The Brothers of Baker Street (32 page)
“You found her fingerprints, then?”
“Yes.” Wembley seemed to want to not say any more about it, but Nigel wasn’t satisfied.
“Where did you find them?”
Wembley cleared his throat. “On the detergent box.”
“But surely not on the outside of the box itself?”
“No,” said Wembley. “That of course had been wiped clean. As had everything else. We found the print—as you had suggested—on that annoying little tab that you have to either push in or pull out of the box in order to get the stuff to pour properly.”
Nigel was so satisfied to hear Wembley acknowledge that the suggestion had been correct that he didn’t even bother to point out that it was Laura who had first thought of it.
“And what of the other victim?” said Nigel. “The bloke that was unceremoniously pushed over the railing and into the river?”
“It took both Dillane and Darla Rennie to do that. She arranged the meeting and Dillane pulled the trigger; then they did their best to make him look like another Black Cab victim—when in fact he was their original Black Cab perp, doing all the robberies and killing that American couple. But once it all started to go down the crapper, they couldn’t have him hanging about to get caught and testify about their plot. And according to Dillane—easy to say now, but it’s what he says—the wanker was never supposed to kill anyone to begin with. The idea was just to make the Black Cabs appear unsafe, not to remove all their customers through sheer attrition.”
Now there was a knock on the door, and Lois entered.
“Oh,” she said. “Should I come back later?”
“Not at all,” said Nigel. “We don’t keep secrets from Inspector Wembley. I mean, not this afternoon, anyway.”
“Well, I finally got a call back from the typewriter manufacturer. You know, the one used for the letter from … well, you know.”
“And?” said Nigel.
“They found the original purchase record. It was bought in San Francisco in 1891 by an American.”
“And?”
“That’s all they had, sir. There’s no record of it at all after that, until it was taken to Standard Typewriter here in London for repair—just last month—by Darla Rennie.”
Lois stopped talking after that, but she clearly had something else to say.
Nigel looked at her suspiciously. “What is it that you’re not telling us?”
Lois hesitated, finally she spit it out: “The name of the American who purchased it in 1891 was James Moriarty.”
Nigel shrugged. “There were plenty of James Moriartys in England and Ireland and America then, as there are now.”
“Yes,” said Lois. “And that’s why it’s taken me so long; there were too many Moriartys who were not relevant, and I had to get into a bit of genealogy. But I do finally have it. Darla Rennie is indeed the great-great-granddaughter, on her mother’s side, of the James Moriarty who purchased the typewriter. That James Moriarty was an American, who traveled to Switzerland in 1891, where he died in a railway accident. He left a considerable fortune to his heirs, which they apparently increased over the years, mostly during the American Prohibition, by importing British and Irish whiskey.
“Darla’s parents—she has dual citizenship, British on her father’s side, American on her mother’s—both died in an automobile accident just less than a year ago. Darla inherited the estate, including, along with everything else, that typewriter, which her great-great-grandfather had owned before he died.”
“Fair enough,” said Wembley. “But it doesn’t explain why she thought her great-great-grandfather was
the
Professor James Moriarty.”
“Well, she was already schizophrenic,” said Nigel. “Perhaps the death of her parents—and the discovery of something that her ancestor had owned—was enough to push her toward that particular delusion. That and the unfortunate coincidence of where and when he died. Perhaps she didn’t even know about any of it until after her parents died; that would have only increased the impact of learning it. And then when Dillane took her off the meds for his own purposes, the delusion was reinforced.”
“Well,” said Wembley, getting up from Reggie’s chair. “If we ever manage to fish her out of the Thames, perhaps we’ll ask her.”
“What?” said Nigel. “You haven’t recovered the body?”
Wembley shook his head as he went to the door. “Given time and the tides, we might still. Or we might not. It’s a big river, and anything is possible.”
“You’ll let us know?’ said Nigel.
“If you like,” said Wembley. “But if we do find her, I’m sure you’ll read about it in the papers in any case.”
Wembley exited.
Nigel checked his watch. “I have a plane to catch,” he said to Lois. “Was there anything else?”
“Just these,” said Lois. She showed Nigel a large mailer, stuffed with letters. Nigel looked inside.
It was filled with letters to Sherlock Holmes.
“I think Reggie was intending to mail them to you. But if you’ll take them now, I suppose we could save on the postage?”
30
Laura got out of a Black Cab at the entrance to the pedestrian path at the north end of Regent’s Park.
She was wearing long runner’s pants that did not completely disguise her shape, but did cover all of her skin. Most of London had seen enough of that two days earlier. So although the weather would have permitted, she decided against runner’s shorts.
She wasn’t sure why she had blacked out momentarily just as the separating edge of the bridge span had reached its apex. What she did know—what she learned shortly after the fact—was that nearly all the cab drivers and half the bobbies in London had been waiting, arms linked, at the base of the span to catch her as she slid. And right behind them were any number of paparazzi.
She just wished she had not worn a skirt that day.
Today she set out on the Regent’s Park path with the intent of running to the south end, where the park bordered on Baker Street, and if things went according to plan, she would be rewarded with lunch and a nice quiet row on the lake. She was actually rather eager for it, and she started out at a quick pace.
Then, after a few moments, she slowed the pace just slightly. No need to make things too difficult. Not if she wanted the pleasant row on the lake.
At the west end of Regent’s Park, Reggie was running north on the circular path. He was nearly in full stride; he had started at the south end some minutes earlier, and though his legs were still quite sore, he could feel them beginning to loosen up. He knew he could complete the entire circuit.
The soreness was, mostly, from his desperate run in the Cotswolds two days earlier. After running at full tilt back to Dillane’s house, and then to the crashed A3 to ring Nigel, he had then run four miles back down the little country lane, through the rain and mud, until he managed to get picked up by a lorry carrying half a dozen sheep. That had gotten him to Bath, and then a taxi took him from Bath to London—just in time to find Laura in the hospital, getting checked out, surrounded by police and reporters.
Now Reggie completed the curve at the north end of the park. He was on the straightaway, heading south toward the Baker Street gate, and in the far distance he saw a woman running, her red hair swaying back and forth. It looked like a long way, but he wasn’t worried. He was only moments behind. He was almost certain of it.
A
LSO BY
M
ICHAEL
R
OBERTSON
The Baker Street Letters
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
THE BROTHERS OF BAKER STREET. Copyright © 2011 by Michael Robertson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
ISBN 978-0-312-53813-2
First Edition: March 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-6806-5
First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: March 2011