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

by Anna Castle

  The cab turned sharply, jolting them half off the seat. Angelina found herself pressed into the corner, one leg braced against the front window and her satin skirt hiked up past her knees. Moriarty lay solidly between her stockinged legs, one hand grasping the back of her head, the other wrapped firmly around her naked breast.

  The cab came to a stop. They struggled to right themselves, adjusting their clothing in silence, faces averted. Glancing out the window, Angelina saw that Sandy had returned them to Moriarty’s brothel. She ran her fingers over her hair, hoping it wasn’t a total disaster. “I don’t know why I did that.”

  “I do.” Then he met her eyes and smiled at her for the first time that evening. “I don’t mind.” He opened the door and climbed out of the cab.

  “You’re a gentleman to the fingertips, aren’t you, Professor Moriarty?”

  “I thought I was.”

  “You’d never dream of taking advantage of a private moment to kiss me.”

  He stepped onto the pavement and stood beside her window. “Dream? Nightly. But I’m a clerk in the Patent Office, Mrs. Gould. I have nothing to offer a woman of your attributes.” He closed the door, tipped his hat to Sandy, and mounted the stoop. Sandy clucked his horse to motion before the door was opened.

  She didn’t want to see who greeted him anyway. It was so unfair. His release was right inside that door, while she would have to suffer through an interminable opera in a state of unrequited lust.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Wednesday morning, Moriarty found another letter from Mark Ramsay on his breakfast tray. This one invited him to a meeting that afternoon in Oscar Teaberry’s city office.

  Dear Professor Moriarty,

  I may be stepping outside my brief, but I fear Mr. Holmes is looking in the wrong direction. He may actually suspect you of having something to do with Lord Carling’s tragic death. I don’t presume to know you, Professor, but I do know Mr. Teaberry and the gentlemen who sit on his boards. Without naming names, I can safely say that there is friction and even mistrust. Some transactions may not have been entirely on the up-and-up.

  I must confide in someone, and I feel instinctively that you are a man I can trust. I discovered something in the books the other day when comparing the accounts I had drawn up with those sent me by Mr. Teaberry’s secretary. I was debating whether to show it to you when Durham House was robbed. Could the Bookkeeper Burglars be retrieving copies of the same disturbing document? It seems far-fetched, I know, and yet each of their victims had received payments from Mr. Teaberry in the past month.

  “I trust you will keep this communication in confidence. Given the nature of my employment, I am unable to speak openly, but I cannot sit silently by and allow a private inquiry agent to accuse you of crimes when alternative explanations, which in my view are far more likely, could be explored. If you attend the meeting this afternoon, they may feel obliged to treat with you more fairly.

  Your servant,

  Mark Ramsay

  Moriarty read the letter twice while eating his eggs and toast. He owed it to himself to attend that meeting, but it meant another afternoon of work missed. He might save himself from the noose only to find himself out of a job. At least it would give him something to think about besides the taste and texture of Mrs. Angelina Gould.

  * * *

  Teaberry’s building on Nicholas Lane had been erected in the previous century to house a private bank. Inside, the ceilings soared twenty-five feet overhead. The furnishings had consumed whole forests of oak and mahogany, now gleaming under coats of hand-rubbed wax. The brass fittings on doors and cabinets shone in the light streaming through banks of tall windows across the front. Men in dark suits filled the vast lobby, writing on, carrying, or filing papers into infinite banks of drawers. The whole building echoed with the sounds of hushed efficiency.

  The setting had been designed to impress and it succeeded. Moriarty was as thrilled as a schoolboy when the clerk ushered him into a private elevator to ride smoothly all the way up to the tenth floor. He found more mahogany in Teaberry’s spacious office, along with velvet upholstery, Turkey carpets, and a magnificent view of St. Paul’s Cathedral with the Thames coiling like liquid silver in the background.

