Moriarty

It had been but a short distance from Holborn to Camberwell and yet the journey seemed to have taken us ever further into the night. By the time we arrived, a thick fog was rolling through the streets, deadening the air and turning the last commuters into ghosts. A growler lumbered past. I heard the clatter of the horse’s hooves and the creak of the wheels but the carriage itself was little more than a dark shadow, vanishing around a corner.

Jones lived close to the station. I have to say that his property was very much as I had imagined it might be: a handsome terraced house with bay windows and white stucco pillars in front of a solid, black-painted door. The style was typically English, the effect one of calm and security. Three steps led up from the street and in climbing them I had a strange sense that I was leaving all the perils of the day behind. Perhaps it was the warm glow of light that I could discern, leaking through the edges of the curtained windows. Or maybe it was the smell of meat and vegetables that wafted up from the kitchen somewhere below. But I was already glad to be here. We entered a narrow hallway with a carpeted staircase opposite and Jones led me through a doorway and into the front room. In fact the room ran the full length of the house, with a folding screen pulled back to reveal a dining table set for three at the front, a library and a piano at the back. There was a fire burning in the hearth but it was hardly needed. With the abundant furniture, the embroidered boxes and baskets, the dark red wallpaper and the heavy curtains, the room was already cosy enough.

Mrs Jones was sitting in a plush armchair with a strikingly pretty six-year-old girl leaning against her, the policeman puppet dangling over her arm. Her mother had been reading to her but as we came in she closed the book and the little girl turned, delighted to see us. She had none of her father’s looks. With her light brown hair, tumbling in ringlets, her bright green eyes and smile, she was much more her mother’s daughter, for Elspeth Jones clearly reflected her across the years.

‘Not in bed yet, Beatrice?’ Jones asked.

‘No, Papa. Mama said I could stay up.’

‘Well, this is the gentleman I imagine you wish to meet; my friend, Mr Frederick Chase.’

‘Good evening, sir,’ the girl said. She showed me the doll. ‘This came from Paris. My papa gave him to me.’

‘He seems a fine fellow,’ I said. I always felt uncomfortable around children and tried not to show it.

‘I have never met an American before.’

‘I hope you will not find me very different from yourself. It was not so many years ago that my ancestors left this country. My great-grandfather came from London. A place called Bow.’

‘Is New York very loud?’

‘Loud?’ I smiled. It was such an odd choice of word. ‘Well, it’s certainly very busy. And the buildings are very tall. Some of them are so tall that we call them skyscrapers.’

‘Because they scrape the sky?’

‘Because they seem to.’

‘That’s enough now, Beatrice. Nanny is waiting for you upstairs.’ Mrs Jones turned to me. ‘She is so inquisitive that one day I’m sure she’ll be a detective, just like her father.’

‘I fear it will be some time before the Metropolitan Police are prepared to admit women to their ranks,’ Jones remarked.

‘Then she can be a lady detective, like Mrs Gladden in those excellent books of Mr Forrester’s.’ She smiled at her daughter. ‘You may say good night to Mr Chase.’

‘Good night, Mr Chase.’ Obediently, the little girl hurried out of the room.

I turned my attention to Elspeth Jones. She was, as I had at once perceived, very similar in looks to her daughter although her hair had been cut short over her forehead and gathered up in the Grecian style. She struck me somehow as a very caring woman, one who would bring a quiet intelligence to everything she did. She was simply dressed in a shade of dusty pink with a belt and a high collar and no jewellery that I could see. Now that Beatrice had gone, she gave me her full attention.

‘Mr Chase,’ she said. ‘I am very pleased to meet you.’

‘And you, ma’am,’ I returned.

‘Will you have some grog?’ She gestured and I saw a jug and three glasses had been set out on a brass table beside the fire. ‘It seems these wintery nights will never end and I like to have something warm waiting when my husband returns home.’

She poured three glasses of the tincture and we sat together in that slightly awkward silence that comes when people meet each other for the first time and none of them is quite sure how to proceed. But then the maid appeared to say that dinner was ready and once we had taken our places at the table, the company became more at ease.