At Parker’s cry, the disembarking criminals fired a ragged salvo, and gnolish eyes winked out as the dark was pierced by tongues of flame. Over the sound of this fusillade came the eerie groan of oft-abused joists and popping nails. The war wagon heaved, shimmied and then … fell. All at once, and promptly, as the floor gave way beneath it. It took men with it, down into the dark, and their screams trailed up and up, much as poor Tommy’s had done.
The gnoles came in a rush then, a tide of slavering shadows that seemed to blend together into one. The Professor rattled off firing solutions with chill precision, and, where he gestured, gnoles died, or at least fell. But there were so many, boiling up out of the dark like ants; I had never, even in my most extravagant fantasies, conceived of such numbers and I knew then that the rumours of emeralds in the house of the gnoles were just that. I knew then that what men had claimed to see had been nothing more than the eyes of the gnoles themselves, watching from the corners and casements.
Parker caught my arm, his face as white as flour, and the Webley in his hand smoking. “The Professor says to run, Mr Nuth – run!” And, as if to lead by example, he did so, bounding away from me like a rabbit. I did not need to be told twice, and I too took to my heels. I was not alone. Men streamed past and around me, running for their lives, all thought of plunder forgotten in the mad rush of fear. They scattered through the crooked woods, but I kept to the path, running for the free field and the village beyond.
As I ran, the night was punctuated by screams and cries as men were taken, one after another, by the gnoles. I am not ashamed to admit that I leapt over one such struggling knot of fell shapes and anguished cries, and did not look back. I ran and ran, and, all the while, something kept pace, following me unerringly through the trees. Gnoles, I knew, were very fast, and I heard them slashing through the trees on either side of me, their emerald eyes glinting at me. No man had ever caught Nuth, but gnoles were not men, and I wondered, in those moments, whether my legend was to end like Slith’s, in grandeur and painful mystery.
Then, within sight of freedom, calamity. A root, or perhaps a claw, caught my foot and graceful Nuth, catlike Nuth, went end over end in the dirt. As I scrambled upright, a black shape flowed towards me, teeth shining like stickpins. There was a flash, and a sound like a boiling tea-kettle, and the shape receded, dripping something foul.
“Up, Mr Nuth,” the Professor intoned, sword-stick extended. Sweat creased his withered features, and I realised that it had been he who had been on my heels. He glanced down at me and smiled, as if he’d read my thoughts. “You have been here before, Mr Nuth. I am no fool, to wander in the dark without a guide.”
As I got to my feet, I saw that we were barely a hair’s breadth from the forest’s edge, but I knew that if we made for it, the gnoles would surely pull us down. The Professor knew it as well, and made no move to run. Instead, he said, “Quite something, that.”
“What?”
“The house – it is not theirs. Or, not their lair. No, they live beneath it, beneath this whole dratted wood, like rats in the walls, or worms in the earth, burrowed down deep in the soil. They stretch down as deep as the tree roots, I expect.” He paused and raised his sword-stick as a gnole drew too close. “Back away, sir. Thank you. But they go down, not out. Only to the circumference of this wood, else all of London would be as a molehill. Curiouser and curiouser.” He looked at me. “There are no emeralds.”
“No,” I said.
“A shame. But treasures are a trifle, compared to knowledge.”
“What of survival?” I asked hoarsely, as the gnoles closed in on us, hemming us in.
“Ah, even better.” Moriarty eyed the gnoles the way a hyena might eye a circling lion: wary respect, tinged with cunning calculation. Moriarty, as I had come to learn, was always calculating. Always thinking, always weaving his schemes, plots and stratagems. That was his art, as thievery was mine. He held up two fingers, and gestured curtly.
The shot, when it came, made no sound. I heard it nonetheless, for I have long practised the skill of hearing what is not there. In the empty space between the breeze and the rasp of creaking branches, I heard the whisper of the bullet as it passed over my shoulder. And then, more loudly, I heard the pumpkingroan of the lead gnole’s head as it split open and spilled out its dark contents on the forest floor. I blinked in shock, and I fancy the gnoles did as well.
Moriarty held up his hand. “Mr Nuth, take one step back. You are in Colonel Moran’s line of fire, by several millimetres.”
