The Return of Moriarty (44 page)

“And the wages wouldn't be what you'd be getting in the docks.”

“We know, but there's perks, isn't there?” Fanny piped up.

Reeves laughed. “There's perks, yes. A cottage, vegetables in the spring and summer. It's not as bad as it was, not since the Prince of Wales set about improving the position of his tenants down in Norfolk; and I suppose the wages are better here than further out. You'd bring in about thirty shillings or two pounds between you.”

Paget's heart sank. He knew people had to manage on this, and less, in the poverty-stricken East End, but he wondered how he would fare if it were really his intention to take a job on the estate.

“Well, you look strong enough.” Reeves leaned over and felt the tight muscles of Paget's arms. “Long hours, hard work doing the outside jobs around the house, and helping the farm workers in summer. And you,” he turned to Fanny, “would be peeling veg and washing up. At least until he got you with child—then you'd be no good to Sir Dudley. I don't know. What do you think, Mr. Burroughs?” He called to the elderly man sitting with his wife.

“Looks healthy, broad and tall enough.” Burroughs took his pipe from his mouth. “Could do with a strong one instead of those whippety lads we've had in the past.”

Mrs. Burroughs smiled. “Come and talk to me, my dear.” She patted the bench beside her, motioning to Fanny, who, after looking questioningly at Paget, went over and began to talk quietly with the woman.

“Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs,” explained Mace, nodding in the couple's direction. “They're really sort of caretakers, kept on out of Sir Dudley's kindness. They live up at the hall when the master and mistress are away, and there's no servants about. Look after the place. Mrs. Burroughs helps Cook when there's entertaining, and the old boy sometimes assists the butler. They're both up there at the hall now. The servants are all off, but for two of the young footmen, while the master and mistress are away.”

“They're not back yet, then?” asked Paget, trying to sound disappointed.

“Not for another couple of days. But I said they wouldn't return till after the twentieth.”

“Yes. Yes, you did. But, well, we thought we'd come over just in case.”

“You mean you'd like the job?” from Reeves.

Paget lowered his voice. “It's the missus,” he confided. “Downright unhappy where we are. Doesn't like it at all, and I'm anxious to get her out.”

Reeves was silent for a while, looking hard at him.

“Well, I can't make promises. In the long run it'll be up to Sir Dudley, but you might as well come over and see the cottage. There's plenty who would be glad of it, but, well, you seem a good enough couple, and if we don't find you suitable there's only a week's notice and out you'd go, bag and baggage.”

Paget nodded uneasily. He had the information he required and was not anxious to stay overlong, but it was necessary for him to spin it out now. He looked over at Fanny, who was in animated converse with the Burroughses.

“What do you think, Mrs. Burroughs?” asked Reeves.

The elderly woman smiled. “She'd do real well, Mr. Reeves. Real well, I've no doubt.”

Reeves gave a small sigh of doubt as though he still needed convincing. “Well, I'll take you up to the cottage if you like.”

“Oh, please,” chirped Fanny; and Paget again experienced the sinking feeling.

His bride's face was lit with a happiness which even surpassed that which he had already seen in their moments of ardour.

The cottage was tiny. One room and a scullery downstairs, a wooden door opening up to a small and narrow cramped stairway leading to the one upstairs room. But it was clean and in good repair and there was a small plot of garden at the back.

“It's all so clean and fresh,” laughed Fanny. “Oh, Pip, we could be so happy here, don't you think?”

“Now, easy, Mrs. Jones.” Reeves held up his hand. “I cannot give you the job until after Sir Dudley returns, but you will be first on the list, I can promise you that.”

“Oh, sir, we'd be so grateful. I love it already.”

They walked back to The Bird in the Hand and took some bread and cheese and another glass or two before setting out to walk back to Harrow.

“I meant it, Pip,” said Fanny quietly after they had cleared the knot of houses. “I really meant it.”

