The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (32 page)

             
"Still the girl?" Moriarty said. "Then you weren't following me?"

             
Holmes took a cigarette case from his coat and removed one. He started to return the case to his pocket, then paused and offered it to Moriarty. "Try one," he said. "They're made for me by Drucquer's."

             
Moriarty took a cigarette and returned the case to Holmes, who shoved it back into his pocket. Barnett noted the gesture and saw that, for these two men, there was no one else in the room at this moment.

             
Holmes struck a wax
vespa
and lit the two cigarettes, and the two men stared silently at each other as smoke gradually filled the room. "The Duke of Ipswich received a note," Holmes said.

             
Moriarty lifted an eyebrow. "Finally," he said.

             
"I was prepared," Holmes said. "The note was delivered in an ingenious manner, but I managed to follow the deliverer, and a chain of other underlings, until I was led to this house. The trail seemed to end here. I was sure that the answer lay here. That either the girl was here, or I could round up enough of the gang here to break its back and ascertain her whereabouts."

             
"It's a good thing they got away, then," Moriarty said. "Had you captured those who were here, without the girl, she would surely have been killed."

             
Holmes nodded. "But you see," he said, "I thought it was you. And you are a fairly reasonable man. Whatever else you are."

             
"What did the note say?" Moriarty asked. "They didn't want money."

             
"This is to go no farther than this room," Holmes said. "I pledge myself and my associates," Moriarty answered.

             
Holmes looked at Lestrade. "What,
me?"
the little detective said. He took his bowler off. "My solemn word," he said.

             
"It is common knowledge in certain circles," Holmes said in a low, clear voice, "that the Duke of Ipswich is to become foreign minister when Lord Haider resigns, probably in a few weeks. The note informed the Duke that if he wished to see his daughter alive again, he was to perform certain actions in regard to a certain foreign power."

             
"He could refuse the appointment," Moriarty said. "And assure the death of his daughter."

             
"Of course," Moriarty said. "And, of course, the duke as a loyal British citizen has no intention of following these instructions, even if it means the death of his daughter."

             
Holmes nodded. "I must find the girl before he takes office," he said. "The first note, on the night she was taken, warned against publicity. The duke has complied with that. And now this."

             
"What is he going to do," Moriarty asked, "if you don't find his daughter?"

             
"He is going to accept the portfolio," Holmes said, "and perform his job. On the day that he learns for certain that his daughter is dead, he is going to put a bullet through his brain."

             
Moriarty nodded. "That clever bastard," he said.

             
"What?"

             
"I assure you I'm not referring to the duke," Moriarty said. "Unfortunately I can't give you too much information. Nothing, I'm afraid, that would be of immediate assistance to you. However, I can tell you this: the abductors of Lady Catherine have no intention of returning her alive. She may already be dead, but probably not. They knew the duke would not obey instructions. Indeed, they are counting on it." He stood up. "And I'll tell you something else; one of the benefits they looked for in this abduction, and the reason they waited until now to send these further instructions, was to set you against me. It kept you from looking for
them,
you see."

             
Holmes thought about that for a moment, and then nodded. "Who are they?" he asked. "Surely you can tell me something about them. You can't have been here by accident. And the nation involved—we have both been there recently."

             
"I can tell you nothing more at this time," Moriarty said. "It is not my personal secret, you see. In any event, I know nothing that would be of material benefit to you in your search beyond what you already know or can surmise. But I can tell you this, Holmes; in this
matter our interests run together. If I discover anything of value to you, I shall convey it to you immediately. At any rate, come around to Russell Square in a day or two.
"

             
"
I'll do that," Holmes said.

             
"Wear one of your less elementary disguises," Moriarty suggested, "for both our sakes."

You shall seek all day ere you find them, and, when you have them, they are not worth the search.

—
Shakespeare

             
Moriarty spent most of Monday dissecting the cap they had picked up in the Lambeth house and subjecting the pieces to a variety of microscopic, physical, and chemical tests. By the time he went up to dress for dinner, he had filled several notebook pages with the results.

             
Barnett came in late for dinner, which, by household custom, did not wait for him. Mrs. H set the table, served, and cleared at specified unvarying times. If one didn't make those times, then one didn't eat dinner. Of course, one could always go into the kitchen and have Mrs. Randall fix one a plate and eat it at the kitchen table. But as Mrs. H would say, that wouldn't be dinner, now would it?

             
Barnett plowed right into his meal, ignoring the soup and slighting the fish to get directly to the roast while it was still on the table. When he had enough on his plate to keep him alive until breakfast, he paused to be sociable. "Evening, all," he said.

             
Professor Moriarty was glaring at him. "I fail to see the purpose of dressing for dinner," he said coldly, "if one proceeds to behave like an aborigine at the table."

