I wasn’t certain that Sherlock’s analysis was entirely correct. With the millions of pounds gone, every single one of James’s family members would try to protect what remained. Like vultures, they would claw at the last bit of carcass after the lions had taken the largest part. Would Moran rush back to Littlehampton to try to retrieve witnesses and evidence of the heir-at-law’s death? Would he act in such a haste as not to ensure beforehand that I was still pregnant and the miscarriage was a ruse? The more likely alternative was that the Moriartys would ask Moran to assassinate the child and me as soon as possible so all money would be transferred back to them at once. They could even try to kidnap me now, then wait for the child to be born.
I thought of Garret, then, his illness, and Barry, who was about to cut all ties to humanity. I needed their help for my next task. This circumstance would also allow me to keep an eye on them a little longer.
A porter interrupted my thoughts. He was carrying a bag and a rucksack — the two worn pieces of luggage I had left at Victoria Station.
‘Where is Garret?’ I asked when I stepped into their room.
‘Lavatory,’ Barry answered.
‘How did he sleep?’
‘He coughed a lot.’ He pointed to the kerchief next to the bed, an expensive-looking embroidered thing with ugly brown splotches.
‘Did you two talk about leaving London?’ I asked.
The boy picked at his unusually clean fingernails, then said, ‘I don’t know, Anna. Garret doesn’t like the idea. It’s like… you know… a woman paying for a man — everything’s hers, the house, the money, everything. It’s like chopping his bollocks off. He’s no real man anymore.’
Garret entered, hair ruffled, face ashen despite the apparent anger. ‘What?’ he shot at Barry.
‘Oy! I was only saying that when she.. when she…’ He pointed at me. Seeing my face, his arm wilted.
‘Sit down, Garret! And you, Barry: shut your mouth.’ I kicked at the bed frame and dug my hands into my hips. ‘Here is my offer, take it or leave it. You,’ I pointed at Garret, ‘are so sick that you can barely walk. You saved my life, you are my best friend, and… such a pig-head. Why wouldn’t you allow me to help you?
‘And you,’ I turned to Barry, ‘have all the right to make me feel guilty. But I doubt it makes you feel any better.’
‘But!’
‘Shut your mouth, Barry! I was married to England’s most powerful criminal. His dearest wish was to develop the most gruesome weapons mankind could create. He amassed money through his criminal deeds, money I now inherited. It is time to put it to good use. Shove your pride,’ I punched the air for better effect, ‘up your intestinal tracts!’ then sat down on the floor, glowering up at the two.
Garret doubled over, laughing. As his laughs transformed into coughs, I rose and clutched his ribcage. ‘Garret,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘I beg you!’
‘So when do we go?’ he asked, trying to catch his breath.
‘We leave this hotel today. But I have to ask you both for your help before we leave London. I have to keep an eye on someone.’
Garret grunted in the affirmative.
‘Barry?’ I turned to the boy. He slapped at an imaginary fly and nodded.
‘Excellent. Pack your belongings.’
Roughly three hours later, we settled into a room opposite Watson’s practice. It was only a single room and we crammed ourselves in, pretending to be husband, wife, and son who were traveling up north and staying in London for a few days.
Garret observed the other side of the street while Barry and I tried to sleep. As soon as night fell, our work would begin.
The boy and I walked along the street, dressed in dark walking clothes. I hunched; grey hair stuck out from underneath my bonnet, one of my arms leaning on Barry, the other on a stick. At a snail’s pace, we shuffled past Moran’s house — one of several handsome villas lining the street, each with a small front yard. Windows on both floors were lit, indicating that not only the servants were at home, but also their master. I could hear the dogs in the back, their playful growls and the scraping of paws on gravel. We searched for a good hiding spot, but found nothing suitable in the immediate vicinity.
I began coughing and bent down. Barry patted my back very lightly so as not to blur my view. I stared through the telescope that was partially concealed by my overcoat. The electrical light at the entrance to Moran’s house revealed every feature of his front door. ‘God bless the Queen’s nether garments!’ I muttered. ‘I have it. We can leave.’
