An Ensuing Evil and Others (21 page)

A solemn-faced waiter, more like an undertaker, led us through the splendidly furnished dining room to a table in a bay window overlooking St. Stephen s Green, for the club stood on the corner of Kildare Street and the green itself.

“An aperitif, gentlemen?” intoned the waiter in a sepulchral voice.

Mycroft took the opportunity to inform me that the cellar was of excellent quality, particularly the stock of champagne. I replied that I believed that I would commence with a glass of sherry and chose a Palo Cortaldo while Mycroft, extravagantly, insisted on a half bottle of Diamant Bleu.

He also insisted on a dozen oysters, which I observed cost an entire shilling a dozen, and were apparently sent daily from the club’s own oyster bed near Galway. I settled for pate de foie gras and we both agreed to indulge in a steak with a bottle of Bordeaux, a rich red St. Estephe from the Chateau MacCarthy.

In truth, Mycroft was more of a gourmand than a gourmet. He was physically lazy and already there was a corpulent aspect to his large frame. But he also had the Holmes s brow, the alert, steel-gray, deepset eyes, and firmness of lips. He had an astute mind and was a formidable chess player.

After we had made our choice, we settled down, and I was able to observe our fellow diners.

Among those who caught my immediate eye was a dark-haired man who, doubtless, had been handsome in his youth. He was now in his mid-thirties, and his features were fleshy and gave him an air of dissoluteness and degeneracy. He carried himself with the air of a military man, even as he slouched at his table imbibing his wine, a little too freely, I fear. His discerning brow was offset by the sensual jaw. I was aware of cruel blue eyes; drooping, cynical lids; and an aggressive manner even while seated in repose. He was immaculately dressed in a smart dark coat and cravat with a diamond pin that announced expensive tastes.

His companion appeared less governed by the grape than he, preferring coffee to round off his luncheon. This second man was tall and thin, his forehead domed out in a white curve, and his two eyes deeply sunken in his head. I would have placed him about the same age as his associate. He was cleanshaven, pale, and ascetic looking. A greater contrast between two men, I could not imagine.

The scholarly man was talking earnestly, and his military companion nodded from time to time, as if displeased at being disturbed in his contemplation of his wineglass. The other man, I saw, had rounded shoulders, and his face protruded forward. I observed that his head oscillated from side to side in a curious reptilian fashion.

“Mycroft,” I asked after a while, “who is that curious pair?”

Mycroft glanced in the direction I had indicated. “Oh, I would have thought you knew one of them—you being interested in science and such like.”

I hid my impatience from my brother. “I do not know; otherwise, I would not have put forward the question.”

“The elder is Professor Moriarty.”

At once I was interested. “Moriarty of Queen’s University, in Belfast?” I demanded.

“The same Professor Moriarty,” confirmed Mycroft smugly.

I had at least heard of Moriarty, for he had the chair of mathematics at Queens and written
The Dynamics of an Asteroid
, which ascended to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that no man in the scientific press was capable of criticizing it.

“And the man who loves his alcohol so much?” I pressed. “Who is he?”

Mycroft was disapproving of my observation. “Dash it, Sherlock, where else may a man make free with his vices but in the shelter of his club?”

“There is one vice that he cannot well hide,” I replied slyly. “That is his colossal male vanity. That black hair of his is no natural color. The man dyes his hair. But, Mycroft, you have not answered my question. His name?”

“Colonel Sebastian Moran.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“He is one of the Morans of Connacht.”

“A Catholic family?” For O Morain, to give the name its correct Irish form, which meant “great,” were a wellknown Jacobite clan in Connacht.

“Hardly so,” rebuked Mycroft. “His branch converted to the Anglican faith after the Williamite conquest. Sebastian Morans father was Sir Augustus Moran CB, once British Minister to Persia. Young Moran went through Eton and Oxford. The family estate was near Derrynacleigh but I believe, after the colonel inherited, he lost it in a card game. He was a rather impecunious young man. Still, he was able to buy a commission in the Indian Army and served in the First Bengalore Pioneers. He has spent most of his career in India. I understand that he has quite a reputation as a biggame hunter. The Bengal tiger mounted in the hall, as we came in, was one of his kills. The story is that he crawled down a drain after it when he had wounded it. That takes an iron nerve.”

