Moriarty Meets His Match: A Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery (The Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery Series Book 1) (28 page)
Authors: Anna Castle
Angelina walked past her slatternly guard without a glance. She continued on down the corridor and up the stairs without faltering, as if she were going to bed in her own home. She ignored the scuffling steps behind her. Entering her room, she walked directly to the fireplace as if to warm her hands. In a single smooth motion, she picked up the poker, whirled around, and cracked Elsie over the head. The girl fell to the carpet without a sound.
Her first act of violence. Angelina looked down at the crumpled form. She hoped she hadn’t done her any lasting harm. Contradictorily, she hoped the lying whore would have a nasty headache for days.
She locked the door and bound Elsie’s hands and feet, using silk stockings from her trunk. She gagged her with a scarf, making sure the girl could breathe. She took off her shoes and raced down the stairs to the landing outside the striped drawing room. She saw no one. The men were probably in the billiard room plotting her destruction.
She held her breath while she tilted the big painting to peek behind it. Yes, the book and the letters were there! She grabbed them and raced back to her room, heart pounding. She locked the door again and leaned against it, panting and trying not to laugh out loud from sheer excitement.
Then she changed into her burglar garb, which Peg had packed into the bottom of her big trunk. Lady Rochford had promised to speak with the gardener at once under the cover of an ongoing debate about the rhododendrons. She would direct him to set a ladder under Angelina’s window without delay. He would guide her out of the park; from there, she would be on her own.
As she shook it out, the overcoat seemed heavier than before. Angelina fingered the thick hem and sang a short cry of delight at the ceiling, bursting the cloud of despair that had hung about her since her professor had turned his back on her and walked away.
Peg, blessed Peg, thoughtful, foresighted, canny old Peg, had sewn money into the hem of the coat. Lots of money, in coins of varying sizes. Once Angelina escaped from the estate, she could pay for transportation back to the city.
Angelina was fastening her cravat when she heard a soft thump outside the window. The ladder was in place. She stuffed the book and the letters into her overcoat pocket. Thank goodness for the boy’s garb!
The only question now was whether to take the river or the road. The gardener decided for her. He held the ladder, then guided her wordlessly to a smallish gate, not the main entrance. He pointed up the lane outside the gate and said, “Turn right at the big road and go straight on to Richmond. You’ll find a public house about a mile along. God be with you, ma’am.”
Mercifully, the rain had worn itself down to a fitful drizzle. The Richmond road was only a few yards on and wider than the lane. She knew it at once. First turn, and all was well.
She walked down the middle of the road, as fast as she could without seeming to hurry in case anyone should happen to see her. But who would be out at this hour on a drizzly night? Still, her back tingled as if someone were aiming a pistol at it and she saw lurking shapes behind every tree. Frogs croaked all around, filling the night with their noisy chorus, masking any sounds that might warn her of pursuit. She wasn’t normally given to prayer, but tonight she prayed she would make it to the Royal Lion before Reginald discovered she had gone.
She’d settled into a steady stride when a pinprick of light appeared in the road ahead, blooming brighter as it approached. A coach! It couldn’t be Reginald; he’d be coming from behind and more likely be on a horse.
She whirled around, suddenly certain he was right behind her. Now she could hear the pounding hoofbeats of the oncoming coach. Friend or foe? A kindly stranger or one of Nettlefield’s henchmen, galloping down to Canbury Park to hatch some new swindle?
She didn’t know whether to duck into the woods or stand in the road and flag the coach down. The coachman drove his team at a breakneck speed, as if racing in the Derby Stakes. She waved both arms over her head, her fingers crossed for luck, then leapt to the side of the road in case he couldn’t — or wouldn’t — stop.
The coach thundered past her. She glimpsed a man hanging out the window and heard him roar, “Angelina!”
She knew that voice. James Moriarty! How was it possible?
She stumbled after the coach, tears stinging her eyes. The driver pulled at the reins, shouting, “Whoa!” The coach slowed, but before it stopped rolling, a man leapt out of the door and ran back to her.
“Angelina? Angelina!” Moriarty swept her into his arms, hugging her to his chest, whirling around and around, crying, “My darling, my darling, my darling!” She laughed and cried and kissed every part of him she could reach: his cheek, his ear, his high-domed forehead.
