Professor Moriarty Omnibus

by Michael Kurland

  Barnett nodded. "You think that's a code?"

  "It is."

  "How is the Count d'Hiver involved in this?" Barnett asked. "If he's the one who attacked Sherlock Holmes, he must know something."

  "I have had people watching his house since yesterday," Moriarty said. "He has not yet returned home."

  "Do you think he's one of them?" Barnett asked. "Is he a member of the Hellfire Club?"

  Moriarty pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I believe he is," he said. "Moreover, I believe d'Hiver, himself, is the Master Incarnate."

  "The what?"

  "The Master Incarnate, which is what the leader of this devilish organization calls himself. You may wonder why I believe this of d'Hiver on so little apparent evidence. The inductive chain is a strong one, and the links are sound. The members — if I may call them that — of the Hellfire Club must wear masks when physically present at the club, and thus do not know one another's identities. It is one of the strictest of this despicable organization's rules. The only person who knows the name of a member, except for the one who proposed him, is their chief, the Master Incarnate."

  "And so?" Barnett asked, feeling that he had lost one of the links of Moriarty's chain.

  "And so, Mr. Barnett, the only person who could have known, by their names, that the victims of our mad magician were all members of the Hellfire Club is the Master Incarnate. Since none of the victims seems to have taken unusual precautions for his safety before he was killed, I think we can assume that the Master Incarnate did not pass on to his disciples the fact of their mortal danger. But he himself must have been at least intensely curious as to who was killing off his membership.

  "If we assume the Master Incarnate to be d'Hiver, it would explain his passionate interest in the progress of Holmes's murder investigation, and his clandestine presence outside this house in response to my advertisement. From which he must have assumed greater knowledge on our part than we actually possessed. It would, therefore, explain his attack on poor Holmes. He must have panicked when he saw Holmes leave this house. Had he time for reflection, I am sure he would not have done so. Although he does seem to have come prepared to attack someone."

  "Wasn't he afraid of being recognized, sitting out there?" Barnett asked.

  "I would assume he was in disguise," Moriarty said. "Remember, the Mummer identified him by an overheard name, not by his appearance."

  Barnett rose and refilled his own coffee cup. Then he resumed his seat and sipped quietly while he thought over Moriarty's notions. "What about this code?" he asked.

  "Ah, yes," Moriarty said, removing a bulky object from his outside jacket pocket and passing it across the table to Barnett. "I wondered when you would ask. Please examine this; on it I base my case."

  Barnett took the bulky object and found that it was the "Jarvis & Braff Compleat Map of the Great Metropolis of London & Its Environs, Showing All Omnibus, Tramway, and Underground Lines As Well As Points of Interest" closed with its special "Patented Fold."

  "What is this?" Barnett asked, after staring at it for a minute and extracting no meaning beyond that declaimed on the cover.

  Moriarty sighed. "It is a map," he said. "It is also what we codebreakers call a 'key.' "

  Barnett unfolded the map, which was closed with a sort of zigzag accordion pleat. It appeared to be no more than what it advertised: a map of London. "Is this the 'key' you were talking about last night?"

  The professor nodded. "It is."

  "That's wonderful," Barnett said, spreading the map out on the table. "Just what does it say?"

  "It gives us the current location of the Hellfire Club," Moriarty explained. "They don't stay in any one place very long. They wouldn't want to take any chances on the neighbors' getting too friendly. But then they have the problem of informing their membership of the new location of the, for want of a better term, clubhouse."

  "This map," Barnett said, gesturing at the large five-color rectangle on the table before him, "gives the location of every place in London. But it isn't specific, that I can see."

  "No," Moriarty agreed. "But the code message in the agony column pins it down."

  "How does it work?"

  "It is ingeniously simple." Moriarty rose and left the dining room for a second, returning with an eighteen-inch steel rule from his study. "I'll let you work it out for yourself." He tossed the rule to Barnett. "Let us start with the message found on the late Lord Walbine. 'Fourteen point four by six point thirteen.' What do you make of that?"

