The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus

by Michael Kurland

  "A lovely-sounding lot. Whatever happened to them?" Barnett asked.

  "They were suppressed at the direct order of King Charles himself, who was never one to confuse freedom with license. They were suppressed again by a royal commission appointed by King William. It is believed that at this time they saw the wisdom of becoming a thoroughly secret society."

  "That's it, then?" Barnett asked, when Moriarty paused.

  "The club surfaced again briefly about sixty-five years ago, during the reign of George the Fourth. It was not identified by name at that time. A house in Cheswickshire burned to the ground, purely by accident as far as was known. In the burned rubble of the house, which was believed to be unoccupied, were found an exemplary collection of apparatus designed to restrain and torture human beings, along with the burned bodies of three young women. Subsequent investigation turned up the fact that several men, described as looking like gentlemen, were seen running away from the building at the time of the fire. One of the items rescued from the fire was an amulet with a strange design on it—a design much like that which you now hold in your hand."

  "So that's what you meant when you said you've been expecting this?" Barnett asked.

  "Indeed," Moriarty answered. "Ever since I learned of the events concerning the house in Cheswickshire, and realized the connection with the supposedly extinct Hellfire Club, I have expected someday to come across this medallion. There are some malignancies that do not die of their own accord, but have to be excised time and time again. I'm convinced that this is one such."

  Barnett stared at the gold sigil he held, flipping it from back to front and peering closely at it as though he expected to read some great secret from its depths. What a catalog of horrors was represented by this small device. The devil on the front—Azazel, according to Moriarty—seemed to Barnett to be smirking at him in the gaslight. "It would seem," Barnett said, "that Chardino has been doing an efficient job of excising all by himself."

  Moriarty nodded. "He has been going through the membership of the Hellfire Club like a scythe through wheat," he said. "In a way, it will seem a pity to stop him; in fact, I'm not altogether sure that there isn't a better solution."

  "What would that be?" Barnett asked.

  "I don't know yet," Moriarty admitted. "It is true that on humanist grounds our friend the magician should be discouraged from indiscriminate killing; but is his killing really that indiscriminate? And is it not equally true that the gentlemen-members of the club in question should be discouraged from—whatever it is they are doing?"

  "You think that the Hellfire Club is responsible for the death of Chardino's daughter?" Barnett asked. "Don't you?" Moriarty replied.

  "How do you suppose he knows who the members are and where to find them?"

  Moriarty shook his head. "It is pointless to suppose," he said. "We must discover!"

  Barnett nodded. "And just how are we going to do that?" he asked. "It doesn't seem to me that we're really much further forward.

  We know who the killer is, and who he's killing, and we can surmise why; but we don't know where he is, or where his victims can be found before they become his victims. I suppose we could always put an advertisement in the paper for members of the Hellfire Club to come forward and be saved, or put a twenty-four-hour watch on the churchyard, in hopes that Chardino will visit his daughter again before he kills too many more of these charming people."

  "It's not really as bad as all that," Moriarty said. "I believe I can locate the Hellfire Club."

  "You can?"

  "Yes. I think so. The club's location is almost certainly transient, but I believe I have the key to their travels."

  "The key—that's what you said about Cecily's location. My God! You don't mean you think they have her?"

  "I'm sorry, I thought you had already guessed that," Moriarty said. "It is the only logical answer. Of course, I didn't know until you walked in that these people we are after are the newest incarnation of the Hellfire Club."

  Barnett took a deep breath. "I didn't want to think about it," he said. "I mean, I knew somebody had to have her, as it's clear that she was abducted. If anything else had happened the authorities would have found her—or her body—by now. But I didn't want to think about by whom—or why—she was taken away. What do you suppose is happening to her?"

  "It is just as pointless to suppose that as to suppose anything else," Moriarty said. "We will find her and take her away from her abductors. With any luck, we'll do it before the day is out. Now, since morning approaches rapidly, I am going to get some sleep."

  "How do you know where Cecily is?" Barnett asked.

  "I don't—not yet. But I shall. Join me in here after breakfast, say at nine-thirty."

  "What about eight-thirty?" Barnett suggested.

  "The most useful thing we could do with that extra hour," Moriarty told him, "is sleep. And I, for one, intend to do so."

  Barnett had to be content with that, but he did not sleep well. Along about morning he finally did fall into a deep sleep, and then he had to drag himself out of bed a few hours later when Mrs. H pounded on his door and told him that breakfast was ready.

  Moriarty was not at breakfast. Barnett could feel the tension rising in him while he ate, the tension he had become so familiar with in the past few days. Compounded of all the emotions that cramp the muscles and hit at the pit of the stomach: frustration, guilt, rage, fear, anxiety, and an increasing sense of helplessness. The feeling had by now become a permanent knot of pain, twisting away deep inside of him. Thoughts that he was not allowing himself to think were expressing themselves as sharp knives digging into his belly. He did not eat well.

  As he was finishing, Moriarty entered the room. To Barnett's surprise, he could see that the professor had already been out of the house, and was evidently just returning. "A quick cup of coffee," Moriarty said. "We have work to do!"

  Barnett rose. "What sort of work?"

  "Sit down," Moriarty insisted. "I need my coffee." He dropped into his chair. "I have broken the code," he said. "I was just out checking my results and now I am sure."

  "What code?" Barnett asked, fearful that Moriarty had gone off on some entirely new tack and had lost interest in the Hellfire Club and the missing Cecily. The professor's interest in any subject outside of mathematics and astronomy was all too likely to prove evanescent.

  "Think back," Moriarty said. "Do you remember that among the effects of the late Lord Walbine there was a scrap of newsprint?"

  "Vaguely," Barnett said.

  "It was from the agony column of the Morning Chronicle," Moriarty reminded him, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the large silver urn in front of him. "On one side it said, 'Thank you St. Simon for remembering the knights.' On the other: 'Fourteen point four by six point thirteen, colon, three-four-seven.' "

  "Something like that," Barnett agreed.

  "I assure you, it was that, exactly," Moriarty said. "Now, on reading the report on the death of Quincy Hope—whose mysterious profession, by the way, turns out to have been quack doctor—"

  "Quack?"

  "Indeed. He cured people of any disease by placing bar magnets on various parts of their anatomy and taping them in place. At any rate, on reading the report of his death I noted that one of the items found in his room at the time of his death—some sort of anteroom or waiting room, I believe—was a morning newspaper. I procured a copy of that paper from our basement file and perused the agony column. I found no mention of St. Simon, or any of the knights, but I did find this: 'Nine point eleven by five point two, colon, red light.' "

  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 t
able. 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."