He set her on her feet again and clasped her face between his hands, peering into her eyes like a man desperate for salvation. “Forgive me, my beloved! I beg you to forgive me. I was a brute, a fool, a miserable —”
She stopped him with a kiss.
A lifetime later, Gabriel Sandy cleared his throat. “We must go. Someone might come after us.” He’d brought the coach around behind them. She hadn’t heard the horses’ hooves clopping or the wooden frame creaking. She’d thought the pool of light cast by its lanterns had been a glow created by that heavenly kiss.
Angelina and Moriarty broke apart, grinning unabashedly, like young lovers caught by Mother at the kitchen door. She rose on tiptoes to kiss Sandy on the cheek. “Thank you, Gabriel.” He grinned at his feet.
“I’ve never had a better friend,” she said, “excepting Peg.”
“Wot about me?” Zeke leaned out of the window.
“And you.” Angelina caught him by the ears and kissed him soundly on the forehead. She might kiss the horses next; in fact, why not? She skipped around to the front of the coach and gave the nearest one a peck on the nose.
The men laughed at her. What a lovely sound! She looked at her saviors in wonderment. “How did you know I would escape tonight?”
“We didn’t,” Sandy said. He glanced at the professor, who seemed incapable of anything beyond gazing at her as if she were the seventh wonder.
She could see him clearly now in the lamplight. The poor man was a mess! Hatless, with his fringe of hair sticking out at all angles, his forehead streaked with greasy mud. His trousers were stained and soaked to the knee. He’d torn off a coat pocket and gotten his tie all twisted. He looked like he’d been rolled down Drury Lane by a gang of ruffians.
“My darling professor, what on earth happened to you?”
He ran a hand over his head and grinned at her like a man waking from a long, strange dream. “I fear I may be a little untidy.”
“A little!”
Sandy opened the door of the coach and let down the step. “Let Zeke tell you about it on the way back. We really must go.”
Moriarty helped her into the cab. Sandy climbed up to his seat and clucked his horses into motion. Soon they were rolling at a respectable pace toward the city. The seats were well padded and covered with soft leather. Lamplight warmed the interior of the coach. Three of the best friends a girl could ever hope to have surrounded her protectively.
Angelina snuggled into Moriarty’s arms with a sigh. “Now tell.”
Zeke could barely speak for laughing. “You shoulda seen ’im, Missus! ’E were ’alf-mad, ’e was. My pal Rolly found ’im rampagin’ through the streets ’ollering ‘Sandy! Sandy!’ in a great boomin’ voice. Cursin’ and weepin’ and tearin’ ’is ’air. Wot there is of it. An ’orrible, piteous sight, said Rolly. ’E brought ’im to me ’n Cap’n Sandy, where we was havin’ a fry-up in our favorite caff. We poured tea down ’is gullet till ’e could talk sense. ’E told us you was in dire straits, and ’ere we are.”
Angelina sat up and turned to face Moriarty, shaking her head in mock dismay. “My cool, calm, unflappable professor of mathematics? What in heaven’s name got into you?”
He met her gaze, his dark eyes solemn. “I thought I’d lost you.”
* * *
Angelina hid behind the curtains while Mrs. Peacock’s kitchen maid brought up a kettle of boiling water and filled the bath in Moriarty’s dressing room. He made her wait in the sitting room while he bathed. She doubted he was so shy with his little prostitute, but she let him have his way — this time. He emerged with a dressing gown over his shirt and trousers, smelling like Pears soap. She remembered that smell from the Exhibition. He’d rescued her then too.
She met him at the door to his bedroom, wrapped her arms around him, and walked him backward to the foot of the bed. She nuzzled his neck, inhaling his clean scent.
He kissed her thoroughly, then held her at arm’s length. He frowned, as if contemplating an especially difficult mathematics puzzle. “I must advise you, my dearest, that I’ve never made love to a lady.”
“Really? Never?” She frowned at him. “You’re not an innocent, James. That house you were entering on the night we — that first night when we —”
“I will remember that night for the rest of my life with the greatest pleasure imaginable. But no, of course I’m not an innocent. Nor am I ignorant, I assure you. I only meant I’d never made love to a lady. A woman who wasn’t —”
“Engaged in her employment?”
