The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (27 page)

             
"Come, I must have it," Holmes said. "Does your father give lessons?"

             
"Why not ask him yourself," Cecily asked, "the next time you follow me home?"

             
Holmes laughed. "I shall go over there right now," he said. "Although I suppose I'd better make myself presentable first."

             
"My father won't notice the way you're dressed," Cecily told him. "With Father, speech is all. If a talking gorilla came to see him he would know within a block where the gorilla was from, and never notice that it was a gorilla."

             
"Thank you, Miss Perrine," Holmes said. "Nonetheless, I shall change before intruding myself upon your father. And you may rest assured that I shall not bother you again. However, I do ask you to reassess your relationship with Professor Moriarty. If you—or you, Mister Barnett—ever require my aid, you will find me at 221-B Baker Street. Good afternoon." And, with a slight bow, he pulled his cap back over his head and sauntered off down the street.

             
Cecily watched Holmes until he rounded the corner, and then turned to Barnett. "Who is this Professor Moriarty?" she asked him again. "Is he really a scoundrel and a rogue and all that?"

             
"Professor Moriarty saved my life once," Barnett told her. "And, even aside from that, I have more respect for him than for any man I have ever met. I think that Sherlock Holmes, for some reason, has
what the French call an
idee fixe
on the subject of Professor Moriarty."

             
"Then he is not a villain?"

             
Barnett shrugged. "Who," he asked, "can look into the heart of any man?"

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.

—William
Johnson
Cory

             
Professor Moriarty, wrapped in a blue silk dressing gown with a large red-embroidered dragon of menacing aspect curled over its right shoulder, was stretched out on his bed, propped up by a mound of pillows. The bed curtains were tied off, and the bed was surrounded by chairs and footstools piled high with books. That part of the bed not occupied by Moriarty himself was equally laden.

             
With an air of annoyance, the professor looked up from the book he was reading as Barnett knocked, then walked in. "Well?" he snapped.

             
"I've brought today's reports from the agency," Barnett said. "Anything of interest?
"

             
"
I don't think so.
"

             
"
Leave them on the table."

             
"Okay," Barnett said, laying the two sheets of paper on the table by the window. Then he turned to Moriarty and seemed to hesitate, as though not sure what to say.

             
"Anything else?" Moriarty demanded.

             
"No."

             
"Then why are you standing there? Either say something or get out."

             
"Is there anything the matter, Professor?" Barnett asked. "Is there any way I can help?"

             
"You? I wouldn't think so." Moriarty gestured to the pile of books surrounding him. "I have here the assembled knowledge of the Western world, and a bit of the Eastern, and I have found no help. It constantly amazes me how many idiots write books."

             
"You've been up here for a week," Barnett said. "True. I've been reading. Can you suggest anything more useful for me to do?"

             
"What about Trepoff?" Barnett asked.

             
"What about him? It's his move, and I can do nothing until he makes it. Now leave me alone, and don't come back until you have something of interest to tell me."

             
"All right," Barnett said, shrugging. "Although it still seems to me—"

             
"Go!" Moriarty shouted. And Barnett left the room. Mrs. H was standing in the corridor by the staircase. "Well?" she asked.

             
Barnett shook his head. "I can't get him to do anything."

             
"Stubborn man," Mrs. H said. "Every few months he does this." She seemed to take it as a personal affront. "One time he stayed in that bedroom for upward of six weeks, and me running back and forth from the British Museum with armloads of books for him."

             
"What sort of books, Mrs. H?" Barnett asked.

             
She started downstairs and Barnett followed. "No particular sort," she said. "One day from the King's Library, one day from the Grenville Library. He has a special arrangement with the curator to get the books out. But he had to promise to stop writing in the margins."

             
"In the margins?"

             
"That's what. When he became particularly annoyed by some comment in some book, he'd scribble a reply in the margin. The curator made him promise to stop if he was to continue getting books. Now he writes the comments on scraps of foolscap, which he inserts at the page. Doctor Wycliffe, the curator, merely removes the foolscap scraps before returning the books to the shelves."

             
"A strange system," Barnett commented.

             
"It keeps them both happy," Mrs. H said. "Doctor Wycliffe is keeping a file of the professor's annotations. He says he's going to publish them someday, anonymously, as The Ravings of a Rational Mind. The professor was quite amused."