Barry and I stopped at a corner. I took his coat, rolled it up, and stuck it under my arm. He picked up the broom we had left leaning on a tree. I rubbed dirt on his face, throat, and hands, then we parted. He’d act as the street sweeper and watch for any comings and goings while the real sweeper snored in his bed, ten shillings richer.
I rushed back to Garret, knocked, and entered the room. He sat at the window, guarding Watson’s practice.
‘Did he not go home yet?’ I wondered aloud.
‘No. He mostly sits at his desk. Very few patients during the day, none at all now. What is the man waiting for?’
I approached the window and saw Watson’s silhouette, his face in his hands, hunched over a table or desk. I had to fight the urge to run over, ring his bell, and tell him that his best friend was alive and well.
I turned away, placed the telescope in Garret’s hand, retrieved pen and paper, and began to draw. The picture of the lock was burned in my mind, but my hands only clumsily copied it.
‘Garret?’ I called, and he looked over my shoulder.
‘Hum. Looks very much like a Davenport rim lock. Are you sure these markings went that way up and not down?’
‘Yes. Absolutely sure.’
‘It’s a two lever lock. Harder to pick than the ones I’ve shown you.’ His energies seemed to return at the prospect of lock-picking. ‘You need the right tools. And you need to practice. We’ll visit a friend of mine; he can help.’
‘Do you know that when you are full of mischief, your hair sticks out every which way? Much like the whiskers of a cat.’ I grinned up at him, thinking of a time long ago when we made love, and how much he resembled a lion then. He must have seen it in my eyes, for his head drooped and his Adams apple bobbed up and down to move embarrassment out of the way. He cleared his throat, bringing on a coughing attack.
‘Go and call a cab,’ he grumbled.
I nodded and left. Knowing that Moran was at his home, I decided Watson should be safe without us for a little while.
We didn’t speak on the ride to Fetter Lane. Once there, Garret asked me to wait in the carriage. Understandably, his friend didn’t accept strangers in his lockpick shop.
Ten minutes later, he returned to show me three different locks. I chose one that looked identical to the one in Moran’s entrance door, and we dashed back to our quarters. Watson was still in his practice.
‘So, now. I hold it and you pick it,’ Garret said, pinching the heavy brass and cast iron lock between his knees and his hands. ‘Try each single one of them.’ He nodded towards the lockpicks. ‘You’ll get a feeling for the innards of the thing.’
I wiped the grease off the tools.
‘Now, you see on the keyhole that you can stick in the key either up end or down end. Try up end first. If nothing moves, try down end. Use only a little force.’
I stuck the first lockpick in and began to wiggle and probe.
‘Do you feel the tension in the bolt?’ he asked.
I grunted. My medical instinct told me to open the stupid thing and gut it.
‘Not like a brute, Anna! Try another lockpick.’
I tried another three until I could feel something like a bolt moving when I pressed the metal tool against it. ‘Bolt is moving. Perhaps,’ I pressed through my teeth.
‘Good. Hold it there. Take the small hook and see if you can lift the first lever.’
I did as he told me, but it took several atte
mpts, all with dropping the lockpick to the floor and swearing through clenched lips. When I finally heard the first click, I was ready to throw the bloody thing out of the window.
‘Good! Now turn to unlock, then lock it again. Try it several times,’ he said. I looked up at him; his brow was as sweaty as mine. We practiced another hour, interrupted by spying on Watson every few minutes. When he finally left his practice, I sneaked out and followed.
He took the direct route home. His wife, and not the housekeeper, opened the door when he fumbled for his keys. She must have been worried. Her arm closed around his shoulders. Then the brightly lit hallway engulfed them both and the door shut.
I kept walking, careful to keep an eye on my surroundings and anyone with too much interest in the Watson’s residence. All seemed quiet, yet I wished I had more men at my disposal. Leaving Watson’s home unguarded went against my grain. But Barry would let us know at once should Moran or Parker venture out at night. It was all I could do for now.
On the way back, I bought baked potatoes, bread, butter, cheese, and pies. Garret’s appetite was atypically mouse-like, and I hoped the odour of good food would change that. Besides, I was hungry almost constantly now.
