The Empress of India (41 page)

“Ah!” Margaret said. “Then are we to live on four hundred pounds?”

“I rather thought we’d use it for our honeymoon,” Peter told her.

Margaret sighed very deeply. “You’re not a very practical man,” she said. “I think I’ll have to keep the accounts when we’re married.”

Peter broke into a wide smile. “You will? Marry me, I mean.”

“I suppose I’d better,” she said. “I’ll have a little money to—”

“Margaret, my dear,” Peter interrupted, looking shocked. “You don’t think I’d live off my wife’s money, do you?”

“Men!” Margaret muttered.

“My father would never approve,” he told her. “As I have an income of my own of twenty thousand a year, he would think it most unseemly were I to touch a penny of yours.”

Margaret felt her eyebrows go up. “Twenty—”

“That’s all, I’m afraid,” Peter said. “My older brother George Linley Thomas, Viscount Hagsboke, will come into most of the estate. We can stay at the hall if you like, I have a suite of rooms, but I rather think we’ll take a flat in town, don’t you?”

Margaret looked at him sternly. “This isn’t more of your foolishness, is it?”

Peter shook his head. “No, I’m afraid it’s mostly my great, great, great grandfather’s foolishness. He was an admiral under Pellew. King George made him an earl, and he married an heiress. His descendants have enlarged the holdings, but it isn’t really hard when you start with a large enough bundle.”

Margaret stared at him for a long moment, and he looked embarrassed. “That doesn’t bother you, does it? I mean, it doesn’t make any difference, my having money?”

She shook her head. “I told my father I’d marry you rich or poor, and I guess I meant it.”

“Oh, good,” he said.

It was ten o’clock of a cool September morning when Mr. Maws, with the measured, stately tread of the true aristocratic gentleman’s gentleman which he’d been practicing until it almost looked natural on his oversized frame, entered Professor Moriarty’s study, a silver tray held up by the tips of the outstretched fingers of his left hand. “He’s back,” he said, lowering the tray so Moriarty could remove the calling card.

Moriarty took the card, looked at it, and snapped it between his fingers. “So he is,” he said. “Show him in.”

“That I will, sir,” Mr. Maws said. “But don’t you go haring off to India or noplace again. You get yourself into enough trouble right here in England to last a righteous man a lifetime or two.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Moriarty said. “But I fear no evil as long as I have your good right arm to protect me.”

“But where was I when you was in mortal danger on that boat, I ask you? I can’t do you much good if I’m butling in this here big house whilst you’re off on a boat getting shot at, now, can I?” Mr. Maws flexed his broad shoulders. “I would have done them a bit of good if I’d been there, I tell you.”

“And I missed you sorely,” Moriarty told him. “Show Colonel Moran in, and then finish packing for our trip to the Moor. I want to try that new clockwork mechanism in the ten-inch refractor.”

Mr. Maws nodded, and retreated. A minute later he ushered Colonel Moran into the room, sniffed, and left.

Moriarty waved Moran to a seat by his desk. “Back so soon?” he asked. “I didn’t expect you for a couple of months yet.”

“Little Pook wanted me to stay around a bit longer,” Moran said. “He certainly did. But I had a hankering for Paris, so I left as soon as it wasn’t downright insulting for me to get out. I plan to get me a suite at the Plaza and stay in Paris until I tire of it. And no man of my acquaintance has ever been known to tire of Paris. Any man who’s tired of Paris is tired of life.”

“If your interests are centered around gaming and the, ah, fair sex,” Moriarty agreed, “that’s certainly true.”

“And the food,” said the colonel. “Don’t overlook the food. They don’t know how to eat here in England. They chew, and they swallow, but they don’t eat.”

Moriarty laughed. “The cuisine won’t go through your money quite as quickly,” he said, “but I understand that enough rich food can ruin your liver.”

“Perhaps, but what has my liver ever done for me?”

“And gaming and women can ruin both you and your digestion, leaving you unable to enjoy any of the three.”

Moran raised an eyebrow. “My dear professor,” he said. “Let me see if I understand this. You’re warning me about indulging in these three most pleasurable vices because, if I do, eventually I won’t be able to indulge in them any longer?”

Moriarty laughed again. “I guess that was one way to interpret what I was saying,” he said. “Just ignore me and live your life as you please.”

“Oh, I do—I will,” Moran replied. “But in the meantime, I have something for you.” He reached into his inner jacket pocket and tossed a large envelope across the desk to Moriarty.

