by Kim Newman
I turned Bassick over and ignored his gasped last words – blather about his mother or money or the moon – to get the bag. Whatever Moriarty had sent him for, death was no excuse for failure.
Returning upstairs, I didn’t need to tell the Prof what had happened. I assumed he’d taken it into account in his squiggle charts.
Moriarty opened Bassick’s bag and took out six identical caskets. He lined up the boxes on his desk and flipped each of their lids open. Inside, each container was custom-made to contain a different treasure, with apertures ranging from a bird-shaped hole for the Templar Falcon to a tiny recess for the Borgia Pearl. Every Jewel of the Madonna had a nook. The Professor fit his acquisitions into their boxes and shut the lids.
‘There should be keys,’ he said.
I rooted about in the carpet bag and found a ring of six keys. Moriarty took a single key and locked all the boxes with it. He shuffled the boxes around on the table.
‘Moran, pick any two of these up.’
They weighed the same.
‘Shake them.’
They rattled the same.
‘In addition to their respective jewels, each box has a cavity holding loose weights,’ the Professor explained. ‘Any would balance a scale exactly with any other. They sound alike. They look alike. Tell me, Moran, could an object-worshipper differentiate between them?’
‘If they can, they’re sharper pencils than me.’
‘Is it possible some may be supernaturally attuned to the contents? They’ll be able to pick out their own hearts’ desires through magic?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I say not, Moran. I say not.’
I tapped a knuckle on a box. It was not just wood.
‘A steel core, like our front door, Moran,’ Moriarty said. ‘The boxes will take considerable breaking.’
I still didn’t know what he was up to.
He put the boxes back in the carpet bag. And pulled on his ulster and tall hat. He regarded himself slyly in the mirror, checking his appearance but also catching his own clever eye. Odd that someone so unprepossessing should be a monster of vanity, but life is full of surprises.
‘We shall go outside... and surrender our collection. But, remember, only one box to each customer.’
‘What’s to stop us being killed six ways as soon as we open the door?’
‘Confidence, Moran. Confidence.’
Terrifyingly, that made sense. I stiffened, distributed three pistols about my person, and prepared to put on an almighty front.
XV
Professor Moriarty opened wide our front door and held up his right hand.
It seemed everyone was too astonished to kill him.
He walked down our front steps, casual if a little too pleased with himself. I followed, my thumb-cocked six-shot Gibbs in one hand, a Holland & Holland fowling piece tucked under my other arm. If this was where I died, I’d take a bag of the heathen down with me.
Moriarty signalled for the interested parties to advance. When they moved en masse, he shook his head and held up his forefinger. Only one of each faction was to come forward. There was snarling and spitting, but terms were accepted.
Tyrone Mountmain, chewing a lit cigar. That meant he had dynamite sticks about him, with short fuses.
Don Rafaele Corbucci held back, and sent my old girlfriend. Malilella spat at my boots and I noticed inappropriately that she was damned attractive. Shame she was a bloody Catholic.
A Templar Knight unknown to me crossed himself and advanced.
Margaret Trelawny let the Hoxton Creeper help her down from her carriage. She was more modestly dressed than on the occasion of our last meeting, but her veil was pinned to the snaky headdress. She looked no fonder of me than the stiletto sister.
They stood on the pavement, wary of each other, warier of us.
‘One more, I think,’ Moriarty said.
A heap of rags by the rubbish bins stirred. A brown, lean beggar crept forth. He had a shaved head and a green dot in the centre of his forehead. The high priest of the little yellow god.
‘You each wish something which is in our possession,’ Moriarty said.
Mountmain swore and his cigar-end glowed. Malilella flicked out her favourite blade. Margaret Trelawny flipped back her veil with her alabaster hand – she must have been practising – and glared hatred.
‘I intend to make full restitution...’
‘Ye’ll still die ye turncoat bastard,’ Mountmain declared.
‘That may be. I do not ask payment for the items you believe you have a right to. Nothing but a few moments’ truce, so Moran and I might return to our rooms and set our affairs in order. After that, we shall be at your disposal.’