“Exactly.” He shrugged. “I’m a bachelor.”
“Even so. Were there never any bored wives at your university? Lonely mothers of students seeking a private consultation?”
She’d shocked him. “Certainly not!” Then he kissed her on the nose. “Saucy wench. A university is like a very small, very inquisitive town. Everyone would have known by the next morning.” He sighed. “On the other hand, it might have saved me a great deal of trouble.”
“Then you would never have met me.”
“True. And that result justifies every injury I’ve ever endured, every disappointment, every moment of doubt, because all of it led me here to you.”
She sighed happily. She felt the same way. She fluttered her lashes at him. “It is true, Professor, that making love to a lady is very different from making love to a whore.”
“I trust you will enlighten me.”
“Mm-hmm.” She untied the sash of his dressing gown, letting it drop to the floor. Then she started on the buttons of his shirt. “It’s a whore’s job to learn what you want, Professor. To please you and earn her fee.” She paused and tapped him lightly on the chest. “But it’s your job to please a lady, to earn the chance — if you’re lucky — of pleasing her again.”
Moriarty considered the lesson for one whole second. Then he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. “I believe, Madam, that you’ll find me to be a rather quick study.”
They left the room only once that night to make a giggling foray to the kitchen for provender. Angelina wrapped herself in Moriarty’s best dressing gown, a gift from his mother that had lain unopened atop his wardrobe for a year. She pulled a pair of his wool socks over her bare feet and tied her disheveled hair up in his dress scarf. The costume was the most ridiculous, most enchanting thing Moriarty had ever seen.
They scuffled downstairs to the kitchen, lighting their way with a candlestick. Moriarty had never ventured into this region of the house before. They rummaged in cupboards and found a chunk of almond cake, slices of cold ham, a jar of quince preserves, and a wedge of cheese. Angelina, tottering on a tall stool, discovered a bottle of Rhenish wine on a high shelf. She squealed with delight and toppled into Moriarty’s arms with her prize. The door to the scullery opened a crack, then closed again with a soft thump.
The housemaid? Ah, well. No help for it now.
* * *
“You’ll marry me, of course.”
“I’ll
what?
”
Moriarty raised himself on one elbow. He studied her sleep-rumpled face in the early morning light as if seeing her for the first time. Everything about her was new. “That’s not quite the answer I was hoping for, my dearest.”
“Why should I marry you? I’m very happy as an independent woman, you know.”
“I beg to differ. You’ve been forced to turn to a life of crime and barely escaped being thrown into prison, only to be kidnapped by a pair of ruthless scoundrels. You escaped by the skin of your teeth only to —”
“Find myself in bed with a man who refuses to answer a simple question.”
Moriarty kissed the little curl on her temple. He worshipped that curl. “You should marry me because without you my life can never again have meaning. You are more beautiful than the arrangement of binomial coefficients in Pascal’s triangle. You mean more to me than Euclid’s postulates of plane geometry.”
She frowned. He loved it when she frowned. She licked her rosy lips and said, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It’s the highest praise I have to offer.” He kissed those lips lightly, reverentially. “If my future happiness has no meaning for you, you heartless wench, there is another reason. If you marry me, I can shield you from Reginald Benton. The full force of the law will be on our side. I’m not rich, but neither am I destitute. I could earn more if I tried. I would for you; I would do anything for you. I love you. That is now the fundamental axiom of my life.”
She met his sober gaze with equal gravity. “I believe you, dearest. And please believe me when I tell you that I love you too. Far more than those postulates, whatever they are. But I’m an actress, James. An unemployed one. You’re a vicar’s son and a university professor. I’m beneath you.”
He grinned at her. “Not every time. Although I do like it that way.”
She laughed her lilting, musical laugh. The sound made him feel like capering around the room naked with a jangling tambourine. He quickly resolved never to utter that thought aloud because she would certainly make him to do it.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “You’re the son of a vicar, an educated man. I’m the daughter of — well, not quite the opposite of a vicar, but close. What will your family think?”
“My family is of no relevance.”
“What about your friends?”
“If I had any, they would love you as much as I do.”
“It takes weeks to get a license. We may well have to leave England before then.”
“Not if the vicar is flexible. We’ll ask Mrs. Peacock. There must be a church around here somewhere.”
