"Purely for the most altruistic motives, eh, Professor?" Holmes demanded with a sneer.
"Not at all," Moriarty said. "It would further my interests."
"I have no doubt of that," Holmes said. He turned to the duke. "It may interest Your Grace to know that the professor's friend here, Benjamin Barnett, is an escaped criminal, convicted of murder by a Constantinople court. There is, unfortunately, nothing the British authorities can do to send him back."
The duke held his hands out. "Just tell me how she is," he implored, his face now ashen and his eyes staring. "For mercy's sake! Tell me how she is."
"Your Grace," Moriarty said, "I give you my word of honor that I know neither how your daughter is nor where she is. I had nothing to do with her abduction. Nothing. However, I can see that in the present state of affairs I can be of no help to you and you of none to me. If I hear of anything, I shall notify you. Please do not assault my messenger. In the meantime, put your trust in Sherlock Holmes; you cannot do any better. He is, under normal circumstances, an excellent consulting detective. However, in this case, he will not accomplish anything until he rids himself of this ridiculous fixation that I am at the root of every crime that is not immediately transparent to his gaze."
Moriarty walked to the door and opened it. "Mr. Barnett," he said. "I think we can find our own way out." Then he turned back to the duke, who was looking at him with a puzzled expression on his face. "My advice is not to call in Scotland Yard," he said. "This case is beyond them, and they will only bungle it. I hope your daughter is returned to you safely. Good night, Your Grace. Good night, Mr. Holmes."
He closed the door gently behind him, and he and Barnett walked silently down the long hall. The footman was waiting at the front door for them, with stick and hats.
FIFTEEN — INTERSTICES
As someday it may happen that a victim must be found, I've got a little list — I've got a little list.
— W. S. Gilbert
For the next few weeks, having no instructions to the contrary, Barnett busied himself with the affairs of the American News Service, which steadily expanded. On Wednesday, June 25th, he promoted Miss Perrine — they agreed upon the title of "Cable Editor" as being the most appropriate — and instructed her to hire an assistant and a messenger boy. Then he purchased two more desks and yet another typewriter. "If this keeps up," he told Miss Perrine, as they received confirmation of their forty-third American newspaper account, the San Francisco Call, "we're going to have to search for larger quarters before the end of the month."
"The offices next door are vacant," Miss Perrine told him, "and the rental agent confirms that we can have them as of the first of July." She put her wide, red-trimmed hat on and adjusted it very carefully to the proper rakish angle before pinning it in place. She seemed unaware of Barnett's admiring gaze. "And, by the way," she said, "you are taking me to lunch."
"You've arranged for the offices?" Barnett asked.
She nodded.
"Without consulting me?"
"Yes."
Barnett shook his head. "And quite right, too," he said. "Where am I taking you?"
"Sweetings', I think," she said.
And so he did. And after the waiter had taken their order and gone away, he leaned forward across the table and regarded her steadily through unblinking eyes until she shifted her head nervously and looked away. "You're staring at me," she said.
"I am," he admitted. "But then, you're well worth staring at."
"Please!"
"And I was beginning to think you were quite without shame," he said. Seeing her shocked expression, he laughed. "You must admit that you've gained tremendously in self-assurance in the past — what is it? — three weeks."
"That is not the same thing," she said severely, "as being without shame."
"I take it back," Barnett said. "It was an ignorant, boorish comment, and I withdraw it."
"Indeed!" she said. "As for what you call my increase in self-assurance, that, I suppose, is true. It comes of discovering that I can do the job and that I can do it quite adequately."
"Quite excellently," Barnett amended. "But you told me that when I hired you."
"Yes," she said, "but I had never actually done it. Thinking you can do something, even to the point of moral certainty, is not the same as proving you can do it."
"Well, you've proven it," Barnett said. "You're a born writer and editor. You have an innate word sense, and you write good clean prose."
"Tell me something, Mr. Barnett," Miss Perrine said, "and tell me true. You don't have the phrase 'for a woman' left unsaid at the end of any of those sentences, do you? You're not saying I write well for a woman, or I have good word sense for a woman?"
"Cecily," Barnett said, "a piece of paper with typewritten words on it is entirely without gender. When we cable a story to one of our client newspapers, I don't append a statement, 'done in a feminine hand.' You are a good writer."
"Thank you," she said. "And thank you for calling me 'Cecily.' "
"Well," he said. "It just slipped out. I was afraid you'd think it forward of me."
"I do," she said.
The waiter brought their lunch, and Barnett busied himself with his salmon mousseline for a few minutes before looking up. "Say," he said, "there was something I meant to tell you. We have a new writer."
"Who?"
"Fellow named Wilde. Someone at the Pall Mall Gazette introduced him to me, and I talked him into doing a series of articles on understanding Britain for the Americans. Actually, I suppose, he'll write about whatever he chooses. These article writers always do. He's very good. We should have no trouble selling the series."
She put down her fork. "Oscar Wilde?" she asked.
"That's right."
"He's brilliant," she said. "But he tends to be very eccentric and he seems to love to shock. We'll have to watch his copy."
"I leave that to your immense good judgment," he said. "He's not doing it under his own name; maybe that will calm him down."
"What byline is he using?"
"Josephus."
"Why does he choose to disguise his name?"
"I asked him that," Barnett said. "And he told me — let me get it straight now — he said: 'Writing for Americans is like performing as the rear end of a music-hall horse — one does it only for the money and one would prefer to remain anonymous.'"
"That sounds like him," she said.
"He said it loud and clear and without pause when I asked him," Barnett said. "He's either a natural genius at the epigram, or he spends large amounts of time in front of a mirror at home, rehearsing."
They finished lunch and walked back to the office, chatting amiably about this and that. As they reached the entrance to the building, Cecily clutched his arm. "There's a gentleman to my left," she said without looking around. "Can you see him? Don't make a point of it; don't let him see you looking."
Barnett examined the fellow lounging by the door out of the corner of his eye. "I wouldn't exactly call him a gentleman," he whispered back, noting the man's ragged slop-chest apparel and the unkempt beard that fringed his chin from ear to ear. "He looks like an unemployed bargee."
"I don't know his profession," Cecily said, "but he was hanging about here all day yesterday. And I'm not sure, but I think he followed me home."
"Oh, he did, did he?" Barnett said slowly.
"Now, be careful!" Cecily exclaimed, as he stalked past her toward the sinister-looking man.
"Here, you!" Barnett said, a harsh note in his voice. He grabbed the man by his filthy collar and pulled him upright out of his slouching posture. "What do you mean, hanging around here? Do you want me to have the law on you?"