Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels) (16 page)

“What was in cahoots with him,” the mummer expanded.

“That hangs together,” Barnett agreed. “Now: What missing prince, and how long has he been missing? Missing from where? And who took him? And why?”

Moriarty raised an eyebrow. “Ever the journalist,” he said. “Sit back, my children, and I’ll tell you a story.”

[CHAPTER THIRTEEN]

THE PROFESSOR EXPLAINS

“Mine is a long and sad tale!” said

the Mouse, turning to Alice and sighing.

“It’s a long tail, certainly,” said Alice,

looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail, “but

why do you call it sad?”

—LEWIS CARROLL

PROFESSOR MORIARTY LEANED BACK AND PRESSED
his palms together under his chin. “My story involves several gruesome murders that we know of,” he began. “They seem to be part of a complex plot against the government conducted by an unknown antagonist for an unknown purpose. The facts are barely believable and, at the moment, constitute a secret of the first water. It would not be mine to tell, but I am deeply involved in the investigation now and certain possibilities have crept to the fore. Your assistance, I believe, would be invaluable.”

“My, ’e do talk pretty, don’t ’e?” the mummer said. “’Ave you any idea of what ’e’s talking about?”

Barnett shook his head. “You’re dropping your
H
’s,” he said.

“Leave them lie,” said the mummer.

“I shall explain,” said the professor. “But first—understand that what I tell you is to go no farther than this room.”

“Mum’s the word,” Barnett said.

“Like ’e says,” added the mummer.

Moriarty leaned back. “There is an exclusive, ah, gentlemen’s establishment on Gladston Square known as Mollie’s,” he said.

“Mollie’s?” Barnett interjected. “I’ve heard of the place, but I didn’t know where it was.”

“Oooo! And you a married man,” chided the mummer.

Barnett turned to glare at the little man. “In my capacity as a journalist I hear many things,” he said. “Many of the, ah, unusable stories that come to my attention concern the demimonde and its relationship to the upper classes.”

“How the rich and titled despoils themselves, eh?” said the mummer.

“How the poor take their pleasures—such as they may be—is of little interest to anyone,” Barnett said, “possibly not even the poor themselves.” He turned back to Professor Moriarty. “This place—Mollie’s—has been mentioned.”

Moriarty nodded. “It’s where all this began, as far as we know.” He told them the story of murder and abduction, skimming over the fine details but letting them know what there was to know. Then he stopped talking and looked at them both, his eyebrows slightly raised.

“Gorblimey!” said the mummer.

“What a story!” Barnett said, smacking his fist into his hand. “What a story! Incredible! The audacity! Who could be responsible for such a monstrous thing?”

“That’s what I’ve been released from durance vile to discover.”

“They couldn’t just let you out because you had nothing to do with the robbery and the subse-bloody-quent killings, and that baron and his cohorts are a gang of lying, thieving, conniving swine, now could they?” asked the mummer indignantly.

Moriarty grimaced. “Much as I’d like to hie over to Wedsbridge this very evening and speak with His Lordship, it will have to wait,” he said. “We’ll take care of the baron and his cohort subsequently. My job right now, and yours if you’re willing to assist me, is to unravel the affair of the missing prince.”

“If that girl hadn’t been hiding in the closet…”

Moriarty nodded. “Were it not for Pamela we’d be running around in circles trying to discover why the prince had run away and whether he had killed these children. Although there were sufficient indications that he had not.”

Barnett pursed his lips. “Poor girl,” he said. “What she saw…”

Moriarty looked at him thoughtfully. “Tell me, Barnett,” he said, “how does your wife feel about ‘fallen women’?”

“She feels that they should be helped to their feet and given a decent job,” he said. “She thinks that there wouldn’t be so many women selling themselves on the streets of London if employment of a decent sort could be found for them. She thinks all men are selfish beasts. She can go on for quite a while about it, too. Why?”

“Pamela is here—staying with me.”

“Whatever for?” Barnett asked. Then he felt himself blushing for the first time in two decades. “That is, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“She’s the only person who knows what our mystery man looks like.”

“Looks a lot like Prince Albert, I’d be thinking,” said the mummer.