I frowned. “Nerve, vanity, and a fondness for drink and cards is sometimes an unenviable combination. They make a curious pair.”

“I don’t follow you?”

“I mean, a professor of mathematics and a dissolute army officer lunching together. What can they have in common?”

I allowed my attention to occupy the problem but a moment more. Even at this young age I had come to the conclusion that until one has facts, it is worthless wasting time trying to hazard guesses.

My eye turned to the others in the dining room. Some I knew by sight, and one or two I had previously been introduced to in Mycroft’s company. Among these diners was Lord Rosse, who had erected the largest reflecting telescope in the world at his home in Birr Castle. There was also the harddrinking Viscount Massereene and Ferrard and the equally indulgent Lord Clonmell. There was great hilarity from another table where four young men were seated, voices raised in goodnatured argument. I had little difficulty recognizing the Beresford brothers of Curraghmore, the elder of them being the Marquess of Waterford.

My eye eventually came to rest on a corner table where an elderly man with silver hair and round chubby red features was seated. He was well dressed, and the waiters constantly hovered at his elbow to attend to his bidding like moths to a fly. He was obviously someone of importance.

I asked Mycroft to identify him.

“The Duke of Cloncury and Straffan,” he said, naming one of the premier peers of Ireland.

I turned back to examine His Grace, whose ancestors had once controlled Ireland, with some curiosity. It was said that a word from Cloncurys grandfather could sway the vote in any debate in the old Irish Parliament; that was before the Union with England. As I was unashamedly scrutinizing him, His Grace was helped from his chair. He was, I judged, about seventysomething years of age, a short, stocky man but one who was fastidious in his toilet, for his mustache was well cut and his hair neatly brushed so that not a silver strand of it was out of place.

He retrieved a small polished leather case, the size of a dispatchbox, not more than twelve inches by six by four. It bore a crest in silver on it, and I presumed it to be Cloncury s own crest.

His Grace, clutching his case, made toward the door. At the same time, I saw Professor Moriarty push back his chair. Some sharp words were being exchanged between the professor and his lunching companion, Colonel Moran. The professor swung round and marched swiftly to the door, almost colliding with the elderly duke at their portals. At the last moment, when collision seemed inevitable, the professor halted and allowed His Grace to move through the doors before him.

“Some argument has taken place between the professor and his companion,” I observed aloud. “I wonder what the meaning of it is?”

Mycroft looked at me in disgust. “Really, Sherlock, you always seem to be prying into other people s affairs. I would have thought you had enough on your plate preparing for your studies at Oxford.”

Even at this time, I had become a close observer of peoples behavior, and it is without any sense of shame that I record my surveillance into the lives of my fellow luncheonroom occupants.

I returned my attention to the colonel, who was sitting looking disgruntled at his wineglass. A waiter hovered near and made some suggestion, but Moran swung with an angry retort, indicating the empty wine bottle on the table, and the waiter backed away. The colonel stood up, went through the motions of brushing the sleeves of his coat, and strode out of the dining room. I noticed that he would be returning, for he had left his glass of wine unfinished. Sure enough, the waiter returned to the table with a halfbottle of wine uncorked and placed it ready. The colonel, presumably having gone to make some ablutions, returned after some fifteen minutes and reseated himself. He seemed in a better mood, for he was smiling to himself.

I was distracted to find that my brother was continuing to lecture me. “I know you, Sherlock. You are an extremely lazy and undisciplined fellow. If a subject doesn’t interest you, you just ignore it. It is a wonder that you have achieved this demyship, for I did not expect you to gain a degree at all.”

I turned to my elder brother with a chuckle. “Because we are brothers, Mycroft, we do not have to share the same concerns. Your problem is your love of good food and wine. You are an indulger, Mycroft, and physical inertia will cause the body to rebel one of these days.” I spoke with some conceit, for during my time at Trinity I had taken several cups for swordsmanship, for boxing, and was acknowledged a tolerable singlestick player.

