Moriarty Returns a Letter (27 page)

“Mr. Redfern?” said Nigel.

“Yes, Mr. Heath?”

“I would imagine your hotels have security cameras?”

“Of course. State of the art. I mean, in the appropriate public access locations, of course, not in our guests’ rooms.” He laughed. “Or in the loo, either.”

“And especially the Marylebone Grand Hotel itself, so recently renovated, and celebrating its centennial? You would certainly have your state-of-the-art CCTV in place there?”

Now Redfern gave Nigel a direct look, and an indirect answer.

“The Marylebone Grand is state of the art in every way,” he said.

“I only ask,” said Nigel, “because Scotland Yard was trying to determine if one particular person had been there recently. You may have seen the news reports. About this woman named Darla Rennie? And the fisherman killed in Canvey?”

Redfern stared back at Nigel.

“I mention it,” said Nigel, “because the Yard looked at the CCTV tapes from your hotel—which I presume your security service provided—and they couldn’t find any image of Darla Rennie at the Marylebone Grand Hotel on that specific day and time. Or at any time, in fact. Even though we are pretty sure she was there at some point; the question is just exactly when.”

“So?” said Redfern.

“But she was in fact caught on CCTV. Because someone was showing her surveillance picture down in the pubs in Canvey—just before the killing. So what I’m wondering is this: Is there any reason why anyone from your hotel would have been showing her picture around earlier—but excising it from the CCTV tapes that your hotel turned over to Scotland Yard?”

“No,” said Redfern. “There isn’t. If there was a photo, it came from somewhere else. Not from our cameras. Why would I or any of my staff excise a photo from our security tapes, Mr. Heath?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Nigel. “So when I ask Scotland Yard to take a closer look to see if the tapes were altered—something they wouldn’t routinely be looking for, because they wouldn’t expect it—I’m sure that will bear you out.”

Redfern glared across at Nigel. As he did, the gray-haired serving woman entered the dining room, pushing the cart of tiramisu, and beginning to distribute it from a tray.

“Is this a family trait,” said Redfern, “you and your brother, and things that don’t concern you?”

Nigel pondered the significance of that question, and was considering a response.

But now the butler entered—and not with any sort of dinner-serving apparatus, but with a somber look on his face, a look that he tried to keep to himself, avoiding eye contact with all the guests at the table, and walking directly to Laura’s aunt Mabel.

He leaned in, trying to be subtle about it, and mostly succeeding. In fact, Nigel noticed, the only two people in the room paying attention to the butler’s portentous attitude were himself and Mr. Redfern.

The butler whispered something in the ear of Aunt Mabel.

Her expression immediately became, just for an instant, as somber as the butler’s. She put down her fork. Then she recovered, managed a quick smile to those immediately around her as she removed her napkin from her lap, excused herself, and stood.

Aunt Mabel, followed by the butler, both with faces like surgeons delivering bad news in hospital, began a purposeful walk from Aunt Mabel’s end of the table toward the end where Nigel, the Tory MP, and Mr. Redfern were seated.

Aunt Mabel and the butler were walking on Nigel’s side of the table, and the closer they got the more ominous their bearing seemed. Given the things that he knew were going on, Nigel was certain this could not be anything but bad news, and he finally abandoned decorum and turned to look as they approached.

From the corner of his eye, he thought he detected a very unexpected expression on Redfern’s face. Something like a concealed smirk. Nigel had no idea what that might mean and, at the moment, didn’t care.

And then—when Aunt Mabel and the butler had finally reached Nigel’s table position, just one seat from the very end of the table—they kept on walking. To the end of the table, and then around it.

And then they stopped.

Aunt Mabel was now standing to the side and just behind Mr. Redfern, with the butler respectfully a step back. The gray-haired serving woman was standing stone still with the cart of tiramisu a few steps back.

Aunt Mabel leaned in and whispered something in Mr. Redfern’s ear.

Redfern’s expression changed. Blood drained from his face, causing the slight pink birthmark on his jaw to stand out in relief.

He nodded to what she was saying, but he remained in his seat. He whispered something back to Aunt Mabel. Nigel tried to catch it, but couldn’t.

