Professor Moriarty Omnibus
Michael Kurland
In Doyle's original stories, Professor Moriarty is the bete noire of Sherlock Holmes, who deems the professor his mental equivalent and ethical opposite, declares him "the Napoleon of Crime, " and wrestles him seemingly to their mutual deaths at Reichenbach Falls. But indeed there are two sides to every story, and while Moriarty may not always tread strictly on the side of the law, he is also, in these novels, not quite about the person that Holmes and Watson made him out to be. The Infernal Device-A dangerous adversary seeking to topple the British monarchy places Moriarty in mortal jeopardy, forcing him to collaborate with his nemesis Sherlock Holmes. Death by Gaslight--A serial killer is stalking the cream of England's aristocracy, baffling both the police and Sherlock Holmes and leaving the powers in charge to play one last desperate card: Professor Moriarty. The Paradol Paradox-The first new Moriarty story in almost twenty years, it has never before appeared in print.
Michael Kurland
Professor Moriarty Omnibus
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
The two books in this volume, The Infernal Device and Death by Gaslight, are set in, let us call it, the "world" of Sherlock Holmes. The third book in the series, The Great Game, is due out in hardcover from St. Martin's Press momentarily. A fourth book, tentatively titled The Empress of India, should follow in the coming year.
These books have Professor James Moriarty as a protagonist and Sherlock Holmes himself as a major character. They are set in the world Conan Doyle established for his brilliant detective, which centers on the London at the end of the nineteenth century; a world of hansom cabs and gas lamps, coal scuttles and gasogenes, clever disguises, secret societies, and a pea-soup fog that surrounds, envelops, and turns every passing footstep into a mystery and the sound of each passing four-wheeler into a romance. Conan Doyle's creation remains with all of us, as Vincent Starrett has said, "in a romantic chamber of the heart, a nostalgic corner of the mind, where it is always 1895."
And this is a fine place to be, and I am proud to set my novels there, and delighted that these first two books were as well received as they were by those who love this fantasy world as I do.
But although my stories are set in that world, and I try very hard to be faithful to its spirit, these are my stories and my agent is not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. My books are neither parodies nor pastiches of the stories of Dr. Watson. I would not dream of trying to pastiche the Master; it would be a game I could not win. There would be shame in writing stories either better or worse than the Canon.
Besides, my point of view is different from that of Conan Doyle, my interests, and the interests of my audience, are other than those of Doyle or his readers, and during the eighty-five years that have passed since the last story of the Canon was penned, the world of Sherlock Holmes has changed from the world of Sir Arthur's youth, in the living memory of most of his readers, to a world of myth, of a better time when evil was nasty and bad, and good was pure and wonderful, and the two were never confused. And as the century passed the Canon has taken its place alongside the King James Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, the works of Dickens, as being part of the common heritage of all English-speaking people.
So, please, these books are not Apocrypha; they are, I insist, neither pastiche nor parody. They are historical novels based on new research.
Watson is Boswell, Holmes was lost without his Boswell — and I am, perhaps, Dumas, or Frazer, or Plutarch; at any rate a later source.
I hope you enjoy the books.
Michael Kurland February 2001
A Few Words of Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Bernard Geis and Judy Shafran, who had faith in the idea, and Keith Kahla, who has shown infinite patience and support. And, of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the literary giant on whose shoulders I stand.
The Infernal Device
PROLOGUE
He who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
— Ali Ibn-Abu-Talib
The urchin proceeded cautiously through the thick London fog, with only an occasional half-skip betraying the solemnity with which he regarded this mission and, indeed, life itself. Occasionally he paused to peer at the brass numbers on a brick gatepost or puzzle over a street sign. He could have raced blindfolded through the streets near his home, but this was a long way from Whitechapel.
Stopping at a brick house fronted by a high wrought-iron fence, he carefully compared its address with that on the envelope he clutched in his grimy hand. Then he mounted the steps and attacked the door with his fist.
The door opened, and one of the largest men the lad had ever seen stared stolidly down at him. "There is a bell," the man said.
