by Kim Newman
This time, Stationmaster Moriarty enclosed a signed letter on the headed paper of the GS&W Railway Company. If presented to the conductor of the Fal Vale Special, which was to leave Paddington at two o’clock that afternoon, the document would entitle the bearer to accommodation gratis for himself and his party.
A wilful contrarian, Professor Moriarty was in a quandary. One brother had ordered him not to go to Cornwall. The other had summoned him to Cornwall. He could not disobey both equally. To defy one, he must satisfy the other. Besides weaving his head from side to side, he was grinding his teeth – a new habit, so far as I knew.
I tried to get him back to continental matters, asking his estimate of the Great Vampire’s intriguing new protégée – a female who styled herself ‘Irma Vep’ and was reputedly the greatest man manipulator in the business since that bitch herself.
But he would not be distracted from family business.
‘There’s nothing else for it, Moran. We shall have to seek out this worm. Pack guns.’
‘Your brother doesn’t mention a fee.’
‘He would not.’
‘Family discount, eh?’
Moriarty’s shoulders were rounder than usual. I saw my needling was getting through. Family can worry under the skin like a tick. The Professor was, in his way, a great man. Yet, despite what many who encountered him said, he was still a human man.
I’ll warrant Gladstone, Palliser and Attila were the same – in command of their destinies and fixed on their great goals, but red-faced and sputtering when joshed by some sibling who remembered when nursie smacked their bottoms for making sicky-sicky on their bibs. Attila, of course, could have irritating relations thrown into a wolf pit. However, in the so-called enlightened modern age, such methods of easing domestic stress were frowned upon.
So, we were hunting dragons. With no payday in sight.
I consoled myself with the thought that this expedition was but an appetiser: a quick kill to warm up for the long, delicious hunt to come.
We were at Paddington Station in good time for the Special, which was ready to board at its platform. We passed through scalding steam to reach the steps to the single carriage. Other passengers were already in their seats, which made me wonder who else was invited on the Fal Vale Worm Express. A conductor stood by the steps, with a whistle and a clipboard. Folds of skin hung loose under his eyes and chin.
Moriarty presented his brother’s letter to the official, who stated – in a tedious West Country drone – that no one had told him of extra passengers, opined that anyone could obtain a sample of the company’s stationery and declared he had never heard of the supposed signatory.
‘This b’ain’t no good yurr,’ he said. ‘Only money or murder’ll get yer ’board this train, or my name b’aint ’Ubert Berkins.’
Foolishly, we opted for money.
III
As the Fal Vale Special steamed out of London, the Professor sank into a deep quiet. He was thinking.
I’d known him not speak for a week, then arrange the removal of a human obstacle to one of his designs and become almost morbidly cheerful. I’d seen his crazes start up like a sudden summer storm, ending in ruination of one stripe or another for someone who had crossed him.
I need not mention again Nevil Airey Stent, the former Astronomer Royal. Even the Red Planet League business pales beside the fate of Fred Porlock, convicted in a court convened in our basement of a capital crime for selling information about the Firm’s dealings to outside interests. What was done to the traitor made the Lord of Strange Deaths seem lenient, and stood as a serious disincentive to anyone else who might consider following his unhappy path of collaboration with the law.
I’d even been in the room while the Moriarty brain ticked as he worked over purely abstract problems. As a devotee of games of chance and calculation, I’m a fair hand at practical maths, but Moriarty’s sums were well beyond my capabilities. He could have said ‘ah-ha!’ or ‘eureka!’ and chalked stickmen on the blackboard, claiming to have solved a puzzle which had baffled generations of clever clogs, and I’d be none the wiser.
But this was different. His head was not bobbing. His chin was clamped to his chest. He was still grinding his teeth. He would not be spoken to.
I’d never seen Moriarty like this. I concluded that only family could put him in such a black humour. His brothers set him equations for which there were no solutions, but which prompted endless, futile calculations. This was a new side to the Professor, and, I admit, I was uncomfortable with it. This forced me to a strange, giddying realisation that I had become comfortable with Moriarty’s other sides, the ones which were terrifying to the rest of the world. What did that say about me? Through association, had I become as much a freak of nature – as much a monster – as the old man?
