by Kim Newman
I pictured what a hellish vampire squid might be. And foresaw unpleasant experiences for Sir Nevil.
‘Now,’ the Professor said, ‘there is just time to catch the last falls. Would you be interested in making haste for Wapping?’
‘Rath-er!’
III
The next few weeks were busy.
Moriarty dropped several criminal projects, and devoted himself entirely to Stent. He summoned minions – familiar fellahs from previous exploits, like Italian Joe from the Old Compton Street Café poisonings, and new faces nervous at being plucked from obscurity by the greatest criminal mind of the age. ‘PC Purbright’, a rozzer kicked off the force for not sharing his bribe-takings, was one such small fish. A misleadingly strapping, ferocious-looking bloke and something of a fairy mary, PCP specialised in dressing up in his old uniform and standing lookout for first-floor men. He had a sideline as a human punching bag, accepting a fee from frustrated criminals (and even respectable folk) who relished the prospect of giving a policeman a taste of his own truncheon. If you paid extra, he’d turn up while you were out with your darby girl and pretend to make an arrest – you could beat him off easily and impress the little lady with your fightin’ spirit. Guaranteed a tumble, I’m told. He came out of the Professor’s study with wide eyes, roped into whatever bad business we were about.
I was sent out to make contact with reliable tradesmen, all more impressed by the colour of Moriarty’s gelt than the peculiarity of his requests. Paul A. Robert, a pioneer of praxinoscopes, was paid to prepare materials in his studio in Brighton. According to his ledgers, he was to provide ‘speculative scientific educational illustrations’ in the form of ‘rapidly serialised photograph cells from nature and contrivance’. Von Herder, the blind German engineer, bought himself a weekend cottage in the Bavarian Alps with his earnings from the pressurised squid tanks and something called a burnished copper parabolic mirror. Singapore Charlie, acting for the mad Chinaman who had cornered the market in importing venomous flora and fauna, was delighted to lay his hands – not literally, of course – on as many squid as we could use.
The pets were delivered promptly, by Chinese laundrymen straining to lift heavy wicker hampers. Under the linens were Herder Bells, which looked like big brass barrels with stout glass view-panels and pressure gauges. A mark on the gauge showed what the correct reading should be, and a foot-pump was supplied to maintain the cosy deep-sea foot-poundage the average h.v.s. needs for comfort. If this process was neglected, they blew up like balloons. Snacks could be slipped to the cephalopods through a funnel affair with graduated locks. The Professor favoured live mice, though they presumably weren’t usually on the vampyroteuthis menu.
Mrs Halifax supplied a trembling housemaid – rather, a practiced harlot who dressed up as a trembling housemaid – to see to the feeding and pumping. Pouting Poll said she’d service the entire crew of a Lascar freighter down to the cabin boy’s monkey rather than look at the ungodly vermin, so hatches were battened over the spheres’ windows at feeding time. Not wanting to follow ma belle Véro to Frozen Knackers, Alaska, Polly did her duty without excessive whining. The Prof spotted the doxy and promised her a promotion to ‘undercover operative’ – which the poor tart hadn’t the wit to be further terrified by.
The squid were quite repulsive enough for me, but Moriarty decided their pale purplish cream hides weren’t to his liking and introduced drops of scarlet dye into their water. This turned them into flaming red horrors. The Professor, cock-a-hoop with the fiends, spent hours peering into their windows, watching them turn inside out or waggle their tentacles like angry floor mops.
Remember I said other crooks hated Moriarty? This was one of the reasons. When he was on a thinking jag, he couldn’t be bothered with anything else. Business as usual went out the window. While the Professor was tending his squid and sucking pastilles, John Clay, the noted gold-lifter (another old Etonian, as it happens), popped round to lay out a tasty earner involving the City and Suburban Bank. He wanted to rope in the Professor’s services as consulting criminal and have him take a look-see at his proposed scam, spot any trapfalls which might lead him into police custody and suggest any improvements that would circumvent said unhappy outcome.