I held up the sack like Father Christmas. The boxes rattled.
Six sets of eyes lit up. I wondered again if the fanatics could sense which box held which desired, accursed object.
Don Rafaele gave the nod, accepting terms, binding the others to his decision. That made him the biggest crook in the assembled masses, if only the second biggest on the street.
‘Moran, do the honours of restitution.’
I was at sea. How was I to know which box went to which customer?
‘Do you await a telegram from the Queen, perchance?’ Moriarty said.
He was enjoying himself immensely. I wanted to kill him as badly as anyone else.
Without fuss, I took out a box.
‘Ladies first,’ I said, and shoved it at Margaret Trelawny. She tried to take it with the hand whose fingers wouldn’t close and it nearly fell, but then caught it with her remaining hand and clutched it to her ample chest.
‘And you, big fellah,’ I said, delivering a box to the Creeper. He considered it as an ape might consider a carriage clock.
‘Malilella, grazie.’ Giving her a prize.
‘The gentleman from Nepal,’ I addressed the little brown priest.
‘Worthy Knight,’ I said to the Templar.
‘And you, Tyrone. Fresh from the pot at the end of the rainbow.’
Mountmain took his box.
Recipients examined their gifts and thought about trying to get into them. Suspecting trickery, not unreasonably, Tyrone handed his box to a follower and told him to open it with a cudgel.
Moriarty took a step backwards. I did too.
Eyes were on us again. I shot out a streetlamp as a diversion, and we whipped inside. The door slammed shut. A Templar sword thudded against it, splitting wood and scratching steel.
From the hall, we heard the commotion outside.
We went back upstairs and took turns with the spyglass. The Creeper had the wood off his box, but it was still shut. A long-fingered Camorra man worked a set of picklocks. Tyrone’s cudgel man gave his box a good hammering.
‘Let’s make it a little easier,’ said the Professor.
He opened our front window a crack, sure to stay out of the line of fire, and tossed six loose keys into the street.
The brown priest was first to pick one up. And first to be disappointed. He was the new owner of the Black Pearl of the Borgias.
The Creeper threw his own box into the gutter and strode towards the little man, arms outstretched. Nepalese jugglers got in the giant’s way, but were tossed aside, twisted into shapes fatal even to a full-fledged fakir. Before the giant could get a grip on the pearl-clutching priest, another – larger – bundle of rags stirred. Something the acromegalic Neanderthal’s own size, red-eyed and white-furred, barrelled across the road to protect its master. The Creeper and the mi-go locked arms in a wrestler’s grip, then rolled out of sight.
Other keys were found. Other discoveries made.
The knight was rewarded. He opened his box and found what he wanted. The Falcon was at last restored to the Order of St John! He was shot by a blind-drunk Irishman anyway, setting off a Fenian–Templar scrap. Cudgels against swords wasn’t an equal match, but when dynamite came into it, armour didn’t hold up. Tyrone tossed fizzing sticks at th
e monks, who were hampered by heavy armour and confining robes.
The Camorra pitched in with knives and garrottes. Mountmain and Don Rafaele tried to throttle each other over a prize neither of them wanted: the Jewel of Seven Stars. Malilella and Margaret Trelawny circled each other, stiletto against scimitar. Maniac Marge had surprising left-handed dexterity with the blade, but shocked the Camorrista by lashing her across the face with her new, unyielding hand. Malilella responded with unkind words in Italian and a series of stabs which struck sparks off Tera’s serpent crown.
Blood ran in the gutters. It did my heart good. My nerves were back. We settled in to enjoy the show.
There were alarums and a great deal of smoke. A few fires started. Even the police would have to show up soon.
The Templars, who initially got the worst of it, threw over the handcart from which they had been soliciting alms to reveal one of Mr Gatling’s mechanical guns. Evidently, the mediaeval order kept up with the times. Fire raked the pavement, throwing up chips of London stone. Irishmen, faux Egyptians, Neapolitans and Nepalese scattered. Dead bodies jittered back into a semblance of life as bullets tore into them.
