Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels) (34 page)

“Good, good,” said the duke. “Horrible experience, what? Have to see what we can do for her. I’ll make a note.” He turned to Mycroft. “What are we to do about that chap, whatchamabobby—the chappie who claims he’s the Earl of Mersy?”

“I don’t think,” said Mycroft, “that the Crown Office is going to find any merit in his claim. He can have his castle, somewhere just this side of Scotland, I believe, but not his title.”

“But was he involved in this scheme?” asked the duke.

“Almost certainly,” Mycroft said, “but we could never prove it.”

“Ah, well,” said the duke. “Living somewhere just this side of Scotland may be punishment enough.”

“This affair would seem to be over,” said the earl, “and the truth of it may never come out.”

“
Can
never come out,” said Sir Anthony.

“Just so,” agreed the duke.

*   *   *

“This is odd,” said Holmes some minutes later, tapping a story he had been reading in the
Morning Standard.
“You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you, Professor?” The tone of his voice and his arched eyebrow indicated that he rather thought that Moriarty might indeed know something about whatever it was.

“About what?” asked Moriarty.

Holmes adjusted the paper and read, “‘Strange Discovery in Nottinghamshire. Secret Room Revealed.’” He paused to glare at Moriarty and then began again:

STRANGE DISCOVERY IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.
SECRET ROOM REVEALED

Sometime Monday afternoon workmen installing indoor plumbing at Widdersign-on-Ribble, the country estate of his lordship Baron Thornton-Hoxbary, accidentally broke into a hitherto-secret room adjoining the baron’s ground-floor library and discovered a trove of valuable jewelry and works of art, including objects that are believed to have been stolen from nearby estates over the past three years. The discovery came during the annual Ribble Wetten’s Day celebration when most of the town’s inhabitants are gathered on the baron’s copious back lawn to wish each other good fortune and to pick the fairest maiden in the town and throw her into the Ribble.

Widdersign-on-Ribble, which is just outside of Wedsbridge in Nottinghamshire, has been the principal residence of the Barons Thornton-Hoxbary for the past two hundred years and was recently the scene of a robbery with violence, which resulted in the death of two men and became known locally as the Widdersign Outrage.

“Hmm,” said the duke. “A secret room, eh? There’s a secret passage in Wythender Hall, don’t you know, but I wouldn’t care to put any valuables in it. Cold and damp, and not all that secret anymore if it comes to that. My grandson and his chums play Robin Hood or what-you-like in it, as did my son twenty years ago. As, come to think of it, did I.”

“Isn’t that the house you were accused of robbing some months ago, Professor?” asked Holmes pointedly.

“Read on,” said Moriarty.

Among the objects discovered in the room, which was fitted out in the manner of a gentleman’s sitting room, were a small statuette of John the Baptist attributed to Michelangelo, and an etching of a windmill believed to be by Rembrandt, both of which went missing from the estate of Lord Whigstow last year, and the “Bain of Thorncroft,” a twenty-carat imperial topaz, believed to be the world’s largest, owned by the Marchioness of Cleves, which was taken during a robbery at Cramden Pimms, the Nottinghamshire estate of Lord Chaut.

How these items got into the room is not known. Attempts to question the baron on the matter have failed, as the baron disappeared from the estate before the police arrived.

“I sense your presence in this, Moriarty,” Holmes said, shaking the newspaper in the professor’s direction before putting it down.

The start of a smile flitted across Moriarty’s face and then disappeared. “I confess I may be indirectly responsible for the baron’s troubles,” he said. “I spoke of my conclusions regarding Baron Thornton-Hoxbary to some of my friends, who may have mentioned it to some of their friends, and, well … I fear that some of the smaller items that were in the room when it was discovered may not make it into the official inventory.”

“What sort of conclusions?” asked Sir Anthony.

“While I was incarcerated I asked my friend and colleague Mr. Barnett to visit the village of Wedsbridge and see what he could discover about the baron,” Moriarty said. “I knew that I was not responsible for robbing him, and it would be in my interest to discover who was. It seemed to me quite possible that the baron was robbing his own houseguests. What Mr. Barnett found out verified this opinion and led me to think that he was also responsible for the cluster of robberies in the various great homes in his neighborhood, and that there was quite probably a hidden room in or near the library.”

“What I told you?” asked Barnett.

“Oh, yes.”

“That’s quite a stretch, thinking that the baron might be robbing himself,” said the earl.

“Not himself, just his guests,” said Moriarty. “He might arrange for something of his to be taken for an air of verisimilitude, but it would go right into the secret room.”

“What did Mr. Barnett tell you that made you think there was a secret room?” asked the duke.

“The fact that yon innkeeper was reciting poetry.”

