Moriarty Returns a Letter by Michael Robertson Read Free Book Online Page A

name, you can do so safely; Redgil will never be able to find you, even if he tries. But if you stay here—well, there is no telling what a criminal might try to do, or what he might somehow have learned that could lead him to you.”
    The inspector paused now. He wasn’t at all sure the widow was even listening to him.
    But now she looked up.
    “Inspector,” she said, “if I understand you and the sergeant correctly, my husband, under the cover name Moriarty, signed a contract to purchase the cargo on board a ship, with the alleged intent—for purposes of his cover story—of sailing with it to the United States for sale.”
    “Yes.”
    “And the bill of lading now shows that the owner of that cargo is someone named Moriarty—again, consistent with the cover story of your operation.”
    “Yes.”
    “And that cargo of whiskey is worth fifty thousand pounds.”
    “Yes,” said the inspector. “That was the wholesale price of it.” He began to worry what she might be getting at.
    “Was it contraband?” she asked now. “That is, was it illegal goods that the Yard just happened to have seized earlier in some other operation and just happened to have on hand for this one?”
    “No,” said the inspector quickly, and now he really wondered where she was going with these questions. “Scotland Yard does not traffic in stolen goods. Not in my division. The cargo was bought and paid for by the Yard, for use in this specific operation.”
    “So I presume that now that the operation is over, the whiskey will need to be sold so that the funds can be restored to the coffers of whatever governmental authority administers them, but it will probably be at a loss, unless the Yard plans on going into the whiskey-retailing business, is that not so?”
    “Yes,” said the inspector, nodding grimly. “The Yard is not a whiskey retailer. The expense of the operation will be noted in the record. As will the fact that the main target escaped. My superiors will not regard this as a success, and I will be held accountable. But that is not my first concern at the moment, nor should it be yours.”
    The woman smiled and nodded, almost condescendingly. Then she said:
    “What I propose, Inspector, is this: I shall take possession of that cargo as my husband’s widow—as Mrs. Moriarty. You shall sign an affidavit to that effect, in case anyone of an official capacity should ever inquire. I shall sail with the cargo to New York City, as my husband’s cover story said that he would do, I as his widow, with the inherited cargo, in his place. On arrival, I will sell the cargo at the best retail price I am able to get, and I will return to you—to Scotland Yard—the full wholesale purchase price that was paid. But all the profit above that I shall keep. I and my unborn child.”
    The inspector stared at her.
    “Inspector,” she continued, “by doing this, you will restore to the Yard all the funds that it has expended. Furthermore—and more importantly, I suspect—this will make it possible for you to maintain my husband’s cover story even after his death, thereby diverting attention from other operatives you have in the field, who are working undercover in similar activities. You do have others in operation, I presume?”
    “Yes,” said the inspector. “But I was going to pull them all out. I was going to shut them all down. And given what happened to your husband—”
    “That is your choice, of course. Given the price my husband already paid, I thought perhaps you might want to see what could be salvaged of your operations. That you might want to have the gullible criminal element in London continue to believe that there is a consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes who is thwarting the best-laid plans of even a criminal genius such as my husband—the late Moriarty. And if you’re concerned about the outcome described in that magazine—what was the story called? ‘The Final Problem,’ was it? Well, I would just