"I don't know, Professor," Barnett said. "The way those three were killed seems pretty crazy to me. Slitting their throats in their own beds, then sneaking out past locked doors and sleeping dogs."
"Slitting their throats may be an action of insanity," Moriarty said, "but it seems to me that the subsequent innocuous departure was eminently sane."
Mr. Maws, Moriarty's butler, appeared at the dining-room door. "Beg pardon, Professor," he said in his gravelly voice, "but there is a gentleman to see you. An Indian gentleman. I took the liberty of placing him in the drawing room."
Moriarty pulled out his pocket watch and snapped it open. "And nine minutes early, I fancy," Moriarty said. "No card?"
"None, sir. He did mention the lack, sir. Apologized for not having one. Gave his name as Singh."
"I see," Moriarty said. "Tell the gentleman I shall be with him in a few moments."
"Nine minutes early?" Barnett asked, as Mr. Maws withdrew to reassure their visitor.
"It is nine minutes before ten," Moriarty said. "This also came in the first post." He extracted an envelope from his jacket pocket and flipped it across the table to Barnett. "What do you make of it?"
The envelope was a stiff, thick, slightly gray paper that Barnett was unfamiliar with, as was the paper inside. The address on the envelope, James Moriarty, Ph.D., 64 Russell Square, City, was done with a broad-nibbed pen in a round, flowing hand. The handwriting on the letter itself was more crabbed and angular, written with an extremely fine-pointed nib.
"Two different hands," Barnett noted. "Let's see what the note says":
James Moriarty, Sc.D.—
Will be calling upon you at ten of the a.m. tomorrow morning. Am hopeful to find you at home at that instant. Am hopeful to interest you in impossible but potentially lucrative endeavor. Have been informed by several that you are man most likely to talk to in this regard. With greatest hopes and much potential thanks, I am name of Singh.
"Very interesting stylistically, if not very informative." Barnett held the note up to the light. "I don't recognize this paper. No watermark. No crest. But it is a thick, expensive paper of the sort used for printing invitations, possibly. It's an odd size; almost square."
"What does all of this tell you?"
"Well," Barnett considered. "Nothing really beyond what it says. A gentleman named Singh will call at ten and he has some sort of proposition to put to you."
"A reasonable conclusion," Moriarty said, "confirmed by the fact that the gentleman has indeed shown up a trifle before the hour. Nothing more?"
"No, not really."
"Any suggestion regarding the distinctly different hands on the message and the envelope?"
"No. It is curious, I admit. But no ready explanation for it springs to my mind. What does it tell you?"
"That, and the unusual shape of the paper, do offer a field for speculation," Moriarty said, pushing himself to his feet, "but there is no point in indulging in that pernicious habit when the object of our speculation awaits us in the drawing room."
"You wish me to be present at the interview?"
"If you like."
"Thank you, but I think not. I really should get to the office."
"I thought the admirable Miss Perrine was handling the affairs of the American News Service."
"She is, and very well," Barnett said. "She controls a staff of nine reporters, four secretary-typists, three telegraphists, and assorted porters, page boys, errand boys, and the like with a hand of iron. A very exceptional young lady."
"She enjoys this position of authority?" Moriarty asked.
"Her only regret, or so she has informed me, is that her administrative duties leave her little time for writing."
"Well, you'd better leave, then," Moriarty said, "before the young lady discovers that you are dispensable. I will take care of the potentially lucrative Mr. Singh."
"I am going to put a couple of my reporters to work on those murders," Barnett said. "I am convinced that there's a story there."
"There well may be, Barnett," Moriarty said, smiling down at him, "but are you quite sure it should be told?"
THREE — 221B BAKER STREET
Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case
of
one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions
of
Euclid.
— Dr. John H. Watson
Sherlock Holmes waved his visitor to a seat. "Come, this is most gratifying," he said. "Welcome, my lord. I have sent the page boy down for some tea. In the meantime, what can I do for you?"
The Earl of Arundale looked with distaste around the cluttered sitting room of the world's foremost consulting detective. The basket of unfiled clippings on the desk, the jumble of chemical apparatus atop the deal-topped table to the right of the fireplace, the stack of envelopes affixed to the mantelpiece by a thin-bladed oriental knife; could genius indeed exist amid such disorder? He pulled the tails of his morning coat around him and gingerly sat on the edge of the aged leather sofa. "Gratifying?" he asked. "Surely a man of your repute has had noble clients before."
"I was referring to the problem that brought you, my lord," Holmes said. "It is gratifying to have a case that exercises the intellect. Those which have come my way for the last few months have indicated a sad decline of imagination among the criminal classes. As for my clientele, we entertain all sorts here. The last person to sit where you are sitting was a duke, and the person before that, if I remember correctly, was a woman who had murdered her first three husbands and was plotting the death of her fourth."
"Interesting," Lord Arundale murmured.
"Much more interesting than the duke," Holmes agreed. "The reigning monarch of a European kingdom has sat in the chair to your left, and a dwarf who does water colors has sat in the seat beside you. The king was a boor; the dwarf is quite possibly a genius. How may I serve you, my lord?"
"Well, you would seem to know already," Lord Arundale said, nettled at Holmes's attitude. "You are gratified by the problem that brought me here before I've had a chance to tell you what it is. I was told that you had a sort of clairvoyance that enabled you to detect the actions of criminals in the absence of clues visible to the regular police. I was not, however, informed that you could predict the problem that a client would bring to you before he had the opportunity to elucidate it to you. Frankly, sir, the exercise strikes me as pure hocus!"
"No, no," Holmes said quickly. "I do apologize if I seem a trifle sharp. Put it down to the effects of the medication I am taking, my lord. My medical man, Dr. Watson, has prescribed a little something for my bouts of lethargy, and it sometimes has the effect of making me seem a bit testy."
"Then you don't claim to exercise clairvoyance, or other psychic abilities?"
"Not at all, my lord. Whatever abilities I have are founded firmly in a knowledge of the appropriate sciences, an extensive study of the history of crime, and a sharply honed faculty for deductive reasoning."
"Then," Lord Arundale pressed on, "you don't actually know what brought me here, and were merely making a general assumption that I would offer an interesting, ah, case?"
"On the contrary, my lord. I know exactly why you're here. You've come to consult with me regarding last night's murder in Regent's Gate. Ah, here's Billy with the tea. How do you like yours, my lord?"
Lord Arundale allowed his tea to be poured and milked and sugared while he thought this over. "You are right," he said finally. "And if it's hocus, it's clever hocus indeed. For the life of me, I can't see how you know. You must admit that it smacks rather of clairvoyance, or the cleverer sort of conjuring trick."