sponge, and he was once again recognizable. “Food first, and perhaps a cup of coffee. Then I’ll tell you of my adventures.”
I rang and told the girl to have cook prepare a tray for the professor, and she returned with it inside of five minutes. Moriarty ate rapidly, seemingly unaware of what he was eating, his eyes fixed on the far wall. I had seen these symptoms before. He was working out some problem, and I knew better than to interrupt. If it was a difficult one he might spend hours, or even days, with a pencil and note-pad in front of him, drinking countless cups of coffee and consuming quantities of the rough-cut Virginia tobacco he favored in one of his briar pipes, and staring off into space before he again became conscious of his surroundings.
But this time the problem had worked itself out by the time he finished the last of the roast, and he poured himself a small glass of cognac and waved the bottle in my direction. “This was laid in the cask twenty years before we met,” he said, “and it has aged well. Let me pour you a dram!”
“Not tonight, Moriarty,” I said. “Tell me what you have discovered!”
“Ah!” he said. “There was a fact in the new Earl of Whitton’s statement to us that begged for examination, and I have spent the afternoon and evening examining it.”
“What fact?” I asked.
“How many clubs are you a member of, my friend?”
I thought for a second. “Let’s see…The Century, the American Service Club, Whites, the Bellona; that’s it at present.”
“And you have, no doubt, an intimate knowledge of two or three others through guest membership, or visiting friends and the like?”
“I suppose so.”
“And of these half-dozen clubs you are well acquainted with, how many have club doctors?”
“I’m sure they all have physician members,” I said.
“Your reasoning is impeccable,” Moriarty said. “But how many of them have doctors on staff?”
“Why, none,” I said. “Why would a club keep a doctor on staff?”
“My question exactly,” Moriarty said. “But Dr. Papoli was described by both Lord Tams and Inspector Lestrade as the club doctor, which implies a professional relationship between the doctor and the club. And a further question: if, for some reason, the directors of a club decided to hire a doctor, would they pick one who, as Lord Tams told us, lacks a British medical degree?”
“Certainly not!” I said.
“Quite so. And so I went to that area of the East End that is teaming with Balkan immigrants and I let it be known that I was in search of a doctor. I hinted at mysterious needs, but I was very vague, since I didn’t know just what the needs in question were.”
“But Moriarty,” I said, “You don’t speak the language.”
“There are five or six possible languages,” Moriarty said. “Whenever someone spoke to me in anything other than English, I told him I was from Ugarte, and didn’t understand his dialect.”
“Where is Ugarte?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Moriarty said. “I would be very surprised if there is any such place.”
“What did you find out?” I asked.
“That Dr. Papoli is looked upon with almost superstitious dread by his countrymen, and that he has recently hired several assistants with strong backs and dubious reputations.”
“And what does that tell you?”
“That a visit to the Paradol Club is in order for tomorrow. But for now I will enjoy my cognac, and then get a good night’s sleep.”
Although it was clear that Moriarty had reached some conclusion, he did not share it with me. That night I dreamed of beautiful women in dishabille marching on Parliament and demanding the right to paint. The prime minister and Beatrice were singing a duet from Pirates of Penzance to a packed House of Commons, who were about to join in on the chorus, when the chimes on my alarm clock woke me up the next morning.
The Paradol Club was housed in a large building at the corner of Montague and Charles Streets. The brass plaque on the front door was very small and discreet, and the ground floor windows were all barred. Moriarty and I walked around the block twice, Moriarty peering at windows and poking at the pavement and the buildings with his walking stick. There appeared to be two additional entrances; a small, barred door on Charles Street, and an alleyway leading to a rear entry. After the second circuit we mounted the front steps and entered the club.
Considering what we had been told of the Paradol Club, the entrance area was disappointingly mundane. To the right was a cloak room and porter’s room; to the left was the manager’s office, with a desk by the door. Past the desk was the door to the front reading-room, with a rack holding current newspapers and magazines visible inside. A little bird-like man sitting behind the desk leaned forward and cocked his head to the side as we entered. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Welcome to the Paradol Club. Of which of our members are you the guests?”
“Are you the club manager?”
“I am the assistant manager, Torkson by name.”
Moriarty nodded. “I am Professor Moriarty,” he said. “I am here to investigate the death of one of your members. This is my associate, Mr. Barnett.”
Torkson reared back as though he had been stung. “Which one?” he asked.
“How many have there been?” Moriarty asked.
“Three in the past three months,” Torkson said. “Old General Quincy, Hapsman the barrister, and Lord Tams.”
“It is the death of Vincent Tams that occupies us at the moment,” Moriarty said. “Has his room been cleaned out yet, and if not may we see it?”
“Who sent you?” Torkson asked.
“Lord Tams,” Moriarty said.
Torkson looked startled. “The Lord Tams that is,” explained Moriarty, “has asked me to enquire into the death of the Lord Tams that was.”
“Ah!” said Torkson. “That would be Mr. Everett. Well then, I guess it will be all right.” Pulling a large ring of keys from a desk drawer, he led the way upstairs. “Lord Tams kept a room here permanently,” he said. “Our hostesses were very fond of him, as he was always a perfect gentleman and very generous,” he added, pausing on the first floor landing and glancing back at us. Moriarty and I just stared back at him, as though the idea of “hostesses” at a gentleman’s club were perfectly normal. Reassured, he took us up to the second floor, and down the hall to Vincent Tams’s room. Again I was struck by the very normality of my surroundings. One would expect a club defined by its members’ addiction to vice, as others are by their members’ military backgrounds or fondness for cricket, to have risque wall hangings or scantily clad maidens dashing from room to room. But from the dark wood furniture to the paintings of hunting scenes on the wall, it all looked respectable, mundane, and very British.
When we reached the door to Vincent Tams’s room the assistant manager paused and turned to us. “Do you suppose the new Lord Tams will wish to keep the room?” he asked.
“He is hoping to get married in the near future,” I said.
“Ah!” said Torkson. “Then he will almost certainly wish to keep the room.” He unlocked the door and turned to go.
“One moment,” Moriarty said. “Is the waiter who found his lordship’s body available?”
“Williamson,” the assistant manager said. “I believe he is working today.”
“Will you please send him up here?”
Torkson nodded and scurried off back downstairs. The room was actually a three-room suite. Moriarty and I entered a sitting room, to the left was the bedroom, and to the right a small dining room. The sitting room was fixed with a writing desk, a couch and an easy chair. A large bookcase took up one wall. Moriarty whipped out a magnifying glass and tape measure and began a methodical examination of the walls and floor.
“What can I do, Professor?” I asked.
He thought for a second. “Examine the books,” he said.
“For what?” I asked.
“Anything that isn’t book,” he told me.
I went to the bookcase and took down some of the volumes at random. Except for some popular novels and a six-volume work on the Napoleonic Wars, they were all books that could not be displayed in mixed company. Most