“Not him,” said Moriarty, “but his companion. His keeper, I would imagine, since anyone with his sort of bloodlust can’t be let out on the streets alone.”

“Specially if they don’t want to blow the gaff before they’re ready to have it go up,” the mummer added.

“Even so,” Moriarty agreed. “Thus Pamela may prove invaluable to us—and since our villains seem to move about in the upper levels of society, we may need to take Pamela into circles in which a woman of her class would stand out by her every gesture and be lost entirely if she opened her mouth.”

“And?” Barnett prompted.

“And Mrs. Barnett has had some experience in teaching people how to move about in society, if I am not mistaken.”

Barnett nodded. “Foreigners, mostly. She learned the skill from her father, who is a philologist and phonetician of some repute.”

Moriarty nodded. “Professor Henry Perrine,” he said. “The developer of the Perrine Simplified Phonetical Alphabet. Quite remarkable, actually. I’ve read his book.”

“’E teached me everything what I knows,” said the mummer, nodding and cocking his head to one side with a crooked little grin.

“So will you ask your wife if she’s willing to come over here for a few hours a day and tutor the girl?” Moriarty asked Barnett. “I’ll see that she’s handsomely remunerated from the public purse.”

“It will take more than a few hours a day if it’s done right,” Barnett said, “but I think she’ll be fascinated by the project. I’ll speak to her as soon as I get home.”

“Very good,” Moriarty said. “Speaking on behalf of queen and country, something I doubt that I’ll ever be able to do again, I thank you.”

Barnett leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “So,” he said, “what do we have here? Prince Albert Victor, grandson of the queen and second in line to the throne, is going around cutting people up. Only he isn’t, but someone wants us to think he is. Why?”

“‘To the matter that you mention I have given much attention,’ as Mr. Gilbert has it, and I have a possible answer. Of course, as is the way with answers, it only leads to another question.”

“Answer away,” said Barnett.

“Consider what would be accomplished were Prince Albert Victor to be accused of the savage killing and mutilation of an innocent girl—and boy. The accusation itself, unless immediately and forcefully refuted, could set in play a chain of events that could, the Duke of Shorham assures me, topple the throne. Or come damnably close.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” the mummer observed. “After all, what ’as the ‘Widder at Windsor’ done for us lately?”

“Ah, but you wouldn’t like the near results of such a collapse. Trust me.”

“Somehow,” said Barnett, “I never fancied you as a monarchist.”

“The human race has not solved the problem of governing itself yet,” Moriarty said. “Nor is it likely to in the near future, but a constitutional monarchy is as good as anything we’ve come up with yet.” He paused and then went on. “It’s not that I particularly favor the present form of government. The nobility in particular, in this country and, indeed, all others that I’m aware of, are intrenched, intransigent, inflexible, for the most part unintelligent, and control an inordinate amount of the country’s wealth. However, what would follow the monarchy, if it were to be toppled in such a crisis, would not be an improvement. Most likely we’d see chaos for the near future.”

“I’m not sure I follow, Professor,” Barnett said. “What would be throne-toppling about Victoria’s grandson, who’s believed to be not quite right anyway, turning out to be a murderer? Quite a scandal I daresay, but put the monarchy itself in danger? I don’t see it.”

“You’re an American at heart,” Moriarty said, “for all that you’ve lived here for—what?—eight years now. For you the monarchy is a quaint relic that’s outlived its usefulness, and the queen and all the royals are an archaic holdover from another age.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Barnett confessed. “Have I got it wrong?”

“No,” said Moriarty, “not at all. But you’re not allowing for the intangibles of the institution.”

“How’s that?” asked Barnett.

“It completely leaves out of account the question of the royal will and the interesting problem of regal intransigence.”

Barnett thought this over. After a lengthy pause he reprised, “How’s that?”

“The queen, through losing her direct power, has become, in a perverse way, the voice of the people. If Victoria accepts a law, then the British people accept it. They look to her to keep the government honest. Not that they think of it that way, most of them.”

“Now that’s what I would call an interesting notion,” the mummer said. “I ain’t sure you’re right, but I ain’t sure you’re wrong neither.”

“Think of her as the nation’s mother,” Moriarty said, “and our national mum is scrupulously, even excessively, proper and moral.”

“Granted,” said Barnett.