Half of me wanted to be out in the street, stabbing and shooting and scything with the rest. A more cautious urge, carefully cultivated, was that I should stay well out of this. Still, it was a jolly show!
The barrel organ of death chattered for a long minute, until an asp-venom dart from an Egyptian blowpipe paralysed the gunner. Then, things quieted a little.
The fight wasn’t out of everyone, but few were in a condition to continue.
Moriarty took the speaking tube and ordered Mrs Halifax to bring him his nightly cocoa.
I was not surprised he could sleep.
This time, he really had thrown all the pieces up in the air just to see where they’d come down.
XVI
Most of the rest of it was in the newspapers. I can’t give you a thrilling first-hand account because I wasn’t there. However, here’s a rundown of the outrages.
In the next two days, fifty-seven people were murdered. Irish, blacks, knights, innocent parties, Nepalese itinerants, well-regarded members of society with Masonic connections, scene-shifters, fences, fortune-hunters, policemen, a white hunter who set out to bag the mi-go for the Horniman Museum, and so on. Two members of the Castafiore clique fought a duel with antique pistols, and blew each other’s chests out – tricky shooting with unreliable weapons, considered a draw. Some smiled the Italian smile. Not a few displayed the Killarney Cudgel Cavity. Others expired from wounds not associated with any particular region.
The ice cream parlour on Old Compton Street was destroyed by a supposed act of God. Don Rafaele returned to Naples, accompanied by Malilella – they came out of the wars with the best loot, though they didn’t get back the Jewels of the Madonna. These days, the virgin of Naples is paraded about with the Jewel of Seven Stars and the Eye of Balor. An influx of Irish and Anglo-Egyptian tourists might not let that situation continue. Corbucci later got himself poisoned, to nobody’s surprise. [11]
The Hoxton Creeper had vitriol dashed at his chest. He was seen falling into the Thames, clutching the Templar Falcon. I knew better than to think him dead.
With the Falcon lost, reputedly in the mud with the Agra treasure, the party of the late Grand Master Alaric Molina de Marnac had to gouge out their own eyes and flagellate for six days and six nights to atone. Rumours persist that the blackbird has turned up in Russia or China and the search goes on. There may be more than one flapping about on the market. The Templars aren’t the only interested party. Fat Kaspar, who had never heard of the rara avis before the Professor mentioned it, was struck queer by an obsession and took off after the statue. He didn’t believe it was in the river. Another promising career ruined. [12]
Margaret Trelawny’s house was blown up, supposedly due to a gas leak. Found barely alive in the ruins, she’s in hospital now, mummified in bandages and speaking a tongue not heard on the Earthly plane in thousands of years. The membership list of Queen Tera’s Circle happened to be delivered to the Pall Mall Gazette with scandalous photographs. Resignations, retirements, suicides and scandal ensued.
Tyrone Mountmain expired from drinking poisoned ginger beer. His Auntie Soph was hanged for it. There are more Mountmains, though – so the Struggle goes on. Eternally.
XVII
Early the next morning, the Professor had me roused from Fifi’s bed – all that killing naturally had my blood up, and there was but one handy treatment for that – and insisted we take a promenade across the battlefield.
Conduit Street was strewn with debris. Bullet pocks scarred walls and pavements. All the windows were broken. Don Rafaele’s stand smouldered. Other residents were appalled, and complaining. Not all the corpses had been carted off. A Templar was crucified across the doors of the Pillars of Hercules. A pile of rags lay on our front step, brown hands outstretched and empty. A policeman – one of ‘ours’ – shooed away busybodies.
The street was full of trash.
Margaret Trelawny’s white hand, all but two fingers broken off, lay in a pool of congealed, melted ice cream.
A few of the Jewels of the Madonna were about too, amid the crushed ruin of one of Moriarty’s trick boxes. Their settings were bent and broken.
Moriarty spotted the Green Eye of the Little Yellow God and the Black Pearl of the Borgias, rolling together in a gutter like peas in a pod. Someone’s real eye, red tangle of string still attached, lay with them.
‘Pick those up, would you, Moran? We’ve still a client to service.’
‘Just the Green Eye?’
