The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (58 page)

             
"Why, then, here is my hand," Barnett said, extending his hand.

             
Tolliver examined the appendage carefully. "Seems to be," he admitted, pulling a buff envelope from a hidden recess between two buttons of his checked jacket and passing it over to Barnett. "There. Now my duty is discharged, and I must be trotting along. Afternoon, Miss Perrine. Afternoon, all." Adjusting his bowler carefully on his slicked-down black hair, he did a neat shuffle-off to the front door and exited.

             
"What a charming little man," Cecily said.

             
"He is that," Barnett agreed, as the world's shortest confidence man and pickpocket disappeared around the door.

             
Barnett slit open the envelope and removed the sheet of foolscap within.
Railways,
the note said in Moriarty's precise hand,
with particular emphasis on the London and South-Western. M.

             
"A task for us," Barnett said, slipping the note into his pocket. "Assign someone to research the London and South-Western Railway line. Bill it to the special account."

             
"What sort of research?" Cecily asked, looking curiously at him.

             
Barnett shrugged. "General," he said. "Whatever they're up to these days. I don't know. Tell them it's for a comparison of British and American railroads."

             
"Fine," Cecily said. "What
is
it for?"

             
"I don't know," Barnett said. "The ways of Professor Moriarty are mysterious. As you know, he is a consultant. Perhaps he has a commission from the railway, or perhaps from a rival railway. He is very close-mouthed."

             
"Hummm," Cecily said.

             
"Well," said Barnett, "let us go along to Scotland Yard and see whom we can speak to about these murders."

Mere theory is not encouraged at the Yard.

—Arthur H. Beavan

             
The hansom cab passed under the arch and rattled along the ancient, well-worn paving stones of Scotland Yard. Swerving to miss a flock of off-duty constables heading across the road for a "quick 'un" at the Clarence before they went home for the night, it pulled to a stop in front of the dirty yellow brick building that housed the Metropolitan Police office.

             
"Here we are," Barnett said, helping Cecily Perrine down from the cab and tossing a coin up to the cabby. "The Criminal Investigation Department is in the building to the left here."

             
The constable guarding the narrow entrance to the CID nodded at Barnett's question. "That would be Inspector Lestrade." He checked a little pegboard on the wall by his side. "As it happens, the inspector is in at the moment. Room 109. You must wait here until I can get a uniformed officer to escort you upstairs."

             
"Why, Constable!" Cecily smiled sweetly. "We do not look dangerous, do we?"

             
" 'Taint me, miss," the constable said. "It's the regulations. Ever since that bombing in the Yard three years ago by them anarchists, when all them policemen and civilians were blown about, with three of them dying, some constable stands here day and night, in this unheated doorway, and sees that all visitors are properly escorted upstairs. Them as are in authority were supposed to put a booth here for the constable's use, but it's been three years now and they ain't done it. Now as there's talk of a new building, I suppose they won't ever."

             
"I thought the bombing was outside," Barnett said.

             
"Yes, sir," the constable agreed. "Around to the right, there. By the public house. You can still see the damage to the bricks.
"

             
"
But there's no constable on duty over there," Cecily said. "No, miss."

             
"Then somebody could still chuck a dynamite bomb right where the last one was.
"

             
"
Yes, miss.
"

             
"
I don't understand."

             
"No, miss. Ah, here is someone now. Constable Hawkins, will you please escort these two people up to Room 109. Inspector Lestrade."

             
Room 109 was small, with one tiny soot-covered window, extremely cluttered, and, when they entered, apparently devoid of human life. Constable Hawkins, a small, taciturn man whose uniform looked as though it had been constructed for someone squatter and considerably more
massive, obviously felt that he should not leave them alone in the room. So he stood fidgeting silently and uncomfortably, resisting all attempts to be drawn into conversation and turning very red in the face when Cecily spoke to him.

             
It was about ten minutes before Inspector Lestrade returned to the room, scurrying along the corridor with a sheaf of documents in a leather folder under his arm. "Ha! I know you," he said to Barnett, shaking his hand firmly. "Barnett's your name."

             
"You have a good memory, Inspector," Barnett said. "It's been almost two years since we met in that house on Little George Street."

             
"A den of anarchists it was, too," Lestrade said. "You gentlemen were lucky to get out of there alive." He looked around, rather puzzled. "There was someone here when I left."