Moriarty wasn’t in conversational mood and I’d not packed anything to read. Railway bookstalls tend not to stock Mistress Payne’s Rollicking Academy or R.G. Sanders’ Natives I Have Shot, my favoured perusing material. I was thrown back on eyeing up the other passengers.
Since this was a Special, the rest of the crowd must also have been invited.
I couldn’t immediately see how they fit together. A young lady, travelling alone – always promising, rarely delivering – trim enough figure, but affecting pince-nez and a severe look. A funny little Frenchman with waxed moustaches, deep in the Journal of the Society for Psychic Research. A middle-aged parson with white powder in his hair and dusting his cassock; an old scratch on his cheek, a scar you’d be more likely to pick up duelling with sabres at Heidelberg than reading up Acts of the Apostles at Lampeter. A man-about-town type, who had clocked the lone young lady and was buffing his nails in an attempt to draw her attention. And a gaunt, floppy-haired gent, who ogled me balefully. I tossed him a jovial smile, and got a more penetrating stare for my pains. He produced, filled and lit an ostentatious pipe, wreathing himself in rings of pungent smoke.
‘We’re all for Fal Vale, then,’ I ventured.
Yes, an extraordinarily stupid thing to say. It often helps to give an impression of extraordinary stupidity. Folk think so little of you they don’t pay attention when you’re standing behind them with a handy shiv.
‘Indeed,’ the parson said, in a high-pitched voice. ‘The Special only stops there.’
‘That is why it’s called a “Special”, don’t you know,’ drawled the man-about-town type. Too much hair oil for a proper Englishman. ‘I’m Lucas, by the way. Eduardo of that ilk. I’m in it, too. Psychical research.’
The little Frenchman shrugged ‘nom de’ something. He continued to make squiggly notations in the margins of an article on ectoplasmic manifestations.
‘I suppose you’ve heard of the Fal Vale Worm,’ I said.
Lucas nodded. ‘I imagine we all have. It’s why we’re here.’
‘I was not given to understand that this would be a tourist excursion,’ the gaunt pipe smoker said. ‘I took this for a serious investigation.’
‘Who might you be, old bean?’ Lucas asked.
‘Thomas Carnacki,’ the fellow replied.
The little Frenchman, impressed, muttered ‘nom de’ something else.
‘The Ghost Finder,’ the parson observed. ‘Celebrated investigator of the Whistling Room, the Horse of the Invisible and the Dwellers in the Abyss? This is quite a pleasure...’ [1]
‘Yes, indeed,’ I said. ‘I should like to shake the hand of the famous Mr Carnacki.’
‘I imagine you would, ah...?’ Carnacki asked, making no attempt to stick out a hand to be shaken.
‘Sebastian Moran,’ I said.
‘Colonel Moran, the big-game hunter,’ the parson said. Plainly, he was handily up on his Who’s Who. I waited for him to list my medals, distinctions and tiger bags, but he didn’t.
The celebrated psychic sleuth fiddled with his pipe.
‘My name is Cursitor Doone,’ the parson said, with a curt little nod as if acknowledging a salute. ‘I am a ghost
finder myself, in an amateur manner of speaking. Our friends the spirits are much misunderstood, I believe.’
‘Sabin,’ the Frenchman said. ‘I take a sceptic’s interest. All can be explained by the light of reason and logic. You will see – yes, you will – I am correct. There is no worm.’
The Reverend Doone seemed on the point of rebutting the sceptic, but Lucas spoke over him...
‘Miss...?’ he said, raising a hopeful eyebrow at the lady.
‘Madame... Madame Gabrielle Valladon,’ the woman said. ‘I am Belgian zoologist.’
Which was odd, since she had a German accent.
But not as odd as someone who wasn’t Thomas Carnacki claiming to be him. The hollow-cheeked, pipe-puffing lookalike might have fooled someone who’d seen a picture in the rotogravure, but I know Carnacki. I’d fallen asleep during one of the Ghost Finder’s interminable tale-telling evenings in Cheyne Walk, and was booted out for having the temerity to snore during an account of his encounter with the Persistent Poltergeist of Penge.
