The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus

by Michael Kurland

  The Berliner Tagenblatt correspondent noted down the answer, and seemed satisfied with it. Even pleased. Perhaps he was picturing how it would sound to his two million Anglophobic German readers. "Thank you, your lordship," he called.

  Lord East looked around. "Anything, ah, else?" he asked.

  "The treasure, your lordship," called a beefy gentleman in a broadly checked jacket that would have looked more at home on a racecourse tout than a reporter.

  Lord East peered down at him. "I didn't know the 'pink 'un' was represented here," he ventured, and smiled broadly when he got the laugh he had been trying for.

  "Jameson, your lordship. Daily Telegraph," the beefy reporter said, joining in the general chuckle. "Excuse the inappropriate attire, but I was called here from a rather different assignment."

  "Indeed?" Lord East remarked. "I trust you backed a winner." Satisfied that his reputation as a wit was secure, his lordship now struck another pose. "The Lord East Collection," he said, "how can I describe it to you?"

  There was a rustling from the crowd, as reporters pulled out their notebooks and licked the points on their pencils.

  "India is a land of unbelievable contrasts," his lordship began. "The grandeur of past ages surrounds one in India hidden under the filth and squalor of the present. When I first arrived in Calcutta twelve years ago, as resident director of the Northeastern and Southern Indian Railway, I determined to make it my job to rescue as much of the rapidly disappearing storehouse of irreplaceable knowledge and archaeological beauty as possible. My concern was for the instruction and pleasure of all the people of the empire, and especially the people of India itself, so that they could know their own past before it was eradicated brick by brick. I also strove for the future, so that those who come after us can have some knowledge of those who came before. I have not stinted of my own time or fortune in making these acquisitions, and the result, twenty tons of unique and irreplaceable archaeological treasure, is arriving tomorrow aboard Her Majesty's Battleship Hornblower."

  As Lord East paused for breath, the man standing to Barnett's right, a gentleman named Higgins who was a correspondent for the Pall Mall Gazette, leaned toward Barnett and whispered, "He stole it all, you know."

  "Stole it?" Barnett whispered.

  "Exactly. Oh, there are other words. One item was 'sequestered,' another was 'confiscated,' columns and friezes were 'salvaged' from where they'd stood for twenty centuries. The Indian treasure was not purchased with Lord East's personal fortune, the Indian treasure is Lord East's personal fortune. He's not giving it to the Crown, you know, only loaning it."

  Barnett nodded. "I'm not surprised," he whispered. "They say history is written on the backs of the losers."

  Higgins stared at him. "I don't think that's exactly what they say," he said, "but I suppose it's close enough for a wire service."

  "It must make you nervous, Lord East," one of the reporters suggested.

  "Very little makes me nervous, young man," Lord East said. "To what were you referring?"

  "Safeguarding all that treasure," the reporter said. "Seeing it safely back to England. Taking it overland to London."

  Lord East leaned back with his arms on his hips, and managed to look exceedingly smug. "One of the guiding principles of my vice-royship, and before that of my tenure as resident director of the Northeastern and Southern Indian Railway, was that a well-armed militia is more than a match for any group of brigands. Another is that rigorous planning and preparation before the battle pay for themselves many times over when the battle begins. No, young man, I am not nervous. I am confident."

  "Beg your pardon, my lord, but isn't there some native Indian secret organization that has threatened to recover the Lord East treasure and return it to the Indian people?" Higgins called out.

  "I have received threats from such a group," Lord East admitted. "But I do not take them seriously. Hàtshikha nà Tivviha, they call themselves. It means 'the Seven Without Faces.' "

  "Romantic," one of the reporters commented.

  "Barbaric," Lord East said.

  "Have they made any attempts on the treasure yet?" Higgins asked.

  Lord East snorted. "They wouldn't dare do anything," he said. "Talk is cheap. Letters pinned to my pillow in an attempt to frighten me do not achieve their desired effect. But I doubt whether they have actually gone any further than that."

  "Then I take it that you are not worried about this Indian group, your lordship," Barnett said.

  "Not at all. I am more concerned about common thieves. The Lord East Collection would make a tempting target."

  "But Lord East," Higgins said, "how far could a thief, or even a group of thieves, get with a ten-foot statue, or a twenty-five-foot column?"

  "Quite true," Lord East agreed. "But the smaller pieces are vulnerable. The Rod of Pataliputra, twenty-two inches long, crusted with diamonds and rubies, said to be the symbol of authority given by Alexander the Great to Chandra Gupta, known to the Greeks as Sandrocottus, King of the Prasii. The Káthiáwár Buddha, carved out of one single piece of red carnelian, fifteen and one-quarter inches high. The dagger of Allad-ud-din Khalji, a gift to him from Malik Kafúr, who is believed to have had a precious stone set into its hilt or sheath for every Hindu priest he murdered. It contains over six hundred gems. I have over two thousand such items, small, highly portable, of great historical interest, and valuable out of all relation to their size."