  Barnett took out his pencil and jotted the numbers down on the margin of the map. "Measurements," he said. "That's it," Moriarty agreed.

  "Well, it wasn't very hard to figure that out after you handed me a ruler," Barnett said. "But just what do I measure?"

  "There are several possibilities." Moriarty said. "Top, bottom, either side; or, for that matter, from some arbitrary point on the map — say the tip of the Tower, or the gate of the Middle Temple. Luckily for us, they were not that subtle. Measuring in from the left side and then down from the top will accomplish our purpose."

  Barnett held the ruler uncertainly, staring down at the map. "I'm not sure—" he said.

  "It's the lack of scientific training," Moriarty said. "Scientists are never at a loss as to how to mark up someone else's papers. I suggest you start by marking the first measurement along both the top and bottom margins of the map. Notice that the ruler is marked off in inches and sixteenths. I assumed those were the proper fractions, as it is the common marking for such rules, and I was proved to be right. So your first measurement is fourteen and four-sixteenth inches from the left-hand border."

  Barnett marked this distance carefully along the top edge, and then again along the bottom, as Moriarty instructed. Then he laid the rule carefully between the two marks, and measured six and thirteen-sixteenths inches down from the top, marking the place with a small pencil dot. "I see you've been here ahead of me," he said, noting a second small dot almost directly under his.

  "Babbington Gardens," Moriarty said. "Northwest corner."

  "That's what I get," Barnett affirmed.

  "Well, that was my first stop this morning," Moriarty said. "My assumption was that the final number — three-four-seven — was the identification of the proper building, and, therefore, almost certainly the house number. Two houses in from the corner, along the east side of the street, I found it. It is, at present, untenanted. Certainly strongly suggestive, if not proof positive."

  "Didn't you break into the house to look around?" Barnett asked.

  "Certainly not!" Moriarty said, looking faintly amused. "That would be illegal. But I did speak to the tenants in the houses to either side."

  "You did?"

  "In the guise of a water-meter inspector. It never ceases to amaze me what information people will gladly give to a water-meter inspector. I learned that the house was occupied until mid-March, that it would seem to have been used as some sort of club, that gentlemen came in carriages at all hours of the evening and through the night, and that on occasion strange noises were heard to emanate from somewhere inside. I also learned that neighbors who attempted neighborly visits were rudely rebuffed at the door."

  "That sounds as if it must be the right place," Barnett said.

  Moriarty nodded agreement. "It would be stretching the bounds of credulity to assume it to be a coincidence," he said. "But just to be sure, I then went to the location derived from the Hope Newspaper."

  Barnett roughly measured off the distances indicated, and found Moriarty's pencil mark on the map. "Gage Street," he said. "How accurate is this system, Professor?"

  "If you are careful in your measurements, it is sufficiently accurate for the needed purpose."

  "Well, if that is so," Barnett asked, "then how secure is the code? If you found it this fast, why haven't others?"

  "They have to know what to look for," Moriarty said. "Even if someone should guess that it is a map coordinate code he would have to know what
map to use."

  "You did," Barnett said.

  "I had a list of the effects of the murdered men," Moriarty said. "Two of them had Jarvis & Braff maps close enough to their persons when killed to have them mentioned on the inventories."

  "And the others didn't?"

  "Presumably," Moriarty said, "the others had their copies of the map in an unremarkable place — the library, perhaps, or the hall table. That being so, the existence of the map was not remarked. Really, Barnett, I should have thought that was obvious."

  "What is obvious to you, Professor, is not necessarily obvious to others. If that were not so, you might be in my employ instead of I in yours."

  Moriarty began to frown, and then chose to smile instead. "A touch, Barnett, a distinct touch," he admitted.

  Barnett retrieved his coffee cup from under the map. "What did you find on Gage Street?" he asked. "And, incidentally, why didn't you ask me to accompany you?"