During the Affair of the Mountaineer’s Bum, a tale for which the world will never be ready, the Firm secured Carnacki’s services to establish the supernatural bona fides of a public convenience in Tooting we wished to convince Inspector Patterson of Scotland Yard was haunted. Given his reputation as the least credulous of his profession – the dimwitted Flaxman Low, for instance, is eager to credit every twitching curtain and damp patch to phantoms from beyond the veil – a Carnacki verdict is respected. It is one of the Professor’s greatest triumphs that he was able to pull the wool over such perspicacious eyes.
This gaunt stranger was someone else. A disguise merchant. That narrowed the field down a little, even if men of a thousand faces were becoming ten a penny. Sometimes – as on this train – you couldn’t toss a bottle without beaning a detective made up as a ruffian, a crook posing as a toff, a swell larking about as a disfigured beggar, or a swindler in a dog collar and surplice. But I couldn’t put a name to this particular mask.
I didn’t let on that I’d tumbled the imposter and kept smiling like a fathead.
‘Oh,’ I said, as if remembering there was one more introduction to be made. ‘This is Professor Moriarty.’
Moriarty didn’t come out of his thought fugue.
‘The mathematician?’ the parson said. ‘Author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid?’
‘No, the master criminal, author of ransom notes and blackmail demands,’ I didn’t say – though it did spring to mind.
‘Yes. He’s one of your cold fire of logic boys, too, Monsieur Sabin,’ I said instead. ‘Between the party of us, we’ll soon have this worm in its place.’
‘If place it has, Colonel,’ the parson responded, as if that meant something. ‘If place it has.’
There were two others with us. It was peculiar that a single-carriage Special should need two conductors, especially since one took the trouble to stay away from the passengers. The jowly Berkins, who had gouged us for our ‘gratis’ travel, passed regularly down the aisle, offering ‘refreshments’ which also turned out not to be complementary. While another person in the black, silver-trimmed tunic and cap of the GS&W line spent the journey sat at the rear of the carriage, peak pulled low over a face further obscured by several bandagelike strips of sticking plaster. Yes, another play-actor – though an uncommon shapely one. Despite a sparse moustache and thick eyebrows, this conductor was – as the swell of the tunic-front told my practiced eye – a woman.
‘I say, let’s pass the time with a hand or two,’ Lucas said, producing a deck of cards from his top pocket and pretending to be clumsy as he shuffled. ‘Sixpenny stakes, to make it more interesting, eh what?’
That was blood in the water to this old shark.
By Fal Vale Junction, I would have earned back the train fare and more. I could feel it in my cracking knuckles.
IV
I arrived at Fal Vale a little poorer, but much wiser. Lucas was a lamentable cheat, almost ostentatiously... but lost, consistently. Sabin could have won most hands, but folded early... not bothered by winning or losing, and putting on a show as a distracted, exasperated logician. By the second deal, I knew Reverend Doone and Madame Valladon were playing as secret partners. I kept my losses down, resisting subtle suggestions that stakes be upped just when I held a surprisingly strong (but not winning) hand.
The fake Carnacki did not play with us, but took out a deck of tarot cards and laid out a patience I swear he invented on the spot just to look mystic. The real ghost finder wouldn’t have wasted a captive audience, the whole carriage would have been regaled with his exploits. The Incident of the Boiling Kettle, The Mystery of the House of the Improbable, The Dreadful Affair of the Slug – I’ve heard them all.
The gaunt fellow watched the game through his tobacco fug. He couldn’t have kept a closer eye on us if he’d produced a magnifying glass.
After rattling along the main line at speed – when an engine only has to pull a single carriage, it can beat timetabled trains by hours – we slowed down and chuffed along a Cornish branch which wound through deep cuttings and past tiny stations. Finally, we stopped at one of these neglected halts.
‘Fal Vale Junction,’ ’Ubert Berkins announced, needlessly. ‘All change yurr.’
It was already full dark. The station was lit by three poor lamps.