For this, no more than five minutes’ work, the Firm could expect a healthy tithe in gold bullion. The Professor said he was too busy. I had thoughts about that, but kept my mouth shut. I’d no desire to wake up with a palpitating hellish vampire squid on the next pillow. Clay went off in a huff, shouting that he’d pull the blag on his lonesome and we’d not see a farthing. ‘Even without your dashed Professor, I shall get away clean, with thirty thousand! I shall laugh at the law, and crow over Moriarty!’
You know how the City and Suburban crack worked out. Clay is now sewing mailbags, demonstrating the finest needlework in all Her Majesty’s prisons. [6] A flash thief, he’d been an asset on several occasions. We’d never have got the Rajah’s Rubies without him. If Moriarty kept this up, we wouldn’t have an organisation left.
One caller the Professor deigned to receive was a shifty-eyed walloper named George Ogilvy. I took him straight off for a back-alley shiv-man, but he turned out to be another bally telescope tosser. First thing he did was whip out a well-worn copy of The Dynamics of an Asteroid (with all its leaves cut) and beg Moriarty for a personal inscription. I think the thing the Professor did with his mouth at that was his stab at a real smile. Trust me, you’d rather a vampyroteuthis infernalis clacked its beak – buccal orifice, properly – at you than see those thin lips part a crack to give a glimpse of teeth.
Moriarty got Ogilvy on the subject of Stent, and the astronomer poured forth a tirade. Seems the Prof wasn’t the only member of the We Hate N.A. Stent Society. I drifted off during the seventh paragraph of bile, but – near as I can recollect – Ogilvy felt passages of On an Inequality of Long Period owed a jot to his own observations, and that credit for same had been perfidiously withheld. It was apparent that, as a breed, mathematician-astronomers were more treacherous, determined and murder-minded than the wounded tigers, Thuggee stranglers, card-sharps and frisky husband-poisoners who formed my usual circle of acquaintance.
Ogilvy happily signed up as the first recruit for the Red Planet League and left, clutching his now-sacred Dynamics.
I ventured a question. ‘I say, Moriarty, what is the Red Planet League?’
His head oscillated, a familiar mannerism when he was pondering something dreadful. He looked out of our window, up into the pinkish-brown evening sky over London.
‘The League is a manufacturer of paper hats,’ he said. ‘Suitable apparel for our cousins from beyond the vast chasm of interplanetary space.’
Then Moriarty laughed.
Pigeons fell dead three streets away. Hitherto-enthusiastic customers in Mrs Halifax’s rooms suddenly lost ardour at the worst possible moment. Vampire squid waved their tentacles. I quelled an urge to bring up my mutton lunch.
Frederick Nietzsche witters on about ‘how terrible is the laughter of the Übermensch’ – yes, I have read a book without pics of naked bints or big game! – and establishes there is blood and ice in the slightest chuckle of these superior beings. If Fathead Fritzi ever heard the laugh of Professor Moriarty, he would have shat blood, ice and sauerkraut into his German drawers.
‘Yes-s-s,’ he hissed. ‘Paper hats-s-s.’
IV
From the Diary of Sir Nevil Airey Stent.
September 2
Notices are in! My lecture – an unparalleled triumph! The Dynamics of an Asteroid – in the dustbin! Moriarty’s hash – settled for good! I may draw a thick black line through the most prominent name on the List.
Now – on to other things.
Remodelling of Flamsteed House continues. All say it’s not grand enough for my position. Workmen have been in all week, installing electric lamps in every room. In my position, we must have all the modern, scientific devices. Lady Caroline fears electricity will leak from the
wiring and strike dead the servants with indoor lightning. I have explained to her why this is impossible, but my dear featherhead continues to worry and has ordered the staff to wear rubber-soled shoes. They squeak about the place like angry mice.
Similarly, the Observatory must expand, keep apace, draw ahead.
At ninety-four inches, our newly commissioned optical-reflecting telescope shall be the biggest in the world! The ’scopes at Birr Castle and the Lick Observatory will seem like tadpoles! I almost feel sorry for them. That’s two more off the List!
Kedgeree for breakfast, light lunch of squab and quail eggs, Dover sole and chipped potatoes for supper. Congress with Lady C. – twice! Must eat more fish.
Reviewing my life and achievements on this, my forty-fifth birthday, I concede myself well-satisfied.