* * *
Leaving Angelina tucked snugly in his bed, Moriarty sat at his breakfast table, wearing his dressing gown over his shirt and trousers, as usual, hoping to present a semblance of normalcy. Given the evidence of the kitchen raid, he fully expected to receive notice to remove himself to other lodgings.
Mrs. Peacock delivered his breakfast tray at the usual time, lingering in her usual way with her hand on her hip, exchanging the usual pleasantries before handing him his newspaper. Nothing was said about missing slices of ham or bottle of wine. It wasn’t until the door had closed behind her that he noticed two cups and saucers on his tray beside two covered dishes of bacon and eggs.
* * *
“I need clothes.” Angelina slathered marmalade thickly on her toast. She was absolutely ravenous. “I can’t go out in my burglar garb in broad daylight.”
“Good,” Moriarty said. “You’re safer inside.”
And weren’t we feeling pleased with ourselves this morning! Though she had to admit her professor had earned a certain amount of smugness.
“First,” he said, “we must pay a call on the nearest vicar. I believe I have enough ready money to make the requisite payments.”
She chewed and swallowed her toast, then took the last piece in the rack. She answered while layering on the marmalade. “In the first place, James, while I love you with all my heart and soul, I have not yet agreed to marry you. I care for you too much to allow you to rush into a foolish liaison, even with me. And we do have more pressing concerns. Reginald and his loathsome father will be looking for me by now. If they think to consult that odious Mr. Holmes, they could be knocking on our door any minute. Need I remind you that the authorities still suspect me of murder? You’re not completely clear and free either. We must leave London. We must think of somewhere to go, book passage, and pack our bags.”
James transferred the last slice of bacon to her plate. “I’m afraid I can’t go anywhere, darling. I have a job. I’ll send a message saying I’m ill today, but that won’t serve for long. We’ll need my income, you know. You won’t be collecting any more stolen plate to pay your dressmaker. Furthermore, I refuse to be driven from my home by a pack of scoundrels, peers or no. And I am not afraid of Sherlock Holmes.”
He divided the rest of the tea evenly into their two cups. “What we need, my dearest, is leverage. Something to stop these villains once and for all. They’re little more than a gang of thieves; there must be evidence of actionable crimes in those books.” He gestured toward the account books stacked beside the sofa.
“Oh my stars! The books!” Angelina leapt to her feet and dashed into the bedroom. She returned in a trice, waving a ribbon-tied packet of papers and a green account book. “I forgot all about these.” She bent and kissed Moriarty full on the lips. “And you should take
that
as a compliment.”
He smiled complacently, then took the papers. “What are these?”
“Lady Rochford saw Mark Ramsay hide these behind a painting in Canbury Park.”
“Ramsay?” Moriarty set the letters on the table and opened the book. His eyes shifted rapidly as he scanned the first few pages.
She loved watching him like this, his mind racing, absorbing information at telegraph speed. He was a brilliant man, a distinguished scholar. Also a law-abiding Englishman who supplied his simple tastes by performing useful work. He knew where he belonged in the world.
She was an actress, both on and off the stage. She’d come from nothing and traveled everywhere. She never looked more than a few weeks ahead and her tastes were anything but simple. How long could she play the wife of a patent examiner? A month, perhaps? Would they even survive the honeymoon?
It would be glorious while it lasted. Maybe that was enough.
James turned a page and murmured, “Oh my stars!” She suppressed a giggle. After a minute, he grinned at her, shaking the letter in his hand. “Angelina, my dearest love, I do believe we’ve got it.” He rose, kissed her on the cheek, and walked to the hearth to ring the bell for his landlady.
* * *
“It’s what we think it is, isn’t it, Mrs. Peacock?” Angelina had dressed in her boy’s garb since it was all she had. The landlady graciously failed to notice. She’d taken one look at Ramsay’s account book and rung for more tea.
“Two pots, Mary. And keep the kettle on the hob.” Mary cleared away the breakfast dishes so they could spread the papers out on the table in the bow window.
“It is indeed, Mrs. Gould. I knew there was something odd about Lord Nettlefield’s accounts. The entries were made in large blocks, covering many days at a time. Look.” She showed them a page. “The ink is the same color — exactly the same shade, I mean. Usually there’s a bit of difference from day to day. And the lines slope at the same angle, as if they’d all been written at the same time.”