I hesitated. The gnoles watched me. Moriarty watched me. Then I took one step back. The gnoles began to move. Moriarty gestured again, and another indistinct shape slumped, strange skull split by the passage of a bullet.
“There is a line, gentlemen,” Moriarty called out. “A line you cannot cross. I have moved it by several paces, as you can observe. It will return to its original place when we are safely away. You understand?” He twitched his hand. It was the gnoles’ turn to hesitate. Then, as one, they shuffled back. His smile was more terrible than any undulation of the gnolish physiognomy I had yet observed. He nodded. “Yes. You can be taught. Good. Perhaps there is a future for you yet in this world.” His smile faded. “Then, perhaps not.” He lowered his hand.
A third and final shot stretched out from the unseen shooter’s weapon and struck a branch, dropping it at the feet of the gnoles. Moriarty held them with his gaze, slightly stooped, hands behind his back, his sword-stick held loosely. Then, without a word, he turned away and strode past me. “Come, Mr Nuth. It has been a tiresome day, and I would be done with forests and the things that creep within them.”
We did not have far to walk. A trap and horse was waiting for us, a man holding the reins. He tipped his cap to Moriarty, as the latter climbed aboard. He ignored me. I did not speak until the horse had plodded along for some time. “What of the others?” I asked.
“I fancy there will be no others. If I am wrong, they will seek me out and I will compensate them accordingly,” he said. Something of my feelings must have crossed my face, for he said, “Cost is subjective, Mr Nuth. And treasures but a trifle. You know that as well as I, I fancy.”
“You knew that they would defeat your machine,” I said.
Moriarty oscillated his head towards me. “I planned for it, yes. That is what I do, Mr Nuth. I plan,” he said. He tapped his veined brow for emphasis. “The devil, as they say, is in the details.”
“You knew that they would pursue us,” I continued. “You wanted them to. You practically taunted them into it, with all your crashing and shootings. Why?”
Moriarty cocked his head. “You tell me, Mr Nuth. You are observant, sir. Surely you have come to some conclusion of your own.”
I met his gaze. He had the air of a tutor, waiting for a student to unravel some theorem. The Professor, at his art. Then, I had it. “You wanted to see if your theory were correct,” I said, slowly.
He smiled, and I knew instantly that I had guessed wrong. He patted my shoulder, as if comforting a particularly dull-witted child. “Stick to your trade, Mr Nuth. And I shall stick to mine.”
And so I did.
And, you may ask, did I ever discern the true motivations behind the Professor’s lesson to the gnoles?
Oh no, my friend.
No one ever learns what the Professor does not wish them to know.
The Swimming Lesson
Priscilla Masters
It was Uncle James who taught me to swim. He underlined how important it was. Pointed out that one day it might even save my life. My father, who is a pragmatist, argued with him. He insisted that, as we lived inland and I was not in the habit of frequenting lakes or rivers, it was an unnecessary skill to acquire. ‘Far better for the child to learn to read and perhaps to sew,’ he grumbled, challenging his brother for once. ‘And certainly to cook,’ he added, looking slyly across at me. But already I felt rebellious. I slipped my hand into Uncle James’s and he bent down and winked at me, pattin
g my head. I treasure that memory now. I believe I was eight years old at the time and I knew that if it came to it Uncle James had a stronger character than my father. It would be my father who would back down.
And so it proved. Little more than a week later, my father silently handed me a bathing suit and Uncle James winked at me again. ‘Come, Cicely my dear,’ he said to me. ‘Shall we now go for a drive in the country?’
My father grumbled again and made weak objection. ‘She should be helping her mother. There is work to do around the station, beds to be made, weeds to be lifted, platforms to be swept.’ Uncle James silenced his babble with a stare. It was then that I first realized that my father was not simply in awe of his brother. He was afraid. He soon dropped his eyes and contented himself with bustling importantly around the station, waving flags and strutting up and down the platform.
Uncle James watched him for a moment, almost pityingly, then we left.