‘We’ll have the Black Pearl, too.’
‘We’d better hope the Creeper drowned.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t. Excessive lung capacity. An entirely natural, if freakish attribute, before you ask. But for the moment, there’s little risk.’
Moriarty was pleased with his handiwork.
‘This wasn’t about Humphrey Carew, was it?’
‘Not entirely, Moran. Very perspicacious of you to notice. I never get your limits. You have them, of course. No, the Green Eye was the least of our items of interest.’
‘A lot of trouble for an item of little interest.’
‘There is always a lot of trouble in situations like these. I can’t abide a fanatic, Moran. They are variables. They do not fit into calculations. The mumbo-jumbo is infinitely annoying. Consider the Camorra – a perfectly sound criminal enterprise, poisoned by infantile Marianism. Really, why should a bandit care about a statue’s finery? Likewise, the Fenians and their hopeless ‘Cause’. They may free themselves from British rule, but for what? The Irish will still have priests to rob and rape them and bleat that it’s for their own good, and they never think to shrug off the yoke of Rome. The Templars – who knows what they are for? They’ve forgotten themselves. At bottom, none are any better than the Creeper. Baby brains fixated on shiny things.
‘It is best for us, for the interests of the Firm, that these cretins be taken off the board. The Italians and Irish and pseudo-Egyptians shall trouble us no longer. The Soho Merchants’ Protective Society is smashed. Our tithes will be paid without complaint. Mrs Halifax will lose no further assets to Margaret Trelawny. Navvies and poets who might have been tempted to sink monies in the Irish Invincible Republicans will gamble and drink and whore in establishments we have an interest in. The wealthy and powerful who need to be blackmailed will not have to dress up as pharaohs to do it.’
For the only time I can remember, Moriarty smiled without showing teeth.
This morning, as on few others, he was content. His sums added up.
‘What about the little brown priests?’ I ventured. ‘They’ll still come for us. We have the emerald.’
‘If I do not pay the remainder of the purchase price today, ownership reverts to Major Carew. Moran, do you have a penny about you?’
‘Why, yes, I...’ I began, fishing in my watch pocket. I caught M
oriarty’s eye and my fingers froze. ‘No, Moriarty,’ I said. ‘I’m short of funds.’
‘Pity. We shall have to return Carew’s property, with apologies.’
The man himself was in the street, blinking in the daylight. He took in the carnage and destruction.
‘Is it over? Am I safe?’
‘That’s for you to decide. I can guarantee that you will not be murdered by the priests of the little yellow god.’
Carew laughed, still mad – but happy, too.
He walked down to the dead priest and kicked him. The Nepalese rolled over. He had been shot neatly through the dot in his forehead.
‘That’s what I think of your blasted yellow god,’ he said.
Moriarty gave Carew back his emerald, and he waved it in the dead priest’s face. A laughing daredevil again, he cast around for ladies to impress with his flash.
‘I’ll have this green carbuncle cut up in Amsterdam, and sold to the corners of the Earth. Then I’ll have the last laugh! Hah!’
‘My bill will be sent to your club,’ Moriarty said. ‘I suggest you settle it promptly.’
‘Yes, yes, whatever... but, hang it, I’m alive and this blighter’s dead. All the blighters are dead. You’re a miracle worker.’
I knew – with an instinct that the Professor wouldn’t call supernatural – Mad Carew would gyp us. He was that sort. Couldn’t help himself. One implacable foe was off his back – for the moment, at least – yet he was thoughtlessly on the point of making another.
Carew pumped my hand and pumped Moriarty’s hand. The Professor gave our client’s shoulder a friendly squeeze and pushed him away. Carew walked off with a bounce in his stride, whistling a Barrack-Room ballad.
We watched him leave.
‘One thing, Moriarty,’ I said. ‘You promised Carew he wouldn’t be murdered by priests of the little yellow god. Even if the London nest is wiped out and their hairy pet is on the run, there are others back home in the mountains. An army of them, just like this fanatic, sworn to get back the emerald. They’ll know of this mess soon enough, and they’ll send other priests across the globe for Carew and the Eye.’