Moriarty

‘I saw the boy come into the house. He did not leave.’

‘Sitting there with your peeper, were you? Measuring me? Well, there’s no squeakers here, telegraph or otherwise.’

‘Who resides here?’

‘What’s it to you? Why should I tell you that? I’ve already said. I’m a respectable businessman. You can ask about me at the legation, why don’t you? They’ll vouch for me.’

‘If you do not wish to assist us, Mr Lavelle, we can return here with a warrant and a dozen officers. If you are as you say you are, then you will answer my questions.’

Lavelle yawned and scratched the back of his neck. He was still scowling at us but I could see that he had weighed up his options and knew he had no choice but to give us what we demanded.

‘There are five of us,’ he said. ‘No, six. Myself and my woman, Clayton, the cook, the maid and the kitchen boy.’

‘You said there were no children here.’

‘He’s no child. He’s nineteen. And he’s a ginger.’

‘We would still like to meet him,’ I interposed. ‘Where is he?’

‘Where do you think you’ll find a kitchen boy?’ Lavelle snarled. ‘He’s in the kitchen.’ He tapped the fingers of one hand against the desk, making the jewelled rings dance. ‘I’ll fetch him for you.’

‘We will go to him,’ I said.

‘Want to nosey around, do you? Very well. But after that you can hop the twig. You have no reason to be here, I tell you, and I’ve had enough of the both of you.’

He rose up from behind the desk, the movement reminding me of a swimmer breaking the surface of the sea. As he revealed himself to us, he seemed to shrink in size, with the huge desk looming over him. At the same time, it seemed to me that the lurid colour and tight fit of his suit along with his surfeit of jewellery only diminished him further.

He was already moving to the door. ‘This way!’ he commanded.

Like supplicants who had just been interviewed for a menial position in his household, Jones and I followed. We recrossed the hall and this time we were met by a woman coming down the stairs, a great deal younger than Lavelle and, like him, dressed extravagantly, in her case in swathes of crimson silk that hugged her ample form rather too closely. Her neckline was low enough to have caused a commotion had she walked onto the streets of Boston and her arms were bare. A string of diamonds — real or paste, I could not say — hung around her neck.

‘Who is it, Scotchy?’ she asked. She had a Bronx accent. Even at a distance, I could smell soap and lavender water.

‘It’s no one,’ Lavelle snapped, doubtless annoyed that she had betrayed him by using the name by which he was known to myself and to many law enforcers across America.

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ She had the whining voice of a schoolgirl dragged unwillingly to class. ‘You said we were going out …’

‘Shut the potato trap and give the red rag a holiday.’

‘Scotchy?’

‘Just get upstairs and wait for me, Hen. I’ll tell you when I’m ready for you.’

Pouting, the woman hitched up her skirts, turned and ran up the way she had come.

‘Your wife?’ Jones enquired.

‘My convenience. What’s it to you? I met her in a goosing slum and brought her with me when I travelled. This way …’

He led us across the hall and through a doorway into the kitchen, a cavernous room where three people were busily occupied. Clayton had laid out the silver, which he was polishing, each implement receiving the most careful attention. The ginger-haired kitchen boy, a lanky, pockmarked lad who did not resemble Perry in the least, was sitting in the scullery, peeling vegetables. A rather severe woman with grey hair and an apron was stirring a large pot on the cooking range and the whole room was filled with the smell of curry. Every surface in the kitchen had been scrubbed clean. The floor, black and white tiles, was immaculate. Two large windows and a glass-panelled door looked out into the garden, providing natural light, and yet, even so, I had a sense that this was a gloomy place. As in the rest of the house, the windows were barred, the door locked. It would be easy to believe that these people were being held here against their will.

They stopped what they were doing when we came in. The kitchen boy got to his feet. Lavelle stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders almost touching the frames. ‘These men want to talk to you,’ he muttered, as if no further explanation was required.

‘Thank you, Mr Lavelle,’ I said. ‘And as we know how busy you are, we will not ask you to stay. Clayton can show us out when we are done.’

He wasn’t too pleased about that, but went anyway. Jones said nothing but I could see he was surprised that I had dismissed Lavelle in this manner and it occurred to me that I had behaved, perhaps, a touch impetuously. However, this was my investigation too, and as much as I looked up to Jones, I surely had a right to make my presence felt.

‘My name is Inspector Athelney Jones,’ my companion began. ‘I am making enquiries about a man called Clarence Devereux. Does that name mean anything to you?’

None of them spoke.