James Moriarty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
awesome_binomial_theorems) wrote2012-11-10 11:11 pm
awesome_binomial_theorems) wrote2012-11-10 11:11 pm
The Adventure of the Burning Bishop, part 2.
When Moriarty returned from the large cupboard in his room, having been within for less than a second, he agitatedly remarked that we’d wasted enough time – although in truth we’d wasted none at all – and must away to the Abernathy Mansion immediately. In typical fashion, I chose not to question his strange ways, and instead finished my whiskey and pulled on my coat.
Moriarty threw me a grin, and then we were away, to find the evidence that he needed – and, I suspected, wanted - to connect the two murders.
- Major S. Moran.
The Abernathy’s London estate was a vast, old mansion of the type that Moriarty knew his more architecturally inclined colleagues would refer to as ‘proto-classical’, projecting a kind of super-Englishness that had never actually existed at any point in history. It was like something out of a picturebook – imposing, grey-stoned, lined with vines and ivy in an artistic fashion, with enough balconies that you could mount riflemen on them and have a solid defence, if you removed the distractingly fluttery curtains before hand.
Also, it had rose bushes. It was in these that Moriarty and Moran had hidden.
“The Abernathys have eschewed the services of a traditional mortician in favour of their family physician. I fear on this matter, Scotland Yard is powerless to press them,” Moriarty muttered to Moran from their vantage point, “too much money. We shall need to take out that guard without causing a ruckus.”
The guard in question was a rather large man with a blond beard, as tall as Moriarty and considerably stockier. Moriarty sized him up. He was sure he could take him down, but not quick enough to keep any attention from being drawn to them.
“A distraction is in order, I should think,” Moriarty murmured, “I will attend to that, while you – do whatever it is you’re wont to do, I suppose. The knocking out part of the plan.”
Without waiting for the answer, he broke cover, hands behind his back, smiling broadly. The guard clocked him after a few moments, staring at him warily. Moriarty hoped Moran was getting ready to knock him out.
“Excuse me! If it isn’t too much trouble, might I distract you for a moment?”
The guard barely got three steps forward before Moran swooped in behind him, one arm wrapping around his neck. He was unconscious in less than a minute. Moriarty smoothed down his coat and nodded to Moran.
“Shall we?”
Slipping into the mansion’s clinic was hardly difficult, and as Moran barricaded the door Moriarty swept over to the dead body and pulled back the sheet over it. It was a gruesome sight – whatever Samuel Abernathy looked like in life, he now looked like nothing so much as a charred, person-shaped hunk of cooked meat. Moriarty produced a case from his coat, unrolling it on the nearest table.
He selected the scalpel first, hunching over the body to cut loose a strip of flesh and gnaw on it briefly. Moran made a disgusted sound.
“As I suspected,” Moriarty said triumphantly. “Clear taste of benzene. We are looking at a single killer for both gentlemen. But in this case … Observe the knee, Moran, and tell me what you think.”
Moran dutifully approached, peering at the knee. It’s knobbly, disjointed, looking as though it’s very nearly sticking free of the leg. “A pretty severe injury. You think it’s connected?”
“I believe so,” Moriarty said, frowning. “An injury like this would prevent a man from walking unaided. Yet Jacobson mentioned no injury, which would’ve surely been forefront in his mind if he had reason to suspect that this phantom mob had attacked a severely injured teenage boy.”
“Good build,” Moran remarked, pacing around the body, “he could’ve given an assailant a run for their money.”
“Aye. Rugby player, by my reckoning, but note the shape of the knuckles – they’ve sustained damage, which tells me that he is a boxer and brawler,” Moriarty said, “a young man in his prime, with combat experience and the build of a rugger. He would’ve made an awkward opponent indeed, unlike our elderly bishop. So our killer – or our killer’s accomplice, perhaps – is not a small man, nor elderly, nor sick. He is hale, hearty, one would presume large and strong, and well-trained.”
“A soldier?”
“Soldier, sailor, career criminal with a talent for violence,” Moriarty remarked. “We have too many possibilities. We have to narrow them down somehow. Are his clothes around here?”
“The locker, I believe,” Moran remarked.
Moriarty hummed to himself, brushing past Moran to get to the locker. A few seconds of lockpicking was all it took to open the case and haul out Samuel Abernathy’s clothes. Moriarty laid them on the table one by one.
