The Revenge of Moriarty (33 page)

The table at which the girl sat had one spare metal chair drawn up to it, tilted forward with the back angled against the table. It was not in the best of taste, but Sanzionare was determined. He approached the table, glancing back for a second to ensure that Benno was not far away.

‘Pray excuse me,' he bowed over the couple. ‘There is little room, would it be an imposition if I joined you?'

The man looked up. ‘Not at all. We shall be leaving in a moment.'

‘Thank you, you are most kind,' steady and not gushing. Then, turning to catch a passing waiter, he ordered a Vermouth Torino. ‘You will not join me?' To the couple.

‘Thank you. No.' The tall man did not smile and the girl shook her head, her eyes telling Sanzionare that she wished she could say yes.

‘Allow me to introduce myself,' Sanzionare thrust forward. ‘Luigi Sanzionare, of this city.'

‘My name is Smythe – with a
y.'
The girl's companion spoke Italian with the slow, short-accented speech of an Englishman. ‘My daughter, Carlotta.'

‘You are not Italian?' Graceful, flattering surprise.

‘My mother was Italian.' The girl's accent was pure Neapolitan. ‘But,' she smiled, ‘this is my first visit to her country.'

‘Ah. It is beautiful, no?'

‘Very. I would like to live here, but my father says we must return to England because of his work.'

Sanzionare turned to Smythe. ‘Your wife is not with you in Rome?'

‘My wife, sir, died a year ago.'

‘Oh, excuse me. I could not know. Then this is a pilgrimage?'

‘I wished to show Carlotta her mother's native land. We have been spending a few days in Rome before returning to London.'

‘To London. Ah, a fine city, I know it well,' lied Sanzionare. ‘You are staying for Easter though?'

‘Just until it is over,' Carlotta was imperceptibly moving closer to him. ‘I am most sad to be leaving.'

‘A pity. I would have liked to show you the great sights. Nobody can show off Rome as well as the Roman born.'

‘We have seen all the great sights.' Carlotta's father was decidedly prickly.

Sanzionare remained unperturbed. ‘Perhaps you would do me the honour of dining with me?'

‘That would be …' Carlotta began.

‘Out of the question,' snapped Smythe. ‘We have much to do this evening. Kind of you to ask, but impossible.'

‘But surely, Father …'

‘Out of the question. Carlotta, we must leave. Dinner awaits at the hotel.'

‘I am sorry. My manners are lacking,' oozed Sanzionare, rising. ‘I did not mean to intrude.'

Smythe was paying the bill, examining the ticket as though the waiter was out to defraud him.

‘I hope that we may meet again, Signorina,' Sanzionare bowed over Carlotta's hand.

‘I would like that very much.' Her eyes were almost pleading, as though she was in great need of help. Fantastic thoughts formed pictures in Sanzionare's head. A lady in distress. He saw himself as a knight of old, riding to the rescue. ‘Very much,' Carlotta repeated. ‘But I feel it is not likely.'

Smythe bowed stiffly, took his daughter's arm, and they were gone, swallowed by the stream of strollers.

Sanzionare fleetingly caught sight of one of his best pickpockets, weaving through the crowd, making for Smythe. He looked around for Benno, signalling frantically until the man closed with him. He gave quick instructions for Benno to head off the pickpocket.

‘He is not to touch that Englishman. I will have his hands crushed if he does.'

Benno nodded and was away into the drifting crowd.

It was one of those strange meetings in life, Sanzionare reflected. A moment which, if the circumstances had been different, might have blossomed into a new way of living, a way with some certainty of eternal salvation. It was obviously not to be, so he would go on ruling the underworld of this part of Italy, presumably with Adela as his consort. Maybe, while he was in London he might see the beautiful Carlotta again? No, this period of separation from Adela and Rome would be best used making up his mind about his future state. If need be, he might even marry his mistress. A passionate affair with a woman like Carlotta – for it would be most passionate – might be the end of him, at least it would be overtaxing.

On Easter Sunday morning he attended Mass early and then went to the High Mass at St Peter's, mingling with the crowds outside to receive the Papal Blessing before returning to Ostia and the tearful Adela, now greatly emotional over his impending journey.

