The Great Game

by Michael Kurland

  "You see?" Moriarty said. "There are no new marks at all. The hammer strikes, but the firing pin is broken. This weapon, as I said, is incapable of firing."

  Dr. Gross sighed and took the gun back. He wrapped it again and returned it to his briefcase. "I didn't truly expect for our whole case to be turned on its head in the space of a few minutes," he said, "but I suppose I should be grateful. Are we done here?"

  "For right now," Holmes replied, "but I would like the chance to go through these rooms more thoroughly."

  "Tomorrow," Gross said. "I'll send a criminal police investigator up with you. Perhaps he will learn something. Right now I need a beer. Let us retire to a local establishment, and you can explain to me how you saw all these things that I and my trained investigators missed. Is there anything else?"

  "One small thing that perhaps you should arrange as soon as possible," Holmes said. "There will be a meeting of an anarchist society at ten tonight in the box cellar of the Werfel Chocolate Company in the Mariahilf District. Have your men surround the place and arrest everyone inside. One of them is assuredly the murderer of that poor girl, and perhaps one of them is the assassin. I can show you how to identify the murderer, and I believe I know who it will turn out to be. Identifying the assassin will take a bit longer."

  "How are we to identify the murderer?"

  "You have his bloody hand-print on the wall of the bedroom," Holmes told him. "Compare the print on the wall with the prints of the right hands of all those you pick up, and one of them will match."

  "A hand-print? Is this a sure identification?"

  Holmes nodded. "Sir Francis Galton the noted expert on heredity, is preparing a book to be called Finger Prints, which should be published early next year. In it he estimates the chances of any two sets of finger prints matching to be one in sixty-four million. I was of some small help to him in developing the system of classification that he suggests using."

  "Within the next few decades the study of fingerprints is going to be of as much assistance in catching criminals as the police whistle," Moriarty said. "The prints of at least four fingers of the right hand are clear on one of the bloody hand-prints on the wall."

  "Has this system been used with success anywhere in the world?" Dr. Gross asked.

  "The United States," Holmes told him.

  "Also China and Japan," Moriarty added. "But not Europe. The Austrian police have a chance to be the first police force in Europe to apprehend a murderer by his fingerprints."

  "So be it!" Dr. Gross said. "We will proceed to the central police station and arrange the raid. The beers, and the rest of the explanation, will have to wait. But the explanation, when it comes, had better be a good one, or my superiors are going to bring back the cat-o'-nine-tails for our special benefit."

  "Have no fear," Holmes said.

  "You can rely on Mr. Sherlock Holmes," Moriarty said. "At times his insights can be quite uncanny."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE — ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND RUSSIA

  When small men make long shadows, the end of the day is near.

  — Confucius

  The massive neo-Gothic building on Prince Eugene Platz that housed the British Embassy in Vienna had been built right before Napoleon was chased off the field at Waterloo, when the ties between Great Britain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had seemed eternal and imperative. It had been constructed for the ages, and little about it had changed in the intervening eight decades.

  The second-floor conference room, in which the British ambassador and the duke of Albermar were meeting with Moriarty and his companions, was hung with ancient red velvet drapes trimmed with gold thread, and around its great oak table were massive oak chairs with red plush seats in which the material had worn thin through the years of supporting stern men of importance and weight. The room had the air of a wealthy old dowager who found it difficult to change her habits or her clothing acquired in an earlier age.

  As soon as the assemblage had finished assembling, the ambassador had retired to his residence, a few words from the duke of Albermar convincing him that there were some things he didn't want to know. The duke sat at the head of the table, with Professor Moriarty facing him at the foot. Gathered around the sides were Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Jenny Vernet, Madeleine Verlaine, and Benjamin and Cecily Barnett.

  "I don't have much time," Albermar told Moriarty. "In two hours I must leave for the conference I spoke of. I'm taking you at your word that this is as important as you say it is, but you're going to have to fully convince me if you expect me to convince the others."

  "I trust that we'll be able to do that, Your Grace," Moriarty told him.

  "Good. But first, please, about my son. You say Charles is going to be released?

  Moriarty nodded. "It will take a day or two. The authorities, whether British or Austrian, are always much more eager to incarcerate a man than they are to release him."

  "I don't know how to thank you," Albermar began.

  Moriarty shook his head. "If any thanks are due, they should go to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. His reading of the crime scene was magnificent."

  "Elementary," Holmes said.

  Moriarty turned and regarded his quondam nemesis thoughtfully. "Surely more than that. 'A short anarchist who has been in trouble with the law? Possibly for burglary or housebreaking?' I am surprised you didn't just name him."

  Holmes smiled grimly. "Unless I am mistaken," he said, "he is called 'the Ferret.' His real name is Dietrich Loomer. He is supposedly the head of a local anarchist group that calls itself the 'Secret Freedom League,' although I believe that he himself receives orders from someone else."

  Moriarty clapped his hands together. "I knew it!" he said. "You see, Holmes, we should team up more often."