I nudged Moriarty. He was suddenly alert.
‘None of our fellow passengers are who they say they are,’ he whispered. I’d worked that out for myself, thank you very much. ‘Watch out for the Greek woman in the conductor’s uniform. She has a throwing knife holstered between her shoulder blades.’
That was news. Later, Moriarty would explain how he knew her nationality from the way she buttoned her borrowed trousers or chewed her little fingernail, and I’d pretend to pay attention. It was an impressive parlour trick, but tiresome all the same. The throwing knife gen was useful info, though.
We busied ourselves collecting our belongings. I took care with my gun case, not letting Berkins ‘assist’ me, rather shooing the pest out of the way to try and cadge a tip from someone else. We all descended from carriage to platform.
The mysterious other conductor deigned to step down after us, but slipped into the steam cloud before anyone could try to talk with her. I watched her go, then noticed Madame Valladon also had an eye on her. In silhouette, the conductor’s womanly gait was obvious.
The echt-Belgian zoologist looked away from me, casually. Lucas was still lingering about her, with the air of a near-sighted lion who doesn’t realise the gazelle he’s stalking has a revolver in her handbag. See, I can spot a concealed weapon too.
Sabin collared Berkins and issued instructions for the unloading of heavy trunks which supposedly contained delicate scientific instruments which should not be piled upside down. The conductor could have done with another pair of hands, but his distaff colleague was gone.
The Reverend Doone beamed, and announced, ‘The emanations are strong here. I sense a presence. Discarnate, but welcoming. Can anyone hear me on the astral plane?’
I was more concerned with the earthly plane.
Especially when the Special pulled out of the station, steaming off with a shrill of its whistle. I wondered where the train was going, since this was its only stop – then guessed it had to loop about somewhere before going back to London. Nothing had been said about return travel arrangements.
The engine driver had made haste away from Fal Vale Junction, not lingering even for a pie and a cup of tea. It seemed someone who knew more about this stretch of country than I did was keen not to bide here long. At that, most people with a brain would take fright. I felt a thrill in my water.
In a moment of clarity, I felt every droplet of mist in the night air, heard every tiny sound from the trees. I anticipated danger with a half-sickened, half-excited craving which – I now admit – was close to the hateful love a dope fiend has for the pipe or a drunkard for the bottle. With potential death i
n the air, I was alive!
Berkins was gone with the Special. As far as I could tell, the woman conductor had not got back on board.
Moriarty strode along the platform, ulster flapping like bat wings, chin thrust out. I wondered if and when he would trouble to take me into his confidence. From experience, I knew he had an idea of what was going on. But frequently it suited him to keep it all to himself, and just tell me when to shoot someone.
Fal Vale Junction was not much of a station. There was a waiting room, with a welcoming open fire and a selection of periodicals on a rack... but it was locked. Out on the platform, without the benefit of the fire, it was freezing. The tearoom was open, in the sense that its door was wedged with a brick... but it was dark and cold. I touched the urn to see if there was still hot water, but it was like ice. Cakes and sandwiches from an earlier decade were on display. Something with teeth and a tail had been in among them and left chew marks and droppings.
‘A warm welcome,’ I commented. ‘I was hoping for one of those famous Cornish clotted cream teas.’
‘Can’t get they yurr,’ Lucas said, guying Berkins.
Outside, the Reverend marched about, sensing things of a spiritual nature. His boots clicked on the flagstones of the platform.
A branch veered off from the line and vanished into a hillside tunnel. A big wheel on the platform worked a set of points which could send trains into this hole. I’d looked up Fal Vale Junction in Bradshaw’s Guide, and not been able to determine where this offshoot ran to. Probably a tin mine, clay pit or unloading dock in Poldhu Cove. Beyond the hill was the coast, which put me in mind of wreckers and smugglers. It wasn’t like Bradshaw to be vague, though. The rails were shiny and well maintained, so the branch was obviously in use.
Moriarty walked nearly to the end of the platform, and peered into the dark as if through a telescope. Could he discern life on some far-distant star? Or was he just fixed on some theoretical point half a mile into the tunnel?