  The view outside might be serene, but the atmosphere within jangled with the tension of an argument cut short by his arrival. Six men stood about the room in various postures. Lord Nettlefield and Oscar Teaberry faced one another across an expanse of polished desk. Mark Ramsay waited a few feet behind his employer, his hands folded before him. A similarly patient man stood a few feet behind Teaberry. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson stood at the window, pointing out features of the city below, plainly enjoying the novel perspective.

  All six heads turned as Moriarty entered.

  “What are you doing here?” Lord Nettlefield demanded.

  Teaberry flashed his teeth at Nettlefield in an alligator grin and stepped forward with his hand outstretched. “Professor Moriarty, isn’t it? We met at the Exhibition. From the Patent Office, aren’t you? I was impressed by your knowledge of our engine, very much impressed. Perhaps you can shed some light on the problems dogging us now.”

  Moriarty shook his hand, grateful for the welcome. Now the others would assume Teaberry had invited him. He nodded curtly at Holmes and Watson.

  “We meet again,” Holmes said. He seemed to revel in the tense atmosphere and relish the intrusion of his favorite suspect; or else the man possessed supernaturally exuberant spirits.

  Nettlefield acknowledged Moriarty with a sneer. Moriarty repaid his rudeness with a bland smile and a touch of his hat. “Your lordship.”

  Nettlefield sniffed and turned toward Holmes. “You were telling us about the evidence for tampering.”

  “Yes,” Holmes said, “it’s irrefutable. The engine was deliberately sabotaged with the intention of producing an explosion when the lever was pulled. This is undeniably a case of murder, gentlemen.”

  “I find it incredible,” Teaberry said. “Why would anyone want to murder Carling? I never cared much for the man, but apart from his title, he was a nobody. Easily led and just as easily avoided.”

  Nettlefield’s kept his eyes on Moriarty as he said, “But you don’t believe Carling was the intended victim, do you, Mr. Holmes?”

  “I consider it unlikely. His lordship’s decision to attend the event surprised even his own household. I consider it even more unlikely that anyone could have set so ingenious a trap on short notice.”

  Teaberry scowled. “You can’t mean someone intended to murder me!”

  “Don’t be so vain,” Nettlefield said. “Your name is only in the catalog as a proxy. Everyone knows that; it’s standard practice. The ranking peer always does the honors. If Carling hadn’t turned up, I would have opened the show. That rigged engine was meant for me.”

  “Who would want to kill you?” Teaberry scoffed. “Except your son. You keep him on too short a leash, if you want my opinion. You should let him have that damned woman if he wants her. She’s rich, by all accounts, and a blind man could see she’s beautiful. They say she has connections with mining people in America. We might be able to use her.”

  Moriarty’s ears pricked. He must mean Mrs. Gould, but he spoke as if he barely knew her. Interesting how Teaberry’s first thought was Reginald Benton. All the evidence against Nettlefield served equally well to implicate the son, with the addition of a compelling motive. Far better to be a viscount than an Honorable, especially when wooing the Sensation of the Season.

  A grim corollary to that proposition leapt into his mind. Mrs. Gould had maneuvered herself into the perfect position to help Benton achieve that aim. The gossips said she’d come to land a titled husband; perhaps the gossips were right. Perhaps she and the lordling were working together. That would explain everything, especially the need for the account books. The son would want to know everything about the father’s business arrangements, especially if he knew about or suspected his father of cheat
ing. He might be planning to pick up where the old man left off.

  Moriarty’s judgement was impaired where Mrs. Gould was concerned. That, of course, was her central function — to distract and confound. He should have thought of this possibility from the outset. How could he test it? He doubted she would answer direct questions, not truthfully, but she seemed to trust him. He might be able to find a way.

  He suppressed a smile. He’d have to see her again to make the attempt.

  “I’m not certain about her fabled wealth,” Nettlefield said. “Things don’t add up. I mean to have her fully investigated.” He snapped his fingers at the detective. “Holmes! Look into Mrs. Gould’s background while you’re at it, will you?”

  Watson chuckled like a man about to watch an amusing performance.

