Moriarty Meets His Match: A Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery (The Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery Series Book 1) (26 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

Angelina stalked the tidy paths of Canbury Park, hurling curses at the bleeding swans and the blithering butterflies. What good was all this bloody nature to her? She needed people — people she could cajole, people she could bargain with. People who could get her out of this wilderness and back to London. The only bright spot in this never-ending day was the misery she could inflict on her guard. Elsie stumbled along after her, whinging about her aching feet, but not daring to let her out of her sight.

Every path in this godforsaken park led to closed gates. Angelina could open them, overpower Elsie, and run. But where would she go? These paths were a maze. She didn’t know which way any of them might take her. She didn’t even know where Canbury Park was situated with respect to London. But she knew she had to get out and soon.

Reginald had caught her coming back from the temple yesterday afternoon with her hair mussed and her eyes reddened. He’d been hotly suspicious, acting like she’d snuck out to meet a lover, which had been her intention, in a way. He’d caught a whiff of the truth and it infuriated him. He threatened to take her north to Durham for her protection. She knew if that happened, she would never return.

After Professor Moriarty had abandoned her, she had broken into great, racking sobs, sitting there on that cold bench. Fearing someone would hear, she’d fought to master herself, gasping for breath, rocking herself with her arms wrapped around her shoulders.

She didn’t blame him, not really. How could she? He’d been pushed beyond his limit. She’d hoped he could go one step further, but he was only a man. A decent man thrown into an impossible situation. Even if she managed to escape, she could never hope to see him again.

Her pace quickened into a march, driven by a sense of overwhelming urgency. She must get away; tonight, if possible. She must figure out how to escape from the house and find the road to London. Someone, somewhere, would take pity on her and give her a lift.

She could hide at Viola’s while they came up with a new plan. Her flight would probably convince the police she was guilty. Reginald said she was their only real suspect. She didn’t know if that was true or not, but it didn’t matter. She would have to leave England and Sebastian would have to come with her. The game was over, and they’d lost.

Turning back toward the house, she saw the golden rays of the westering sun reflected in the conservatory windows. What time was it? She mustn’t be found missing when the gong rang for dinner. She slowed her steps, dreading another night in that house.

Elsie caught up with her and shook her by the arm. “Go in through the conservatory and up the back stair. Hurry! I’ll have to trot round to the servants’ hall before I’m missed as well. You’ll get me sacked, you will!”

Warm, moist air enveloped Angelina as she entered the conservatory. She crunched across the gravel path through the dense plantings. The air inside the house felt chilly by comparison. She ran a hand over her head. She’d blown her hair into a frazzle. If Elsie wouldn’t help her, she’d have to do some sort of turban for dinner.

She hastened toward the stairs, worrying about her coiffure. As she reached for the bannister, she felt an arm wrap around her waist and pull her off her feet. A broad hand clamped across her mouth.

“Where have you been, darling?” Reginald’s voice purred in her ear, his breath hot on her neck. “Meeting your lover again? You’ve been out for more than an hour.”

He turned her roughly around to face him, pulling her tight against his body. “You look like you’ve been rutting in the woods like a whore.” He grabbed her bottom through her thin gown, pressing his erection into her belly, rubbing her against him. Panic bubbled through her veins. She struggled, pushing at his chest.

That made him laugh. He growled like a tiger and buried his face in her neck. One arm gripped her like an iron band while the other hand roamed over her body, squeezing and twisting. “Is this what your lover does? Is this what you like? Who is he, Angelina? I’ll kill him and make you watch. I own you now. Don’t you understand that?”

He smothered her mouth with his, forcing his tongue down her throat until she gagged. He lifted his head and laughed while she coughed. “Mine, Angelina.” He pulled her hard against him again and ran his hand across her breasts and around her exposed throat. “Mine.”

He squeezed her bottom again, hard, then twirled her around and pushed her onto the stairs. She caught herself with both outstretched hands, bruising her hip on the bannister. “Get dressed for dinner. Wear something frilly. My father still needs convincing.”