All must admire me.
Looking to the planets and stars, I feel I am surveying my domain. My Queen has her Empire, but she has gifted me the skies for conquest.
Mars is winking at me, redly.
September 6: A curious happening.
Business took me to the lens-grinders’ in Seven Dials. Old Parsons’ work has been indifferent lately, and I made a personal visit to administer a metaphorical boot to the seat of his britches.
After the booting was done, I left Parsons’ shop and happened to notice the premises next door. Above a dingy window was a sign – ‘C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities’. The goods on offer ran to dead birds, elephant tusks, shark maws, fossils and the like. I’d thought this site occupied by a bakery, but must be misremembering. Cave’s premises had plainly stood for years, gradually decaying and accumulating layers of dust and dirt.
My attention was drawn to the window by a red flash, which I perceived out of the corner of my eye. A stray shaft of light had reflected off an odd object – a mass of crystal worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. It might do for a paperweight if I were in need of such a thing, which I was not.
Then, I heard voices raised inside the emporium. One was known to me – that upstart Moriartian Ogilvy. Alone among the fraternity of astronomers, he has written in defence of The Dynamics of an Asteroid. His name was on the List.
I stepped back into the doorway of Parsons’, but kept my ears open. Og was haggling with an old man – presumably, C. Cave himself – over the crystal lump, for which the proprietor was asking a sum beyond his purse. An opportunity.
Casually, I wandered into the shop.
Cave, a bent little fellow with egg in his stringy beard and a tea cosy on his head, had the odd mannerism of wobbling his head from side to side like certain snakes. I thought for a moment that I knew him from somewhere, but must have been mistaken. He smelled worse than many of his antiquities. I say, that’s rather good – must save the line for my next refutation.
Og was going through his pockets, scraping together coins to up his offer.
Upon seeing me, Og said ‘Stent, how fortunate that it’s you,’ with undue familiarity as if we were the closest of friends. ‘Could you extend me a small loan?’
‘Five pounds,’ insisted Cave. ‘Not a penny less.’
Og sweated like an opium addict without funds for his next pipe. Most extraordinary thing. I hadn’t thought he had the imagination to be so desperate.
‘Of course, my dear fellow,’ I said. His face lifted, and his palm came out. ‘But first I must conclude my own business.
My good man, I should like to purchase that curious crystal in your window.’
Og looked as if he had been punched in the gut.
‘Five pounds,’ Cave said.
‘Stent, I say, you can’t... well, that is... I mean, dash it...’
‘Yes, Ogilvy, was there something?’
I drew out my wallet and handed over five pounds. Cave entered the sale in an ancient register, then fussed about extracting the object from the window.
I looked at Og. He tried unsuccessfully to cover fury and disappointment.
‘Now about that loan,’ I said, wallet still open.
‘Doesn’t matter now,’ he said – and left the shop, setting the bell above the door a-jangle.
Another name off the List!
Cave came back with the object, cradled in black velvet. It struck me that I need only say I’d changed my mind to reclaim my outlay. But Og might creep back and get the blessed thing after all. Couldn’t have that.
Cave held up the crystal and said something about ‘the inner light’. Strange phrase. He meant the refraction, of course, but a lecture on optics would have been out of place in this circumstance. No fee would be forthcoming, and it doesn’t do to cheapen the currency of scholarship by dishing out lectures gratis.
I took the thing away with me. Perhaps I can use it as a paperweight after all.
Roast boar with apricots at the Lord Mayor’s. Congress with Lady Caroline in the carriage on the way home. Top-hole!
September 7: An odd day.
Luncheon at Simpson’s in the Strand with Jedwood, my publisher. Cream of turbot, hock of ham, peppered pear. An acceptable Muscadet, porter, sherry. The Refutation pamphlet is shifting briskly, and J. is eager for more. Pity Moriarty hasn’t fired other literary clay pigeons I could blast. J. proposes a collection of Refutations and suggests I consider expanding the arena of combat, to launch my intellectual ballista against other so-called great minds of the age. J. is a dolt – he doesn’t understand the List, or that it is as important to choose the proper enemies as the proper friends. Nevertheless, I’m tempted. Tom Huxley, Darwin’s old bulldog, could do with having his ears boxed for a change. And I didn’t care for the way George Stokes hovered over Lady Caroline at the last Royal Society formal. Those Navier–Stokes equations have their tiny little cracks.