“I don’t follow,” said Barnett.

“He was reciting poetry because he had been put in charge of stacks of books gathered on the floor while the baron had new bookcases put in.”

“That’s right,” Barnett agreed. “He had old oak bookcases pulled out to replace them with new ones made from the, ah, something-or-other—Widdersign Ash, which had recently come down.”

“Of course he did,” said Moriarty, “and he brought in artisans from Italy to do the job because there aren’t any British carpenters who need the work. The Italians only spoke Italian and went home when the job was done.”

“When you put it that way,” Barnett said.

“So the baron—” began Mycroft.

“Spent his nights stealing from his neighbors, and on occasion from his guests,” said Moriarty. “Every once in a while, one would assume, he would sneak off to his secret room and smoke a cigar—”

“A cheap cigar,” interjected Barnett.

“Surrounded by his stolen treasures.”

“Where do you suppose he has gone off to?” asked the duke. “Now that his, ah, secret vice is known, where can he hide?”

“He has a boat,” said Moriarty. “A small yacht berthed in Grimsby. My agent has alerted the authorities.”

“I thought you didn’t have agents,” said Sir Anthony.

“I couldn’t be there myself, as we had this other matter to attend to,” Moriarty explained. “So I deputized a trusted friend.”

“Hmmph!” said Sherlock Holmes.

“Oh yes, oh yes,” said the Duke of Shorham, “speaking of the ‘other matter,’ I almost forgot.” He turned to Cecily Barnett, who was sitting quietly on the far side of the table. “You are to be recognized, my dear.”

Cecily raised her head. “By whom, and for what, Your Grace?”

“Teaching Miss Dilwaddy so effectively and standing by her at the, um, critical moment. And the ringing cry of ‘impostor!’ you sounded at just the right moment. At the queen’s special command you are to be appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath.”

“Well!” said Cecily.

“Congratulations, my love,” said Barnett, giving her a hug.

“Yes, but, Pamela—Miss Dilwaddy—certainly did more…”

“I’m afraid that Her Majesty is not ready to give an order of chivalry to a woman in Miss Dilwaddy’s former profession,” said the duke.

“At least not to one who was quite so openly known to have been in that profession,” corrected Mycroft.

“Just so,” agreed the duke.

“Mr. Benjamin and Dame Cecily Barnett,” said Benjamin. “It has a good sound.”

[CHAPTER THIRTY]

ON THE MOOR

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself;

but talent instantly recognizes genius.

—ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

“AH, WILCOX,” SAID THE PROFESSOR,
“there you are. Is that blink spectrometer aligned yet? I’d like to try to get a series of shots of Venus this evening.”

“The mount is a bit wobbly as she sits,” his chubby assistant said, rubbing the bald spot on the back of his head, “but we could likely clamp ’er in place on the scope.”

“Fair enough,” said Moriarty, “Let’s give it a try.”

“Glad to see you back, Professor,” said Wilcox with a rare burst of feeling. “I was a mite worried there.”

“As was I, I confess,” admitted Moriarty, “but truth won out, as she occasionally does, and here I am.”

“And done a spot o’ service for ’er Majesty, so says Tolliver.”

“Surely the mummer should know,” said Moriarty with a smile.

Wilcox nodded. “His ways are deep beyond his size, that’s for sure. By the by, that skulking gent is back, hiding out behind a hillock off to the east a few hundred yards.”

“Really?” Moriarty adjusted his pince-nez thoughtfully. “How did you happen to notice him?”

“I caught the glint of a telescope lens about an hour ago, so I sent one of the lads to creep around and take a glom, and there he was.”

“Ah!” said Moriarty. “Send someone around to Mr. Holmes with a flask of cocoa and a biscuit in a little while. It promises to be a cold night.”

“Don’t he never give up?” asked Wilcox.

“Perhaps,” said Moriarty, “in a world where there is a Professor Moriarty, it is a good thing that there is a Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps each of us needs the other.” He sighed. “Or perhaps not. Who can say?”

Also by Michael Kurland

THE PROFESSOR MORIARTY NOVELS

The Infernal Device

Death by Gaslight

The Great Game

The Empress of India

SHERLOCK HOLMES ANTHOLOGIES

My Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years

Sherlock Holmes: The American Years

THE ALEXANDER BRASS NOVELS

Too Soon Dead

The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Kurland is the author of more than thirty novels, but is best known for his Edgar Award–nominated mystery series featuring Professor Moriarty, including
The Infernal Device
and
The Great Game
. He lives in Petaluma, California.

Visit the author on his Web site at
www.michaelkurland.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WHO THINKS EVIL.
Copyright © 2014 by Michael Kurland. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

e-ISBN 9781466847392

First Edition: February 2014