and their own good sense, and not attempt to retrieve their belongings in the event of a fire. No possession is worth your life. Even if you do have the largest room on the top floor. Thank you very much for your patience, and enjoy your stay.”

The assembled crowd followed the hotel manager’s lead, and all of them stared for a brief, accusatory moment at Reggie and the briefcase for which he had, it seemed, inappropriately risked his life.

“Well,” said Laura, whispering in Reggie’s ear. “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“I’m just glad I wore the bloody robe,” said Reggie.

After a few moments, the crowd of hotel guests dispersed. Reggie and Laura made their way back to their room.

Reggie opened the door, and Laura went in first.

And then she immediately paused, just inside the doorway.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.

And something was. Her suitcase was open and all of its contents dumped on the bed. All of the drawers to the little hotel dresser were open, and the closet had clearly been rifled.

Laura quickly checked each area in turn.

“Nothing seems to have been taken,” said Laura. “But they tossed everything. Does that mean they didn’t find what they were looking for?”

“Maybe what they took was pictures,” said Reggie. “Maybe it was the paparazzi.”

The bellhop arrived to help out.

“Yes,” he said. “Might well have been. I’ve seen some very high-end cameras check in.”

“Nonsense,” said Laura. “Even the paparazzi don’t make money by publishing photos of just a person’s belongings. They might throw a false fire alarm to get us downstairs half-dressed, if they thought they could get away with it. But they’d get nothing from tossing our room.”

“I can move you to another room, if you like.”

“No,” said Laura. “Thank you, but right at the moment, all we’re interested in is a couple of hours’ sleep.”

The bellhop lingered—hoping to provide additional assistance, it seemed at first—but then Reggie tipped him, and he departed.

A few hours later—too few—Reggie and Laura came downstairs for breakfast. They walked zombie-like to the buffet room.

“Food or sleep,” said Laura, as they picked up their plates. “Food or sleep. I hate it when I have to choose between life’s necessities.”

But there was bacon, greasy and nicely overcooked. Baked beans. Stewed tomatoes, still warm, with the scent of them wafting up.

Reggie loaded his plate and sat with Laura at a table by the window.

He had his briefcase with him. He put it on the empty chair next to him and opened it up, flat, with the contents of both sides exposed.

Laura raised an eyebrow.

“Not to worry,” said Reggie. “It’s not work. I just want a look at the itinerary.”

Reggie sorted through several documents, moving them from one side of the briefcase to the other.

“Found it,” said Reggie, lifting a sheet of paper from the briefcase. “And I think you’ll like this next one. It’s supposed to have some sort of special room.”

He showed her the list of destinations.

“Lois said the hotel manager made this list for us herself,” said Reggie. “You can see her notes there.”

Laura looked at the notes and nodded approvingly. “She says that the special restored railway car is undergoing repair—but I hear all the other rooms are wonderful as well. I couldn’t have done better myself.”

As Laura said that, the cook came out from the kitchen. He walked very closely past them with a tray of bacon so new that the grease bubbles were still popping. He slowed his pace as he passed their table, and the scent of more fresh breakfast was enough for Reggie to think about getting back in the line. He started to get up from the table.

“They certainly keep the buffet well stocked,” said Laura. “It was full just a moment ago, and now here they are topping it off again.”

BOOK: Moriarty Returns a Letter
11.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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