The Last Moriarty Page 12

  The Commissioner frowned. “The question I must ask, Mr. Holmes, with all due respect, is that in view of the threat to our nation’s leaders and the momentous political import of the events that will commence tomorrow, why are you interesting yourself in the case of a kidnapped lady musician from the Savoy orchestra?”

  “Because I believe the two are connected.”

  “Then what is the connection?”

  “The connection is Mr. Worth. The lady musician has been threatened by him.”

  “And why would he do that?” The Commissioner broke off. “Never mind. I do not intend to be distracted from the real point at issue, which is why you believe Mr. Worth is connected to an attempt to disrupt our meeting with the Americans. I know that he is a major investor in Mr. D’Oyly Carte’s enterprises, that he is of unsavory reputation, and that our men have had no success finding the location of either the town house in Westminster that he is said to rent or the yacht he rents from the West India Company that was once harbored at the Isle of Dogs. I know Carte wants to replace him. I know that at his estate in Clapham Common you and Dr. Watson were shot at by someone who very likely was the escaped Colonel Moran. But none of this is conclusive. Colonel Moran may well have been your attacker, but he may have no connection to Mr. Worth or to our meeting.”

  “You will recall what I said at the outset of this inquiry. To disrupt a conference of this level requires a competent criminal enterprise, with a certain level of funding and organization. I have investigated Colonel Moran’s escape from Dartmoor Prison, which plainly was accomplished with the aid of an outside organization, comparable to that of the late Professor Moriarty. By the way, have you received the report from Dartmoor?”

  “What report?”

  “The report I requested in my telegraph message to you yesterday afternoon.”

  “I did not receive a wire from you yesterday afternoon. But yesterday was a Sunday, and my assistant may not have noticed the wire when he came in this morning. What was your request?”

  “I need the prison records concerning a guard named Asher, who died last week.”

  “I’ll have my assistant attend to it. But I still do not see why we are here, investigating the disappearance of a woman who wished to be protected from this Mr. Worth.”

  “Mr. Worth is the alias of the brother of the late Professor James Moriarty. I believe he is the same brother who wrote eulogizing letters to the press to defend the Professor’s reputation.”

  The Commissioner gave a nod of satisfaction. “That would explain a great deal. And why do you believe Worth is a Moriarty?”

  “Because that is what he said twenty-one years ago, to the lady musician who was this morning abducted from these rooms.”

  “Are you certain that she is a reliable witness?”

  The Commissioner’s tone was careful, but not without a certain skepticism. At that moment the horrid possibility occurred to me that Miss Rosario’s story might not have been true, and that she might have been a willing accomplice to her abduction for purposes known only to herself and Worth. After all, I had not witnessed the abduction. The event might have been carefully staged—

  But Holmes was speaking. “On balance, I do not believe the facts will support a theory that she is not reliable.”

  Facts! I felt relief when I heard Holmes’s words, for they brought back the memory of Miss Rosario’s accounts and the honest emotions she had evidenced each time she had spoken of her past. Those blushes, those halting words, those involuntary expressions in her face and eyes—those were all evidence of an honest heart. I felt ashamed for doubting her, and somewhat abashed that I had allowed my imagination to run away with me.

  “I am sure there are many things you are not telling me, but we have relied on you greatly in the past,” said the Commissioner, “and there is no reason not to continue. How do you intend to proceed?”

  “I shall interview Mr. Perkins. And it would be most helpful if one of your men remained here to wait for the return of one of my ‘Irregulars.’ I had asked them to keep watch on this building. It is possible that they may have witnessed the abduction without knowing what it was.”

  “Consider it done. But why Perkins?”

  “Perkins managed the account from which Mr. Worth invested in the Savoy. When we press Mr. Perkins with this knowledge he may reveal some useful information that will help us to locate Mr. Worth.”

  The Commissioner cleared his throat. “That is quite logical, but I must ask that you defer your interview.”