“But you must consider what you will do with your career, Sherlock. Our family have always been in government service, law, or academic spheres. I fear you will fail your qualifications because of being so easily distracted by minutia.”

“But minutia is important in life…,” I began.

At that moment we were interrupted by a disturbance at the door of the dining room.

The palefaced waiter hurried into the room and made his way to where the elderly Duke of Cloncury and Straffan had been sitting. I watched in bemusement as the man first scrutinized the table carefully, then the top of the seats around the table, and then—I have never witnessed such a thing before—the waiter actually went on his knees and examined under the table before, finally, his cadaverous features slightly reddened by his exertions, he hurried back to the door, where the head waiter had now entered and stood with a troubled face.

There was a lot of shaking of heads and shrugs that passed between the two. The head waiter left the room.

As the waiter who had conducted the search was passing our table, I hailed the fellow, much to Mycroft’s astonished disapproval.

“Has His Grace mislaid something?” I queried.

The waiter, the same individual who had conducted us to our table when we entered, turned mournful eyes upon me. There was a glint of suspicion in them. “Indeed, he has, sir. How did you know?”

“I observed that you were searching on and around the table where he had recently been seated. From that, one deduces that he had lost something that he thought he had with him at that table.”

The man’s gaze fell in disappointment at the logic of my reply.

“What has he lost?” I pressed.

“His toilet case, sir.”

Mycroft gave an illconcealed guffaw. “A toilet case? What is a man doing bringing a toilet case into a dining room?”

The waiter turned to Mycroft. “His Grace is a very fastidious and eccentric person, Mr. Holmes.” The man evidently knew Mycroft by sight “He carries the case with him always.”

“A valuable item?” I hazarded.

“Not really, sir. At least, not financially so.”

“Ah, you mean it has great sentimental value for the Duke?” I suggested.

“It was a gift which King William gave to one of His Grace s ancestors as a personal memento when the man saved his life during the battle at the Boyne. And now, gentlemen, if you have not seen the item…”

He went on his way.

Mycroft was passing his napkin over his mouth, “Now how about a port or brandy in the hall?”

The lofty hall of the club, with its biggame trophies and blazing fire and staircase of elaborately carved stonework, was where members gathered for their afterluncheon drinks and cigars.

We rose and made our way out of the dining room. Our path led us by the table of Colonel Moran, and as we passed by I noticed that the colonels dark suit was ill chosen, for it showed up his dandruff. I grant you it is such small observations that sometimes irritate my fellows. But if one is prone to dandruff, at least one should have the good sense to wear a light color in which the telltale white powder and silver hairs would be less noticeable.

As we made our way into the hall, we saw the elderly Duke of Cloncury and Straffan standing with the head waiter and a gentleman who Mycroft informed me was the chairman of the directors of the club.

His Grace was clearly distressed. “It is priceless! A value beyond measure!” He was almost wailing.

“I cannot understand it, Your Grace. Are you sure that you had it with you in the dining room?”

“Young man,” snapped the elderly duke, “do you accuse me of senility?”

The “young man,” who was about fifty years of age, blanched and took a step backward before the old man’s baleful gaze. “Not at all, Your Grace, not at all. Just tell me the facts again.”

“After finishing my luncheon, I went into the washroom. I washed my hands and then brushed my hair. It is my custom to do so after luncheon. I took my silver hairbrush from my leather case, which I always carry with me. I remember clearly that I returned it to the case. I left the case on the washstand and went into the toilet. I came out, washed my hand, and then realized that the case was no longer there.”

The head waiter was looking glum. “I have already suggested to His Grace that the case might have been left in the dining room and sent one of the waiters to check. It was not there.”

The old man bristled. “Knew it would be a damned waste of time. Said so. I know where it went missing. I’d start interrogating your employees, sir. At once!”

The club chairman looked unhappy. “Your Grace, please allow us time to search the premises before we start anything so drastic. Perhaps it has simply been mislaid?…”