  "I don't think so," said Holmes.

  Moriarty chuckled.

  "How do you know this?" Lord Albermar asked.

  "A Shugard Seuss revolver was found in Paul Donzhof's apartment. It's the same make and caliber of weapon as the one used in the assassination of the duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz," Holmes explained. "But, as Professor Moriarty established, it was not the actual weapon used in the crime. Therefore it had been placed there to incriminate Donzhof. The gun was found on the top shelf of a wardrobe in the bedroom. When I examined the wardrobe I found a small clot of dirt on the bottom of the door frame, left there by a shoe when someone stood on the door frame to place the revolver on the top shelf. Your son, or anyone else taller than about five foot three, could have placed the Shugard Seuss on the top shelf without standing on the door frame."

  "And how did you deduce that this short man was a burglar or housebreaker, and—how did you put it?—a confirmed scoundrel?" Moriarty demanded.

  "There were tell-tale scratches on the front door lock, made by a lockpick or similar instrument. As to his having been in the apartment before: he brought a pry bar with him to pry up the strongbox under the bed, so he must have known of its existence."

  "And his being a scoundrel? Do you mean something beyond the fact that he was a burglar?"

  "Oh, yes," Holmes affirmed. "If there was a plot to implicate Paul Donzhof—let us continue to call him Paul Donzhof—this burglar didn't initiate it. It was a small piece of some larger scheme, and others told him what to do. His masters, whomever they might be, sent him up there to hide the gun, and so implicate Donzhof. They would not have wanted the apartment to look as though it had been burglarized, an act which might make the police less sure of Donzhof's guilt. Therefore the pry bar was his own idea. His greed was stronger than his instructions, and he had no particular qualms against going against the desires of those who were paying him."

  "Was it not Horace who remarked that there is no honor among thieves?" Duke Albermar asked rhetorically.

  "There you have the advantage of an extensive classical education, Your Grace," Moriarty said. "I never got much beyond Caesar and Quintilian."

  The duke fastened his mild blue eyes on Sherlock Hol
mes. "And from this you were able to further deduce that the man was an anarchist, and could be found at a chocolate factory?"

  "We should know shortly whether I was right," Holmes said, pulling out his pocket watch and glancing at it. "The police raid should take place any time now."

  "Come, Holmes," Watson said, "how did you know about the chocolate factory?"

  "I spent some hours hiding in a crate in the box cellar of the Werfel Chocolate Factory listening to anarchists prate their theories, while you were sitting in the Café Mozart drinking cold espresso," Holmes told his Boswell. "And the clot of dirt that I found in the wardrobe looked like the dirt that makes up the floor of the box cellar—a brownish-gray clay that I have seen nowhere else in Vienna. And when I brought it to my nose—I smelled chocolate!"

  "I bow to the master," Moriarty said, inclining his head in Holmes's direction.

  "If they catch this weasel, then the hand print on the wall should establish his guilt," Albermar said.

  "Ferret," Holmes said. "Yes, it should."

  "Fancy everyone's fingerprints being unique," the duke mused. "Who would have thought it?"

  "It's a fascinating discovery, and should prove quite useful in criminal identification," Holmes said.

  "You have come a long way toward relieving my anxiety," Duke Albermar said, "but the knot in my stomach won't fully dissolve until Charles—my son—is standing beside me. Preferably in the library at Albermar Hall, our ancestral home. I believe the library has always been his favorite room."

  "Soon, Your Grace," Moriarty said.

  "Now, as to this other business. What is it that has brought you all here?"

  "A matter of the utmost moment," Moriarty told him. "It would not be an exaggeration to say that every country in Europe stands at this moment on the brink of disaster."

  The duke of Albermar drew away from the table slightly, as though afraid that he might be contaminated by the madness he was hearing. "What's that you say?"

  "I have discerned a dangerous pattern in a series of seemingly unrelated events, including your son's misfortune," Moriarty told the duke. "If I am right, we must act now to prevent a deed that might plunge the European continent into that general war that you once told me you feared."

  "War? Yes, I do fear that there will be a general war. But not during what's left of this century. Not for at least two or three decades. It's the legacy that I fear our policies are leaving for the twentieth century, and they will not thank us for it."

  "It may come sooner," Moriarty told him. "There are forces at work to make that so. I believe I have puzzled out the greatest part of one of their plans, although one essential piece remains hidden. I have brought my comrades along because each of them has discerned a piece of this puzzle, and you might wish to hear it in their own words."

  The duke of Albermar's eyes slowly scanned the group assembled around the table. "If you believe such a thing, of course I will listen," he said. "But I am extremely hurried now. Will this not wait for three, or possibly four, days?"

  "These days are crucial," Moriarty said. "The tale should not take long to tell."

  The duke leaned back in his chair. "Speak on," he said.

  "Perhaps we should begin with your son," Moriarty said. "He had the misfortune to pick up a message intended for another." Moriarty looked to his right. "Madame Verlaine?"