“’Er Majesty’s a proper prude, all right,” the mummer agreed.

“So what would the reaction of the British people be if it were suddenly revealed that she’d been concealing a horrible secret—that one of her own children was a fiend, an insane killer, and she’d known about it and did nothing, or worse, actively hidden it from the authorities?”

Barnett thought this one over, and after a minute he slowly shook his head. “It would certainly bring the government to a halt,” he offered. “Nothing much else would get done while the various organs of the government tried to decide how to act. They’d certainly have to do something—something serious and something fast.”

“What I has observed,” added the mummer, “is that the more the need for haste, the less haste is achieved.”

”I’ve noticed that myself,” Barnett agreed.

“So here’s what we have,” said Moriarty. “Someone has devised a way of discrediting the British monarchy and has found a tool to help him achieve this end.”

“By ‘tool’ you mean the killer?” Barnett asked.

“That’s right,” Moriarty agreed. “The murderer himself is clearly mad, but someone, or I think rather some organization, is using his insane proclivities and his chance resemblance to Albert Victor to attempt to disgrace, and perhaps even bring down, the British throne.”

“Whatever for?” asked the mummer.

“Ah!” said Moriarty. “That’s the question that arises from the answer. Whatever for? Certainly to cause the aforementioned chaos. But out of the chaos they intend to bring—what? And when and how do they intend to raise the curtain on Act Two?”

“Act Two?” asked Barnett.

“Indeed. Act One is a series of murders; two that we know of so far. Act Two will be the startling revelation that HRH Prince Albert Victor is the culprit—that the royal family is harboring, and probably hiding, a monster. The curtain will come down on a lot of screaming and running about.”

“And Act Three?” asked Barnett.

“Ah!” Moriarty took his pince-nez from the bridge of his nose and commenced earnestly polishing the lenses with a bit of flannel. “That is the denouement that we must do our utmost to prevent. Whatever it is our unseen antagonists have in mind, I fear we will not like it.”

“I don’t like it already,” said the mummer.

Mr. Maws opened the door and took two stolid steps in. “The Epp gentleman is here,” he said.

Moriarty rose. “I must go,” he told them.

“What are we to do?” asked Barnett.

“You, if you will, visit your brethren of the pen and see if there is any news, or hint of news, regarding either Albert Victor or mysterious murders being kept from the public. Be extremely circumspect. If you do find any such hints, try to ascertain whence they originated. Be even more discreet about that.”

“Fair enough,” said Barnett. “There are always rumors and fanciful stories floating about concerning the royal family. I’ll gather them in under the pretext—the altogether plausible pretext, now that I think of it—of doing a piece on what the British think of their sovereign for some American magazine.”

“Excellent,” agreed Moriarty.

“I’ll mosey about amongst the costermongers and their ilk,” offered the mummer. “They always seem to see and hear things afore the general population.”

Moriarty nodded. “Good idea,” he said. “If either of you comes up with something, report back here. Mr. Maws will take any messages.”

“Where will you be?” Barnett asked.

Moriarty pursed his lips. “Following in the footsteps of a monster,” he said.

[CHAPTER FOURTEEN]

GILES PATERNOSTER

Buttercup:

        Things are seldom what they seem,

          Skim milk masquerades as cream;

          Highlows pass as patent leathers;

        Jackdaws strut in peacock’s feathers.

Captain:

        Very true,

        So they do.

—W. S. GILBERT

THE WALLS OF THE NARROW BASEMENT ROOM
at the south end of Le Château d’Espagne were of an ancient-looking red-gray brick and had a recently scrubbed look, as of an operating theater or an abattoir. The single window high on the west wall provided a narrow view of an overgrown thorn bush with hints of sky. Six gas sconces on the walls spread an inadequate yellowish light throughout the room. A heavy oak table surrounded by five massive oak chairs squatted a few feet out from the east wall. Scattered about the rest of the room were a marble baptismal font, a four-foot-wide, six-foot-high cast-iron safe with no known combination, a standing eighteen-branch wrought-iron candelabra, a glass-front cabinet holding sexual esoterica, much of it of delicately blown glass, and a solid oak whipping post. On the wall above the table framed in black silk, a great silver cross hung inverted.