“Yes, I see it,” Angelina said. “The words are more tightly spaced as well, as if they were being copied from another source.”
“And now we have the source. And doesn’t it tell a different story!” Mrs. Peacock regarded the green account book with a professional eye. “He’s very good, this Mr. Ramsay. The difference in amounts is always plausible, not too great, and not too regular. It appears he’s been making deposits at a bank in Jersey.”
“Preparing an escape route,” Angelina said. “Once he had enough, he could simply disappear.”
“The little crook steals from the big crook,” Mrs. Peacock said. “A risky business, I should think, cheating men such as these. He’s been playing a dangerous game.”
“He knew what he was about. He prepared an insurance policy for himself.” Moriarty had been leaning back in his chair, studying the contents of the ribbon-tied packet. Now he laid out several sheets of paper in a row. He pointed at each one as he described it. “This is the prospectus for the Naples Improvement Company, formed in 1882 by our friend Oscar Teaberry. The plan was to clear some ugly slums and build a bright new shopping center. Look at the names on the front sheet: Nettlefield, Carling, Hainstone, Oxwich. Teaberry’s favorite collaborators.”
Mrs. Peacock sniffed. “Why change a winning team?”
“Someone wanted to change it,” Angelina said. “Two of those men are dead.”
They traded dark looks across the table.
“These swindles must lie behind the murders,” Moriarty said. He tapped another sheet of paper. “We’ll find our murderer here, among the victims — the investors. The front-sheeters did their job. Look at all these names.” He flipped through three sheets pinned together at the top. “All victims of a perfectly legal form of robbery.” He tapped a set of newspaper clippings. “Here are articles from
The Economist, The Edinburgh Review,
and other journals. They hailed the Naples company as a model of international cooperation. Then it collapsed after clearing only a few blocks. They threw people out of their homes without erecting a single new structure.”
Mrs. Peacock took one of the articles and read the first line of one aloud. “Director Oscar Teaberry blamed the wayward policies of the Italian government for the obstruction of the project.”
“Convenient, wasn’t it?” Moriarty scoffed. “Ramsay told us that was Teaberry’s favorite method: start a company, puff it up until he’s filled his coffers, then find an excuse to collapse the thing without refunding a penny. All the money with none of the work.”
“How is that not a crime?” Angelina demanded. “It’s like selling tickets to a play you never mean to perform. But when my shows were canceled, we had to refund the whole box. People stood outside the ticket office and clamored for it!”
“What if the theater were in Italy and the box office only a postal box?” Mrs. Peacock said. “Their clamors would go unheard.”
Moriarty scanned another articles. He read faster than anyone Angelina had ever seen. “Here. Teaberry claimed that no refunds could be made because all initial investments were spent on the project. Fees for permits, payments to the subcontractors who demolished the slums, that sort of thing.”
He read further, his lip curled in disgust. “The company was investigated when it collapsed because so many shareholders were ruined. They lost their life savings on something they thought had the imprimatur of the government, implied by the presence of well-known peers on the front sheet and by carefully worded statements to the press. The investigating committee found no evidence of indictable criminal acts, however, so no charges were ever brought. Now we have that evidence.”
He waved a sheaf of pages of different sizes. “These are letters, correspondence among Nettlefield, Teaberry, and a Signor Ferrara, a Neapolitan government official. One of them explicitly states that forty-five thousand pounds were delivered to Ferrara as payment for smoothing the company’s path through the Italian government.”
“Is that illegal?” Angelina sat forward, looking from one to the other of her experts. “Enough to threaten Teaberry?”
“Oh yes, my dear,” Mrs. Peacock said. “He’ll be facing months in jail as well as a substantial fine.” She gazed out the windows, then snapped her fingers. “Naples Improvement Company. I’m sure I’ve seen that name in one of the other —” She hopped up from the table and dashed out the door without finishing her sentence.
“She’s a marvel, isn’t she?” Moriarty took Angelina’s hand and kissed it. “I couldn’t have gotten through these books without her. We can send it all to Sir Julian Kidwelly now. He’ll know how to use it to maximum effect.”
