The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (31 page)

             
"I heard the commotion when you arrived," Tolliver said. "What happened? If I might ask." He sat on a trunk and rubbed his arms briskly. "My hands are coming all over pins and needles," he explained. "They tied me a bit tight."

             
"It's good to see you, Mummer," Barnett said. "But you're going to have to become a bit more proficient at the art of following people so we don't have to rescue you every time you go out of an evening."

             
"I like that!" Tolliver said. " 'Ere I am trying to bring a bit of excitement into the lad's life, and 'e's full of reproach. After all, it's not 'im what got trussed up like a capon."

             
Barnett laughed. "Come on downstairs," he said. "The professor will want to say hello."

             
Moriarty was on his knees examining the floor in the meeting room when Barnett brought the Mummer down. "Don't touch anything!" he snapped as they entered the room. "I'm not through in here yet."

             
"You might at least," Barnett said, annoyed at Moriarty's lack of compassion, "tell the Mummer that you're glad to see him."

             
"Nonsense," Moriarty said, getting up and dusting off the knees of his trousers. "We're here, aren't we?"

             
"Well, I'm glad you come," Tolliver said. "I was beginning to get a bit concerned as to my future."

             
Mr. Maws appeared in the doorway. "Afternoon, Tolliver," he said. "Professor, I thought you might be interested to hear that I just glanced out a front window and noticed several large men taking up positions about the house."

             
"Scotland Yard," the Mummer said.

             
"Let us hope so," Moriarty said. He sighed. "No doubt they will remember about the back door. Ah, well. There doesn't seem to be anything of interest in this room, unfortunately. And to think, we had a whole room full of them here, and now they're all gone."

             
"Leaving nothing behind?" Barnett asked.

             
"Nothing of consuming interest," Moriarty said. "There's that hat"—he pointed—"and that picture, and a few cigarette butts of rather common brand."

             
Barnett went over to examine the picture, which was tacked to the wall by the door. A full-color portrait of Queen Victoria looking stuffily regal, it had been carefully cut out of a recent edition of the
Illustrated London News.

             
"Well, well," Barnett said. "A patriotic bunch of anarchists. What will they think of next?"

-

             
The sound of someone pounding violently on the front door came up from below. "Open up!" an authoritarian voice bellowed. "This is the police!"

             
"Go down and let them in, Mr. Maws," Moriarty directed. But before Mr. Maws had reached the staircase, they heard the front door opening and the heavy feet of policemen treading on the stairs. "The porter!" Moriarty said. "I had quite forgotten about the poor porter. What must he think!"

             
Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, and a uniformed policeman came into view. " 'Ere now, just you stand still there!" he commanded. "There's three of them—no, four—up here, sir," he called back down the stairs.

             
"Oh, officer," Moriarty said in the concerned voice of a nervous schoolmaster, "thank God you've come at last. We thought you'd never get here."

             
That set the policeman back. Confusion reddened his already ruddy ears. "What's all this, then? What's all this?" he said.

             
"My young friend here," Moriarty said, indicating Tolliver, "has been imprisoned by a bunch of foreigners. We had just contrived to effect his release when you arrived. Surely it was our summons that brought you?"

             
"I don't know nothing about that, sir," the policeman said. "You'd better wait here, sir."

             
"We'll just come downstairs," Moriarty said. "There may be more of them on the upper story. Tolliver, take your cap," he added, indicating the piece of headgear hanging from the back of a chair.

             
"My cap?" said Tolliver. "Oh, yes. Thank you, sir."

             
They went downstairs, edging past the policemen who were gathering for the assault on the upper story. On the ground floor officers were going from room to room, while the porter stood with three plainclothes Scotland Yard men and Mr. Sherlock Holmes in the front hall.

             
"Holmes!" Moriarty said. "Whatever brings you to Lambeth? And Inspector Lestrade, I believe."

             
"Acting on information received," Lestrade said stiffly, "I obtained a warrant to search these premises. I was informed that you might be here, Professor, although, quite frankly, I didn't believe it. I'll have to ask you to explain your presence here, sir."

             
Holmes pushed Lestrade aside and stepped forward, his fists clenched. "Enough of this, Moriarty!" he snapped. "We have you now. Where is she? The house is completely surrounded, you might as well give it up."

             
Moriarty shook his head. "Honestly, Holmes, I have no idea what you are talking about. You must have arranged this little raid, so I thank you. I was wondering why they gave up so easily. They must have looked out the window and seen you arriving. But I don't know what brought you."

             
Holmes laughed. "Really, Professor, you disappoint me," he said. "Who must have left? I came here expecting to find you, and I found you. Where is the girl?"

             
"What girl?"