Most extraordinary thing. As J. and I were leaving the restaurant, a wild-haired, sunburned fellow accosted us in the street, gabbling ‘the Martians are coming, the Martians are coming!’ Ever since Schiaparelli put about that nonsense about canals, there has been debate about how one should address the notional inhabitants of the planet Mars. I am firmly of the belief that ‘Marsian’ is the only acceptable term. I took the trouble to correct the moonatic on this point, but he was in no condition to listen. He grabbed my lapels with greasy fingers and breathed gin in my face. He called me by name, which was discomforting. ‘Sir Nevil,’ he said, ‘keep watching the skies! Look to the Red Planet! Look into the crystal egg!’
J. summoned a hefty constable, who laid a hand on the madman’s shoulder. The fellow writhed in the grasp of the law, and a look of heightened terror passed over his face. It is no wonder men of his stripe should fear the police, but the extent of his pantomime of fright struck me as excessive even for his situation. Curiously, the constable seemed humpbacked, tailored uniform emphasising rather than concealing a pronounced lump on one shoulder. I assumed the Metropolitan Police imposed strict physical requirements on their recruits. Perhaps this fellow’s condition has worsened in recent years? Something was not quite right about his hump, which I could swear wobbled like a jelly on a plate. His eyes were glassy and his face pale – indeed, our lawful officer was evidently in as poor a shape as our degenerate semi-assailant.
‘Don’t let them take me,’ begged the madman, ‘they wraps round you... and they bites... and they sucks your brains... and you ain’t you no more. I’ve seen it!’
‘Let’s... be... ’avin... you... my... lad,’ said the policeman, voice like a prolonged death rattle, monotonous and expressionless. ‘You... don’t... want... to... be... a-... botherin’... these... gentlemen...’
The madman’s face contorted in a silent scream.
There was something peculiarly hideous about the constable’s voice, as if he were a music hall dummy manipulated by a wicked ventriloquist.
‘Mind... ’ow... you... go... sirs!’
The policeman lifted the madman – not a small individual, by the way – one-handed. He marched off stiff-legged, bearing his whimpering pr
isoner down the Strand. As he walked, his hump seemed to shift under blue serge as if it were a separate entity. I had a sense of evil eyes cast at me.
J. asked me if I had any idea who the maniac was.
He had something of a military mien, I thought – though come down in the world, perhaps having frazzled his brains out in some sunstruck corner of the Empire. It came to me that I had seen him before – perhaps in the audience at one of my many popular lectures, perhaps skulking on the street waiting for the chance to accost me. J. pointed out that he had known who I was, but – of course – everyone in England knows the Astronomer Royal.
‘It should definitely be “Marsian”,’ I insisted. ‘The precedents are many and I can recall them in order...’
J. remembered he had forgotten another appointment and left before I could fully convince him. Must send him my monograph on planetary possessives. Some still rail against ‘Mercurial’ and ‘Jupiteric’, though a consensus is nearly reached on ‘Moonian’ and ‘Venutian’. By the end of this century, we shall have definitively colonised the sunnar system for proper naming!
September 7: later.
I had thought to dispel completely the unpleasant memory of this afternoon’s strange encounter... but the words of the madman resounded.
By some happenstance, this was literally true.
The long-necked cabbie who conveyed me back to Greenwich bade me a jovial farewell with ‘keep watching the skies, sir.’ An unusual turn of phrase to hear twice in one day, perhaps – but a sentiment naturally addressed to a famous astronomer in the vicinity of the biggest telescope in the land.
Galvani, the Italian foreman of the gang who have completed – at last! – the electrification of Flamsteed House, handed me a sheaf of wiring diagrams marked ‘for the attention of the householder’ and clearly said ‘look to the Red Plan, et... es essential for to understan’ the current en the house’. There was, indeed, a red plan in the sheaf, but it seemed to me he had stressed the first part of his sentence, which echoed the words of the madman, and thrown away the second, which conveyed his particular meaning.