  "Can you describe the safeguards you have taken, your lordship?" Higgins called.

  Barnett nodded agreement. "Yes, please do. That is the sort of detail that will fascinate our American readers."

  "Unless you are afraid that a published description of your security measures will attract the very brigands you seek to avoid," von Hertzog suggested, tamping the tobacco down in an oversized pipe he had produced from an inner pocket.

  Lord East glared at the German. "My security measures are designed to discourage any attempt at theft," he said. "And such criminals as are not discouraged will either be thwarted or apprehended."

  "Very wise, your lordship," Higgins said.

  "You will remember that I have some experience with railways and railway equipage," Lord East said. "Let me describe my plan.

  "When the Hornblower docks tomorrow, I shall go aboard to inventory the collection. This will take three days, as I intend personally to inspect each item and check it against my list. In the meantime a special train is going to be assembled and prepared."

  "Will you describe the train for us, your lordship?" Barnett asked.

  "A Drummond engine pulling twenty-one cars," Lord East said. "Ten specially prepared goods wagons for the collections; seven troop-carrying cars for two companies of Her Majesty's Bengalese Foot; three drop-side wagons for the one platoon of the Twenty-third Light Horse, who will ride with their mounts; and one guards van bringing up the rear, which will hold a few selected crack marksmen along with the usual railway guards."

  Lord East paused for breath, and to wait for the hastily scribbling reporters to catch up with him. "The ten goods wagons will be fitted in as a unit between the Bengalese Foot," he continued, "and all of the wagons from the coal tender to the guards van will be wired together with a special electrical wire designed to set off a loud alarm if it is broken anywhere along its length. This will prevent any attempt to shunt one or more wagons to a side track while going around a curve and then reconnect the remaining cars. A method that was actually attempted some years ago in the Punjab, let me say.

  "The goods wagons themselves are being prepared now to receive the treasure. This preparation is in two parts. The first is an inspection of the wheels, axles, coupling mechanisms, and the entire exterior body, sides, bottom, and top. The second is lining the interior of each car with a layer of seamless white muslin."

  Featherby-Ffolks of the Manchester Register raised his pencil from his notebook page and looked up, his finely trimmed mustache twitching suspiciously. "White muslin?" he asked. "You are h
aving the sides covered with fabric?" Ever since he had scooped the London papers with the story of the successful cross-Channel flight of the Quigsly Ornithopter, only to discover that it was all an elaborate hoax, he twisted each new coin between his teeth, examined all notes under a reading glass, and twitched his mustache at the slightest unusual or unexpected detail in any story.

  "Yes, that's correct," Lord East said. "One can have trapdoors or secret panels in wooden walls or metal framing, but it is difficult to conceal a panel or a door in seamless white muslin."

  Featherby-Ffolks considered this for a moment, and then nodded. "I see, your lordship," he said.

  "Each goods wagon will have three triangular frames constructed of metal pipes placed equidistant down the center line of the wagon floor. Large objects, such as marble columns and stone statuary, will be placed on special supporting harnesses atop these frames. The treasure trunks will, likewise, be placed on metal rods running almost the length of the wagons, which will be fitted onto the triangular frames, leaving just enough room to get around them."

  "Your lordship," Barnett interrupted, "excuse me, but what exactly is the advantage of this arrangement?"

  "It prevents the use of a whole bag of tricks of the sort common to brigands and thieves. This is the way the treasure was safeguarded as it was moved about India, and if it foiled the brigands of India, my good fellow, rest assured it will succeed here.

  "The triangular frames serve to support the treasure three feet from the floor of the wagon, and at least two feet from either side. There is no place of concealment, as all is visible. What is more, from the time the treasure is placed upon these supports until the time it is removed, it will be impossible for any man to achieve entrance to any of the wagons."

  "Ingenious," Barnett said.

  "Indeed so," Lord East agreed. "You have to get up very early in the morning to pull the wool over my eyes!"

  SEVENTEEN — THE CANDLE

  Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

  Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat;

  But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

  When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

  — Rudyard Kipling

  Benjamin Barnett arose and packed his kit-bag at five o'clock the next morning. The earliest train to London left Plymouth at 6:08, and he had the whole first-class compartment to himself. He stretched out across the seat and caught an additional two hours' sleep, and then used the next three hours to go over his notes and write them up into a comprehensive account and analysis of Lord East's philosophy of acquiring and guarding Indian treasure. By the time the train arrived at Waterloo Station, he had two versions of the Lord East treasure story prepared, one for the American News Service, and one for Professor James Moriarty.

  "Hm," Moriarty said, reading Barnett's account of the interview, "it is as I assumed. Lord East does not venture into the unknown. He continues to use the same rituals to safeguard his hoard that he practiced while he was acquiring the loot in India."

  "I imagine one comes to trust those techniques that have worked for one in the past," Barnett commented.

  "Easily understandable and very human," Moriarty admitted. "I certainly cannot fault him for that. Furthermore, it does simplify my task."

