Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels) (13 page)

The professor began with a slow and careful examination of the bed and the pools of dried and caked blood on the sheets and blanket. Then he transferred his gaze to the carpet by the bed, studying each fall of blood at length, as though, thought Epp, who stayed by the wall under the light, he were attempting to read from it the story of what had transpired that fatal evening.

Epp didn’t hold with that sort of mumbo-jumbo. It was a waste of time that could be better used interviewing suspects, perhaps with the aid of a little friendly persuasion, in the back room of some convenient station house. The American police had developed that sort of back-room persuasion into a science, Epp had heard. However, Epp had been ordered to stay with Moriarty and let the professor do what the professor would do.

Moriarty paused to light a double-globe paraffin lamp from the bedside table, turned its wick up until it burned as brightly as it would without smoking, and then removed his pince-nez glasses and took a monocle from his vest pocket, which he settled firmly against his right eye. Holding the lamp over his head, he spent some time inspecting the wardrobe where the girl Pamela had evidently been hiding, and then he knelt on the carpet and began a minute examination of the floor, peering into corners and beneath the few articles of furniture.

“I’m afraid the most suggestive features are obscured,” he said. “There have been many people in here since the event. Policemen—there’s the unmistakable mark of a gum rubber sole. I noticed the tread of the mortuary cart outside the door, but I see they didn’t bring it in. That’s helpful. Yes, here are the footsteps of the mortuary attendant and his helper. Small feet, must have been a lad. I imagine he had something to tell them back at home that evening.”

Epp grunted. “You can see all that?” he asked with a faint sneer.

Moriarty looked up. “You doubt me?” he asked mildly.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Epp said. “Let’s say I’m withholding judgment, but I don’t see how any of this—even if you can tell one footstep from another—gets us any for’rader with our, ah, problem.”

“Oh, I can tell a lot more than that,” Moriarty said, “and I do believe that some of it will be helpful.” He put the lamp down by the side of the bed and pointed at the floor. “What do you see?”

“Blood,” said Epp.

“Go on,” said Moriarty.

Epp squinted at the floor. “Blood,” he said again. “Dried blood.”

Moriarty stood up, holding the lamp at waist level, and pointed down at the blood-soaked coverlet on the bed. “And?” He urged.

“And more blood,” said Epp, his voice showing his impatience with the questions.

“What of the absence of blood in this space?” Moriarty indicated an elongated area on the bed that was largely blood-free. “How do you account for the void?”

“Yes, there’s little blood in that space,” Epp admitted. “I would say that it has somehow avoided the blood.”

“And on the floor?” Moriarty moved the lamp to reilluminate the carpet.

“Nothing but blood—and a bit of bare carpet where there isn’t no blood.”

“Exactly!” Moriarty said. “How come, do you suppose, that there ‘isn’t no’ blood in those spots?”

Epp contrived to look as though he were puzzling it out, although in truth the question made no sense to him. “There isn’t no blood there,” he said finally, “because it happened that no blood fell at that there spot.” He smiled. “I admit to not being wise in the mysterious ways of blood.”

“A pity,” Moriarty said. “You could do your job so much better if you were.”

“Say, now—” Epp began.

“Imagine, if you will,” Moriarty said, pointing first to the coverlet and then to the floor next to the bed, “the event that caused the blood to splatter thus.”

“I’d rather not,” Epp offered.

“It appears that a knife was thrust into the body”—Moriarty made a thrusting motion, and Epp grimaced—“and rapidly withdrawn—many times. Thirty-seven separate stab wounds, I believe the coroner’s report said.”

“I see no need to dwell on such things,” said Epp. “Aside from establishing the fact that the killer was a homicidal maniac, which we already know, where does it get us?
Quidam
.”

Moriarty carefully replaced the lamp onto its spot on the table. “Everything follows from something, Mr. Epp,” he said. “If you know the end result of any action or process, it should be possible to hypothesize the beginning and even, quite possibly, what set it into motion. If we plot the course of the planet Jupiter we can tell not only where it will be ten years from now but where it was ten thousand years ago.”

“What has the planet Jupiter to do with this?” asked Epp. “You saying this was some sort of astro-logical crime?”