Aunt Mabel shook her head, leaned in, and whispered something again.

Now Redfern stood, brushing Aunt Mabel rudely back. The blood returned to his face. He looked at no one, said nothing to anyone, and stormed from the dining room.

And at the same moment, a tray of tiramisu went crashing to the floor.

Nigel stood. He had to choose a suspect, and a direction. Darla Rennie—the gray-haired serving woman—had dropped her tray, and was bolting for the kitchen.

Nigel ran after her—into the kitchen, dodging the two cooks and the supervising maid, and then through the kitchen and into a stairwell, and then up the stairwell, into a subordinate serving station on the third floor, and then through that serving station onto the third-floor corridor.

Darla Rennie stopped. She whirled to face Nigel, and she pointed the Beretta at him.

“Let me go,” she said.

“I can’t,” said Nigel. And then he asked her what he’d been wanting to ask since the train. “When you said you knew exactly what my brother had done—what did you mean?”

“I meant that he told the truth,” she said. “About my alibi. Despite everything he feared.”

Now she glanced down at the interior stairs that led up from the floors below. She turned and began running again toward the end of the corridor.

She was heading toward a corner balcony, from which Nigel knew exterior stairs led to the ground level. He continued in pursuit—and then he stopped.

Midway between Nigel and the point at which Darla Rennie was escaping at the far end was the main interior stairwell. And from the top of those stairs, Redfern’s driver now stepped into the corridor.

Farther down the stairwell, moving slowly and apparently unafraid, Spenser the butler was ascending the stairs as well.

Nigel recognized the driver now; he’d seen him earlier, in the room with the other limo drivers.

But Nigel had also seen him on the train, and on the train he’d had a gun, at least at first. Which meant he wasn’t Redfern’s driver at all—he was Redfern’s private investigator. Or Redfern’s enforcer. Or worse. He might well be the person who’d been asking about Darla Rennie at the pub.

Which meant he might, at least possibly, also be the person who had killed the fisherman Darla Rennie was living with.

But all that was just adrenaline-fueled speculation on Nigel’s part. The proof would be in what the man did now.

For a moment, the man’s intent was unclear. He looked first in Nigel’s direction, then at the fleeing Darla Rennie. Then at Nigel again.

And then he looked at the wall next to him—at the display case for the first old weapon that the butler had described to Nigel earlier.

The driver smashed his elbow through the glass of the display case—and then he withdrew the broadsword.

And then he came at Nigel.

Nigel decided that the man’s intentions were no longer in doubt.

“Spenser!” shouted Nigel.

Spenser had now reached the top step.

“Sir?”

“Crossbow, pistols, shotgun—which of these bloody weapons work?”

Spenser pondered the question, as the driver moved toward Nigel.

Finally— “Candlesticks, sir!” shouted Spenser.

Nigel ran forward, head-on toward the driver—and reached the candlestick shelf just in time. He grabbed one without slowing, and then he dropped down onto the slick hardwood floor as the man began to raise the heavy two-handed sword.

Nigel ducked and slid for the last two yards.

He swung the candlestick for the driver’s left kneecap, and he made contact.

There was a scream. The driver went down.

Nigel ran onto the balcony, and then down the stairs after Darla Rennie.

30

In the dining room, dessert had not gone smoothly.

Aunt Mabel knew what had caused Mr. Redfern to leave so abruptly; she had, after all, delivered the unfortunate news to him.

He had not handled it well, not with proper decorum at all. It was certainly sad news about his sister. But one would have thought that he would have shared in Mabel’s relief at hearing the corresponding good news about Laura and Reggie—especially after Redfern had taken the trouble to ask about them.

Where Redfern had gone after storming from the dining room Aunt Mabel did not know. His car was still on the premises, and she had sent the butler to look for him.

Why Nigel Heath had chased the serving maid into the kitchen was even more perplexing. Aunt Mabel did not know precisely what was going on, but she knew it was more than met the eye. At least she hoped it was.

In any case, it was time for the dinner to come to an end.

She went to the head of the table and tapped her fork on her champagne glass.