  “With all due respect, Lord Nettlefield,” Holmes said loftily, “I choose my own cases.” He had several inches on the viscount and employed them to advantage, looking down his axe of a nose with a supercilious smile. “If you desire information concerning an American citizen, I suggest you communicate with the Pinkerton Agency. Your secretary should be able to locate their address.”

  Nettlefield spluttered at him. Holmes merely raised a sardonic eyebrow. Moriarty began to understand Watson’s affinity for the man.

  When the spluttering wore down, Holmes asked, “Shall we return to the subject at hand? The simplest assumption is that the murderer took the catalog at face value. You are a successful man of business, Mr. Teaberry. You’ve risen fast and made a great fortune in a short period of time. You must have made enemies along the way.”

  “Others have risen right along with me. Who would kill the goose that’s laying all the golden eggs?”

  “Someone who thought he wasn’t getting his share of the produce?” Watson suggested.

  “Or someone who thought the goose was losing its magic,” Moriarty said. “We shouldn’t be too hasty in assuming that sabotage entails a deliberate attempt at murder. The possibility remains that the saboteur intended only to discredit the company.”

  “I’ve dispensed with that argument,” Holmes said. “Many other means could have employed to achieve the lesser goal of public embarrassment.”

  “Assuming a villain whose capacity for logical analysis is as great as your own.” As he spoke the words, Moriarty understood the basis for the detective’s obsession with him. Holmes longed for an opponent worthy of his mettle. Finding such a person in the milieu of the crime, his attention had been drawn like a magnet to an iron core.

  “A lesser man,” Moriarty continued, “might have miscalculated. He might have intended only to create a loud noise and a dramatic burst of steam.”

  Sherlock Holmes frowned and shook his head. “No one with the competence to make and install that false sensor plate could have been so oblivious to the potential hazard.”

  They smirked at each other for a moment, like cricket players from rival schools. No conclusions could be reached by their bickering.

  Watson adroitly shifted the subject. “How badly was the company hurt by the incident, if I may ask?” He moved closer to the desk to set down his newspaper.

  Teaberry shrugged. “Not at all. Companies are structured to absorb shocks, especially in the early stages.” Watson looked puzzled, so he elaborated. “Initial stock purchases provide the funds for product development. The money is nonrefundable. Those shares offer the greatest rate of return in exchange for the highest level of risk. So the company comes out all right either way. Better, sometimes, since we don’t have to manufacture a product that might not catch fire, as we say.” He nodded at Watson as if reassuring a potential investor. “You needn’t concern yourself, Doctor. No one was injured by this fiasco.”

  “Except Lord Carling,” Holmes said.

  “And the shareholders,” Ramsay murmured. Moriarty doubted anyone else heard him.

  “You should look for someone with a grudge against me and my companies,” Teaberry said, pointing at Holmes.

  “I follow the evidence,” Holmes replied. “I don’t dictate the direction in which it leads.”

  “Then you do it, Professor.” Teaberry snapped his fingers at his secretary. “Draft him a check, Illingworth.”

  “Absolutely not!” Nettlefield said. “That’s like hiring the fox to find a missing chicken.”

  “I couldn’t accept payment,” Moriarty said.

  Although . . . why shouldn’t he? Holmes got paid for this sort of thing and seemed to be doing well enough out of it. “I have been drawn into this situation willy-nilly. If someone in your circle is responsible, then the answer may be found in their account books. Call them in and conduct a comparison.”

  “Fine advice,” Nettlefield said. “But as you very well know, most of them have been stolen.”

  “The Bookkeeper Burglars,” Watson said, nodding his chin at the newspaper. “They’re all over the morning papers. I see they struck Durham House last night, your lordship.”

  “The bastards,” Nettlefield growled. “They cleaned out my files and the butler’s pantry. I would have had to come back to town anyway, even if it weren’t for this meeting. I won’t leave again without an extra complement of sturdy footmen in place.”

  “These burglars must be stopped,” Teaberry said. “I’ll pay a handsome reward to the man that gets there first.” He waggled his bushy eyebrows at Moriarty.