Moriarty smiled. “Thus, if we examine these stains,” he continued, “we can arrive at certain conclusions as to how they were created.”

“She was stabbed,” Epp reiterated stubbornly.

“With considerable force,” Moriarty agreed. “Some thirty-seven times. By a man who stood”—Moriarty carefully placed his feet in two blood-free gaps in the carpet by the bed—“here.”

Epp examined Moriarty’s pose and the blood surrounding him. “Possible,” he admitted. “Those two clear spots could be where he stood, but then how came the blood splatter behind him?”

The professor took his pince-nez glasses from his pocket and held them in his closed fist like a dagger. “When he raised the blade after each stab”—Moriarty stabbed the coverlet with the pince-nez several times, throwing his hand up each time only to bring it down with greater force—“the blood sprayed from the blade, spotting everyplace except where he was standing. Look up at the ceiling and you’ll see what I mean.”

Epp stared for a long moment at the blood-splattered ceiling and nodded. “Ah!” he said. “So?”

“One other place remained clear,” Moriarty went on, pointing with the pince-nez at the blood-free space on the coverlet.

“Where the girl lay.” Epp nodded again. “Where the man stood and where the girl lay. Two voids.
Ipso facto.
”

“That,” Moriarty said, pointing across the bed to a different area where the blood was pooled and smeared thick and deep and free of splashing, “is where she lay. The blood gathered around and under her as she died.”

Epp stared at the spot. “I could have happily lived into my dotage without knowing that. Or,” he added, “seeing what difference it makes.”

“The void at this spot,” Moriarty said, shifting his attention back to the blood-free space on the near side of the bed, “was caused by another person, or possibly object, lying there while the girl was stabbed.”

“Object?”

“I merely allow for all possibilities,” Moriarty told him. “My guess is that it was a person—your missing prince, no doubt.”

“So His Roya—er, Baron Renfrew didn’t stab the girl himself?”

“So it would seem.”

“Yet he just lay there while she was stabbed—repeatedly?”

Moriarty nodded. “Then mutilated, which certainly took some little time. I would assume that the baron was rendered unconscious first, else he would not have lain so still.”

Epp nodded. “Interesting,” he said, “and—I admit it—useful. Although I didn’t for a moment believe that the, ah, baron could be guilty of such a monstrous act, it is good to have some sort of outside corroboration.”

“This was a crime of some audacity,” Moriarty said, “and I would judge that there was more than one man involved.”

Epp stared down at the clotted blood, trying to see what Moriarty saw and understand how he saw it. “More than one man?”

“Clearly.”

“How can you tell that?” he asked.

“That’s not important,” Moriarty said. “What matters is what it tells us—what it means.”

“Still—” Epp began.

Moriarty took a small square of flannel from his pocket and polished his pince-nez glasses. “Re-create in you mind,” he said, “the events that must have transpired here. The prince’s guardian, Mr., ah—”

“You mean Fetch?”

“Fetch. Who was knocked out as he stood guard outside the door. Then he was dragged inside and thrust under the bed. Surely no matter how, ah, lustily the prince was engaged in whatever he was engaged in, he would have paused at such an intrusion—and, no doubt, attempted to do something about it. Which would have involved leaping from the bed.”

Epp pondered, looking from the door to the bed and back. “You’re saying as how one man couldn’t have done it? Surely he could—with a little luck.”

“Ah!” Moriarty said, “but he couldn’t have counted on that luck. This was not a sudden inspiration but a carefully plotted scheme. The means for spiriting His Highness away would have to have been in place before the crime. That in itself implies more than one man.”

I see,” said Epp. “An
iunctis viribus,
as it were.”

Moriarty turned around and stared at the little man. “Where,” he asked finally, “did you learn your Latin?”

Epp beamed. “Noticed that, did you? I picked it up all on my own. Been studying it for some time now.”

“That would explain it,” Moriarty agreed.

“I carry a phrase book about with me at all times.” Epp pulled a well-creased buckram-bound volume from his rear pocket:
Dr. Mortimer Philpott’s Book of Latin Phrases and Sentiments.
“It is the mark of the educated man,” he said. “I would like to raise the standards of the police force by requiring everyone from the rank of sergeant to study Latin, thus enabling them to make appropriate remarks when the occasion warrants.
Mutatis mutandis,
you might say.”