  As we stared at him, he drew a telegraph message from his pocket. “This was sent to the Prime Minister this morning.”

  He read aloud, “SHERLOCK HOLMES MEETS ME TODAY ON THE WHITE STAR OR I RETURN TO NEW YORK.”

  The signature line on the message bore but one word: “ROCKEFELLER.”

  30. MR. ROCKEFELLER OPINES

  “Mr. Rockefeller, you are in danger,” Holmes said quietly, less than an hour later. The three of us stood with young Johnny at the bow of the White Star, the steam-liner the American tycoon had chartered from the shipping company of the same name. A chill wind from the river stung our faces. We were in the shadows of the tall brick warehouse buildings that lined the quay, entirely out of the hearing of about a half dozen men who clustered around a temporary telegraph station that had been installed in the main cabin of the steam-liner, closer to the gangway. Holmes and Rockefeller had just shaken hands. Rockefeller’s steely gray eyes widened for only a moment.

  Holmes continued, “Mr. Foster is dead. He was murdered, and there is a grave threat to the meeting that you have come here to attend.”

  Rockefeller turned to his son. To my astonishment, he spoke with an air of satisfaction. “Didn’t I tell you he’d be different?”

  Unlike his shorter and more muscular son, the senior Rockefeller stood as tall as Holmes and was equally lean in body, though with closer-set features and a receding chin. Despite the warning he had just received from Holmes, there was an odd serenity about him. As he turned back to Holmes, his sparse, reddish-gray mustache only partially concealed a friendly smile.

  “Mr. Holmes, you have no idea of the runaround we have been getting from your diplomatic monkeys. I told my son here that you would be straightforward and truthful. That is why I insisted they send you. Now, let us understand one another.”

  He drew himself up to his full height and continued, with an odd note of pride, “I am one of the most hated men in my country. I receive threats against my life on a regular basis. I spend most days surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest ringed by barbed wire and guarded by dozens of Pinkerton employees. I cannot abide anyone who would mislead me concerning my safety.”

  “A true understanding of the facts is the most essential requisite in any case,” Holmes replied.

  “Good. Now let us go inside, out of the wind. We can have lunch and talk this thing over more privately.”

  We were soon in the ship’s first-class dining saloon, a luxurious space with a high white ceiling trimmed in gold, and white linens with gold-embroidered napkins adorning every table. The staff wore white uniforms with military-style gold embroidery on the lapels and cuffs of their jackets. “All this opulence is a waste of money,” said Rockefeller, “but it would be an even bigger waste to have it removed, and then gilded up again when I’m home and done. So Cettie and I put up with it. But at least the staff’s efficient,” he concluded, as our waiter approached. As if to prove him right, the man took only a few moments to explain that the menu had been preselected, and to place a glass filled with ice and water before each of us.

  “From a spring in Vermont,” Rockefeller declared. “Far better for you than champagne, and far easier on the mental faculties when one works the long hours that I put in.”

  “You do not drink spirits, I believe,” said Holmes.

  “Cettie and I are Baptists,
” he replied, as if this provided a definitive answer. He continued, with an affectionate nod toward his son, “Junior here is a college man, and has been known to take an occasional glass of beer with his young friends. In moderation, of course. Now, Mr. Holmes, I want you to take a look at this.”

  He removed a telegraph message from his breast pocket, unfolded it, and spread it before Holmes. “It was sent Wednesday, the day after I left New York. It should have been delivered to me in Southampton Friday, but it was forwarded to my Standard Oil office in London by mistake. I didn’t get it until I arrived this morning.”

  The message read:

  NEED FURTHER INVESTIGATION AT SAVOY THEATRE.

  CHECKING BANK TOMORROW. FF.

  “So this is the last message you had from Mr. Foster.”

  Rockefeller nodded. “What have you learned, Mr. Holmes?”

