The Stockbroker's Wife by Anna Castle

Author:Anna Castle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: victorian mystery, professor moriarty, sherlock holmes, female protagonist, mysteries set in london
Publisher: Anna Castle
Published: 2018-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, they divided the surveillance task between them. Watson would follow the green Highbury omnibus, sticking as close to Mr. Barrett as possible. They guessed he would follow his established pattern, spending the morning in the British Museum and the afternoon in Russell Square, which Watson could monitor easily enough in his ordinary clothes. He had no gift for disguises.

Holmes, on the other hand, dressed as a workman with brushy moustache and sideburns, adding a bowler hat that he’d beaten to a shapeless mass with a cricket bat. He would go directly to Threadneedle Street and find ways to keep an eye on the front door of Clements Bank, noting everyone who entered. He didn’t say it, but Watson knew he expected to see Professor Moriarty enter the building a few minutes before ten o’clock.

“Keep Barrett in your sights at all times, Watson,” Holmes admonished. “Be especially alert to any opportunities for him to exchange a message with anyone.”

“Good thought,” Watson said. He hadn’t considered it. They went their separate ways.

Watson spent a pleasant morning in the reading room at the British Museum catching up on back issues of the Illustrated London News. He had to change seats twice to maintain a view of the entrance and was then forced to abandon a thrilling Wilkie Collins story when Barrett passed right by him on his way out. They enjoyed a leisurely lunch at well-separated tables in the dining room of a middling hotel on Montague Street. Then they strolled toward Russell Square, picking up newspapers along the way. Watson bought the latest copy of the Illustrated, vainly hoping for another Wilkie Collins. They settled on separate benches and spent the afternoon reading in the mild spring sunshine.

Bells tolled the three-quarter hour somewhere nearby, and both gentlemen checked their watches: a quarter to five, time to go home. They folded up their papers and rose. Watson stuffed his into a pocket, but Barrett left his on the bench for some lucky scavenger. Watson followed him to the stop and watched him board the Highbury omnibus in the direction of Islington. His work was done for the day. One of the boys in Holmes’s troop of irregular assistants would watch Barrett’s house until the lights went out.

Watson had time to wash up, change into his smoking jacket, and enjoy a pipe beside the fire before Holmes returned. It took only a few minutes to report his uneventful day.

“Your time was not wasted, Watson,” Holmes said. “Our assumptions have now been duly confirmed. My hypothesis was also sustained. The balding man spending his days at Clements and Weatherly is none other than our old friend Professor James Moriarty.”

“Intriguing,” Watson said. “Were you able to learn what he’s up to?”

“No, but it obviously has something to do with stocks since Clements Bank has been transformed into an investment firm — recently, one would assume from the unfinished lettering on the door. However, the painter left off in the middle of that job some time ago, by the dust on the expensive camel-hair brush he left behind.

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