  "When I visited him in prison he told me of this," Madeleine told the duke. "He obtained a written list, almost by accident, from a man named Hermann Loge, a clerk in the Austrian Foreign Ministry. Your son cleverly hid it in his rooms, and the police who searched didn't find it. The professor and I went to retrieve it."

  "Damn!" Sherlock Holmes said, leaping to his feet. "You were in that apartment before!" He pointed an accusing finger at Moriarty. "That whole business at the apartment was a charade!"

  "Not a bit of it," Moriarty said. "I disturbed nothing, I merely took the missive I had come for and departed. It was then, while I was removing the police lock and unlocking the door, that I noticed that the door lock had been picked; but I assure you that I left no additional marks on the face."

  "And the clot of dirt?"

  "It was there."

  "And the revolver?"

  "It had already been removed by the police."

  "True." Holmes sat back down.

  "What was on this written list?" Duke Albermar asked. Moriarty turned to his adjutant. "Madeleine?" Madeleine raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Seven numbered items:

  -

  ONE: TWENTY-FOUR AND TWENTY-FIVE APRIL;

  TWO: THAT WEDNESDAY;

  THREE: UNKNOWN;

  FOUR: ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND RUSSIA;

  FIVE: UNKNOWN;

  SIX: THIRD AND FOURTH OUT OF SIX;

  SEVEN: YES."

  -

  The duke's eyes widened. "And on this nonsense lies the fate of Europe?"

  "Someone was prepared to pay a thousand kronen for that nonsense," Moriarty told him. "Herr Loge, the man who gave that nonsense to your son by mistake, was subsequently murdered. Your son was framed for an assassination, and his girlfriend was murdered, quite possibly because of that nonsense."

  "I see. Go on," the duke of Albermar said.

  "This is but one corner of the picture. Before I attempt to discover the meaning hidden in that list, let me show you a few of the other items that came to my attention. The next bit of information came from Jenny Vernet, this charming young lady to my right."

  "Your Grace," Jenny Vernet said, doing her best to curtsey without getting out of the chair. "Mycroft Holmes sent me to make friends with Graf Sigfried von Linsz, whom he suspected of being highly placed in the organization Sherlock Holmes had come to Europe to investigate. He said it might represent a grave danger to the established order. Mycroft is Sherlock's brother."

  "Yes, I know who he is," Albermar said. "He sent you—a mere slip of a girl—on a dangerous task like that?"

  "If you thought that was the best way to get the information you needed, and you believed it was for the good of your country, wouldn't you?" Jenny asked innocently.

  Holmes laughed. "Man, woman, boy, girl, it would make no difference to Mycroft. He would instinctively use the best tool for the job. He'd go himself if he wasn't too fat to move about easily. He'd prefer to go himself, as he never really trusts anyone else's intellect to be up to the task."

  "And you were held prisoner?" Albermar asked, looking with sympathy at the lovely singer.

  "Not at first. I was von Linsz's companion for several weeks, but for some reason he grew suspicious of me. Then, although I remained his companion, I was also his prisoner. He began to have me watched unobtrusively. Then the watching became more deliberate. I was actively discouraged from going anywhere away from him, and when I did there would be someone with me. At first I thought it was jealousy, but it was more than that, although that was certainly an element of it. I worked to convince him that I was not interested in anything he did, no matter how bizarre, unless it involved my career or our relationship; which was one of, let us say, very close friends."

  The duke, a man of the world, knew better than to inquire as to the exact relationship implied by "very good friends." He went elsewhere. "What sort of things do you mean? What did he do that was bizarre?"

  "Well, he ordered people around as if he owned them. One time he whipped one of his servants for not dressing properly. And yet most of the time he was quite a proper gentleman. Then there are his suspicions: he is always convinced that people are listening in on him and spying on him."

  "Ah!" Moriarty said.

  "But he's got a whole great mob of people out spying on everybody else. I overheard him giving some of them instructions on one or two occasions. And then, of course, he's the one who kidnaped Mr. and Mrs. Barnett. And he did it with this incredible air of élan—of privilege—as though he had the right to do anything he wanted to anyone he chose at any time. It was truly frightening. That was when I decided that
the man was utterly mad. I did my best to act as though I thought that whatever he did was none of my business, that I was a mere woman who did not interest herself in the affairs of men; that I could accept his kidnaping an occasional stranger as of no more importance than his ordering champagne or changing his cravat. And he had no trouble accepting my supposed indifference; he wasn't in the least surprised. That was one thing he never cross-examined me about. Although he was dreadfully concerned with whom I wrote letters to, and what I said."

  "Tell His Grace what you learned," Moriarty suggested.

  "What I learned. Well, I learned that the graf has this insistent belief that Professor Moriarty is out to get him. He thinks the professor is the head of the British Secret Service, and has agents all over Europe, especially among the criminal classes. He almost killed a man whom he thought was a pickpocket—not because of his pocket picking, but because he assumed him to be an agent of Professor Moriarty."