Barry returned at around three o’clock in the morning. He told me that everyone in Moran’s house was fast asleep, then he devoured what we had left on the table, dropped on the mattress next to Garret, and began to snore like a tiny steam engine.
I slipped from the room to take Barry’s watch.
— fourteen —
‘I’m coming with you,’ Garret said.
‘No.’ I turned away from him and began to lace my boots. For two days and nights now, Garret had kept his eyes on Watson while Barry and I kept watch over Moran. Moran’s footman, Parker, had left the previous day. Barry followed him to Victoria Station and saw him take the train to Eastbourne, most likely with Littlehampton as his final destination. I expected the man to return no sooner than the following day, delivering hearsay and flimsy evidence to his superior. He’d certainly be punished for something that Moran wouldn’t have been able to do any better.
Garret’s socked feet appeared in my field of view.
‘The dogs know me, but they don’t know you. They’ll bark,’ I said.
His left toe began to wiggle up and down, tapping a rhythm of impatience on the floor.
I pressed my teeth together. ‘You can barely walk a hundred feet without coughing blood.’
He snorted and walked back to the window.
‘Don’t worry about me, Garret.’ I rose and pushed the lockpicks into my pocket, put on a light overcoat, and placed a bonnet on my head. When I loaded the revolver, Garret grumbled, ‘Good luck.’
‘Thank you.’ I sneaked out the door before he could argue with me yet again.
Barry was fast asleep and oblivious to all.
Picking the lock of the gate was quick and easy. Just one lever, well-oiled and quiet. I heard the huffs of the dogs and began to talk quietly before they could see me. They sprinted around the house, tongues lolling, tails wagging, and buried their noses in the folds of my skirt. I patted their sides and ordered them to be quiet.
The walkway was laid out in gravel, so I avoided it and instead placed my feet on the grass. A thick apple tree provided cover. I took my bonnet and shoes off, pressed against the tree’s coarse bark, and watched the one lit window. I had identified it as Moran’s study, for this was where he spent his late evening hours before retiring to a room on the other side of the house. It must have been close to midnight now.
Low buzzing pulled my attention to the branch above me. It was too dark to see what caused the noise, and straining my eyes didn’t help in the least. I shut them, turning my head this way and that, analysing what I heard. It sounded too low to be caused by bees… Could it be hornets?
Carefully, I scaled the tree, keeping my eyes close to where I placed my hands and then shifting my gaze to the branch where the noise came from. There, a darker patch among the almost-black of the bark. The insects used a hole in the tree for their nest. That complicated matters.
I chewed on my cheeks. My eyes searched the few lit places on Moran’s property and spotted a small flowerpot. A plan began to form. Then, the brightly lit window fell into darkness.
An hour later, I slid off the tree, approached the house, and tipped the flowerpot’s contents out onto the grass. Then I ran back to the apple tree. The dogs believed I wanted to play with them. I stopped, stiffened, and growled quietly. They plopped on their hindquarters, folded their ears, and tried to look like puppies.
I ignored them, lifted my skirts, yanked off a stocking, then opened my pocket knife and sliced off one leg of my drawers. With that, I covered the opening of the pot, wrapping my stocking around its rim to hold the fabric cover in place.
I climbed up the tree again, pressed the pot’s bottom hole against the opening of the hornets’ nest and tapped a twig against the branch. The tapping grew to light whacks until the hornets began to stir angrily. Their buzzing gained in volume and depth.
‘Damn it,’ I muttered, thinking of the other two holes I needed to plug. Balancing awkwardly with my legs hugging the tree, I cut two pieces off the stocking, took a deep breath, and inched the pot away from the nest. I jammed one piece of fabric into the bottom hole of the flower pot and the other into the nest’s entrance.
A few hornets had escaped. I felt them crawling over my shirt, attempting to drive their stingers through the fabric and into my skin. I clamped my mouth shut, and tried to resist the urge to slap at them. One crawled up my throat and cheek, then got caught in my hair. Burning pain told me I had been stung twice; I nearly fell off the tree. Luckily, I made it down without dropping the pot.