He took his silver case from his pocket and lit a cigarette. She clutched at her skirts and stumbled up the stairs while he watched her, smoking and smiling with a glitter in his eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Two

James Moriarty had never been more grateful for the training his parents had given him: the ability to maintain a composed exterior, uttering the correct phrases at the correct intervals, regardless of one’s inner turmoil. Somehow he’d gotten into his clothes, bid Ramsay good-bye, and found his way onto the street, walking toward the Walham Green station.

Habit operated his body while his mind reeled. Ramsay’s last warning had shattered the veneer of his stoic facade like superheated steam bursting through a brittle cast-iron engine. What he’d done to Angelina was far worse than strangling a larcenous lord. He’d cast her to the wolves — real wolves, powerful ones, with very sharp teeth. He’d railed at the woman he loved and marched away with his righteous pride, leaving her to the mercies of men he knew to be capable of the most appalling cruelty.

He couldn’t call that moment back and change what he’d done. He could do penance by dedicating the rest of his miserable life to bringing her tormentors to justice. He had to do more than that though. He had to save her. But how?
How?

He desperately needed a plan, but his useless brain whirled with doubts and recriminations. He needed help. He needed someone intelligent enough to understand the situation at once and detached enough to ignore its emotional freight. Someone who would not be intimidated by Nettlefield’s title or balk at a simple case of kidnapping.

He needed Sherlock Holmes. Never mind that the man had developed an antipathy toward him and sent him to jail. If he could help save Angelina, Moriarty would crawl up Baker Street on his hands and knees with his hat in his mouth. He only hoped the detective had returned from wherever he’d swirled off to on Sunday. He remembered Holmes saying the affair would only take a few days, or he hoped that’s what he’d heard.

Moriarty took the underground train from Putney Bridge and barreled up the stairs at the Baker Street station, thrusting people from his path with no regard for courtesy. He ran pell-mell up the street and pounded at Holmes’s door with his fist. He barged past the boy who opened it and hurled himself up the steep stairs to pound again on the upper door.

Someone called, “Enter!” He did so and found the detective sprawled upon his crimson sofa.

“Professor Moriarty!” Holmes raised both arms as if to embrace him from his supine position. “I thought I sent you to the gallows. Have you returned to haunt me? You look remarkably hale for a spirit.” He began to laugh, and his laughter spiraled up with a touch of mania. His countenance seemed oddly feverish.

Moriarty hesitated, looking about the room for clues as to his condition. Dr. Watson was evidently not at home; at least, his medical bag was gone. He had left a syringe on the mantelpiece, however. Careless of him. But no — Moriarty glanced from the syringe to Holmes’s altered visage. Could the man have dosed himself with some powerful drug?

“Cocaine, Professor,” Holmes said, following his train of thought. “I’ve just spent three tiresome days in Paris listening to pompous officials dispute a matter so trivial a child could resolve it. One of them had summoned me as a sort of grandiose bluff. I returned to London to find Watson called away to a patient in the country and no new cases to relieve my boredom. I decided to resort to my favorite palliative: the syringe and the seven-percent solution. There is no better cure for ennui.”

He dragged himself up into a seated position and grinned at Moriarty’s discomfiture. “Since you are at liberty, I deduce that you managed to evade the charges against you. Do enlighten me, I pray you.”

“I am innocent,” Moriarty said. “I was spared the need to supply my own proofs by another murder, perpetrated while I stood handcuffed under the watchful eye of a constable. Even Scotland Yard could see that the two crimes must be related.”

“Convenient for you, if a trifle embarrassing for me.” Holmes rose and strolled to the mantelpiece, where he drifted his fingers across the slew of objects until they landed on his cigarette case. He offered it to his guest. “Smoke?”

Moriarty shook his head. Holmes shrugged, extracted a cigarette, and lit it with a match. He leaned an elbow on the mantel, blowing smoke in exaggerated puffs toward the window. “Well, I am sometimes wrong, though you wouldn’t know it from Watson’s little stories. But what could cause our imperturbable professor of mathematics to risk the underground railway at this hour in order to consult with a man he has every reason to regard as an antagonist? Judging by the level of your distress —”