“My, my, these are some fine clothes. Dinner jacket in red velvet; a white shirt that unless I am much mistaken is meant to, ah, accentuate his build; a very fine cravat. Do you smell roses?” Moriarty sniffed the air.
“Mostly,” Moran remarked dryly, “what I smell right now is burned human.”
“He has scented his clothes with the odour of roses,” Moriarty said incredulously. Bending down, he rummaged in the pockets one by one. “Empty, empty, empty, empty – aha!” Moriarty tugged a long box from a pocket, opening it. “A necklace with a diamond. A very expensive gift – not, I think, his jewelry. Our man was on his way to a dalliance – and without a chaperone. The scandal of it.”
“He was on his way to a meeting with a … ah … lady friend,” Moran said, “when he was attacked, then?”
“No,” Moriarty said dubiously. “No, I do not think so. Look at the shoes and tell me what you see.”
Moran plucked up a shoe, turning it over in his hands. “Fine leather, well made, more aesthetically pleasing than made to impress and not very practical. Some scuffing on the heel and the toes.”
“From the struggle, I’d imagine,” Moriarty said.
“Apart from those, nearly brand new. Perfect condition, and spotless.”
“Aye, spotless. Moran, have you ever walked the streets of London for even a moment and emerged with spotless shoes at the end of it? I myself have not,” Moriarty said, tapping the shoe. “I can’t imagine this boy travelled any stretch of London greater than hopping over the gap from the doorstep of his house to the interior of his carriage.”
“That meticulous about it, was he?”
“Of course. He is insensible with love. Or lust. That matter remains to be proven.”
Moran sighed, putting the shoe down. Moriarty irritably shuffled it into position next to the other shoe. “This boy was not murdered on the route to his lady friend’s abode, so it follows that he was murdered there. Perhaps in her presence – but either way I’d warrant that she’d know at least something about it.”
“It is rather hard to miss a struggle and immolation in your own home,” Moran said mildly. “Although I’m sure you might manage, and only uncover it much later through a convoluted series of clues and deductions. Don’t get testy, I’m only jesting.”
Moriarty sniffed. “We shall have to find out her identity. A simple enough task – the boy was young, cocky and egotistical. I’m certain he will have bragged to his friends at length.”
“To the university, then?”
“Yes,” Moriarty grinned. “But not you, I fear, my friend. I have a far more tedious and important job for you. Unfortunately, you shall have to deal with Lestrade for it.”
Moriarty threw me a grin, and then we were away, to find the evidence that he needed – and, I suspected, wanted - to connect the two murders.
- Major S. Moran.
The Abernathy’s London estate was a vast, old mansion of the type that Moriarty knew his more architecturally inclined colleagues would refer to as ‘proto-classical’, projecting a kind of super-Englishness that had never actually existed at any point in history. It was like something out of a picturebook – imposing, grey-stoned, lined with vines and ivy in an artistic fashion, with enough balconies that you could mount riflemen on them and have a solid defence, if you removed the distractingly fluttery curtains before hand.
Also, it had rose bushes. It was in these that Moriarty and Moran had hidden.
“The Abernathys have eschewed the services of a traditional mortician in favour of their family physician. I fear on this matter, Scotland Yard is powerless to press them,” Moriarty muttered to Moran from their vantage point, “too much money. We shall need to take out that guard without causing a ruckus.”
The guard in question was a rather large man with a blond beard, as tall as Moriarty and considerably stockier. Moriarty sized him up. He was sure he could take him down, but not quick enough to keep any attention from being drawn to them.
“A distraction is in order, I should think,” Moriarty murmured, “I will attend to that, while you – do whatever it is you’re wont to do, I suppose. The knocking out part of the plan.”
Without waiting for the answer, he broke cover, hands behind his back, smiling broadly. The guard clocked him after a few moments, staring at him warily. Moriarty hoped Moran was getting ready to knock him out.
“Excuse me! If it isn’t too much trouble, might I distract you for a moment?”
The guard barely got three steps forward before Moran swooped in behind him, one arm wrapping around his neck. He was unconscious in less than a minute. Moriarty smoothed down his coat and nodded to Moran.
“Shall we?”
