Moriarty

‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I’m not sure she was Mrs Lavelle. We just called her “madam” and a right proper madam she was too. Nothing was ever right for her — but she did what Mr Lavelle told her. She never went out unless he said.’

‘There were no visitors?’

‘Two gentlemen used to come from time to time. I didn’t see very much of them. They were tall, well-built with dark hair and one of them with a moustache. Otherwise, they were as alike as peas in a pod. Brothers, for sure.’

‘Leland and Edgar Mortlake,’ I muttered.

‘Did you ever hear of a man called Clarence Devereux?’ Jones asked.

‘No, sir, but there was another man they talked about all the time, not that he ever came here, and when they spoke of him, they did so in a low voice. I heard his name once and I never forgot it.’ The maid paused, twisting her handkerchief in her hands. ‘I was passing the study and Mr Lavelle was talking to Mr Clayton … at least, I think it was he. I couldn’t see and it wasn’t my place to eavesdrop. But they were deep in conversation. And that was when I heard them. “We must always be prepared for Moriarty.” That’s what Mr Lavelle said. I don’t know why it made such an impression on me — only later on, Mr Clayton made a joke of it. “You shouldn’t do that, Mary,” he said to me once, when I left the door open, “or Professor Moriarty will get you.” It’s a horrible name. I sometimes used to think of it when I was trying to get to sleep and it would turn over and over in my head. It seemed the whole house was afraid of this Moriarty, and with good reason, for you can see what’s happened now!’

There was nothing more that Mary Stagg could tell us and, after warning her not to reveal what had taken place to anyone, Athelney Jones sent her home in the company of a constable. The good woman clearly could not wait to get out of the house and I rather doubted she would ever return.

‘Could Moriarty have done this?’ I asked.

‘Moriarty is dead.’

‘He may have had associates, fellow criminals, members of his gang. You saw the way that Lavelle was killed, Inspector Jones. The way I see it, it’s nothing less than a message, written in blood, perhaps sent as a warning.’

Jones thought for a moment. ‘You told me that Moriarty and Devereux planned to meet, to create a criminal association …’

‘That’s right.’

‘But they never did meet. We know that from the coded message that we found in Meiringen. As far as we can tell, they had no business together, so why would one wish to kill the other?’

‘Perhaps Devereux had something to do with what happened at the Reichenbach Falls.’

Jones shook his head wearily. ‘At the moment, nothing makes sense. I need time to reflect and to clear my thoughts. But that will not happen here. For now, we must search the house and see what secrets, if any, the various rooms may reveal.’

And so we set about our grim task — for it was as if we were exploring a catacomb. Each door opened upon another corpse. We started with the kitchen boy, Thomas, who had closed his eyes one last time in a bare, shabby room beside the scullery. The sight of him lying there, still dressed in the clothes he had worn to work, his bare feet resting on the sheet, clearly affected Jones, and I was reminded that he had a child who might only be a few years younger than this young victim. Thomas had been strangled. The rope was still around his neck. Half a dozen steps led down to a basement room where Clayton had lived and died. A carving knife, perhaps taken from the kitchen, had been plunged into his heart and remained there, almost seeming to pin him, like an insect in a laboratory, to the bed. With heavy hearts, we made our way up to the attic room where the cook — we now knew her name to be Mrs Winters — lay scowling in death as she had in life. She too had been strangled.

‘Why did they all have to die?’ I asked. ‘They may have worked for Lavelle but surely they were blameless.’

‘Their assailants could not risk any of them waking up,’ Jones muttered. ‘And with Lavelle dead, they would have had no reason to hold back what they knew. This way, they are prevented from speaking to us.’

‘The boy and the woman were strangled but Clayton was stabbed.’

‘He was the strongest of the three of them, and although he had been drugged, he would have been the most likely to wake up. The killers were taking no chances. With him, they used a knife.’

I turned away. I had already seen enough. ‘Where next?’ I asked.

‘The bedroom.’

The flame-haired woman whom Lavelle had addressed as ‘Hen’ lay sprawling on a goose-feather mattress, wearing a nightdress of pink cambric with ruffles around her neck and sleeves. Death seemed to have aged her ten years. Her left arm was flung out, reaching towards the man who had lain beside her, as if he could still bring her comfort.

‘She has been smothered,’ Jones said.

‘How can you tell?’

‘There are lipstick marks on the pillow. That was the murder weapon. And you can see also the bruising around the nose and mouth, where it was held in place.’