"Werry sorry," the lad said. " 'As I the 'onor of knocking up sixty-four Russell Square?"
"You have. It is."
"Is you Professor James Moriarty?"
"I am Mr. Maws, the professor's butler."
"Gawn!" the boy said. "Butlers ain't called 'Mr.' I knows that much."
"I am," Mr. Maws said.
The lad considered this for a moment as though wrestling with a difficult equation. Then he backed up a step and announced, "I 'as a envelope for Professor James Moriarty what I is supposed to 'and 'im personal."
"I'll take it," Mr. Maws said.
The lad backed up, ready to run. "I is supposed to 'and this 'ere envelope to Professor James Moriarty 'imself, and not to nobody else."
Mr. Maws squatted down to approximate the boy's height. "But I am the professor's butler," he said. "You know about butlers. I stand in the position of loco habilitus to Professor Moriarty under the common law. Giving me the envelope is the same as giving it to Professor Moriarty himself. That's my job, you see."
"Gor!" the urchin said, unconvinced.
"Here," Mr. Maws said, reaching into his waistcoat pocket and pulling out a shilling. He held it between his thumb and forefinger. "It's my job to pay for them, too."
"Coo-eee!" the lad said. "A bob!" He stared at the coin in fascination for a moment, then quickly exchanged it for the envelope and ran off down the street.
Mr. Maws took the envelope inside and carefully closed and bolted the door before further examining it. It was of stiff yellow paper. Written across the front, in what Mr. Maws took for a foreign hand, was Professor Moriarty — Into His Hands over 64 Russell Sqr. On the back, across the flap, was Personal and most urgent. It was sealed with a blob of yellow wax bearing no imprint. Mr. Maws sniffed it, squeezed it, and held it before a strong gaslight before putting it on a salver and bringing it into the study.
"Letter," he said.
"I thought the first post had come," Professor Moriarty said, without looking up from the worktable where he was slowly heating a flask of dark-colored liquid over a spirit lamp.
"A young ragamuffin delivered this by hand a few moments ago," Mr. Maws explained. "He ran off before I could inquire where he had obtained it. Incidentally, sir, the gentleman with the prominent nose is still lurking across the way in Montague Place."
"Ah!" Moriarty said. "So we still interest Mr. Sherlock Holmes with our little comings and goings, do we? Good, good." He took the flask off the fire and set it aside. "Just raise the blinds, will you. Mr. Maws? Thank you." He pinched a pair of pince-nez glasses onto his nose and examined the envelope. "Of European manufacture, I should say. Eastern European, most likely. Meaningless of itself — so much is being imported these days. But the handwriting has a definite foreign flavor. Look at that 'F.' Best see what's inside, I suppose."
Moriarty slit the envelope open along the top with a penknife and removed the stiff sheet of paper folded within. The message was block-printed in the same hand as the env
elope:
MUST AT ONCE MEET WITH YOU REGARDING TREPOFF MATTER. YOUR AID URGENTLY SOLICITED. WILL CALL THIS EVENING. TAKE ALL CARE.
V.
"Curious," Moriarty said. "The writer assumes that I know what he's talking about. Anything about a Trepoff in the popular press, Mr. Maws?"
Mr. Maws, an avid reader of the sensational dailies, shook his head. "No, sir," he declared. "It is a puzzler, sir."
"It does present a few interesting features," Moriarty admitted. "Hand me down my extra-ordinary file for the letter 'T,' will you?"
Mr. Maws went to the shelf and removed the appropriate volume from the set of clipping-books in which Professor Moriarty kept note of those items and events that, although seemingly commonplace, his keen intellect had perceived were actually out of the ordinary. He handed the thick book to the professor.
"Hm," Moriarty said. "It looks as though 'T' were ready for a subdivision. Let me see." He flipped through the volume. "Tessla. Theodora the ant-woman. The Thanatopsis Club. Tropical poisons. Trantor. The Truthseekers Society. Nothing under Trepoff. As I thought." He put the volume down. "Well, there is nothing to be gained in speculation when we shall soon have the facts."