Slipping into the mansion’s clinic was hardly difficult, and as Moran barricaded the door Moriarty swept over to the dead body and pulled back the sheet over it. It was a gruesome sight – whatever Samuel Abernathy looked like in life, he now looked like nothing so much as a charred, person-shaped hunk of cooked meat. Moriarty produced a case from his coat, unrolling it on the nearest table.
He selected the scalpel first, hunching over the body to cut loose a strip of flesh and gnaw on it briefly. Moran made a disgusted sound.
“As I suspected,” Moriarty said triumphantly. “Clear taste of benzene. We are looking at a single killer for both gentlemen. But in this case … Observe the knee, Moran, and tell me what you think.”
Moran dutifully approached, peering at the knee. It’s knobbly, disjointed, looking as though it’s very nearly sticking free of the leg. “A pretty severe injury. You think it’s connected?”
“I believe so,” Moriarty said, frowning. “An injury like this would prevent a man from walking unaided. Yet Jacobson mentioned no injury, which would’ve surely been forefront in his mind if he had reason to suspect that this phantom mob had attacked a severely injured teenage boy.”
“Good build,” Moran remarked, pacing around the body, “he could’ve given an assailant a run for their money.”
“Aye. Rugby player, by my reckoning, but note the shape of the knuckles – they’ve sustained damage, which tells me that he is a boxer and brawler,” Moriarty said, “a young man in his prime, with combat experience and the build of a rugger. He would’ve made an awkward opponent indeed, unlike our elderly bishop. So our killer – or our killer’s accomplice, perhaps – is not a small man, nor elderly, nor sick. He is hale, hearty, one would presume large and strong, and well-trained.”
“A soldier?”
“Soldier, sailor, career criminal with a talent for violence,” Moriarty remarked. “We have too many possibilities. We have to narrow them down somehow. Are his clothes around here?”
“The locker, I believe,” Moran remarked.
Moriarty hummed to himself, brushing past Moran to get to the locker. A few seconds of lockpicking was all it took to open the case and haul out Samuel Abernathy’s clothes. Moriarty laid them on the table one by one.
“My, my, these are some fine clothes. Dinner jacket in red velvet; a white shirt that unless I am much mistaken is meant to, ah, accentuate his build; a very fine cravat. Do you smell roses?” Moriarty sniffed the air.
“Mostly,” Moran remarked dryly, “what I smell right now is burned human.”
“He has scented his clothes with the odour of roses,” Moriarty said incredulously. Bending down, he rummaged in the pockets one by one. “Empty, empty, empty, empty – aha!” Moriarty tugged a long box from a pocket, opening it. “A necklace with a diamond. A very expensive gift – not, I think, his jewelry. Our man was on his way to a dalliance – and without a chaperone. The scandal of it.”
“He was on his way to a meeting with a … ah … lady friend,” Moran said, “when he was attacked, then?”
“No,” Moriarty said dubiously. “No, I do not think so. Look at the shoes and tell me what you see.”
Moran plucked up a shoe, turning it over in his hands. “Fine leather, well made, more aesthetically pleasing than made to impress and not very practical. Some scuffing on the heel and the toes.”
“From the struggle, I’d imagine,” Moriarty said.
“Apart from those, nearly brand new. Perfect condition, and spotless.”
“Aye, spotless. Moran, have you ever walked the streets of London for even a moment and emerged with spotless shoes at the end of it? I myself have not,” Moriarty said, tapping the shoe. “I can’t imagine this boy travelled any stretch of London greater than hopping over the gap from the doorstep of his house to the interior of his carriage.”
“That meticulous about it, was he?”
“Of course. He is insensible with love. Or lust. That matter remains to be proven.”
Moran sighed, putting the shoe down. Moriarty irritably shuffled it into position next to the other shoe. “This boy was not murdered on the route to his lady friend’s abode, so it follows that he was murdered there. Perhaps in her presence – but either way I’d warrant that she’d know at least something about it.”
“It is rather hard to miss a struggle and immolation in your own home,” Moran said mildly. “Although I’m sure you might manage, and only uncover it much later through a convoluted series of clues and deductions. Don’t get testy, I’m only jesting.”
Moriarty sniffed. “We shall have to find out her identity. A simple enough task – the boy was young, cocky and egotistical. I’m certain he will have bragged to his friends at length.”
“To the university, then?”
“Yes,” Moriarty grinned. “But not you, I fear, my friend. I have a far more tedious and important job for you. Unfortunately, you shall have to deal with Lestrade for it.”