  Briefly Holmes summarized the past events: the discovery of Foster’s body, the bomb outside the hospital, the escape of Moran, the possible connection with Adam Worth, and the attempts on our lives outside Worth’s estate and near Dartmoor Prison. He said nothing, however, of Clevering, or Miss Rosario, or Miss James.

  Holmes concluded his summary, “The Prime Minister fears that the meeting will not take place if you, Mr. Carnegie, and Mr. Morgan believe yourselves to be in danger.”

  Rockefeller held his water glass as though he were proposing a toast to Holmes. “But you’re telling me all this anyway.”

  “I am.”

  “And you have not been authorized to do so.”

  “Quite correct.”

  “Could get you into some trouble, I expect.”

  “I could be hanged for treason under the Official Secrets Act.”

  “I’d sooner hang whoever killed Foster. Now, here come our waiters. We can talk later and decide what’s to be done.”

  During our meal, Rockefeller gave us a dazzling view of the international situation. He held strong opinions as to which nations would fear and oppose an increase in British and American naval power and would consequently pay to destroy the alliance he hoped would result from his visit. Russia, he said, was preoccupied with domestic concerns, though its oil resources made Russia Rockefeller’s chief competitor in Europe. The South Africans were too concerned with the short-term conflict that the Boers were fomenting with Britain to invest in a long-term strategic move. That left the Germans or the French. Between these two, Rockefeller was inclined to suspect the French, for the Rothschild banking family had the capital and would love to see the British and the Americans at war, so they could then rule over the ruins and make handsome profits in the rebuilding effort. However, he admitted that his views might be biased by the Rothschilds’ ownership interest in Royal Dutch Shell, the most important international petroleum distributor other than Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Corporation.

  These insights were fascinating, but I could see that Holmes was preoccupied. He had arranged for Lestrade to pick us up at the dock and take us to the Bank of England, where we would confront Perkins. I had high hopes that there we would learn where Worth could be found, and with that knowledge we could find and rescue Miss Rosario.

  Rockefeller was saying, “Now, I’ll have the police commissioner in New York City look into this. Energetic young fellow named Roosevelt. We’ll see what he can dig up on your Mr. Worth. I’ll have him wire me the information and I can hand it over to you tonight, Mr. Holmes, if you’ll join Cettie and me here for supper.”

  “I regret that will not be possible. Tonight I must report my progress to the Prime Minister.”

  A glimmer of indignation in Rockefeller’s gray eyes showed he was not accustomed to having his invitations declined. But without a pause he asked, “Dr. Watson, can you come?”

  Holmes’s nod told me my answer and I agreed. Rockefeller seemed mollified and returned to his half-eaten baked potato. Holmes took out his watch but Rockefeller seemed unaware of the gesture. Johnny noticed, however.

  “Father, I believe these gentlemen have business to attend to.”

  “Oh, of course. Don’t mind me,” Rockefeller replied, cutting off a small portion of potato and spearing it with his fork. “Just go ahead, Mr. Holmes, and I’ll have that report from New York for Dr. Watson when he returns.”

  Shortly afterward we had said our good-byes and met Lestrade, who waited with a hansom cab alongside the dock. The little detective greeted us with a worried countenance.

  “A bad business, Mr. Holmes,” he said. “We found Mr. Perkins’s body in his office. His throat has been slashed.”

  31. MR. PERKINS’S SOUL

  A macabre scene awaited us at the Bank of England. The sharp, copper-laden smell of blood hung in the air of Perkins’s office. On the small table where two days before I had eaten my sandwich with Lestrade and Mycroft, the body of Llewellen Perkins now lay prostrate. A red-brown pool of blood encircled his head and shoulders like a grotesque halo. The skin of Perkins’s face was gray-blue. The once-alert black eyes were now dull. The pomaded black hair and carefully waxed mustache clung stiffly to the lifeless flesh.