The professor opened the envelope and withdrew a stack of Bank of England currency.

“Thousand-pound notes,” Moran said, carefully picking just the right cigar from his silver case and rolling it between his palms. “There’s twenty of them.”

“Indeed?” asked Moriarty. “So the maharaja came through.”

“Like a proper British gentleman,” Moran said.

“I gathered that from your Parisian plans,” Moriarty said, sliding a glass ashtray across the desk to Moran. “But it’s nice to know I’m right.”

“He said to me, ‘I trust you kept your part of the bargain, and the Lady of Lamapoor was obtained without violence.’ ” Moran lit his cigar and puffed on it with a pleased expression on his face. “I told him as how she was surrounded by violence at the time, but it was not of our doing and we rescued her from it. He said as how he trusted me and would not ask for further details.”

“It must be nice to be so trusted,” Moriarty observed.

“Damn it to hell,” said Moran. “If I’d known he wasn’t going to check up on me, I would have just busted a few heads open to get the blasted Lady and not bothered telling him about it.”

“You’d lie? Colonel, I am astounded!” Moriarty said.

“Yes, you are,” said Moran.

“I, in turn, have something for you,” Moriarty said. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out an engraved, embossed, sealed, and countersigned document. “It’s an order on the Bank of England for five hundred pounds,” he said, tossing it across the desk. “A reward for aiding in the safeguarding of their gold. How the directors arrived at the figure, I do not know. They weren’t quite as munificent as Little Pook, but it will suffice.”

“Indeed,” Moran agreed. “And a like amount for you?”

“Twice that for me,” said Moriarty.

Colonel Moran nodded. “That’s a like amount,” he agreed. “After all, you might say you saved the gold twice. Although, to tell you the truth, it did surprise me that you told the tale. Why not let Iskansen get away with his little scheme? It was no skin off our nose.”

“It would have been,” said Moriarty. “They were going to examine the statuettes.”

“Ah!” said Moran. He tapped the ash from his cigar into the tray. “Did they ever find Iskansen?”

“He and the magicians have thoroughly disappeared. And not quite all the gold was recovered, so their larcenous striving was not entirely in vain.”

“A well-planned endeavor deserves to be rewarded, I say,” said Colonel Sebastian Moran. “And we’ve done quite well out of it ourselves.”

“The directors were actually in quite a giving mood, all things considered,” Moriarty said. “Holmes got a bonus on top of whatever he had been supposed to get for safeguarding the gold. Which, I suppose, in a backhanded way, he was doing even as Pin Dok Low. They awarded varying amounts to such of the Duke of Moncreith’s Own Highland Lancers as were involved in the engagement, along with a stipend for the widows of the men who were killed. They even saw fit to include the Artful Codger and Cooley the Pup in their largesse; as well as a few
hundred for Peter Collins,” Moriarty said, “who will presumably be combining it with a similar amount given to the plucky Miss St. Yves. Collins and St. Yves are to be wed, I understand.”

“A wonderful institution,” Moran said, standing up and stubbing his cigar out on the large glass tray. “For those as are fond of institutions. I wish them both the pleasure of it.”

“Indeed,” said Professor James Moriarty.

“I’ll be leaving for Paris almost immediately,” Moran told him. “I can be reached through Cook’s. If anything, ah, interesting crops up that’s in my line, let me know.”

“I shall,” said Moriarty. “If you don’t mind being dragged away from the City of Earthly Delights.”

“Come, now,” said Moran. “I do realize that there is more to life than gaming, dining, and wenching. I wouldn’t want my skills, such as they are, to get rusty from disuse. Not entirely, at any rate. And associating with you is, if I may say so, a rare pleasure in its own right.”

Moriarty chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

Mr. Maws appeared in the office doorway with Colonel Moran’s hat and coat. Moran shrugged into the coat and clapped the bowler firmly on his head. “Well, I’ll be off, then,” he said. “Ta, Professor. Or, as they say,
au revoir.
”

“Goodbye, my friend,” said Moriarty. “Take care.”

“Oh, I shall, Professor,” said Colonel Moran. “You can count on it.” He started for the front door, and then paused and turned back. “I’m off to spend my nights in Paris,” he said in a bemused voice, “and you’re off to spend yours huddled in a greatcoat and woolen scarf peering through a bloody great telescope in the dank and dreary Moors.” He shook his head. “And they say
you’re
the genius!”

The sound of Moriarty’s laughter followed Colonel Moran out onto Russell Square as he raised his stick to hail a passing hansom cab.