  Moriarty was intrigued by the unexpected, but not, perhaps, unreasonable offer. Why shouldn’t he earn a reward for his efforts? He wondered how much it could be. Enough to buy a new evening jacket? He’d noticed his suit was showing its age the other night. If he meant to pursue the maddening Mrs. Gould through London society, he ought to cut a better figure.

  Although so far that pursuit had been entirely imaginary, and one did not require new clothes for that.

  Nettlefield said, “Getting those books back must take priority, Holmes. I want you to drop everything and catch those thieves.”

  Moriarty exchanged amused shakes of the head with Dr. Watson. His lordship consistently failed to understand the people around him.

  “I do not investigate routine burglaries,” Holmes said. “Scotland Yard is quite competent in this area. They’ll trace the stolen goods sooner or later.”

  “Later won’t be soon enough,” Teaberry said. “The police are baffled, although these damned crooks are obviously targeting members of my board. It must be a rival company. I can think of a few who might stoop to such a trick. There’s no telling what might be in those accounts, especially Carling’s.”

  “That secretary of his is a blithering idiot. God knows what he might have —” Nettlefield cut himself off with a tight frown.

  Written down? Kept? Moriarty had the distinct sense that Teaberry and Nettlefield suspected each another of some specific form of treachery or had colluded in some such thing.

  “Unfortunately,” Holmes said, “there is as yet no legal remedy for stupidity.”

  “There do seem to be some features of interest here, Holmes,” Watson said. “The burglaries involve the same circle of men associated with the spherical engine. They might well be connected to the murder in some obscure way. Perhaps the murderer’s aim is to wreak havoc on Mr. Teaberry’s companies in general.”

  Holmes stroked his long chin. “You might have something there, Watson. I might propose another possibility: that the burglars have only one real target and the other thefts are intended to obscure the true objective.”

  “Me!” Nettlefield pounded his fist on the desk. “This is all aimed at me, the thefts and the explosion.”

  “You or me,” Teaberry said. “I have enemies, as the professor here suggested. God knows I have rivals. I’m a wealthy man and wealth inspires envy. We could be looking for a villain with a talent for high finance. There’s no telling what damage a master criminal might do on the Stock Exchange with the information in those books.”

  Holmes’s eyes lit up at the phrase “master criminal,” stimula
ted by the prospect of smarter prey, like a man bored with shooting deer and longing to hunt tigers. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll do it. It won’t take long. These burglars are striking two or three times a week. The obvious step is to stake out some of their probable targets. How shall we identify those most likely to be the next victims?”

  “I have an idea, Holmes.” Watson patted the newspaper. “These Bookkeeper Burglars may be taking their victims from Mr. Teaberry’s front sheets, but they seem to decide where to strike and on what day by reading the society pages. I remember a recent note about his lordship’s family going off for a week in the country, for example.”

  Nettlefield bristled. “Those damned gossip columns need to be controlled. They’re an open invitation to thieves.” He jabbed his finger at his secretary. “Write a letter to The Times, Ramsay, insisting they strike any trace of personal information from every future issue. Get it sent this afternoon.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I wish you luck with that campaign,” Holmes said drily. “In the meantime, your advice is well taken, Watson, as always. I suggest we set our traps this Saturday, using the gossip columns to place the bait. We’ll choose two targets from the remaining board members and then drop a hint to the papers that those houses will be unoccupied over the weekend.”

  He issued directives to his clients. “Mr. Teaberry, we’ll need a list of names and addresses. Include any office or residence within, let’s say, a fifteen-mile radius of London. If the thieves are carrying away loads of account books, they must have a cart or coach at their disposal. Make sure this office is well guarded. Lord Nettlefield, I suggest you return to your country home with your secretary and post a watch in your library.”

  “I’m afraid there’s little left to steal,” Ramsay said. “We kept most of our records in town.”

  Holmes said, “The burglars won’t know that. If they are especially interested in his lordship’s affairs, they will leave no option unexplored. Watson and I will each take one of the designated targets.”