  "This was for reconnoitering purposes only," Moriarty said. "I knew the club was no longer there. The present whereabouts is indicated in the agony column of this past Wednesday's Morning Chronicle. And you needed your sleep." He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out before him, palms forward. "I found the house almost immediately, despite the absence of the specified red light, because it, also, was still vacant. A lovely old manor house, set back on its own bit of land, surrounded by the ever-advancing squads of identical row houses. It was perfect for their purposes. Since the neighbors, in this case, could tell me nothing, I investigated the interior."

  "You broke in?" Barnett asked. "For shame, Professor. That's against the law."

  "I broke nothing," Moriarty insisted. "The front door was ajar, and so I walked in."

  "There was, I assume, no one there," Barnett said.

  "You assume correctly. The house was devoid of both inhabitants and furnishings. The only things I found to verify my theory were a pattern of screw and bolt holes in the floors, walls, and ceilings of certain of the rooms, suggestive of the apparatus that must have been fastened there. And this." Moriarty reached in his pocket and removed a small bit of knotted leather, which he held in the palm of his hand. "I found this — this artifact — by chance, in a crack in the baseboard in one of the rooms."

  Barnett took it and examined it closely. To his eye it was nothing but a short, stiff, discolored strand of leather, tied in a knot. "What does it do?" he asked.

  Moriarty took the object from Barnett's hand. "I remember once reading a description by Admiral Sturdy of life in the old sailing navy," he said, tossing the bit of leather from hand to hand like a magician about to do a conjuring trick. "He was a midshipman about the time of Nelson, and one of his clearest memories of that period was of the floggings he was forced to watch. The lash was tied with a little knot at the end to keep it from splitting. After each use — after some poor sailor had had his back laid open for some minor infraction — the ends of the lash were soaked in salt water to remove the blood. For if they allowed the blood to dry on, you see, the leather would get stiff; and the next time the lash was used, the tip, knot and all, might break off."

  Barnett looked with sudden horror at the small leather knot. "You mean—"

  "Whoever used this," said Moriarty, holding the tiny thing between thumb and forefinger, "didn't know about the salt water."

  TWENTY-SIX–INTERLUDE: ECSTASY

  Did ye not hear it? — No; 'twas but the wind.

  — George Gordon, Lord Byron

  He would get but one chance, and he must perform flawlessly to succeed, to live. But so it had been all his life, each escape more difficult, more critical than the last, each allowing no margin for error.

  The notion had come to him the night before, while wearing the devil's mask and spying on the devil's entertainments. The satisfying pattern that he had been following — the stalking, the confrontations, the deaths of these devil's imps one by one — would no longer serve. It had filled his need, this singular obliteration, it had satisfied his soul. But ripping off the leaves would not kill the tree; he must strike deeper, and harder, and crush the root so that it could not spring to life again.

  The plan he evolved was simple, but the details required much thought and preparation. All through the night he had thought, and all morning he had prepared. Shortly after noon he was ready to proceed.

  It was almost one o'clock when he pulled up before the devil's house in his rented wagon. He climbed down from the driver's seat and carefully dusted off his green-and-brown-checked suit and meticulously adjusted his brown bowler before strutting up to the front door. With a conscious skill acquired over a lifetime of deluding people, both at stage distance and face to face, he had become the part he was playing. His face, indeed his entire character, wore an air of smugness that was proof against all casual inquiry.

  The door opened at his insistent pounding, revealing a tall, hawk-nosed man garbed as a butler, wearing the noncommittal, disinterested air of the well-trained household servant.

  This place has no need for such as a butler. It is clear that we are, the both of us, liars, he thought, glancing up cordially at the hawk-nosed man. But I am the better. "Afternoon," he said, touching the brim of his bowler. "I take it this is 204 Upper Pondbury Crescent?"

  The hawk-nosed man thought the question over carefully before committing himself. "What if it is?" he asked finally.

  "Delivery." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the wagon. The man in the butler suit peered in that direction, reading the big, freshly painted sign hanging on the vehicle's side. GAITSKILL & SON, it said, WINE MERCHANTS.