He drove me to a nearby lake and left me discreetly in the carriage while I donned my bathing dress and the horses grazed. He himself was soon handsomely attired in a black woollen bathing suit. Tall and thin with a large domed forehead, (an indication of his outstanding mathematical ability) and the bowed shoulders of an academic, he still looked as though he could swim the length and breadth of the lake. I looked up at him, trustingly. He then led me to the water’s edge. It was a warm day but I shivered. I was anxious for Uncle James not to perceive my anxiety and so masked it with a smile, trying to display a confidence I was far from feeling. Of course I wanted to learn to swim, even if only to please him, and yet I was seized with fearfulness as I looked over the lake. The waters were calm, but, as I watched, a small wave lifted and tossed white foam into the air before dropping back into the surface with a loud and threatening splash as though to scare me away. Was this perhaps a premonition? If it was my uncle did not seem to recognize it as such, merely taking a step or two towards the water’s edge and scooping deep breaths in in preparation for the exertion. The lake was near our house and but a short drive away. It would have been easy for me to escape the swimming lesson and run back home. But, as I glanced back along the track and heard the sound of a train puffing into the station, I knew that I could not let my uncle down by showing cowardice. He believed in me. I had to learn to swim at least a stroke or two before I returned to my home.
‘Come, Cicely,’ he said, perhaps understanding my apprehension. ‘Do not be afraid. It is merely a matter of confidence and trust.’ He paused, looking at me intently. ‘Do you trust me, Cicely?’
For answer, I stepped into the water and moved steadily forward until it was waist deep. He then held my chin while I kicked my legs and that afternoon I believe I did manage to stay afloat for a few seconds before sinking to the bottom and spluttering beneath the water’s surface. Uncle James laughed and showed much amusement but some tolerance too. We resumed our activity. After about an hour of splashing, he put his face near to mine. ‘Have you had enough, child?’
Slowly, I shook my head. ‘I have not, Uncle.’
He seemed pleased at my response. ‘Plucky,’ he muttered. ‘Brave too.’ Then, ‘Shall we try again?’
Truth was I was frightened. That terror of falling beneath the water, of it closing all around, over my head, filling my nose and mouth, of my lungs being deprived of air, slowly filling with water. It is a horrid feeling. But I knew he would admire me more if I persevered. And so I did. My teeth were chattering both from fear and from the cold so I bit my lips to prevent them from exposing my cowardice.
However, after a further half-hour, he smiled. ‘Come, Cicely,’ he said. ‘Enough for today. You have shown courage and have done well. Soon you shall be able to swim.’ And, as we returned to the carriage to change, he added, almost to himself, ‘One day it might truly save your life.’
It did not save his. I learned by the foulest and cruellest of means that swimming could not have saved him, that he was mortally wounded by hitting his head on a rock before he touched the water. I was almost sixteen when this happened.
How did I find out this grisly detail? you wonder. Effrontery. That is how. Sheer brazen flagrant parading of my uncle’s death. Publication of the very tiniest detail. That man had the audacity to publish a record of my poor uncle’s death combined with a torrent – yes – I use that word deliberately – a torrent of spurious tales and opinions as to my uncle’s character. Words like evil and king-devil, endowing him with a criminal strain. A matter of opinion, I say, for cannot black appear white and white black in distorted vision? Cannot left look right from a reverse angle? I say my uncle was brilliant. Good and evil is irrelevant. He taught society that cold planning combined with a genius of a brain could achieve much. The snake-doctor writes his stories with a mixture of admiration and disgust but no understanding whatsoever. He did not know the man as I did. And I have had to keep silent and smile while I have heard my dearest uncle both insulted and complimented. Called the greatest schemer, filled with devilry and possessing a controlling brain while he, the arch-enemy, grudgingly but truthfully, tells us that my uncle James could have made or marred the destiny of nations. Tributes indeed, but the reader’s opinions might well be distorted by the tone of these backhanded compliments. It is not Uncle James’s intelligence that is under question, or his wealth, which I have good reason to believe remains unsurpassed, and which will, eventually, all come to me. No, it is certainly not his intelligence, but his morals that are under the microscope. I ask you then to adjudicate. Was this the act of an evil man, to teach a child to swim in the belief that one day she might need this skill? Truth is it was he, the king-enemy, who spoke the truest tribute to my uncle when he described his stooge as foul-mouthed doctor and sympathized with my Uncle James as slandered professor.