Moriarty, divested of his disguise as the Englishman, Smythe, sat at the writing desk in his room at the Albergo Grande Palace, composing a letter. Carlotta, who was bored and had come in from her own adjoining room, lounged on the bed, sucking fat red grapes.

Signorina
, Moriarty wrote in a hand well disguised from his own,
I must warn you that your protector, Luigi Sanzionare, has departed today by train for Paris in company with a much younger woman than yourself. She is Miss Carlotta Smythe, half English and half Neapolitan. I fear they may be planning to marry secretly in London which is their final destination. I am a well-wisher
.

Smiling to himself, the Professor read through the note twice before folding it and sealing it within an envelope. He then addressed the epistle to Signorina Adela Asconta at Sanzionare's house at Ostia. He would hand it to the porter tomorrow before taking the train to Paris. With luck it would prove to be a mild bombshell to the Asconta female – a propellant, even.

He rose and walked to the mirror set above the heavy chest of drawers which stood between the two shaded windows, looking at his face from numerous angles. In the past year or so he had been so many different people with different mannerisms, speech, language and age. Madis; Meunier; the American Professor, Carl Nicol, of Five Albert Square; the photographer, Moberly; the stout American, Morningdale; the Jesuit priest, and the widower, Smythe. Each part fitted like a glove, but there would be one more left to play once they returned to London. The role of a lifetime. He shrugged with a kind of mock modesty. For a little longer he would be Smythe.

‘Do I get to keep the rubies?' asked Carlotta from the bed.

Moriarty crossed to her, gazing at the girl with that strange mesmeristic look he so often affected.

‘No, my darling daughter. Not that one anyway. Perhaps I will find some other trinket for you.'

‘That'll be nice,' she snuggled her head into the pillow and giggled. ‘Are we to be about incest again, Papa?'

Holmes had been as good as his word. Dr Moore Agar, of Harley Street, gave Crow a thorough examination and pronounced that he should take at least a month's leave of absence – preferably at a watering place. He could do some light duties but would not recommend full-time work with the Force. He would write to the Commissioner that very night explaining the situation, saying that when Crow was ready to return, he could guarantee him one hundred per cent fit and completely his old self.

Crow mentally girded himself for the fray with Sylvia.

‘Do you provide the toasted snow for her?' Holmes had asked him. ‘Or do you remain master in your own home?'

The way was quite clear, his mind steadfast, for had not his pride taken a severe tumble over the machinating Harriet? He had yet to get over the fact that not only had he harboured one of Moriarty's people in his house, but also been driven half out of his wits by her. That alone would not be easy to forgive. The leave of absence would provide two opportunities: to set his house in order, and make another determined effort, with the assistance of Sherlock Holmes, to take Moriarty by the coat and bring him to justice.

Sylvia was bemoaning the scarcity of good servants when Crow got back to King Street.

‘I have interviewed a dozen today alone,' she said petulantly from her seat near the fire. ‘It is impossible. There are two that might be of use. I do not know.'

‘Then I do,' said Crow firmly planting his back to the fireplace.

‘Angus, would you move from there, you will keep the warmth from me,' barked Sylvia.

‘I will not move, from here or anywhere else, and if we are to talk of warmth being kept from people, then consider, madam, what warmth you have kept from me.'

‘Angus.'

‘Yes, Sylvia. We were perfectly happy when I was here as your lodger, and you cooked, cleaned and were warm as toast to me. Now that we're wed, its been all razzle-dazzle, ragsauce, airs and graces, by your leave, yes ma'am, no ma'am, and three bags full of it, ma'am. I for one am tired of this way.'

Sylvia Crow opened her mouth in protest.

‘Be silent, wife,' Crow bawled like some drill sergeant.

‘I will not be spoken to like this in my house,' Sylvia flounced.

‘In
our
house, Mrs Crow.
Our
house. For what is yours is mine, and what is mine is yours. Moreover, I am master now. Why, Sylvia, it has so got me down that this very afternoon I have been to a physician in Harley Street.'

‘Harley Street?' The wind dropping from her sails.

‘Aye, ma'am, Harley Street. He tells me that I must rest a while and that if you go on denying me the pleasures of a decent and ordered household, then you may well be the death of me.'

‘But I have given you a decent household, Angus,' concern in her voice now.

