Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels) (27 page)

REMINISCENT OF THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

Could these indignities signal a return of the infamous Jack the Ripper, whose outrages in the Whitechapel district two years ago (continued on p. 7)

*   *   *

“Help yourself to the kippers,” His Grace Albert John Wythender Ardbaum Ramson, sixteenth Duke of Shorham, told Clarence Anton Montgrief, fifth Earl of Scully and hereditary holder of the baronetcies of Reith and Glendower, with a gesture toward the serving tray on the sideboard. “They’re tasty, very tasty.” He then waved a hand at the butler. “Horrock, fix His Lordship a plate.”

“I can’t eat,” said His Lordship, clasping his two hands firmly over the third button of his waistcoat and shaking his head. “I seem to have a delicate tummy these days. Anything I put in it goes around twice and then comes up again.”

“Rum go,” said His Grace. “What you need is some good strong curry. I’ll have my man fix you up a bowl of
Bharleli wang.
It’ll do wonders for the touchy tum.”

Lord Montgrief’s face turned an interesting shade of pink at the thought. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Thanks anyway.” He got up, clutching the chair firmly, as Professor Moriarty entered the room a few steps ahead of Mycroft Holmes and Sir Anthony Darryl. “Ah, there you are,” he said. “I presume you have something to tell us.”

They were in the breakfast room of the duke’s new London domicile, erected a scant twenty years before, shortly after Chimbraunghtenly (pronounced “Chimley”) House, the duke’s four-hundred-year-old ancestral residence in the city—where Queen Elizabeth had dined, where, legend had it, Charles I went to hide from the Long Parliament in an attempt to flee to the Continent—was razed to make way for several hundred very profitable rental homes.

“Perhaps you’d better leave us now, Horrock,” said His Grace, with another wave of his hand, “and shut the door behind you. We are not to be disturbed until I ring.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” murmured Horrock, backing out of the room and closing the door.

Moriarty paused in the doorway to adjust his pince-nez and then continued into the room. Mycroft strode over to a soft chair by the sideboard and settled down, and Sir Anthony found a straight-back chair in a corner of the room and proceeded to be unobtrusive.

“Things are pulling together,” Moriarty said. “I have word from Mr. Barnett, the journalist who has gone to Paris on our behalf, that a man answering the description of our unknown assailant was active in Paris about two years ago. He was known locally as ‘the Belleville Slicer.’”

“And we heard nothing of him over here?” asked the earl.

“We were preoccupied with our own slicer at the time,” Moriarty reminded him. “Besides, we don’t pay much attention to news from France unless it concerns an Englishman or a war. And they, I should note, return the favor. We regard the French as being slightly foolish, and they regard us as being awfully stuffy.”

The earl plumped back into his chair and sniffed. “Stuffy?” he said. “Well, really!”

“Tell us,” said the Duke of Shoreham, “about this slicer fellow.”

Moriarty nodded. “The Belleville Slicer, who turned out to be a gentleman named George Bonfils d’Eny, was apprehended a bit over two years ago, after killing several young women and, apparently, young boys. Mr. Holmes’s brother, Sherlock, has returned from whatever distant bourn he had been investigating and has been of some assistance to us in Paris. It was through a connection of his that this information was garnered.”

Mycroft, who had been carefully pouring a bottle of stout into a suitable glass, looked up and added, “My brother and Moriarty’s journalist friend Mr. Barnett have uncovered what may well be the genesis of this plot,” he said. “It has the sort of convoluted logic of a bevy of madmen, but is nonetheless dangerous for that.”

“And the Thingummy Slicer?” asked the duke.

Mycroft waved the glass at Moriarty, who took up the story. “Monsieur Bonfils d’Eny was found to be insane and was confined to the asylum of St. Anne outside Paris, where, some six months ago, he is said to have died. Sherlock Holmes and my associate Mummer Tolliver went to St. Anne to ask about d’Eny and were shown where he was buried in the small cemetery just outside the rear gates. There is a discreet tombstone marking the spot.”

“But if he died—” began the duke.

Moriarty held up his hand. “I am of the opinion that the reports of his death are greatly exaggerated, as Mr. Twain once said, and probably specious.”