How true.
I have been denied the right to defend him publicly as I would like so it is the scribblings of this ‘foul-mouthed doctor’ that reach the public consciousness. Nor have I yet the opportunity to put the record straight to those who are deliberately misled as to my uncle’s motives. Do they not realize it was all an intellectual exercise? To him, nothing but entertainment, a way of avoiding boredom and removing unwanted obstacles? But to defend him would be to expose myself and Uncle James taught me, not only to swim, but also the virtue of caution. ‘Your greatest asset, Cicely,’ he said one day shortly before his terrible death, ‘is your anonymity. Nobody knows of your existence.’
My father too, though much less forcefully, has warned me of the same. ‘You are safer, Cicely,’ he said, following events with concern, ‘to remain as you are.’
I nodded my acquiescence, understanding the advice.
But, in quiet and private moments, I still savour great pride in my uncle. Even the king-enemy described him as a Napoleon of crime, a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker possessing a brain of the first order. He acknowledged that Uncle James was the spider in the centre of a web that had a thousand radiations. A thousand, mark you. True. I subscribe to that. Even that king of smug devils has paid tribute to his intellect. ‘My intellectual equal,’ he called him, even as he cast his net around him. This mesh of which, I have to tell you, with some mirth, that my uncle had no trouble swimming through.
Initially.
Intellectual equal? An insult. How could he not realize my uncle’s brain surpassed his one thousand times?
But there is one phrase he used which rankles. Heredity of a most diabolical kind. Was my uncle simply a result of genetics? Where does this leave his family? I wonder. My father? Myself?
And the word ‘diabolical’? I think not. For, as I have pointed out, it depends on your point of view who is devil and who deity.
My second and third swimming lessons were more successful, though I still had not the confidence to swim right across the lake, which I knew was Uncle James’s ambition. I lacked the skill or the strength and initially the confidence. But I persevered.
By the fifth lesson, I was swimming like
a little fish. The crawl, the frog-like breaststroke, a backstroke, afloat, until my uncle slapped me on the back and I saw the pride glow from his deeply sunken eyes. Then I knew how I had pleased him.
On the eighth lesson, I finally succeeded in swimming right across the lake, my uncle by my side, urging me on, encouraging me and clapping when I reached the water’s edge on the far side and then applauding me as I swam back. And myself? I thought I would burst with pride. I knew how I had pleased him. And I needed no more lessons in swimming. Something in my uncle seemed to relax then; lines of worry were erased from his face. ‘One less thing to fret about,’ he said, making a rare effort at jolliness.
When I was twelve years old, the relationship between us began to change. He no longer treated me as a child but more as an equal. He shared his secrets with me, began to school me in the complexities of business. He would ask my opinion and test me on mathematical equations. Discuss the solution to various problems.
His pride in my abilities made us closer than before and, for a time, his visits became more frequent as I grew older. When I was thirteen years old, he began to train me as though I was his apprentice. ‘Can you remember calculus?’ he would bark and I recited it.
‘Pythagoras’s theorem?’
‘That too, Uncle,’ I replied, confident in my memory.
His smile was rare and reward enough. Then, beetling eyebrows meeting over deep eagle’s eyes, ‘Ah, but Cicely,’ he said. ‘Do you understand them? Are you simply a parrot or do you have a brain?’
And so I explained as though I was the teacher and he the pupil. He watched me keenly for a moment then bent forward. It was then, at that exact moment, that he took me further into his confidence. ‘One day, my child,’ he said, ‘you will understand more than Pythagoras or Archimedes and you will have to make your choice.’ He then talked to me about the defeat of obstacles whether mechanical or physical. He talked to me about ambition and the cost to any who stood in the way of that. And I began to have some insight into his life. I listened without judgment, knowing that his talents brought him profit and a certain satisfaction, pitting his wits against many, but there was only one person he considered worthy of his attentions. ‘The man has his talents,’ he would say grudgingly. ‘But he also has flaws, weaknesses to which I am not prone. His brain,’ he mused, ‘is analytical but he has a distorted allegiance to what he considers right and good.’
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 13