‘You have given me airs and graces. Servants who burn the meat and water the cabbage. You have given me headaches, and dinner parties, and behaviour like some Grand Duchess. I'll have no more of it, Sylvia. No more. I'm away to me bed now, and would like one of your tasty meals on a tray. Served by yourself. After which you can come up and serve me as a wife should.'

So saying, Angus Crow, not knowing if he was the victor or no, stumped out of the parlour and up the stairs to the bedroom, leaving a red-faced, fish-mouthed Sylvia staring blankly at the closed door.

Sanzionare had a first-class sleeping compartment on the Rome—Paris Express. Benno was in the next coach, and, as the engine picked up speed past the outer suburbs of the city, the Italian gang-lord relaxed. He would doze a little before luncheon in the well-appointed restaurant car. Perhaps he would take a few more glasses of wine than usual, for the afternoon could be spent in sleep. Then, as was the custom, he would dress for dinner. Perhaps there would be some lonely woman on board. He might as well use what time he had away from Adela to good advantage.

He went to the restaurant car at noon to find a pleasant, and not altogether subdued, atmosphere. The waiters were smart, the food exceptional. The first part of the journey would go well.

He had, of course, no way of knowing that, in the carriage next to his, there were two sleeping compartments reserved in the names of Joshua and Carlotta Smythe.

This pair had boarded the train early in Rome and, since departure, had not set even a nose outside Joshua Smythe's compartment. Nor did they intend so to do until the evening, for Moriarty maintained that the most forceful impact could be accomplished if they made a spectacular appearance at dinner. It was then that Carlotta could best show off the Scobie Inheritance and – if Moriarty was any judge of human nature – Luigi Sanzionare would be drawn deeper into the web that was prepared for him.

As the train drew them away from the Eternal City, Moriarty sent for the restaurant car conductor and made certain arrangements for the evening. The rest of the day he spent in good humour, as well he might, for of all his schemes this one contained an element of farce which would have delighted the greatest exponents of that theatrical art. Carlotta dozed and lethargically leaved through copies of the papers and magazines which Moriarty had provided against boredom.

Much later that night, they would arrive in Milan to be coupled to the French train which ran between that city and Paris. The dinner menu was, therefore, utterly Italian, as though giving a last taste of the country before plunging passengers into the extravagances of French cuisine. In the dining car, preparations for the dinner were approached with the solemnity of a religious feast, the lamps lit early, tables crisp with fresh linen, and cutlery polished, gleaming in the reflected light – the whole far removed from the more modest surroundings of second-class passengers and the downright spartan conditions of third-class.

The gong was sounded a little before seven o'clock along the first-class corridors, and Sanzionare, dressed impeccably, hair groomed with scented oil and the dampness of his cheeks laid with a dusting of cosmetic powder, took his place in the dining car within minutes of the call to dinner.

When the Smythes arrived, he was at a fateful moment of decision, uncertain whether to choose the antipasto, or one of the four available soups, or, perhaps, the Melone alla Roma, to precede the Anguilla in Tiella ai Piselli and the Pollo in Padella con Peperoni. Deep in thought, he sensed, rather than actually observed, their entrance.

When Sanzionare did look up, he saw that it was as though some unseen authority had called a halt to all activity. Waiters about to take orders were frozen like waxworks; ladies silenced in mid-flow of genteel conversation; gentlemen about to make a choice of wines lost all interest in the fruit of the grape; glasses half-raised to lips remained poised in mid-air. There was an illusion of great stillness, the normal babble dying to a hush that even precluded a whisper, and a sense that the carriage had even stopped rolling.

Carlotta Smythe stood framed in the doorway, her father slightly behind her. The dress she wore was a simple white gown of exquisite taste, showing off her colouring and the dark sweep of her hair to contrasted perfection. It was modest enough, but somehow the simple style managed to convey a brand of allure enough to take the very breath from every male within sight.

She was stunning by any standard, but, to set off the picture, Carlotta's throat was encircled by a necklace of rubies and emeralds linked with silver chains, in all three circlets sweeping down in an upturned triangle to a point from which hung a ruby pendant of a deep and blazing colour. It was as though the girl's throat was on fire, the light flashing from the stones like small tongues of red and green flame.