Anthony Horowitz - Moriarty

‘Do you think it has some significance?’

‘Perhaps. But I cannot see what.’

‘There is nothing,’ I said. ‘There is nothing here for us. I begin to regret that we ever found this house. It’s shrouded in mystery and death and leads us nowhere.’

‘Do not give up hope,’ Jones replied. ‘Our path may be a murky one but our enemy has shown himself. The battle lines are at least engaged.’

He had no sooner spoken than we were interrupted by a commotion from the hall. Someone had come in. The police officers were trying to prevent them moving forward. There were voices raised in anger and, among them, an accent that I recognised as American.

Jones and I hurried out of the study to find a slim, rather languid man with black hair plastered down in an oily wave across his forehead, small eyes and a well-cultivated moustache drooping over his lip. If Scotchy Lavelle had exuded violence, this man presented more a sense of considered menace. He would kill you—but he would think about it first. The many years he had spent in prison had left their mark on him, for his skin was unnaturally pale and dead-looking. It was made worse by the fact that he was dressed entirely in black—a tight-fitting frock coat and patent leather shoes—and held a walking stick, also black, which he was brandishing almost like a weapon, holding back the police officers who had rounded on him, pressing him back. He had not come alone. Three young men had entered the house and stood surrounding him, hooligan boys from the look of them, aged about twenty with pale faces, ragged clothes, sticks and heavy boots.

They had all seen what had happened to Scotchy Lavelle. How could they have avoided it? The man was staring at the corpse with horror but also with disgust, as if it were a personal insult that such a thing could be permitted.

‘What the devil has happened here?’ he was demanding. He looked round as Jones emerged from the study. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Athelney Jones. I am a detective from Scotland Yard.’

‘A detective! Well, that’s very helpful. A little bit late, don’t you think? Do you know who did this?’ It was his accent I had heard. Less profane than Lavelle’s, it was nonetheless clear that he too had come from New York.

‘I arrived only a short while ago,’ Jones replied. ‘You know this man?’

‘I knew him. Yes.’

‘And who are you?’

‘I’m not sure I’m minded to give you my name.’

‘You will not leave this house until you do, sir.’ Athelney Jones had drawn himself up to his full height, propping himself on his walking stick. He was looking at the American, eye to eye. ‘I am a British police officer,’ he continued. ‘You have entered the scene of a violent and inexplicable murder. If you have any information, it is your duty to share it with me and if you refuse, I promise you will find yourself spending the night in Newgate—you and the hoodlums with whom you surround yourself.’

‘I know who he is,’ I said. ‘His name is Edgar Mortlake.’

Mortlake turned his little black eyes on me. ‘You know me,’ he said, ‘but we haven’t met.’ He sniffed the air. ‘Pinkerton’s?’

‘How did you guess?’

‘I’d know that smell anywhere. New York? Chicago? Or maybe Philly? Never mind. A little far away from home either way, aren’t you, boy?’ The American smiled with a sense of confidence and self-control that was positively chilling. He seemed to be unaware of the smell of blood and the sight of the broken and mutilated corpse sitting in the same room just inches from him.

‘And what business brings you here?’ Jones demanded.

‘My own business.’ Mortlake sneered at him. ‘And certainly none of yours.’

Jones turned to the nearest police constable, who had been watching this exchange with increasing alarm.

‘I want you to arrest this man,’ he said. ‘The charge is obstruction. I’ll have him up before the magistrate this very day.’ The constable hesitated. ‘Do your duty,’ Jones said.

I will never forget that moment. There were Jones and Mortlake, standing face to face, surrounded by perhaps half a dozen police officers but with the hooligan boys in opposition. It was as if a war were about to break out. And in the middle of it all, Scotchy Lavelle sat silently, the unwitting cause of all this and yet, for the moment, almost forgotten.

It was Mortlake who backed down. ‘There’s no need for this,’ he said, forcing the faintest shadow of a smile to his death’s-head face. ‘Why should I wish to interfere with the British police?’ He lifted his cane, gesturing at the corpse. ‘Scotchy and I were in business together.’

‘He said he was a company promoter.’

‘Is that what he said? Well, he was many things. He invested in a little club I have in Mayfair. You could say we were co-founders.’

‘Would that be the Bostonian?’ I asked. I recalled the name. It had been where Jonathan Pilgrim had stayed when he came to the country.

I had taken Mortlake by surprise, although he tried not to show it. ‘That’s the one,’ he exclaimed. ‘I see you’ve been busy, Pinkerton. Or are you a member? We have a lot of American visitors. But then, I doubt you could afford us.’

I ignored him. ‘Is Clarence Devereux another partner in this little enterprise?’

‘I don’t know any Clarence Devereux.’

‘I believe you do.’

‘You’re mistaken.’

I’d had enough. ‘I know who you are, Edgar Mortlake,’ I said. ‘I have seen your record sheet. Bank burglary. Safe-cracking. A year in the Tombs for armed assault. And that was only the most recent of your convictions.’

‘You should be careful how you speak to me!’ Mortlake took a couple of paces towards me and his entourage circled him nervously, wondering what he was going to do. ‘That was all in the past,’ he snarled. ‘I’m in England now… an American citizen with a respectable enterprise, and it would seem that your job is to protect me, not to harass me.’ He nodded at the dead man. ‘A duty you have signally failed to carry out where my late partner was concerned. Where’s the woman?’

‘If you are referring to Henrietta, she is upstairs,’ Jones said. ‘She was also killed.’

‘And the rest of them?’

‘The entire household has been murdered.’

Mortlake seemed to be thrown for the first time. He took one last look at the blood and his lip curled in disgust. ‘There is nothing for me here,’ he said. ‘I will leave the two of you gentlemen to sniff around.’

Before anyone could stop him, he had swept out again, as brazenly as he had come in. The three hooligan boys closed in on him and I saw that their primary concern was to protect him, to provide a living wall between him and his enemies in the outside world.

‘Edgar Mortlake,’ I said. ‘The gang is making itself known.’

‘And that may be helpful to us.’ Jones glanced at the open door.

Mortlake had reached the bottom of the garden and passed through the gate. Even as we watched, he climbed into the carriage that was waiting for him, followed by his three protectors, and with the cracking of a whip he was off, back towards Highgate Hill. It occurred to me that if the murder of Scotchy Lavelle and his household had been designed to send a message then it was one that had most definitely been received.

If Hexam’s had anything to recommend it—and the list was not a long one—it was its close proximity to the centre of London. The breakfast room was once again empty and, after finishing my meal, I left the maid and the Boots behind me and set off, intending to follow the Embankment, something that Jones had recommended the day before.