  "Brought 'em myself." Taking off the bowler, he wiped his forehead with a large almost-white handkerchief. "I'm Gaitskill. Needed in a hurry, they told me, so I brought 'em right along. Regular carter off this week. Mother quite ill. Streapham, or some such place. Damned inconvenient time. Bertie's on the Continent on a buying trip. That's the son. So here I am. Where do you want 'em?"

  "What?" asked the hawk-nosed pseudo-butler.

  The pseudo-Gaitskill pulled out a sheaf of consignment orders and shuffled through them. "Here it is," he said. "Twelve firkins of best claret. Where do you want 'em? My lad will help you take 'em in." He indicated the gangly youth sitting with his legs dangling over the back gate of the wagon. "Hired lad. Not too bright, but willing. A cool spot is best."

  "How's that?" asked Hawk-nose. "Best for what?" A touch of confusion shaded his supercilious expression.

  "The claret," Gaitskill explained impatiently. "Best in a cool spot. Keep for years that way. Decades. Best not moved around too much. Give each firkin a quarter turn every five years or so."

  The hawk-nosed man stared at the two-foot-long casks neatly stacked in the rear of the wagon. "I don't know," he said.

  "Wine cellar is best," said the merchant. "As you might imagine from the name. Wine."

  "I haven't been informed about this," the hawk-nosed man said.

  The man who was the wind shrugged a merchant's shrug. "Someone forgot to tell you," he said. "Makes no difference to me. I've been paid. I'll take 'em away with me, or leave 'em here on the street, as you please. But I haven't all day, you know. Suppose me and the lad just stack the firkins neatly like on the pavement? Then you and yours can do as you like with 'em — at your leisure."

  "No — well—" He paused to consider, to weigh the possibilities for error against each other. Obviously his master was not there to consult. "The cellar, you say?"

  "Best place." The wind nodded.

  "Well, come around back, then. There's an entrance to the cellar around back. No need to go through the house."

  "No need indeed," the man who was the wind agreed, signaling to the lad he had hired to bring the first firkin around with him as they sought out the cellar door.

  In half an hour they were unloaded, and the small casks were neatly stacked on an old shelf in the stone cellar. "This should keep 'em cool," the wine merchant told the butler. "I
think your master will find that the vintage exceeds his expectations. Just let 'em settle for a day or so before you broach the first one."

  "It's good quality, then?" the butler asked.

  "Heavenly," the merchant assured him. "Ta, now. I must be on my way."

  TWENTY-SEVEN — RESCUE

  Here lovely boys; what death forbids my life,

  That let your lives command in spite

  of

  death.

  — Christopher Marlowe

  The rain began again in late afternoon, a cold rain falling through the gusts of a chill spring wind. By sunset it had fallen steadily for several hours, and promised to continue indefinitely. The overhanging clouds shut out what remained of the twilight, prematurely darkening the sky. The bay cob, for whom the rain was but one more indignity, plodded stolidly through the puddled streets, and the four-wheeler bounced and lurched behind. Barnett hunched forward in his damp leather-covered seat and stared through the mist-covered window at the shifting murky shadows of the passing scene: buildings, pavement, lamp poles, pillar boxes, occasional people scurrying to get out of the rain. It all had an unreal quality, as though it possessed no separate existence, but had been placed there, as a stage set might be, at the whim of some godlike director.

  Barnett felt himself caught up in this world of unreality; for some reason he could not understand, he felt curiously divorced from himself, from where he was and what he was doing. He shook his head sharply to try to drive away the mental fog and turned to Professor Moriarty. "How much longer?" he asked.

  Moriarty glanced outside for a moment, getting his bearings. "Ten more minutes should see us there," he said. "A bit early for our needs, I'm afraid. We may have to skulk in some doorway for a bit."

  "I don't know if I can tolerate waiting once we're in sight of the house," Barnett said. "I feel as though I've already been waiting for centuries. Besides, I don't like to think of what might be happening inside that house while we are outside waiting."