  "If you say so," Barnett said. "Although I can't see how you intend to get near the train. It's never going to stop from the time it leaves Plymouth until it reaches London, not once. And if you somehow do manage to halt it, a regiment of very large guardsmen with loaded rifles will have the train surrounded in seconds, and a troop of light horse will be leaping off of their wagons to chase anyone who appears in their way."

  "The military escort will not affect my plan one way or the other," Moriarty said. "It makes no difference whether there is a company of men or a field army guarding the treasure, it shall be removed."

  "Are you saying that the treasure will leave Plymouth, but it won't make it to London?" Barnett asked.

  Moriarty smiled. "To paraphrase a former Lord of the Admiralty," he said, "I don't say the treasure will not arrive in London, I merely say it won't arrive in that train."

  Mr. Maws opened the study door. "Beg pardon," he said. "There is a delegation to see you, Professor. Six gentlemen. They have no cards."

  Moriarty looked up. "Gentlemen, you say, Mr. Maws?"

  "In a manner of speaking, Professor. Gentlemen of the night, gentlemen of the mask, gentlemen of the Hidden Ways. I believe all these appellations have been applied to our guests, Professor."

  Barnett smiled at the butler. "Well, Mr. Maws, you astound me," he said. "You have hidden depths."

  "Yeah? 'Oo says?" Mr. Maws demanded, his face remaining expressionless.

  "Do we know any of these gentlemen, Mr. Maws?" asked Professor Moriarty.

  "Yes, sir," Mr. Maws replied. "There's the Snoozer, and Twist, and Upper McHennory, and the Twopenny Yob, and Colonel Moran, and Percy the Painter."

  "Well, well," Professor Moriarty said, rubbing the side of his nose, "an impressive gallery of rogues. What could have brought them all together; and what on earth could have brought them here to see me?" He adjusted his pince-nez glasses. "Well, the best way to find out is to bring them in here and let them tell me. Mr. Maws, if you would."

  "Would you like me to leave?" Barnett asked, as Mr. Maws silently closed the door behind him.

  "Not at all," Moriarty said. "You already know one or two of these gentlemen, I believe. You would be doing me a favor if you sat quietly in the corner and, ah, observed."

  "My pleasure, Professor," Barnett said, and he was speaking no less than the truth. It sounded like a fascinating meeting from any point of view. "Let's see—Twist I've met, of course; head of the Mendicants' Guild. I'm an honorary member, I believe."

  "That's so," Moriarty said. "And the Snoozer's a sneak thief. Got his name from his favorite method of operating, which is to pretend to be asleep in railway terminals or hotel lobbies and then wake up and calmly walk off with a few pieces of luggage. Upper McHennory you met briefly two years ago; he gave you a couple of lessons in opening the simpler sort of tumbler locks."

  Barnett nodded. "Tall, sandy-haired fellow," he said.

  "Quite right," Moriarty said. "Expert at his craft. Specializes in the smaller wall safes, of the sort found in private houses or small businesses."

  "And the Twopenny Yob?" Barnett asked.

  " 'Yob' is reverse slang," Moriarty said. "The Twopenny Yob, now a man in his fifties, dresses and looks like the younger son of an earl. His precarious but quite remunerative occupation is crashing parties in the West End or other haunts of the rich and going through the pockets of all the coats in the cloakroom."

  "You can really make a living doing that?" Barnett asked.

  "One can," Moriarty said, "if one happens to have the appearance of an earl's son and the morals of a guttersnipe. He also makes friends with chambermaids to get into houses while the owners are away." Moriarty removed his pince-nez and thoughtfully polished the lenses. Barnett could tell that the usually unperturbable professor was as curious as he was about the purpose of the impending delegation.

  "Colonel Sebastian Moran," Moriarty continued, "is probably the most dangerous man in London. I have used him for a couple of assignments, and he has performed well. The colonel is intelligent, diligent, and obeys orders, but he is as unstable as a bottle of nitroglycerine. Someday someone is going to jar him the wrong way, and he's going to do something unfortunate. He has the cool courage of a man who singlehandedly hunted man-eating Bengal tigers in India, but he was cashiered out of the Indian Army for an incident involving a young native girl and his very violent temper.

  "Percy the Painter, now, is a meek, gentle man who runs a small, very exclusive gallery for objets d'art and antiques. He dislikes associating with riffraff, but is known to pay good prices for the odd bits of gold or lapis
lazuli one may happen upon in the course of one's earnest endeavors."

  "A fascinating group," Barnett commented. "It sounds as if we're going to be entertaining the cast of characters of a medieval morality play. 'Enter Malice and Cupidity; exit Avarice and Lust. Jealousy speaks to Everyman.' "

  Moriarty looked as though he were about to comment on this, but Mr. Maws's triple knock on the study door interrupted him. "This way, gentlemen," the butler said, opening the door and stepping aside to allow the strange assortment of guests to file into the room.