“You mean he didn’t die?” asked the Duke. “But if there’s a gravestone…”

“Ah!” said Moriarty. “That’s the thing, that tombstone. I direct your attention to that tombstone. St. Anne has been caring for the criminally bewildered for some two hundred years, and many of its residents have died there—with, according to Holmes and Tolliver, nary a stone to mark the spot. If some relation did not care to claim the deceased for private burial, then he was removed to an unmarked pauper’s grave in Montparnasse Cemetery under an ancient grant from the city.”

The duke put a finger to his nose and rubbed it thoughtfully. After a few moments he asked, “So?”

“So when something quite unusual happens, there may well be a quite unusual reason for it,” said Moriarty. “A stone has been erected for Monsieur d’Eny in a cemetery currently reserved for the deceased members of the Order of Le Sacristie de l’Agneau de Dieu, which has run the place for the last score of years. Among some much older graves, there are a dozen or so holding defunct members of the order, and the one for Monsieur d’Eny. It would seem that someone wants to be able to point to the stone and say, ‘See, he’s deceased. There he lies.’ Which might make a curious mind consider the fact that he might not, after all, be as deceased as all that.”

“You’re saying he might be our madman?” asked the earl.

“He fits the description,” said Mycroft. “Not only his physical appearance but in the manner of his assaults. I would say there’s little doubt that d’Eny is very much alive, and is our substitute prince.”

“So now we know who,” said His Grace the Duke of Shorham, who was pacing furiously back and forth along one side of the great table that took up the center of the room. “All that remains to be discovered is what, where, when, and for the love of God
why
! What have the French, or at least the Order of Le Sacristie de l’Agneau de Dieu, against us that they should devise such a heinous plot?”

The earl stared briefly at His Grace the duke and then turned to Moriarty. “Just who, or what, is the Order of the Sacristy of the Lamb of God?” he asked.

“I can give you some information on that,” Mycroft interjected. “The Most Secret Service has been keeping an eye on them for the past few years.”

“We have a Most Secret Service?” asked the duke. “I didn’t know.”

“Hence the name,” said Mycroft. “The existence of the service is known to only a few highly placed officials in the Foreign Office and Scotland Yard and the prime minister.”

“And yourself,” said the duke.

“Of course,” Mycroft acknowledged. “It was at my instigation that it came into being some years ago. Several ministers considered it unsporting, but when I showed them what other governments were doing here in Britain, they came around. As a matter of fact that young man”—he waved a large hand in the direction of Sir Anthony—“is one of our best agents. Completed a delicate task for us in Tangiers two or three months ago.” He gave a slight laugh. “And as a reward he’s been dragged into this mess.”

“Wherever I’m needed, Mr. Holmes,” Sir Anthony said from the corner.

The duke settled back into his chair and took a deep breath, and then another. “Tell us about the Sacristy, Mr. Holmes,” he said.

“As far as we have been able to determine,” said Mycroft, “although the Sacristy has the trappings and accouterments of an ancient order, it dates back no more than forty or fifty years. It began as a religious order of flagellants who spent their time mortifying the flesh and planting turnips and kale. About twenty years ago it would appear to have been taken over by a small group of army officers who resigned their commissions after the Franco-Prussian War. How they managed the takeover is unknown. It would seem, however, that the parting from the army was less than it appeared. The Sacristy’s continuing deep connections with the upper echelon of the army, and especially the general staff, have been noted by our people. Some high-ranking staff officers have been known to take leaves of absence to spend time in contemplative cogitation with the Sacristy and then return to active duty. The Sacristy’s stated aim, according to our informant, is to ‘regain the honor of France.’”

“Along, I suppose, with those parts of Alsace and Lorraine that were ceded to the Prussians in the peace treaty,” observed the duke. “Honor is flexible, land is eternal.”

“I, also, would suppose that,” agreed Mycroft. “It would seem that, under the guise of being a religious order, the Sacristy has become a cabal dedicated to starting another war with Prussia, and presumably winning it this time. Although whether they can succeed with this mission is doubtful. French military doctrine still stresses that ‘elan’ will carry any battle.”

“If their object is to start a new war with Germany, then what on earth are they doing
here
?” demanded the duke.

“Yes,” agreed the earl. “Why are they doing this, and how can we stop them?”