The chaotic murmuring in the room froze in anticipation.

“I hope you have all enjoyed the tiramisu,” said Aunt Mabel. “At least all of you who were able to get some. Thank you all for braving the most unfortunate weather conditions to attend. Really, I know it’s been a proper gale outside for most of the evening. Under normal circumstances, I would at this point be inviting you all to join us in the ballroom, or in the study for brandy for those of you who neither dance nor move well. But I have been informed that at this very moment, the rain has stopped, the moon is out, and the winds have at last subsided. For those of you who wish to stay the night, we have accommodations and you are most welcome, but be aware that only the lower two floors have plumbing and the third floor requires chamber pots. For those of you who have arrangements of your own nearby—be aware that right now is probably your best window of opportunity, and if you choose to forgo the customary brandy or cigar in the study, no one will be offended, least of all the happily engaged couple, who may well, when they finally arrive, have other things on their mind. Thank you all very much.”

This speech had the desired effect. The guests who had not already done so began to exit toward the first-floor foyer.

31

At the back of the castle, Nigel ran down the exterior stairs after Darla Rennie.

The rain had stopped, at least temporarily. There was a gap in the clouds, and the moon glowed through it.

Nigel could not see Darla Rennie. But the only direction that made sense was toward the west—toward the stone gardener’s cottage—and he ran in that direction.

He reached the cottage and ran inside.

She wasn’t there. Her gray wig and server’s uniform were discarded on the table.

And now Nigel heard the back door of the cottage slam in the wind. He looked through the window and saw her—Darla Rennie was running across the moor, toward the west, on the cliff side of the estate.

Nigel ran out in pursuit.

He was running on ground that was alternately rocky and soft with winter yellow moss and thistles.

In the distance was the black-coated figure of Darla Rennie, running toward the cliffs.

“Darla Rennie!” shouted Nigel as he ran. “Darla Rennie, I know who you are!”

That didn’t seem to help. She didn’t slow.

“Darla Rennie!” shouted Nigel again. “Darla Rennie—you know who you are!”

That may have helped; at least it seemed to, at first, because she paused.

But then Nigel realized that she had come to the edge of the cliff.

And now another figure appeared, striding rapidly along the cliff’s edge from the north.

It was Redfern.

Nigel was within about fifty yards of Darla Rennie now; so was Redfern; he had slowed to a walk, but was moving steadily closer to her.

She turned toward Nigel, with the gun in her hand.

“Stop!” she said.

Nigel stopped.

“You are Darla Rennie,” said Nigel. “You are not Moriarty. You were never Moriarty.”

“I know who I am,” she said.

“And your ancestor was never Moriarty. He was a brave man who simply took the name.”

“I know that now,” said Darla Rennie. “I know who my ancestor was, and I was glad to learn it. But I am still myself, regardless of who went before me. I cannot change that, and I cannot change what I have done.”

“Not true,” said Nigel. “Perhaps you cannot change what you have done. But people change who they are on a daily basis.”

“Bollocks,” said Redfern.

He was now within just a few yards of Darla Rennie, both of them standing on the cliff’s edge. He took another step closer, and she turned the gun from Nigel toward Redfern.

“No one changes,” said Redfern to Nigel. “You are as naïve as she is delusional. I’ve known exactly who I am since I was nine years old, and it’s made me the man I am today.”

Redfern took another step toward Darla Rennie.

“Give me the document,” he said.

Darla looked directly at Redfern. She reached inside her coat, and she took out a one-page document.

“I know who you are,” she said to Redfern, “and I know what you did. Come and take it, you sonofabitch.”

Whether it was intentional or not Nigel couldn’t tell—but Darla Rennie lowered the gun when she took out the document.

And Redfern took the opportunity. He lunged toward her, reaching with one hand for the gun, and with the other for the sheet of paper.

Redfern missed the document—Darla let go of it at the last instant—but he grabbed her gun arm. She responded by grabbing his collar.

And before Nigel could move, they both were gone over the edge of the cliff.

Nigel ran forward. The sheet of paper caught in an updraft, blew back toward him, and he grabbed it.

Nigel stood and looked down from the edge.