“You might,” Moriarty acknowledged.

“The educational and intellectual standards of this country must be raised, regardless of social standing,” Epp espoused. “In lieu of a public school education, one can learn Latin and play cricket.”

“And do you? Play cricket, that is?” Moriarty asked.

Epp nodded. “I have a bat and the leg guards and the gloves and everything.”

Moriarty stared at him for a moment and then changed the subject. “Let us leave this room and go next door,” he said. “I would like to talk to that girl, Pamela, now.”

“Whatever for?” Epp asked.

“One never knows,” Moriarty told him. “Public school teaches you that.”

[CHAPTER ELEVEN]

PAMELA’S STORY

A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems,

a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia, and so on.

A criminal produces crimes …

[and] the whole of the police and of criminal justice,

constables, judges, hangmen, juries, etc.;

and all these different lines of business,

which form equally many categories

of the social division of labour,

develop different capacities of the human spirit,

create new needs

and new ways of satisfying them.

—KARL MARX

THE ROOM WAS SMALL AND TIDY.
The walls were covered in light blue flocked wallpaper with a scattered pattern of pale yellow English primroses. It was furnished with a bed, a washstand, a plain pine bureau, a small table, and two wicker chairs. Pamela was sitting on one of the chairs in the far corner of the room, rocking ever so slightly back and forth as Moriarty entered, with Epp a step behind. The front legs of the chair rose as she rocked back and then landed with a slight bump as she went forward, a slow and monotonous beat like the thumping of the human heart. The gas mantle on the wall above the bed burned low, and the light spread cautiously about as though it didn’t want to intrude on the shadows.

The girl had stopped sobbing and was staring out through the slightly parted window curtains with no sign of interest in what she saw. Her light brown hair was done up in an untidy bun held together by three red-lacquered Japanese chopsticks thrust through the bun in seemingly random directions. Her plum-colored silk robe was tied high under her small breasts. Her face looked bland and untroubled, so that one might suppose that her red eyes and the occasional tear that ran down her cheek were the result of some mild physical affliction.

“Pamela,” Moriarty said, slowly crossing the room, “may we speak with you?”

She gave no response, no sign that she had heard him or was aware of his presence.

Moriarty stopped in front of her. “Pamela? Heather?” He slipped his pince-nez into his jacket pocket and squatted by her side. “What are you looking at?” he asked.

“Come now, gel,” said Epp sharply, striding across the room with great policeman’s strides and stopping next to the professor, “answer the gentleman’s questions. There’s a good gel.”

Moriarty took the girl’s hand, and she neither resisted nor welcomed his touch. He pressed the back of her hand with his thumb and noted her lack of response. He took the magnifying monocle from his vest pocket and used it to peer closely into each eye. “Her mind is somewhere else,” he said. “Possibly in retreat from confronting whatever it was that she saw. I shall attempt to bring it back. Although perhaps I will not be doing her a kindness.”

Epp watched Moriarty’s antics with resignation. His was not to reason why.

Moriarty took a pocket watch from his waistcoat and held it before the girl’s eyes, letting it dangle from about six inches of chain. “Can you see the watch?” he asked, his voice soothing and gentle. “The silver face is engraved with a representation of the solar system. See this little dot here? This tiny orb represents the planet Earth. Here, I’ll move the watch back and forth, back and forth, like the solar system moving through the vastness of space. Watch it and relax and consider how meaningless and unimportant our life here is: tiny specks on a tiny orb circling a tiny sun—see, that’s the sun in the center—one of thousands, millions, of stars stretching for all of eternity.”

“Cheerful!” muttered Epp.

“I’ve always found that a consideration of the futility of life is most relaxing,” Moriarty said in the same soft voice. “It puts one’s problems in the proper perspective.”

He continued the mesmeric induction for a while, gradually adding the phrases of instruction and command and repeating them over and over in a soft, compelling tone. “Listen to my voice … Ignore all other sounds but my voice … Concentrate on my voice and let it be your guide … You will answer my questions … You will not be afraid…”