Who Thinks Evil: A Professor Moriarty Novel (Professor Moriarty Novels) Read Online Free PDF Page A

know, stolid. As if he wasn’t going to let any of this bother him, but it took considerable effort to manage it.”
    “What did you discuss?” Cecily asked.
    “We didn’t so much discuss,” Barnett said. “The professor spoke, I listened. He told me his side of the case.” He stood up and began pacing again. “Well, no, not his side so much as what he thought must have happened. Since he wasn’t actually involved, he said, there were a certain number of assumptions in what he told me, but it was the most logical way for it to have happened.”
    “There, you see?” The mummer hopped to his feet. “What was it he said? And what do he want us to do about it?”
    “If there was anything he wanted me to do, he couldn’t tell me because the guards were right there in the room and whatever he said would get right back to the prosecution.”
    “So just what did he say?” Cecily asked.
    “And how did he look?” the mummer added. “He looked like he was losing weight when I seen him in court.”
    “He looked fine,” Barnett told the mummer. “He told me that he hadn’t done it, in case I had any doubts, and that he couldn’t determine why Esterman was lying.”
    “Esterman?” Cecily asked.
    “The surprise witness,” Barnett told her.
    “Was he one of the robbers?”
    “Not likely!” said the mummer. “He ain’t steady enough to make an honest robber. I seen him on the stand, twitchin’ and blinkin’, and then, when he was answering questions, turning to stare steadylike at the jury with every syllable what came out of his mouth.”
    “I’ve always thought,” said Cecily, “that a steady gaze is the sign of an honest soul.”
    “That’s what they sez,” the mummer agreed. “And they sez it often enough so every swindler and liar and two-peg sit-down man in the world has learned to stare you right in the mug when he’s busy lying to you. Nothing breeds confi-blinking-dence like when the bloke’s staring you right in the mug.”
    “There were six men in the gang that assaulted Widdersign,” Barnett explained to Cecily.
    Cecily sighed. “I guess you’d better tell me about it,” she said, “as it involves the professor, and I do care about the professor. Also, it looks as though it’s going to involve you, and I—you know.”
    “Yes,” Barnett said. He rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger, a gesture he had discovered helped clarify his thoughts, and picked up his notebook. “Two of the robbers were killed in the, ah, fracas,” he began, flipping through the notebook to find the right page. “One was wounded and captured, and the other three escaped into the forest with little to show for the escapade except, it is believed, a particularly fine topaz necklace belonging to Lady Hoxbary. On the other hand, Lady Hoxbary may have merely mislaid the necklace; she has been known to do so before.”
    “And the wounded man?” Cecily asked.
    “A few number-eight shotgun pellets in the leg,” Barnett told her. “Fully recovered by the start of trial.”
    “He’ll never fly again,” the mummer offered. “He walks with a bit of a limp, which he was glad to display and, if you was to ask me, exaggerate for the jury, when he come to give testimony.”
    “He gave testimony against Professor Moriarty?”
    “Well, he had to, didn’t he?” asked the mummer.
    “He pled guilty,” Barnett explained, “and received a lighter sentence for informing on his companions.”
    “Ten years in quod, it were,” expanded Tolliver. “Seeing as how he could have swung, like as what they’re trying to do to the professor, I’d say he come off it pretty light. Particularly as how he couldn’t do all that much informing on account of which he didn’t know who any of them were. Or so he said. My sources,” the mummer went on, tapping the side of his nose suggestively, “had it that the prosecutor offered to go even lighter on him if he could somehow produce some of the swag from the