“I could see that.” Paget sensed despair within himself, for he had also seen the vision of the pair of them, working and living in this place: a new and different life, hard but without the constant strain or the fear of discovery and arrest.

“You'd better put it out of your mind though, Fan. It'd never do.”

“But, Pip, if we could. I know it would be hard, but my mother used to say that the harder life was the more rewarding.”

“She didn't have to live in a couple of filthy rooms though, did she?”

“The cottage isn't filthy. It's clean and I'd keep it like a new pin.”

“I wasn't talking of the cottage. I meant where I grew up.”

“Was it that terrible?” Her hand rested on his arm, eyes shining up at him.

“No worse than many who've worked for the Professor. But I'd wager your mother never had to get out of a night to chase the rats from gnawing at her brothers and sisters.”

They remained silent from then on as they walked toward the station, wrapped in their own private thoughts—Paget in a kind of despondency, for he knew beyond doubt that there was little hope of escape from the Professor. Had he not saved Moriarty's life but a few days ago? And had not the Professor saved his, in a manner of speaking? Yet you did not leave the Professor's employ alive. In some ways it was like being in prison. He remained in this state of gloom for the remainder of the evening.

Fisher and Bert Jacobs came off the railway train at eight o'clock, and they all went over to the nearest inn to talk.

Paget told them that apart from two young footmen and Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs, Beeches Hall was empty.

“It'll be a soft crack then.” Fisher smiled. “Just like I told the gaffer it would be.”

“Which way shall you go in?” asked Paget.

“Gay'll go in through the back and open the front door to us, like we had been invited.”

“And you'll silence the footmen and the old people?”

“Tie 'em up and dump 'em in the cellar. Soft as butter. You can tell the Professor we'll be back in good time, provided the others get down here without trouble.”

Still in the black mood, Fanny and Paget rode back to London, returning to the warehouse before ten o'clock.

Fanny went straight to the kitchen to get food for them, and, going up to their quarters, Paget met Ember dressed in his greatcoat, which flapped around his ankles.

“Have you seen him yet?” asked Ember.

“The Professor?”

“Who else?”

“No.”

“There's been some pigs nosing about, asking questions. I don't like it but he doesn't seem to bother. Cold as bloody ice, our Professor.”

Dr. Night had an early performance on the Saturday, but Moriarty was still able to spend two hours with him after luncheon. He then returned to the warehouse and, locking his door behind him, sat for a further two hours before the mirror with his disguise material. He cleaned his face several times during that period, reapplying the paint and false hair again and again until he was finally satisfied with the result. Being roughly the same build as Dr. Night helped, and Moriarty reckoned that as long as the magician's mother did not turn up, he would be able to deceive most people.

At about seven o'clock Bridget brought him a supper of cold meats, pickles and ale. He ate it in a distracted manner, his head still buzzing with his plot and its execution.

Parker arrived at eight, in some agitation.

“They're everywhere, Professor,” he gasped.

“Who?” Moriarty well alert now.

“The coppers. All round the area: detectives, pigs. They don't think my lads are on to them, but they're in the public houses, all round and about, asking questions. Asking about you.”

Moriarty felt his neck go cold, the short hairs rising.

“You're sure of this?”

“Certain. I've seen a pair of them myself. It's the questions I'm not happy about.”

Moriarty turned down the corners of his mouth sourly. “What kind of answers are they getting?”

“None. You know that, Professor. There's nobody around here would blow on you.”

“Kate Wright blew to Green. There could still be some of his cronies.…”

“Not a chance. They know what happened before.”

Moriarty thought for a moment or two. “Keep your eyes and ears open then, and let me know of any developments.”

Parker's lurkers had proved their worth during the week. They had let him down by allowing Green and Butler to creep into the warehouse during Paget's wedding, but since then their information had been exact. Moriarty had known for the past two days that Crow had pigs out in the streets, though this was the first time they had penetrated as near as this.