             
"The Duke of Ipswich's daughter, Lady Catherine."

             
"That again." Moriarty took his pince-nez from his pocket and affixed them to the bridge of his nose. "Holmes, please believe me. I had nothing to do with her abduction, and I have no knowledge of her present whereabouts. Is that what this is about? You followed me here, and decided that this is where I must have hidden her? Quite a piece of ratiocination." He turned to the inspector. "And on Sherlock Holmes's unsupported word you applied for a warrant? Giles Lestrade, I'm ashamed of you."

             
Lestrade looked embarrassed. "The professor has been of some assistance to the Yard in the past," he told Holmes. "And I know of nothing against him except some unsupported rumor and your theories, Mr. Holmes. Not that you, yourself, haven't come to our aid on occasion."

             
"Then you are not going to place Moriarty under arrest?"

             
"Now, Mr. Holmes," Lestrade said, looking acutely uncomfortable, "you know the law. If we find the young lady, and she accuses, ah, mentions the professor when she relates what happened, why then that'll be a different story. But as things stand
..."

             
Holmes glared at Moriarty. "Disgraceful!" he said. "The greatest rogue unhung, and I can't even get him charged."

             
Moriarty shook his head. "Really, Holmes. And in front of witnesses, too. Actionable slander, I'd say." He shook his finger in Holmes's face, which caused Holmes to take an abrupt step backward. "As I've told you before, you must use your brain at all times, and never rely on preconceived notions. In this case, for example, if you would use your quite adequate powers of deduction and examine the premises, you would discover quite easily that I am speaking the truth. A group of Russian anarchists had the rooms upstairs. They had abducted my associate, Tolliver, here. I and my friends arrived to effect his release, and you were one step behind me."

             
Holmes snorted. "Anarchists!"

             
Moriarty turned to the porter, who was standing on the edge of the group, looking confused. "Is that not so?" he demanded. "Right enough," the porter assented. "And you have never seen me before today?
"

             
"
No, sir. Can't say as I have."

             
"Very convincing," Holmes sneered. "I'm going upstairs to look around," he told Lestrade. "Hold them here until I return, if you don't mind. You can at least do that, can't you?"

             
"Now, Mr. Holmes—" Lestrade said.

             
Moriarty smiled. "I shall remain, willingly, until you return," he said. "I believe that the front room is empty. We shall wait in there until you are quite satisfied." And pushing the door open with his stick, he strode into the room and settled into an overstuffed chair.

             
"Say, Professor," Barnett said, sitting across from Moriarty and speaking in a low voice. "What does that fellow have against you, anyway?"

             
"He believes me to be a villain," Moriarty said, staring at the wall opposite.

             
"Yes, but there are a lot of villains in this world," Barnett said. "And Holmes sure has it in for you in particular."

             
Moriarty was silent for a moment, and then his eyes focused on Barnett. "We knew each other some years ago," he said. "I was his tutor for a period. We were, I might say, as close to being friends as a tutor and his student ever get. He was a brilliant student, if a bit disorganized."

             
Moriarty fell silent. "Yes?" Barnett prompted.

             
"I was rebuffed by society," Moriarty continued, "at least that segment of society that I deemed important. I chose to live outside their laws to accomplish my ends. It was a deliberate decision that I have never regretted. My researches are more important to the future of the human race than the mores of this particular time and place.

             
"Holmes, also, was rebuffed by society, albeit an entirely different and particularly limited segment of society. He chose to get his revenge by being better than those who had rebuffed him. Which he certainly is. This—improvement—necessitated a certain rigidity of outlook. Thus, I am on one side of a barrier Holmes created, and he on the other. It is quite a shame."

             
Barnett's reportorial soul was unsatisfied with the answer, which managed to seem specific while remaining quite vague, but he sensed that he was not going to get a better one at the moment. He resolved to solve this mystery when the current excitement had died down enough to allow him to devote the time to it.

-

             
The door opened a minute later and Holmes stalked in with Lestrade at his heels. "The girl has not been in this house," he announced. Moriarty nodded.

             
"There were other people here," Holmes conceded. "Fifteen or sixteen of them. Russians, for the most part, although several of them have been in England for some time. Tolliver would seem to have been their prisoner for a matter of hours. They arrived at different times over a period of about one day. They were discussing plans of some sort, certainly illegal. Whatever they have planned is going to take place in the near future; at least a week off, but no more than a month. You would seem not to have been part of the group, Professor."

             
"How do you know all that?" Lestrade demanded.

             
"Thank you for that," Moriarty said. "Don't look so disappointed, Holmes. There
are
other criminals in the world."

             
Holmes sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at Moriarty with a curious expression on his face. "Then they have the girl," he said. "Tell me what you know about them."