Anthony Horowitz - Moriarty

Even I had to steel myself as I climbed down from the barouche which had been sent to collect me. Athelney Jones was waiting at the door and one look at his face—pale and disgusted—warned me that this was a scene of horror which he, with all his experience, had never encountered before.

‘What snakepit have we uncovered, Chase?’ he demanded, when he saw me. ‘To think that you and I were here only yesterday. Was it our visit that in some way, unwittingly, led to this bloodbath?’

‘Lavelle… ?’ I asked.

‘All of them! Clayton, the ginger-haired boy, the cook, the mistress… they have all been murdered.’

‘How?’

‘You will see. Four of them died in their beds. Maybe they should be grateful. But Lavelle…’ He drew a breath. ‘This is as bad as Swallow Gardens or Pinchin Street—the very worst of the worst.’

Together, we went into the house. There were seven or eight police officers present, creeping slowly and silently in the shadows as if they might somehow wish themselves away. The hall, which had seemed dark when I first entered, had become significantly darker and there was the heavy smell of the butcher’s shop in the air. I became aware of the buzzing of flies and at the same time saw what might have been a thick pool of tar on the floor.

‘Good God!’ I exclaimed and brought my hand to my eyes, half covering them whilst unable to avoid staring at the scene that presented itself to me.

Scotchy Lavelle was sitting in one of the heavy wooden chairs that I had noticed the day before and which had been dragged forward expressly for this purpose. He was dressed in a silk nightshirt which reached to his ankles. His feet were bare. He had been positioned so that he faced a mirror. Whoever had done this had wanted him to see what was going to happen.

He had not been tied into place. He had been nailed there. Jagged squares of metal protruded from the backs of his broken hands which even in death still clasped the arms of the chair as if determined not to let go. The hammer that had been used for this evil deed lay in front of the fireplace and there was a china vase, lying on its side. Nearby, I noticed two bright ribbons which must have been brought down from the bedroom and which were also strewn on the floor.

Scotchy Lavelle’s throat had been cut cleanly and viciously in a manner that could not help but remind me of the surgeon’s knife that Perry had so cheerfully used to threaten me in the Café Royal. I wondered if Jones had already leapt to the same, unavoidable conclusion. This horrific murder could have been committed by a child… though not one acting alone. It would have taken at least two people to drag Lavelle into place. And what of the rest of the household?

‘They were murdered in their sleep,’ Jones muttered, as if looking into my mind. ‘The cook, the kitchen boy, the woman whose name was, perhaps, Henrietta. There is not a mark of any struggle on them. Clayton slept in the basement. He has been stabbed through the heart.’

‘But did none of them wake up?’ I asked. ‘Are you really telling me they heard nothing?’

‘I believe they were drugged.’

I absorbed this information and even as I spoke I knew Jones was ahead of me. ‘The curry!’ I exclaimed. ‘You remember, Jones? I asked the woman what she was cooking and she said that it was for dinner. They must have all eaten it, and whoever came here… it would have been easy enough to add some powerful drug, maybe powdered opium. The curry would have disguised the taste.’

‘But they would have had to reach the kitchen first,’ Jones muttered.

‘We should examine the door.’

We both circled the body, keeping our distance, for the blood and the shadows looked very much like one another and we had to be careful where we placed our feet. It was only when we had reached the relative sanctuary of the kitchen that we breathed again. For a second time I found myself examining the spotless cooking range, the tiled floor, the open door of the scullery with the shelves neatly stacked. In the midst of all this, the cooking pot that had held the curry sat dark and empty, like a guilty secret. The one surviving maid was in this room, hunched up in a chair and weeping into her apron, watched over by a uniformed police constable.

‘This is bad,’ I said. ‘This is very bad.’

‘But who would do such a thing and why? That must be our first line of investigation.’ I could see that Jones, knocked off his feet by the ruthlessness of the murders, was struggling to regain the composure that had been so much part of his nature when we were together in Meiringen. ‘We know that Scott Lavelle—or Scotchy Lavelle—was part of a gang headed by Clarence Devereux.’

‘Of that there can be no doubt,’ I said.

‘He arranges to meet with Professor James Moriarty and to that end he sends a boy, Perry, to the Café Royal. A man pretending to be Moriarty is there but the impersonation fails. The boy knows you are not who you say you are…’

‘. . . because of the ravens in the tower.’

‘So that is the end of the matter. The boy makes the long journey to Highgate and reports back to the people who sent him. There will be no meeting. Perhaps Moriarty is dead after all. That is what these people are led to believe.’

‘And then we appear.’

‘Yes, detectives from two separate nations. We know about the boy. We ask questions—but the truth of it is, Chase, we make little progress. I imagine Lavelle was smiling when we left.’

‘He’s not doing so now,’ I said, although I couldn’t help but think of the great red gash in his throat. It had the shape of a demonic smile.

‘Why has he been killed? Why now? But here is our first clue, our first indication of what may have taken place. The door is unlocked.’

Athelney Jones was right. The door that led into the garden, that we had seen Clayton fasten and unfasten with a key from beside the dresser, was open. He turned the handle and, grateful for the fresh air, I followed him out onto the ill-trimmed lawn that we had crossed only the day before.

Together we walked down to the wall and saw at once that the far door was also open. The Chubb had been unlocked on the outside. A circular hole had been drilled through the wood, positioned exactly to reveal the inner lock. This had then been cut through and the metal hasp removed. Jones inspected the handiwork.

‘The Chubb appears undamaged,’ he said. ‘If it was picked, then our intruders have shown skills beyond those of any common or garden burglar—not that such a creature was involved, of that we can be sure. It is possible that they were able to lay their hands on a duplicate key. We will see. The other lock, the one holding the hasp, is of particular interest. You will see that they have cut a hole in the door, perhaps using a centre bit with two or three blades. It would have made very little noise. But see where they have placed it!’

‘The hole is level with the lock,’ I said.

‘Exactly. It has been measured to the inch. A second drill has then been used to cut through the casing, exposing the wards. It is a professional job—but it would not have been possible if the intruders had not stood where we are now and made careful note of the exact position of the lock.’

‘They could have been helped by someone inside the house.’

‘Everyone inside the house is dead, apart from the maid. I am more inclined to think they acted on their own.’

‘You speak of intruders, Inspector Jones. You are certain there was more than one?’

‘Undoubtedly. There are tracks.’ He gestured with his walking stick and, looking down, I was able to make out two sets of footprints, side by side, heading away from the wall and approaching the house. ‘A man and a boy,’ he continued. ‘You can see that the boy is carefree. He almost trips along. The man has left a deeper impression. He is tall, at least six feet in height, and he was wearing unusual boots. You see the square toe? He held back while the boy raced ahead.’