Michael Kurland - Professor Moriarty Omnibus

"A pleasure, Miss Perrine," Lestrade said, looking for all the world, as Cecily said later, like an eager bear as he took her hand and pressed it politely. "A sincere pleasure, I assure you."

"Charmed, Inspector," Cecily said. "Are all Scotland Yard inspectors so gallant?"

"You catch more flies with honey, miss," Lestrade said. "It always pays to be polite, and it costs you nothing. Or so I tell my men."

"And here I thought it was me," Cecily said, pouting, "and I find, instead, that it's regulation."

"Well, um, miss," Lestrade said, caught in the realization that his tact was not up to his manners, "I can assure you that in your case it is a pleasure to follow the regulations."

"Neat recovery, Inspector," Barnett said, smiling.

"Um," Lestrade said. "And what can I do for you? No problems, I hope?"

"Nothing for the police, Inspector," Barnett said. "No, we've come here on business, but it's our business rather than yours."

"Ah! And how is that?"

"We are planning an article, or a series of articles, on the murders you've been having here in London," Cecily said.

"Now that covers a lot of territory, miss," Lestrade said. "There've been a great many murders here in London during the twenty-six years I've been on the force."

"We had the recent ones in mind," Barnett said. "Lord Walbine—"

"Him!" Lestrade said. "Come, sit down. Just push the papers off that chair, Mr. Barnett. I'll have someone come along and file them. Should have done it weeks ago. The department is nothing but a maze of paperwork. It's a wonder that any of us ever get any work done, what with all the papers we have to fill out every time we take a step."

Cecily perched daintily on the edge of the old wooden chair that Lestrade thrust toward her. Barnett dropped into an ancient chair with a bentwood back, after taking Lestrade's advice and pushing the papers onto the floor. The chair creaked alarmingly, but it held.

"Now then," Lestrade said. "What do you want to know about Lord Walbine's murder? It is a puzzler, that I'll admit."

"And George Venn," Cecily said, "and Isadore Stanhope, the barrister."

"Well now," Lestrade said, "interestingly enough we think we have just solved the Venn and Stanhope murders."

"Is that right?" Barnett asked.

"It is," Lestrade said, looking exceedingly smug. "And, as it happens, arrests are expected momentarily in those cases."

"Congratulations are in order then, are they, Inspector?" Barnett asked. "You have solved a difficult case and brought a dangerous killer to justice. Who was the killer, then, and what was his motive?"

"Well," Lestrade said, glancing at the door, "this is confidential for the moment. The orders have gone out to arrest the culprits, but until I am sure they have been apprehended I would not want the news to appear in the press."

"You have our word, Inspector," Barnett said.

"Did you say culprits?" Cecily asked. "There was more than one person involved in the murders?"

"That there was," Lestrade agreed. "Each of the two murdered gentlemen was done in by his own butler!"

"The butler did it?" Barnett asked.

"Incredible, isn't it? But there's no telling to what lengths greed or fear will drive some people."

"What was their motive?" Cecily asked. "It was greed, wasn't it? They were each systematically stealing from their respective employer, and were about to be caught red-handed."

"Well, miss, we haven't found any indication—"

"Fear, then! They were both members of a secret society of anarchists, and their evil captain had ordered them to kill their masters under pain of some horrible mutilation or death."

"We have given that theory some thought, miss," Lestrade said seriously.

"You have?" Barnett sounded surprised.

"Yes, sir. You see, there was a mysterious bit of newspaper in Lord Walbine's waistcoat pocket when he was killed."

"How fascinating!" Barnett said. "Was it a clipping from a London paper?"

"It was, we believe, from the Morning Chronicle classified section. What they call the agony column. But it wasn't exactly a clipping — more of a ripping," Lestrade said.

"What did it say?" Cecily asked.

"It was ripped from the middle of the classified pages. One column wide by about half an inch high. On one side it said, 'Thank you St. Simon for remembering the knights.' On the other side it said, 'Fourteen point four by six point thirteen: three-four-seven.' Written out, you know; not just the numbers."

"Two separate advertisements?"

"That is right, miss. One on each side of the paper, as you might expect. As far as we know, unconnected. Which one had relevance to poor Lord Walbine, I have no idea. But you must admit they are both odd. Put one in mind of some sort of secret society."

"How does this affect the two butlers?" Cecily asked.

"Well, you see, miss, they are both members of the same club."

"Club?" Barnett asked. "I didn't know there were clubs for butlers."

"There is a club for butlers and valets," Lestrade told him. "It is known as the Gentlemen's Gentlemen, and it is located off Oxford Street in Soho. Margery, who was the butler to the deceased Honorable George Venn, and Lizzard, who was the personal valet to the late Mr. Stanhope, are both members of the said Gentlemen's Gentlemen in good standing."

"Come now, Inspector," Barnett said, "you can't seriously believe that these two men murdered their employers simply because they are members of the same club?"

"That was merely the starting point for what I would like to refer to as a fine example of the value of good methodical police work. With that fact to work on, my men went out and knocked on doors and asked questions. No fancy staring at footsteps under a microscope or examining the dirt under the victim's fingernails or any of that nonsense. Very quickly we discovered that Margery spends his afternoons off at the racetrack, and that Lizzard has a lady friend in Wembley."

"Surely even valets are allowed to have lady friends," Cecily said. "I would have thought that having a lady friend was one of the indelible rights of man."

Lestrade smiled tolerantly. "Yes, but the lengths that a man will go to keep a woman have, on occasion, been known to approach the criminal."

"Oh, was he keeping her then?" Cecily asked.

"I meant that figuratively, miss," Lestrade said. "He was most assuredly trying to keep her interest. At any rate, he was spending far beyond what one would assume his means to be, as was Margery."

"So you think they killed their employers for money?"

"We don't think that they did it themselves," Lestrade said. "Not at all. The similarity of methods used in the two murders would seem to indicate that one man had done both. Our theory is that Margery and Lizzard each, either with the other's knowledge or without, hired the same man to do the killing. After we've picked them up, we should be able to frighten one of them into revealing who the actual killer was. And, when we have him, we may well have the killer of Lord Walbine."

"So you do think it was the same man," Cecily asked.

"Yes, miss. But not, if you take my meaning, part of the same conspiracy. We haven't been able to get anything on Lord Walbine's butler, one Lemming by name; and at the time of the murder his lordship was quite without a valet, the last one having left for Chicago to open a haberdashery with his brother-in-law two weeks before."

"Well, I'm glad to see that Scotland Yard is so efficient." Barnett said. "Miss Perrine or I will keep in touch with you as the case progresses. That is, if you don't mind having your name in print in two hundred American newspapers."

"Well, now," Lestrade said, "the Yard discourages personal publicity; but if it's to be in American newspapers, I don't see how there could by any problem. I will, naturally, be delighted to keep you and Miss Perrine fully informed as to the progress of the investigation."