             
"No one here when we arrived, Inspector," Constable Hawkins assured Lestrade, standing at full brace like a little figure from a box of tin soldiers.

             
"Thank you, Hawkins," Lestrade said. "You can go." He turned back to Barnett. "And who is your charming companion?"

             
"Miss Cecily Perrine, may I present Detective Inspector Giles Lestrade of the CID. Inspector Lestrade, Miss Perrine is a valued associate of mine at the American News Service."

             
"A pleasure, Miss Perrine," Lestrade said, looking for all the world, as Cecily said later, like an eager bear as he took her hand and pressed it politely. "A sincere pleasure, I assure you."

             
"Charmed, Inspector," Cecily said. "Are all Scotland Yard inspectors so gallant?"

             
"You catch more flies with honey, miss," Lestrade said. "It always pays to be polite, and it costs you nothing. Or so I tell my men."

             
"And here I thought it was me," Cecily said, pouting, "and I find, instead, that it's regulation."

             
"Well, um, miss," Lestrade said, caught in the realization that his tact was not up to his manners, "I can assure you that in your case it is a pleasure to follow the regulations."

             
"Neat recovery, Inspector," Barnett said, smiling.

             
"Um," Lestrade said. "And what can I do for you? No problems, I hope?"

             
"Nothing for the police, Inspector," Barnett said. "No, we've come here on business, but it's our business rather than yours.
"

             
"
Ah! And how is that?"

             
"We are planning an article, or a series of articles, on the murders you've been having here in London," Cecily said.

             
"Now that covers a lot of territory, miss," Lestrade said. "There've been a great many murders here in London during the twenty-six years I've been on the force."

             
"We had the recent ones in mind," Barnett said. "Lord Walbine—"

             
"Him!" Lestrade said. "Come, sit down. Just push the papers off that chair, Mr. Barnett. I'll have someone come along and file them. Should have done it weeks ago. The department is nothing but a maze of paperwork. It's a wonder that any of us ever get any work done, what with all the papers we have to fill out every time we take a step."

             
Cecily perched daintily on the edge of the old wooden chair that Lestrade thrust toward her. Barnett dropped into an ancient chair with a bentwood back, after taking Lestrade's advice and pushing the papers onto the floor. The chair creaked alarmingly, but it held.

             
"Now then," Lestrade said. "What do you want to know about Lord Walbine's murder? It
is
a puzzler, that I'll admit."

             
"And George Venn," Cecily said, "and Isadore Stanhope, the barrister."

             
"Well now," Lestrade said, "interestingly enough we think we have just solved the Venn and Stanhope murders.
"

             
"
Is that right?" Barnett asked.

             
"It is," Lestrade said, looking exceedingly smug. "And, as it happens, arrests are expected momentarily in those cases."

             
"Congratulations are in order then, are they, Inspector?" Barnett asked. "You have solved a difficult case and brought a dangerous killer to justice. Who was the killer, then, and what was his motive?"

             
"Well," Lestrade said, glancing at the door, "this is confidential for the moment. The orders have gone out to arrest the culprits, but until I am sure they have been apprehended I would not want the news to appear in the press."

             
"You have our word, Inspector," Barnett said.

             
"Did you say
culprits?"
Cecily asked. "There was more than one person involved in the murders?"

             
"That there was," Lestrade agreed. "Each of the two murdered gentlemen was done in by his own butler!"

             
"The butler did it?" Barnett asked.

             
"Incredible, isn't it? But there's no telling to what lengths greed or fear will drive some people."

             
"What
was
their motive?" Cecily asked. "It was greed, wasn't it? They were each systematically stealing from their respective employer, and were about to be caught red-handed."

             
"Well, miss, we haven't found any indication—"

             
"Fear, then! They were both members of a secret society of anarchists, and their evil captain had ordered them to kill their masters under pain of some horrible mutilation or death."

             
"We have given that theory some thought, miss," Lestrade said seriously.

             
"You have?" Barnett sounded surprised.

             
"Yes, sir. You see, there was a mysterious bit of newspaper in Lord Walbine's waistcoat pocket when he was killed."

             
"How fascinating!" Barnett said. "Was it a clipping from a London paper?"

             
"It was, we believe, from the
Morning Chronicle
classified section. What they call the agony column. But it wasn't exactly a clipping—more of a ripping," Lestrade said.