Not entirely certain what to do, I placed the pot in the grass. If I’d run a loop and tried to slap off the hornets, the dogs would run with me and most likely get stung. The resulting ruckus would wake the whole neighbourhood. I had no choice but to let the remaining hornets crawl over my garments while I tried not to agitate them.
I picked up the pot and approached the house. It appeared like a dead organism, dark and still, but somehow waiting for a disaster — a shot, an explosion, something that would expel me as soon as I entered.
I stepped up to the front door and inserted a lockpick. This lock felt identical to the one I had used to practice my cracks-woman skills. After barely a minute, I opened the door, stepped in, and closed it behind me. Exhilaration washed over me. I let the feeling of triumph pass and took a slow and deep breath.
Silence lowered itself heavily. The cricket song was gone, the quiet ruffling of playing dogs was gone, no faraway clopping of hooves, no rattling of wheels on cobble stones. If it weren’t for the fierce hum in the pot I carried, I’d feel as though I had suddenly fallen deaf.
I pricked my ears and crept up the stairs, carefully staying close to the wall, where the steps were less likely to creak when stepped upon. Then I stopped, listening, holding my breath and wishing the hornets would shut up for a moment. The house was quiet.
I went up the corridor, placing first my toes then my heels on the carpet, careful not to disturb the noisy floorboards.
Nothing creaked. I reached the study door, tested the doorknob. It didn’t move. My hand extracted the lockpicks from my dress, fingers pressing against the tools so as to muffle clinking of metal against metal. I slid the first lockpick into place, pressed, turned, wiggled. Nothing. The second, the third, the fourth, and finally, with the fifth, the lever moved. One lever lock, my mind registered, as the lock clicked open. I turned the knob and opened the door slowly. A shy squeal made me freeze. Not daring to move, I listened.
One minute crawled past. I squeezed through the gap, pulled up a chair, stepped on it, and placed the pot on top of the door, leaning it lightly against the frame. One hornet crawled over my sleeve. I pulled the fabric out a little, moved close to the wood, and let the insect crawl onto the door.
I stepped o
ff the chair and took in the room. The half moon peeked through the clouds and sent its light through the tall window, painting a trapezium of rippled silver on the carpet.
Three steps from the heavy brocade curtains to the desk. One step to the safe in the wall. I pulled at the desk drawers. All were locked. The lockpicks removed the obstacle; I lit a candle and leafed through Moran’s letters. The safe behind me was most enticing, but I’d never be able to open it. I pushed it from my mind and focussed on what I held in my hands: journals for his bookkeeping.
I opened the most recent one. Monthly payments of one hundred pounds sterling — an amount most people never held in their hands — labelled JM, James Moriarty. From March onward, these payments were missing. Moran had to live on his savings. Receipts of various purchases thickened the book. Some of these looked like tickets. A few were printed or written in a language other than English. I had no time to spend on scrutiny, so I clamped them under my left arm.
In the second drawer lay a photograph inscribed in golden letters, Colonel Sebastian Moran, September 1880, Transvaal. It was taken three months before the Boer War. He sat in a chair that resembled a throne. His one foot was perched on a lion’s head, his right hand held a rifle propped on his thigh. An idea hit me, spreading a smile across my face. I slipped the picture under my arm, too.
The third and last drawer contained letters. I took them all, then ran my fingers over each drawer’s surface: the very top, the bottom on its outside. Nothing.
The clock on the mantelpiece told me I had spent fifteen minutes in Moran’s study. I went up to the door and listened to the silent house. Then, I made for the safe. I had no high hopes of cracking the thing, but wanted to at least make an attempt. Three dials secured its door. I pressed my ear right next to the locking mechanism and began to turn the largest dial. Click-click-click. I turned it several times until I was certain that it produced a more hollow click in one position. I left it in that position and worked on the next two dials. My ears picked up another sound. That of a low scratch. I jumped the three steps to the velvet curtains, and just before I reached them, the silence was shattered. A crash, then furious buzzing and a hollering Moran. Two shots that found no living target. Slaps against garments. Screams.
The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller) Page 10