He broke off with a bark of laughter. “Come, come, my dear Professor! Every man and woman who shared your car on the Metropolitan line must have taken note of your distracted condition.” He spoke rapidly yet with extreme fluency, flicking his long fingers at Moriarty as he delivered each item of evidence. “The punched ticket protrudes from your breast pocket. You have smears of coal dust on your left ankle and your left sleeve, undoubtedly from the foul condition of the platform at the Baker Street station. The seasoned traveler knows to avoid it. Your hair is still damp where it was covered by your hat. Knowing that you maintain a membership in the London Athletic Club, I assume you were engaged in your favorite sport of rowing when something inspired you to dash across the city to see me. Something that struck you most forcefully since you did not take the time to dry your hair or to fasten your jacket properly. You’ve missed the third button. Your tie is twisted. And your hat has been dropped, stepped on, snatched up without regard to the shape of the brim, and mashed back upon your head. I hope it wasn’t a favorite because I fear it may be unsalvageable.”

Moriarty was beyond caring about his appearance and he would endure any amount of derision to save Angelina. He deserved much worse. In fact, he welcomed the contempt and the verbal castigation. He was the son of a vicar, at bottom. If he could suffer enough, endure enough, perhaps he could earn Angelina’s salvation.

“I admit to the distress. I admit if freely. I need your help, Holmes, if you’re willing, and in fit condition.”

“I am fitter in this condition than most men in the pink of sobriety. Allow me to demonstrate by deducing the nature of your problem. Since you have evidently saved yourself from the noose, it must concern someone else, someone dear to you. Not a relative — you visit your parents once a year at Christmas and have nothing otherwise to do with your family. Not a colleague — your fellows at the Patent Office barely know you. Not a friend — you don’t seem to have any. A woman, then.” He studied Moriarty’s face for reactions. Whatever he saw made him chuckle. “Do I surprise you? I believe I can put a name to the woman: Mrs. Angelina Gould. Ha! I see by your gaping mouth that I have struck the mark. Hardly a fair example of my talents, Professor. You don’t meet many people of any description, as I discovered in my investigation, and vanishingly few persons whose attributes might compel such passionate attachment on such short acquaintance.”

Moriarty was no longer fooled by Holmes’s tricks. “She’s better at this game than you are.” He pointed at the letters pinned to the wooden mantelpiece with a jackknife. “The topmost letter displays Nettlefield’s coat of arms. He wrote to you asking you to investigate Hainstone’s murder, didn’t he? He’s trying to cast the blame on Mrs. Gould.”

“Very clever! Yes, I found three letters from his lordship awaiting me on my return from Paris, demanding that I come at once to produce evidence against your Mrs. Gould. I sent a telegram refusing the commission. I’ve had enough of self-important men with grudges and I am not the agent of revenge. My methods seek only the truth, whatever it may be.”

“The truth is all I want,” Moriarty said, relieved. “I know she’s innocent. I believe Nettlefield did it himself. But how can I —”

“Of course you suspect him. He’s your nemesis!” Holmes threw his cigarette into the fireplace and lit another one.

“I don’t have a nemesis,” Moriarty said, trying to tamp down the detective’s wild mood. He managed a dismissive chuckle. “We don’t like each other, but it’s hardly a struggle to the death.”

“Isn’t it?” Holmes regarded Moriarty with a mocking smile. “Two men have died as the result of your conflict. I confess I did not fully recognize the strength of your attachment to the American heiress until today.” He wagged his finger. “It does connect the other pieces of the puzzle, doesn’t it? Can it be a coincidence that the woman with whom you lunched shortly after Lord Carling’s dramatic death now stands accused of a murder which conveniently casts doubt on your guilt?”

“Not a coincidence,” Moriarty said, his blood freezing. He should never have come here. He’d awakened a tiger that would have been better left undisturbed. “Someone else is manipulating these events. Neither I nor Mrs. Gould has committed any crime.” He heard the lie as uttered it.

Holmes heard it too. “Are you quite certain of that?” He grinned, showing an expanse of white teeth. “Did you think it would escape my notice that the Bookkeeper Burglaries stopped on the very day you were recruited to identify the perpetrators?
Cherchez la femme,
as they say in France.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the mantelpiece. “You know, my dear Professor, I believe that once I’ve recovered from this little interlude, I will look into the situation surrounding the intriguing Mrs. Angelina Gould. It does seem to have several features of interest, now that you’ve brought it to my attention.”