“As to motive, I am baffled,” admitted Mycroft. “It makes no sense to me that anyone could consider these killings as working toward his benefit, or the fulfillment of any end that isn’t totally insane. Although killing in the name of God is an ancient sport, evil purely for the sake of evil is usually the province of the more sensational of the penny dreadfuls.” He turned toward Moriarty. “What say you, Professor?”

Moriarty removed his pince-nez, polished the lenses thoughtfully with a square of flannel from his waistcoat pocket, and replaced it on his nose. “I’m afraid, Mr. Holmes, that you may be too far into the trees to see the shape of the woods,” he said. “You have the most perceptive and consistently logical mind of anyone I know—”

“There is my brother,” suggested Mycroft.

Moriarty sighed. “Yes, there is Sherlock,” he agreed. “To continue; as you’ve suggested, the revelation of these monstrous acts, with the presumption on the part of the public that HRH is the perpetrator, might well have the effect of destabilizing the government and perhaps even bringing down the monarchy, or at least its present, ah, occupiers.”

“We’ve been discussing that,” said the duke, “at the highest levels. We believe that we could weather the resulting storm, but it would be a damnable nuisance. Damnable.”

“Perhaps,” Moriarty suggested, “that
is
the object.”

The Earl of Scully, who had been slumped over in his chair, sat straight up in his chair. “What?” asked the earl. “What?”

“It might be prudent,” Moriarty suggested, “to consider the probable result as the intended result. Perhaps the Sacristy wishes—intends—to destabilize the British government, threaten the monarchy, and throw the country into chaos. Perhaps it’s not an incidental consequence, but the only purpose of this ghastly charade.”

“Again,” said the earl, “I ask you; whatever for?”

“I have one possibility to suggest,” said Moriarty. “It is a hypothesis, nothing more, but—”

“Let’s hear it, man!” urged the duke.

“Hypothesize away,” agreed the earl.

“Let me present the facts—the broader facts, if you will—as we know them,” Moriarty began. “The Sacristy, as Mr. Holmes has said, is basically a cabal of army officers intent on restoring the honor of France, as they would have it.”

“Just so,” said Mycroft.

“Which we can interpret to mean avenging the Franco-Prussian War, or as the French call it, the War of 1870. Rectifying the results; reclaiming what was lost.”

“The Prussians gave them a smacking that time,” said the duke. “No question of that.”

“Let us assume that Mr. Holmes is right, and that the Sacristy is preparing to return the favor—and sometime soon.”

“How would they manage that?” asked the duke. “The French people are not in the mood for another war. They’re not quite over the horrors of the last one—and its aftermath—yet. The siege of Paris, the communes. Horrors quite as bad as anything in the French Revolution itself.”

Mycroft harrumphed. “People have short memories for the horror of war and long memories for the insult of defeat,” he said, puffing out his cheeks and then letting the air out through pursed lips. “A pretext can be arranged. It wouldn’t be the first time that a cross-border ‘outrage’ of some sort provoked a war. As a matter of fact…” His voice trailed off. “The general staff of the French army is looking for something to take the people’s minds off last year’s Boulanger affair,” he went on after a few meditative breaths, “and there’s nothing like a good war to rally the rabble.”

“It would be incredibly stupid,” the Duke of Shorham said thoughtfully, “but it wouldn’t be the first time for that either. Or the last, I’m sure. Most wars are incredibly stupid. But”—he turned to Moriarty—“what has that to do with us?”

“I think the Sacristy wants to make sure that you—that Britain—will stay out of the war once it begins.”

“Why on earth,” asked the duke, “would we get into such a mess?”

“I doubt that we would,” Moriarty agreed, “but the French don’t know that.”

The duke turned to Mycroft. “What do you think, Mr. Holmes? It seems a bit thin to me.”

Mycroft stared thoughtfully into space for a long moment before replying. “I think I’ll have a kipper,” he said, pushing himself to his feet and turning to the sideboard. After some consideration he filled his plate with a kipper, several rashers of bacon, two sausages, some buttered parsnips, and a muffin. Then he returned to his chair and raised his fork. “The professor may well be right,” he said, stabbing the air in Moriarty’s general direction with the utensil before returning it to its intended use. “Less than a hundred years ago we were at war with France, and since then there have been a number of misunderstandings.”