  Between Perkins’s shiny black shoes lay an empty oxblood-colored calfskin folder. Blood from the table had spilled down onto the parquet floor. The edge of the pool had stained the white border of a blue Persian rug beneath Perkins’s stout mahogany desk.

  Most bizarre of all was the corpse’s facial expression. The lips were pressed tightly together, yet at the corners of the mouth there were the unmistakable beginnings of a smile.

  Holmes had taken in all this detail at a glance and was now hovering over the desk, examining an opened appointment book. “The page for today’s appointments has been torn out,” he said. “Lestrade, can one of your men find a witness? We must obtain a description of whoever entered this office or asked for Perkins at the main entry.”

  “We have checked. No one remembers.”

  “Please check again. Quickly, now!”

  After Lestrade left the room, Holmes bent over and opened each of Perkins’s desk drawers in turn, his long fingers rifling through stacks of papers. Then he reached farther into the center drawer. In a moment he had pressed something inside the recesses of the desk, pulled the drawer completely away from its slot, and held it up. A cascade of bills, papers, pencils, and erasers and a small bottle of mucilage fell noisily from the drawer onto the desktop.

  “Watson, if you will kindly step over here and witness what I am about to do?” There was urgency in his tone, and I was at his side in an instant as he laid the drawer down on the desktop and pressed both corners of a boxlike structure built into the inside back of the drawer. There was a wooden click.

  The two halves of the box top snapped up to stand at either end of the drawer, revealing a cavity roughly two inches in depth and width, and two feet in length.

  The cavity was filled with gold sovereigns.

  “A thief, Watson!” His tone was bitter and disappointed. “Perkins was a thief, but not a blackmailer. Unless . . .”

  He tilted the drawer upright, and the gold coins spilled with a metallic clatter over the already-littered desktop.

  Holmes’s long fingers sorted rapidly through the pile. After a few moments he uttered a grunt of satisfaction. From amid the heap of gold coins his fingertips extracted a small brass key.

  He held the key up to examine it. “A double bit, with a three-ring bow and a barrel stem. Manufactured by the Eastlake Company.”

  His eyes glittered as he carefully scanned the room. There were none of the customary potted plants, nor chairs other than the one behind the desk and the four around the table upon which the body lay. The austere beige wallpaper on each of the four walls was barren of pictures or other decoration.

  Holmes grasped the corners of the heavy desk. “Quickly, Watson! A safe may lie beneath the rug!”

  As the two of us bent over the desk, ho
wever, Lestrade reentered the office. At first he stared with astonishment at the glittering chaos on the formerly tidy desktop, but after a few words of explanation from Holmes he came forward to help. Soon the three of us had pushed and lifted the desk clear of the rug, which we pulled aside to the edge of the room.

  The squares of the parquet floor shone smooth and undisturbed, with nothing to indicate the presence of a floor safe.

  “Watson, I have grown slow-witted!” Holmes dropped to his knees. I fully expected him to manipulate the parquet squares, but instead he turned to face the mahogany desk, pressing his palms flat against the vertical boards of its front panel. Holmes pressed in and then sideways toward the outer edges of the desk. The thin boards parted. Each slid to the outside, revealing beneath a polished steel door with a recessed handle below a keyhole. Holmes inserted the key and turned it. The door emitted the sound of a sharp and most satisfying metallic click, and then it opened.

  Standing on its edge in the shallow metal recess was an ordinary schoolboy’s black notebook.

  Within moments Holmes was on his feet and had the book spread open on the desktop. The volume appeared new, with writing only on its first page. There we saw, written in blue ink, in a small, neat hand, columns of letters and numbers. Some of the numbers appeared to represent dates and amounts paid on those dates, but the letters seemed to me an entirely incomprehensible jumble.

  “It appears to be in code,” said Lestrade.

  “A record of receipts and disbursements,” said Holmes. “Made as recently as today. There are four progressively larger sums, each followed by a smaller. Possibly this indicates the deduction of a fee. The final three notations are something different.”