The doorbell rang, and Mr. Maws went to answer it, while Moriarty took the letter over to his worktable and contemplated the shelf of stoppered reagents.
"A package, sir," Mr. Maws said, returning to the room with a small, carefully wrapped box. "Likely from the same person."
Moriarty glanced at the carefully printed address. "Similar," he said, "but not the same. Now why — of course!" He turned to his butler. "Who delivered this?"
"A small, very fair-looking gentleman, sir."
"What did he do? That is, did he just hand it to you?"
"He inquired if this was the right residence, sir. And then he unwrapped a carrying-string and handed me the package. Oh, yes; he did ask me particular if it would be delivered to you right away."
"I'm sure he did," Moriarty exclaimed. Grabbing the package from Mr. Maw's hands, he pitched it through the closed front window, knocking out several panes of glass.
The box exploded before it hit the ground, taking out the rest of the window and sending glass shards and fragments of wood and brick flying back into the room.
Moriarty's hand went numb. He looked down to discover that a sliver of glass had ripped through the sleeve of his smoking jacket and sliced into his upper forearm. Bright red blood pulsed through the wound, soaking the sleeve and dripping onto the hardwood floor.
"Interesting," Moriarty said, pulling the handkerchief from his breast pocket to staunch the flow of blood. "Very interesting!"
ONE — STAMBOUL
What is Fate that we should seek it?
— Hafiz
Constantinople, the city of a hundred races and a thousand vices, was split in half by that thumb of the Bosporus known throughout recorded history as the Golden Horn. On one side, Stamboul, outpost of Asia; on the other Galata and Pera, terminus of Europe. A floating bridge connected Galata and Stamboul. The Galata side was European and nineteenth century. The men wore top hats and gaiters, and the ladies favored French bonnets and French perfumes; the hotels had gaslight and indoor plumbing.
Stamboul was Roman and Byzantine and Turk and Arab; ancient and timeless. It smelled of Levant. The men wore turbans and fezzes and the women were veiled. Caravan drivers from Baghdad spread their goods in the Covered Bazaar, and one ate only with one's right hand.
An early morning fog covered the Golden Horn, with here and there the mast of a caique poking through, and the great dome of St. Sofia looming out on the Stamboul side. From the breakfast veranda of the Hotel Ibrahim in Pera, Benjamin Barnett peered out over the mist boiling below and tried to pick out landmarks that matched the sketches in his guidebook. Finally, closing the book in disgust and putting it back in his pocket, he returned to his shirred eggs. "Nothing looks right," he complained to his table companion. "I mean, it's beautiful, but I can't line it up with the book. And I sure can't read the street signs. I guess I'd better hire a guide."
"If you are determined to go," Lieutenant Sefton said, folding his two-day-old Times carefully and putting it to the right of his plate, "I suppose I'd better come along. Show you the ropes and all that. Keep you from harm, if you see what I mean."
"Thanks a lot for the offer," Barnett said, attacking the last bit of egg on his plate, "but I think I can take care of myself."
"No doubt," Lieutenant Sefton said, eyeing the stocky, self-composed young American. "You Yanks seem to make a fetish of taking care of yourselves. Comes from living on the edge of the frontier, I shouldn't wonder. Outlaws and Red Indians and all that."
"Um," Barnett replied, trying to decide if he was having his leg pulled. He had first met Sefton four days before when he boarded the Simplon Express in Paris, and during the entire three-day trip the tall, angular officer of Her Most Britannic Majesty's Navy had not displayed anything resembling a sense of humor. They had spent a good part of the journey playing bid whist with two German engineers. Sefton was a cool, calculating player who never overbid his hand, which was as good a basis for a friendship as any Barnett could think of, and better than most.
Barnett's employers, the New York World, had sent a coded telegram to him in Paris. Royce's Complete Telegraphers' Phrase Code made for stilted communications, but it saved money. And a two-penny newspaper saved all the money it could.