             
They entered the kitchen together, and Barnett perched on one of the little wooden stools that surrounded the heavy cutting table. "I can't figure Professor Moriarty out," he said. "He is undoubtedly the strangest human I have ever run across."

             
"Here now," Mrs. H said, her voice rising in sudden anger, "what do you mean by that?"

             
"Don't take me wrong, Mrs. H," Barnett said. "I don't mean that there's anything wrong with him. I mean, well, he's probably the smartest man I've ever known—"

             
"Or ever like to," Mrs. H interposed.

             
"There's no doubt about that," Barnett agreed. "But there are so many sides to him, if you see what I mean, that it's hard to really understand what sort of a person he is."

             
"He's a fine man," Mrs. H stated positively.

             
"Yes, of course he is. But what I mean is there are so many aspects to Professor Moriarty's character, he appears in so many guises to so many people, that it's hard to know which is the real Professor Moriarty. And then he's usually so active that two men and a small boy couldn't keep up with him, but now he withdraws to his bedroom and stays there for days at a time."

             
"He'll come out when there's a reason."

             
"And then there's Sherlock Holmes," Barnett said. "I've checked on him, and he's highly regarded. And he seems to think that the professor is the greatest villain unhanged. While all those who work for Professor Moriarty would willingly and gladly cut off their right arms if he asked it of them. How can you reconcile that?"

             
"Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" Mrs. H paused and sniffed. "Mr. Holmes is an ungrateful young man. He was looking for a saint and he discovered that the professor was only a human being. He never has been able to forgive him that."

             
"They knew each other?"

             
"Oh, yes. Years ago."

             
"What happened?"

             
Mrs. H sniffed again. "Tea's ready," she said.

             
Barnett made a few more attempts to draw her out, but Mrs. H had evidently decided that she had said quite enough, and she refused to be drawn. He had to settle for tea and scones.

-

             
It was after dark when a carriage pulled up to the door of 64 Russell Square and a tall man swathed in a light opera cape descended and rang the front door bell.

             
Mr. Maws answered the door promptly. "Yes?" he said, surveying the gentleman expressionlessly.

             
"I would speak with the Professor Moriarty."

             
"Who should I say is calling?"

             
"I am Count Boris Gobolski, accredited representative of His
Imperial Majesty Alexander the Third, Tsar of all the Russias, to the court of St. James."

             
Mr. Maws nodded almost imperceptibly. "Have you an appointment?" he asked.

             
"Your master will wish to see me," Count Boris Gobolski said. "Immediately. It is of utmost importance."

             
"Come in," Mr. Maws said. "Please wait in the front room. I will inform the professor that you are here."

             
Mr. Maws climbed the stairs and announced Gobolski's presence to Moriarty, who petulantly slammed closed the book he was reading. "Probably wants a report," he said. "There was nothing in our agreement about reports. Tell him
..."
He sat up. "No, I had better go myself. I will give the gentleman to understand that there is nothing to be gained by incessantly pestering me."

             
"He has never been here before, sir," Mr. Maws felt obliged to state.

             
"That's no reason for him to start now," Moriarty said. "This must be nipped in the bud. I cannot work without a free hand."

             
"Yes, sir," Mr. Maws said. "Shall I tell the gentleman that you will be down directly?"

             
"Yes, tell him that," Moriarty said, pulling on his shoes. "I suppose I'd better dress first. It wouldn't do to greet an ambassador in a dressing-gown."

             
"Shall I lay out your clothes?"

             
"No, never mind that," Moriarty said. "That's not a butler's job, I keep telling you."

             
"The professor does not have a personal valet," Mr. Maws observed.

             
"When I made you my butler, Mr. Maws," Moriarty said, casting aside his dressing gown and selecting a shirt from his wardrobe, "I little dreamed that you'd take the title so seriously."

             
"I know, sir," Mr. Maws said. "I believe it appeals to some sense of order in my soul. I really enjoy the position, you understand, sir."

             
"It has become self-evident," Moriarty said. "Now go and knock up Barnett on your way downstairs. Tell him to join us in the study as soon as he's presentable."

             
"Very good, sir."

             
Moriarty was dressed in ten minutes, and found Barnett waiting for him on the landing. "Good to see you up," Barnett said cheerfully.