             
Barnett put his fork down. "Right, Boss," he said. "I'll just wear my breech-clout and feathers next time."

             
"And don't call me 'Boss,' " Moriarty said. "It is a particularly abominable Americanism."

             
"Well!" Barnett said. He looked at Tolliver, who was carefully ignoring the whole exchange, and then back at the professor. "I believe I missed something here."

             
"Eat your dinner," Moriarty said.

             
"You've been working on that hat all day, right? You didn't get anything from it, right?"

             
Moriarty sighed. "I shall have to control my petulance," he said. "Not that I mind being disagreeable, but I do object to being obvious. We'll talk about it after dinner."

             
They had coffee in the professor's study after dinner, and Moriarty produced the hat. "I know a fair amount about it now," he said. "It is made of Egyptian long-fiber cotton, dyed with a vegetable dye not used in this country. It is of fairly recent manufacture, say within the past six months. Its owner is a healthy young man, under thirty-five, with a full head of dark-brown hair. In all probability he is of Eastern European stock, and under five foot six. He is interested in horse racing, or associates with people who are. He is a very neat, clean man. I think that is the best I can do for the time being."

             
Barnett stared unbelievingly at the Professor. "You got all that by staring at the hat under a microscope?" he asked. "Are you having me on?"

             
"Not at all," Moriarty said. "I assure you it is all either truth or reasonable assumption. But you see, Barnett, the problem is that it doesn't get us anywhere. I have pulled a collection of interesting but irrelevant facts out of this piece of headgear. I have spent a day at it, and furthered us not one bit."

             
"Yes, but—" Barnett said. "The things you have pulled out of that hat are still more than
I
thought could be in it. How do you know what he looks like?"

             
"He? You mean the owner of the cap? I don't really know what he looks like, just hair color and a reasonable guess as to some other facts."

             
"Hair color I can understand," Barnett said. "You found one of his hairs in the hat.
"

             
"
Several."

             
"What about the other stuff; age, height, Eastern European, even horse racing. Don't tell me there was a horse hair in the lining."

             
Moriarty smiled. "No," he said, "in the brim. Used for stiffening. "

             
"Then how?"

             
"As to the age and general good health, that was marked by the condition of the hair—the human hair—I found in the cap. The length of the hairs—none longer than three inches—suggests a man.

             
The hairs' diameter also affirms that they came from an adult male. The hairs were healthy, as a microscopic examination of the roots confirmed. This suggests that the owner of the cap also was healthy. The relative youth of the wearer I deduce from the lack of gray hairs among the thirty-six samples I found."

             
"European stock?" Barnett said. "Horse racing?"

             
Professor Moriarty tossed the cap on the table with a slight spin. "Notice the shape it takes," he said. "That is because it has been blocked by the addition of a folded-up newspaper around the inner liner to make it fit more comfortably. After repeated wearing it has taken up the shape of the wearer's head. Which, you will notice, is long and comparatively slender. The man possesses a typically Slavic skull, from which I deduce that he is probably Eastern European. Professor Alphonse Bertillon, the noted developer of the Bertillon Anthropometric System, would disagree. He marks the long, narrow head as the trait of the congenital criminal. But then, Professor Bertillon is French.

             
"The size of the man I deduce from the size of the head. I could be quite wrong, of course, that there is an average about these things. The famous bell-shaped distribution curve shows up quite often in human affairs."

             
"That leaves horse racing," Barnett said.

             
"The paper folded up inside the crown," Moriarty told him dryly, "is the turf odds page of the
Sporting Times.
"

             
"
Ah," Barnett said. "Quite so," Moriarty agreed.

             
"Is there nothing further?" Barnett asked. Impressive as the professor's deductive display had been, he was right in saying that it didn't take them anywhere.

             
"One thing only," Moriarty said. "And it's more in your line than mine." He took a piece of pasteboard from his desk and flipped it over to Barnett. "This was stuck in the hatband."

             
Barnett examined the fragment carefully. It was roughly square, about two inches on a side, and appeared to have been torn along one edge. There was a slight reddish tinge to it, but whether it was the natural color or the result of having been kept in a hatband, Barnett couldn't tell. One side was blank, and on the other two numbers and an unintelligible word were scrawled. The numbers were printed in the European fashion; in the upper left-hand corner was "1143" and toward the bottom was "2/5/0." The word, which was between the numbers, was completely unreadable to
Barnett and could have been English, French, Russian, or Arabic as far as he could tell. He was fairly sure it wasn't Chinese, but that was about the only possibility he could eliminate. The tear, with the billet held so that the numbers were readable, was along the right-hand side.