Gybut Constantinople uhwoz nonke ukhox tydyc fowic adgud world
Barnett had dug out his leather-bound Royce and written the message out in pencil in his notebook:
Go to Constantinople. Telegraph report on Ottoman testing new submersible. Expenses paid. Accreditation waiting. International Editor, the
New York World.
The New York World was very proud of its coverage of military and naval news. Many of its readers followed the power politics of Europe, as unfolded in its pages, as eagerly as others followed the sports pages.
-
During these last decades of the nineteenth century Constantinople was a focus of European intrigue. Four wars had been fought in twenty years for pieces of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, and no one dared guess when the next one would start, or which of the great powers would be involved. England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia had all lost troops in sight of the clear blue waters of the Sea of Marmara.
Sultan Abd-ul Hamid, the second of that name, and the twenty-ninth Osmanli sultan to rule from the Seraglio in Stamboul since Mehemmed el Fatih — the Conqueror — took Byzantium in 1453, would not give up his European possessions easily. He armed his Mamelukes with Maxim machine-pistols, and his Janizaries with Nordenfeldt field pieces. He had Portsmouth Naval Yards build him a battleship, had Krupp Germania Aktiongesellschaft fabricate three gunboats, and now had had the Garrett-Harris submersible boat shipped over from Hartford, Connecticut, for sea trials.
And — to encourage his friends and discourage his enemies — he invited the world to watch.
And the World wanted Barnett to watch. So he'd packed two suitcases, sent a note of apology to the young lady of the Folies who was to have dined with him, notified his concierge to watch his logement while he was gone, and made it to the Gare de l'Est with forty seconds to spare.
Now, four days later, Barnett and Lieutenant Sefton were breakfasting together on the glassed-in veranda of the Hotel Ibrahim. The Simplon Express had arrived in Constantinople the afternoon before, and Barnett had gone right to the American Embassy in Pera. A native clerk informed him that the ambassador was out, the assistant ambassador was out, and the secretary was out. The clerk was the only one there, and he was leaving shortly. And he had never heard of either Benjamin Barnett or the New York World.
Barnett waved his telegram at the clerk. "I'm supposed to have papers to watch the submersible trials. It's all arranged."
The clerk examined the telegram and then smiled politely. He had a gold incisor. "English?" he asked, making it soun
d like a disease.
"It's in the Royce Telegraphers' Code," Barnett explained. "Look, I've got a translation here in this notebook."
"Return Monday, effendim" the clerk said, straightening his tie and adjusting his fez. "The ambassador will be here then. I must close the office."
"But the sea trials start Saturday!"
The clerk shrugged and closed the window.
Barnett now had no choice but to go to the Sublime Porte in Stamboul, the seat of the Osmanli government, where the necessary permissions could be obtained. Such was Lieutenant Sefton's advice, at any rate, and Barnett had no one else to ask.
Sefton pushed back his chair and stood up. "Take my word for it, Barnett," he said in his clipped, inflectionless voice. "If I don't come along with you, you're fated to spend the rest of the week warming one of the marble benches in the courtyard." He took his gold-tipped walking stick and tucked it under his arm. "I offer you the use of my years of acquaintanceship with the convolutions of Osmanli bureaucracy. I must go to the Sublime Porte at any rate, to see about my own accreditation."
Barnett nodded his acquiescence. "I'm convinced," he said. "I just didn't want to put you to any trouble, but as you're going at any rate, I'd be glad of your assistance." Was it his imagination, or did Lieutenant Sefton seem overly anxious to accompany him?
They left the hotel together and walked down the hill to Galata and the floating bridge. The fog was almost burned off now, and the clear March air smelled of some unidentifiable spice. Lieutenant Sefton pointed out the sights as they walked and told anecdotes of the timeless city. "I've been away for two years," he said, "but nothing changes. Across the bridge in Stamboul twenty years or two hundred could pass, and still nothing would change."
"Were you here long?" Barnett asked.
"Long enough," Sefton said. "I was junior naval attache to our embassy. Then I was naval attaché. Finally, they decided that I'd gone native and shipped me home." He laughed, but the memory was clearly a bitter one.
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