The Professor had been putting off the decision for too long. It was unlikely Crow's men would get to him for a while yet, but within the week he would have to get his closest people out to Berkshire. He would, himself, probably be required to move further afield for a while. But he had already proved that the organization could remain intact without his physical presence. Paget would see to things and Spear would soon be himself again.

He would talk to his most trusted lieutenant when he returned, and then, tomorrow, set full plans in motion for the move.

Paget came to him soon after ten with the news that the Harrow business was proceeding as arranged.

“I saw Ember on his way out,” said Paget. “The coppers are sniffing, it seems.”

“Let them sniff away.” There was disdain in Moriarty's voice. “Let them sniff till snot blinds them. We'll talk tomorrow. If I think it necessary, then we'll all move down to the Berkshire house. They won't find us there, Paget, and we can return when things get tranquil again. I'll discuss it with Fanny and yourself in the morning.”

None of this in any way quietened Paget's heart or mind. He was confused enough already, and now there was something new in the air, a brooding, however indifferent the Professor might appear to be. Paget had been told about Inspector Crow, and he sensed his master's concern. This uneasiness was to grow worse before the night was through.

Fanny, tired from her day in the unaccustomed open air, fell to sleep quickly, but Paget tossed and turned, restless as the hours wore on.

Finally he dozed off, only to wake with a start, imagining he had heard something moving. Fanny's soft breathing was all that came to his ears; then, far off in the warehouse, there were other sounds.

Softly he slipped from the blankets, striking a match to look at his watch. It was almost five in the morning. He pulled on his trousers and a shirt, slid his feet into his boots, picked up his old revolver, which was now always kept loaded by the bed, and went out into the passage.

At the top of the spiral staircase he stopped to listen again. There were voices, coming, it seemed, from the “waiting room.” Quietly he moved down the iron stairs and along the ground-floor passage until he arrived at the kitchens. The voices were loud now—Fisher and Gay, he recognized, then Bert Jacobs, and lastly, Moriarty.

“Well, the stuff's good enough. You'd better get everything away,” he heard Moriarty say. “Bert, you take the paintings as I told you. They have to be off on the morning tide and you've not got long.”

“Right, and I'm sorry about the old folk, Professor.”

“There was little else you could do. People have to be sacrificed. Off you go.”

Paget could hear Bert Jacobs' boots clumping out and across the warehouse floor.

“What really happened?” he heard Moriarty ask.

“Just as he said,” Fisher replied.

“Exactly.” Paget thought that was Clark's voice.

“We got in all right,” Fisher continued. “The footmen were no trouble at all. Cooperative, you might say.”

“They knew what was good for them.” Gay.

“Then we were going upstairs to do the safe, and the old boy and his missus came out screaming fit to wake the dead. Bert hit the old man and he went down the stairs. Then the woman went for him with a poker. She was shouting for help and the like. He took her by the throat to make her shut up. I don't think he meant more than that.”

“You left them where they lay?” Moriarty asked.

“Where else? We didn't want to hang around.”

Paget had heard enough. The Burroughses were dead done for, and he did not fancy either Fanny's chances or his own, if the coppers got onto them now. They were bound to be questioned once Reeves or Mace had been seen by the police—and it would be a Criminal Investigation Department job. Scotland Yard.

As he went back to his quarters Paget felt his mind leaping in a hundred different directions. The Harrow crack had been done, but botched with killing. Coppers were nosing around the East End—and the West no doubt—asking questions and bandying the Professor's name about. It was, Paget reasoned, only a matter of time. True they would probably get clear away into the country: to the Berkshire place. It was nice there and Fanny would like it, but it was only a matter of time also before Fanny would hear about Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs and how would she take that? Paget knew exactly how. Fanny had been in a state after the killings on their wedding night. This could well prove too much for her. And too much for him also? He wondered. Maybe they should take their chance now. He had served the Professor well and there was no need to blow the whole gaff. He wanted Fanny. He wanted her happiness, and that was worth the risk.

Once inside the room, Paget lit the lamp. They would have to move quickly, for the sky outside was already starting to lighten. He shook Fanny gently.